Today’s post from Virgil’s Georgics continues his idealised love-song to the farming life. Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in John Dryden’s 17th-century English translation here; see the blog post with some happy pigs here.
Who was Lucan? In preparation for a short series of extracts from his poem on the civil war that followed Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, read about him in his poet page here.
In the coming days Pantheon Poets will be posting a short series of extracts from Lucan’s poem. Lucan, forced to commit suicide in his mid-twenties by the Emperor Nero, pulls no punches on his account of the struggle between Julius Caesar and his adversary, Pompey the Great. As a prelude, read more about Lucan and his work on his poet page here.
This is a short selection about the poet Lucan, destined to die young by Nero’s orders, and his epic poem about the civil war, “De Bello Civile”. You can read Continue Reading
Today’s poem consist of extracts from De Rerum Natura (on the nature of things) by Lucretius. He was a follower of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who taught that humanity should free itself from fear of the Gods, death and the tomb. See Lucretius’s poet page here, and hear the poetry in Latin and follow in English here.
In the illustration by Boulanger, the people bustling along the Appian Way do not seem to be taking much notice of the tombs which line the road, according to Roman custom.
In detached mood, Horace takes a look at the predicament of a once-popular courtesan who has begun to lose her looks, and with them, the attention of the virile young lovers she craves. The illustration is a Roman funerary portrait from the second century CE.
Hear Horace’s original Latin and follow in English translation here.
As Aeneas continues his underworld journey, his father Anchises shows him the future Marcellus, tragic nephew and adopted son and heir of the Emperor Augustus, whose great promise will be cut short by death at the age of nineteen. The poetry rises to much more affecting heights than the tremendous hymn of praises to Augustus himself, from which it follows on. The illustration reflects the tradition that Marcellus’s mother, Octavia, was so moved at hearing Virgil recite this passage that she fainted dead away. Hear the extract in Latin and follow in English here.