The Georgics of Virgil: Bilingual Edition

About this book

. . . may I delight in the rural fields And the little brooks that make their way through valleys And in obscurity love the woods and rivers. --from the second Georgic John Dryden called Virgils Georgics written between 37-30 BCE "the best poem by the best poet." The poem newly translated by the poet and translator David Ferry is one of the great songs maybe the greatest we have of human accomplishment in difficult--and beautiful--circumstances and in the context of all we share in nature. The Georgics celebrates the crops trees and animals and above all the human beings who care for them. It takes the form of teaching about this care: the tilling of fields the tending of vines the raising of the cattle and the bees. Theres joy in the detail of Virgils descriptions of work well done and ecstatic joy in his praise of the very life of things and passionate commiseration too because of the vulnerability of men and all other creatures with all they have to contend with: storms and plagues and wars and all mischance.