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Virgil, The Second Eclogue

See [what follows this for a] literal translation of this poem about Corydon's love for the boy Alexis, from the year 42 B.C.

Below is a modern, free translation that captures the spirit of the poem, rather than the letter. This translator sees the Second Eclogue as a gentle satire of boylove (or rather homosexuality). For him, the very over-the-top style of the poem comments on the doomed nature of Corydon's feelings. Boylove, in this view, is always adolescent: passionate, slightly funny, and wildly romantic.

The beautiful shepherd, Corydon ardebat --
ardently loved. "Ardeo here acquires
a transitive signification and takes the accusative."
But does it? There is nothing transitive there.
Corydon loves Alexis, a gorgeous boy
who belongs to his master, a plaything, a delice...
Corydon goes alone to a dense beech grove,
and there in the soothing umbrousness complains
in shreds of song...

It is passive, even reflexive,

as all these homosexual passions are.
Nothing can come of them but shreds of song,
to which there may be the useless elegance
that all of us try for.

Certainly you remember

your first love, or your second, and all the poems
you wrote, you read, you copied out, the intense
feelings you had, suddenly there in the language
and real in a way you had never known before.

Most men outgrow it as soon as they learn that women

don't need the poems, don't even want them much.
Silence will do, or a kind of opaque speech
that women translate to mean whatever they like.
And men, being practical, give up what doesn't work.
Most do.

But some of us keep it up,

not to seduce girls, but to hang on
to that intensity, that feeling of bursting
with the ponderous importance of being young.
It doesn't work, but there is Corydon,
alone in the grove, the shadows soft as beds,
singing the pieces of song that come to mind
as if one kind of beauty had something to do
with other kinds -- unkind Alexis' kind.
And there is some relation. The grove, the air,
the songs, the sound of one's own raised voice
will do, sometimes. Perhaps you have to be crazy,
or queer, or maybe just young.

But at the end

he leaves the grove, goes back to his unpruned vines,
and tells himself that there will be others to love.
It's laughable, of course, a faggot joke...
But nobody laughs. We have all hid in our rooms,
reading Blake and Keats, or early Yeats,
laundering our emotions in poetry,
or wallowing in poems, hoping to drown.
And out of that human humus, poems sprout,
grow, tower like Corydon's beech grove.
It's not what the beeches are for, but what's the harm.
Those initials tourists make never kill the trees.

Translated by David Slavitt (Baltimore, 1971).

<a name="virgil">Virgil</a> -- The Second Eclogue

literal translation

Virgil, The Second Eclogue

This poem about Corydon's love for the boy Alexis was written by the Roman poet Virgil (in Latin) in the year 42 B.C., two years after the death of Julius Caesar. Virgil wrote ten Eclogues, or "Selections"; this is the second in the book.

Below is a literal translation of the Latin. Also see <a href="virgil2.html">this free translation</a>, which evokes the spirit of the poem but in modern language.




After the brief introduction, Corydon talks to Alexis as though he were present, appealing, admonishing, and, as he thinks, enticing...




FORMOSUM PASTOR CORYDON ARDEBAT ALEXIM...

The shepherd Corydon burned with love for the beautiful Alexis!
his master's favorite, and he knew he had no hope.
Only, he used to walk each day among the dense
Shady-topped beeches. There, alone, in empty longing,


He hurled these artless words at hills and woods:

"O cruel Alexis, have you no time for my songs?
No pity for me? You'll be the death of me at last.
Now even the cattle cast about for cool and shade,
Now even green lizards hide among the hawthorn brakes
And Thestylis, for reapers faint from the fierce heat,
Is crushing pungent pot-herbs, garlic and wild thyme.
But I, while vineyards buzz with the cicadas' scream,
Retrace your steps, alone, beneath the burning sun.
Had I not better wait for the wrath of Amaryllis,
Her high-and-mighty moods? Better endure Menalcas,


However black he were and you however blond?

O lovely boy, don't trust complexion too much:
White privet flowers fall, black hyacinths are picked.
You scorn me, Alexis, you don't even ask about me,
How rich in flocks, how wealthy in snowy milk.
My thousand ewe-lambs range the hills of Sicily;
Come frost, come summer, never do I lack fresh milk.
I play the tunes Amphion used, when he called cattle,


Dircean Amphion on Actean Aracynthus.

I'm not that ugly: on the beach I saw myself
Lately when sea stood wind-becalmed. With you as judge
I'd not be scared of Daphnis, if mirrors tell the truth.
O if you'd only fancy life with me in country
Squalor, in a humble hut, and shooting fallow deer,
And shepherding a flock of kids with green hibiscus!
Piping beside me in the woods you'll mimic Pan
(Pan pioneered the fixing fast of several reeds
With beeswax; sheep are in Pan's care, head-shepherds too);
You'd not be sorry when the reed calloused your lip:


What pains Amyntas took to master this same art!

I have a pipe composed of seven unequal stems
Of hemlock, which Damoetas gave me when he died,
A while ago, and said, "Now now you are its second master,"
Damoetas said; Amyntas envied me, the fool.
Two chamois kids, besides, I found in a steep valley
Their hides are dappled even now with white; they drain
One ewe's udder each a day; I'm keeping them for you,
Though Thestylis has long desired to take them from me;


She'll do it too, since you regard my gifts as crude!

Come here, O lovely boy: for you the nymphs bring lilies,
Look, in baskets full; for you the fair naiad,
plucking pale violets and poppy heads, combines
Narcissus with them, and the flower of fragrant dill;
Then, weaving marjoram in, and other pleasant herbs,


Colors soft hyacinths with yellow marigold.

Myself, I'll pick the grey-white apples with tender down,
And chestnuts, which my Amaryllis used to love;
I'll add the waxy plum (this fruit too shall be honored),
And I'll pluck you, O laurels, and you, neighbor myrtle,


For so arranged you mingle pleasant fragrances.

Corydon, you're a yokel. Alexis scorns your gifts.
Nor could you beat Iollas in a giving-match.
Alas, what I have I done, poor lunatic, unleashing


Auster on flower-beds and wild boar on clear springs!

Ah, you are mad to leave me. Gods have dwelt in woods,
Trojan Paris too. Pallas can keep her cities,
But let the woods beyond all else please you and me!
Grim lions pursue the wolf, wolves in their turn the goat,


Mischievous goats pursue the flowering lucerne --

-- and Corydon, you pursue Alexis -- each at pleasure's pull.
Look, oxen now bring home their yoke-suspended plows,
And the sun, going down, doubles growing shadows;


But I burn in love's fire: can one set boundaries to love?

Ah, Corydon, Corydon, what madness mastered you!
You've left a vine half-pruned upon a leafy elm:
Why not at least prepare to weave of twigs and supple rushes
Something practical you need?


You will find another Alexis, if this one scorns you."

--Trans. Guy Lee (with some changes by myself).

(Roger Peyrefitte, in his autobiographical "Our Love", tells how he and his twelve-year-old lover made the first line of this poem their motto: "Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexim", "the shepherd Corydon burned with love for the beautiful Alexis". (That was back in the '60s, when French schoolchildren still had to learn Latin in schools. As long as they teach poems like this, I'd have no problem with them reintroducing Latin for boys in the United States!)

On that note, <a href="ourlove.html">here's</a> a selection from that book...)