Speculations on an hiden meaning of the Eglogues are coming back to Saint Hieronimus and the first christians, as Lactantius, Augustinus, or Constantinus, and they are thinking of Virgil as a poet who was inspired by the Holy Spirit. All of them are reading the fourth Eglogue as a pagan prophecy of the birth of Jesus Christ.
ULTIMA CUMAEI VENIT JAM CARMINIS AETAS; MAGNUS AB INTEGRO SAECLORUM NASCITUR ORDO. JAM REDIT ET VIRGO, REDEUNT SATURNIAS REGNA; JAM NOVA PROGENIES CAELO DEMITTITUR ALTO. Eclogue IV, 1-4. Christian Midle Age has adopted this Virgil (for those who can read French, I would recommend "lecture medievales de Virgile, Ecole Francaise de Rome, no 8, 1985). Abelard is making a platonic reading of the poetic work of Virgil, with the help of the comments of Macrobius (a roman scholar, pagan, who lived from 380 to 440, and wrote the Saturnales). An example of the reading of Abelard, is that he believed that the words of Alphesibee, the witch in eglogue VIII, 72-75, are an allusion to the Trinity: TERNA TIBI HAEC PRIMUM TRIPLICI DIVERSA COLORE Eglogue VIII, 74. The modern interpretation of Virgil are of a different nature. Modern interpretations are pretending to build a signification for the text as a globality, and are reading each poem, and sometime the whole work as a closed structure. Moreover, most of the modern interpretations are searching a philosophical doctrine hiden inside the text. After the Christian Virgil, who was still the Virgil of Victor Hugo, will succeed the orphic Virgil of Salomon Reinach, at the beginning of this Century. There is also a Neo-pythagorician Virgil, an orphico-dionysian one, etc. etc.! Christian or not, messianism since the beginning of the ninenteen century as had a friend in the Virgil of the Eglogue. Everyone was reading him as if he was the great witness of the roman revolution wich happened at the beginning of the christian era. Sorry for my poor English! === Andre-Paul Itel [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
