Not everyone welcomed the Paris of the boulevards that we so admire today when in the nineteenth century swathes of a much-loved, ancient city were swept away to make way for it. Today’s poem uses the classical motif of Andromache, widow of Troy’s greatest warrior, Hector, and the image of a trapped and desperate swan to express Baudelaire’s vision of Paris changed for ever and the anguish of all those who long for something irretrievably lost. Hear the poem in the original French and follow in English here.
Listen to Yeats’s melancholy and beautiful poem “The Wild Swans at Coole” read by Harry McFarland here.
In North Africa, fearing that fourteen of his ships may be lost, Aeneas is exploring the country. His mother Venus, disguised as a Phoenician girl, has told him the story of Queen Dido and now delivers good news about his missing ships and men by interpreting a sighting of swans as an oracle.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
Rainer Maria Rilke uses the swan to make a point about the difficulty of life and the serenity of death. Agree or disagree? Hear the German read by Tatjana Pisarski and follow in translation here.
Even with Octavian in the ascendant, around 29 BCE Rome is still at risk from the legacy of civil war. In his Georgics, comparing the city to a racing chariot out of control, Virgil turns abruptly from the life of the countryside to implore the Gods to allow the future Emperor Augustus to restore its threatened fortunes.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
How did the Romans forecast the weather? Virgil’s answer is from the Georgics, his poem about agriculture. Hear his Latin and follow in English here.
As he deals with how to grow crops in his Georgics, Virgil gives advice on how to read the calendar for planting in the stars. The illustration is of the constellation Taurus, from a star-map of 1603 by Johann Bayer: in the map as in Virgil’s poem, the Bull’s horns are heightened with gold.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.
