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GEORGICS
Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) was born near Mantua in
northern Italy in 70 bce. He was educated at the larger town of
Cremona and finally at Milan. He moved to Rome around 52bce,
but spent most of his time thereafter in the (then) congenial
surroundings of the Bay of Naples. He wrote the Eclogues in the
periodcirca42–39bce. Around the year 38 he joined the circle of
poets in the entourage of Maecenas, the future imperial ‘Minister
for the Arts’. The composition of the Georgics occupied him
from 37 or earlier until 29. He spent the rest of his life working
on his epic poem, the Aeneid. He died at Brundisium in 19bce after
abandoning a visit to Greece and Asia on which he intended to
complete and perfect his epic.
Peter Fallon grew up on a farm near Kells in County Meath.
He is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, where he was Writer
Fellow in 1994. He was inaugural Heimbold Professor of Irish
Studies at Villanova University in 2000. He founded The Gallery
Press in 1970 and has edited and published more than 400 titles.
His own books include News of the World: Selected and New Poems
(1998). He lives in Loughcrew in County Meath.
Elaine Fantham was educated at Oxford and taught first at
the University of Toronto (1968–86) then Princeton University
(1986–2000). She is author of commentaries on Seneca’s Trojan
Women, Lucan, Civil War, Book 2, and Ovid, Fasti IV, of Roman
Literary Culture, and most recently of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
(Oxford Approaches to Literature) and The Roman World of Cicero’s
De Oratore.
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
VIRGIL
Georgics
Translated by
PETER FALLON
With an Introduction and Notes by
ELAINE FANTHAM
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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First published as The Georgics of Virgil by Peter Fallon by The Gallery Press,
Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland in September 2004
This revised translation and Translator’s Note © Peter Fallon 2004, 2006
Editorial material © Elaine Fantham 2006
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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First published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 2006
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ISBN 0–19–280679–3 978–0–19–280679–6
1
for Adam
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... cecini pascua rura duces
I sang of farms and fields and men who lead
Virgil, on his deathbed
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CONTENTS
Introduction xi
Translator’s Note xxxiv
Select Bibliography xxxvii
A Chronology of Virgil xxxix
GEORGICS
book one
‘What tickles the corn to laugh out loud ...’ 3
book two
‘Thus far I have been singing of working the land ...’ 25
book three
‘You too, Pales, great goddess of the folds ...’ 47
book four
‘Which brings me to heaven’s gift of honey ...’ 71
Explanatory Notes 95
