Dreaming of an Ancient Country

Virgil wrote The Georgics in the 30s BCE at a time of political uncertainty in the Roman state and although country matters are to the fore in the selections chosen and translated in this chapbook, there is also from time to time an underlying sense of unease. The passages from Books 1, 2 and 3 have an agricultural theme, dealing respectively with raising crops, raising trees, and breeding livestock and horses and from Book 4, with bee-keeping. The chapbook ends with the concluding passage of Book 4, Virgil’s beautiful telling of the story of Orpheus and Euridice. This lively and entertaining translation from the Latin by the poet Fred Beake brings Virgil’s original poem into such sharp focus for the reader of today that it is hard to believe that it was written over two thousand years ago.