Pastoral poem by the Latin poet Virgil
Eclogue 2 ("Ecloga" II; "Bucolica" II) is a pastoral poem by the Latin poet Virgil, one of a series of ten poems known as the Eclogues. In this Eclogue the herdsman Corydon laments his inability to win the affections of the young Alexis. It is an imitation of the eleventh Idyll of Theocritus, in which the Cyclops Polyphemus laments the cruelty of the sea-nymph Galatea. After a 5-line introduction, the rest of the poem consists of a single speech by Corydon. The poem has 73 lines, and is written in the dactylic hexameter metre.
Eclogues 2 and 3 are thought to be the earliest of Virgil's "Eclogues" to be written, and so the poem dates to about 42 BC.
Summary.
The subject of this poem is the complaint of a herder of sheep and goats, Corydon, who is in love with a handsome blond boy Alexis. Alexis, however, is the ('boss's darling') (line 2) and Corydon realises that his quest is hopeless: "You are just a peasant, Corydon. Alexis does not care for gifts; and even if you were to try to win him with gifts, Iollas would not allow it" (lines 56–57). Having wasted the whole day singing, therefore, he realises that he could put his time to better use, telling himself "You will find another Alexis, if this one spurns you" (line 73).
The poem is said to represent the admiration of Virgil for a young slave whom he saw at the house of his patron Asinius Pollio, and whose beauty he thus celebrates, in the conventional style of pastoral verse. The story further goes that Pollio, charmed with the poem, made a gift of the slave to the author; and that the slave, being carefully educated, became a celebrated grammarian under his real name Alexander. According to J. B. Greenough, "This story, though not certain, is natural and probable." Some parts of the poem are imitations of Theocritus.
References.
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