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4lbxrtoii's review against another edition
3.0
I appreciate "the pastoral this and the pastoral that"; Ecologue X where we can accredit the notion "love conquers all" is probably the only thing i'll remember though.
goosemixtapes's review against another edition
read in tandem with the penguin editions of the poems, because i'm insane! (also because two different friends got me two different editions for my birthday last year. glad to have a reputation.) not much to say about the text that i haven't said there, so i will shout out this edition for focusing less on the directness of the translation and more on the beauty and clarity of the english--i turned to it frequently when i didn’t know what the fuck the other editions (which replicate latin syntax more closely) was saying. also the footnotes were more helpful here. also also, props for making the songs in the eclogues rhyme; that's fun!
Not to deaf ears I sing, for the woods echo my singing.
Not to deaf ears I sing, for the woods echo my singing.
josiahdegraaf's review against another edition
2.0
Meh. Eclogue #4 is kind-of interesting given the big discussion in Christendom on whether or not it can be considered a prophecy of Christ, but the rest is not my type of poetry.
Rating: 2-2.5 Stars (Okay).
Rating: 2-2.5 Stars (Okay).
blueyorkie's review against another edition
4.0
His first poetic collection, the Bucolics, features shepherds who talk, exchanging their ideas and sharing their feelings. This feature allows Virgil to sing his love for nature which is both a source of nostalgia and fulfilment. But it is also an opportunity for him to express his dismay at the civil unrest of the time.
The Georgics retain the country decor. This poem has, unlike the collection of the Bucolics, an academic aspect. The author describes the works of the earth by releasing their techniques, and especially, by extolling their unknown charms.
By giving an example to the citizens of country life, which he praises the simplicity and wholesomeness, Virgil brings in some way, its contribution to the politics of the time!
But he does not lower himself to a kind of simplistic propaganda.
The Georgics is like a hymn to essential values, a great song of the beauty and grandeur of nature.
The Georgics retain the country decor. This poem has, unlike the collection of the Bucolics, an academic aspect. The author describes the works of the earth by releasing their techniques, and especially, by extolling their unknown charms.
By giving an example to the citizens of country life, which he praises the simplicity and wholesomeness, Virgil brings in some way, its contribution to the politics of the time!
But he does not lower himself to a kind of simplistic propaganda.
The Georgics is like a hymn to essential values, a great song of the beauty and grandeur of nature.
george_r_t_c's review against another edition
3.0
Oliver Lyne, the editor of this translation of Virgil's first two works, seems not to like the translation very much, criticising Cecil Day Lewis for being unclear or misleading at least three times in the introduction, which seems like a bad marketing idea.
CDL's verse translation is not metrically regular, usually I think iambic but with a lot of flexibility, and the lines are very long, from 11 to 16 syllables each, and very often enjambed in a way that disguises the line ending, so it sometimes has a prosy feel. It's conversational, accessible, with a few colloquialisms and contractions, but there are lyrical parts that as a result stand out a lot.
In Eclogue III he rhymes 'ditties' with 'titties' which kind of ruins the immersion for me, as they say. Kind of hard to come back from that, but here's a good passage from the final Eclogue:
But I shall go and set to music for the Sicilian
Shepherd's pipe the poems I write in Chalcidic verse.
I shall live hard in the forest, where wild beasts have their lairs--
My mind is made up--and cut the name of my loved Lycoris
Upon the young trees' bark: my love will grow as the trees grow.
CDL's verse translation is not metrically regular, usually I think iambic but with a lot of flexibility, and the lines are very long, from 11 to 16 syllables each, and very often enjambed in a way that disguises the line ending, so it sometimes has a prosy feel. It's conversational, accessible, with a few colloquialisms and contractions, but there are lyrical parts that as a result stand out a lot.
In Eclogue III he rhymes 'ditties' with 'titties' which kind of ruins the immersion for me, as they say. Kind of hard to come back from that, but here's a good passage from the final Eclogue:
But I shall go and set to music for the Sicilian
Shepherd's pipe the poems I write in Chalcidic verse.
I shall live hard in the forest, where wild beasts have their lairs--
My mind is made up--and cut the name of my loved Lycoris
Upon the young trees' bark: my love will grow as the trees grow.