Vergil's Eclogue VI

In Vergil’s sixth Eclogue, the narrator, Tityrus the shepherd, is addressing a person named Varus, who Charles Segal argues is a warrior. Thus in extension, he is an embodiment of war. Tityrus sets out to tell a story about battles and kings, but is restrained by the Cynthian god who tells him to stick to topics more suitable to shepherds, and thus to keep his song light-hearted or as he god puts it; ‘sing a slender song.’ (l.7).

From line 7 to 11 Tityrus proceeds to apologize to Varus for not singing about what he intended to:

‘Now Varus, I –
For lack there will not who would laud thy deeds,
And treat dolorous wars – will rather tune
To the slim oaten reed my silvan lay.
I sing but as vouchsafed me.’

His excuse is that as a mere shepherd he is not permitted to deal with such large and sorrowful topics as war in his song, and must stick to what he knows. He then proceeds to go into a tale of Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, god of mirth and wine, a more suited subject for a man like Tityrus. He tells of how the two young characters Chromis and Mnasyllos, read by some critics to be Fauns and satyrs (though at the end of the poem they are referred to as shepherds), come upon Silenus sleeping off yesterday’s alcohol in a cave. They approach to bind him with his own garlands, to force him to sing for them, and Aegle, the most beautiful of the water nymphs joins them. As Silenus wakes he laughs at their attempted craftiness thus:

‘“Why tie the fetters? Loose me, boys;
Enough for you to think you had the power;
Now list the songs you wish for- songs for you,”’ (l.21-23)

He ascends to sing them a song and begins with how the world developed from the elements. The opening of his tale is a beautiful place in a happy state: ‘how the earth amazed/Beheld the new sun shining. And the showers/Fall, as the clouds soar higher.’ (l.47-49) Then comes an interruption of what Charles Segal points out to be examples of the happy state lost because of human evil:

‘Then sang he of the stones by Pyrrah cast,
Of Saturn’s reign, and of Prometheus’ theft.’ (l.52-53)

The stones of Pyrrah are stones turned into women, Saturn’s reign refers to his flood to extinguish men for their wrongful ways (the flood after which Pyrrah as survivor threw her rocks) and Prometheus’ theft refers to when Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave to men, causing Zeus to put a new evil within mankind on earth: the first woman, Pandora. Thus, this random selection of Greek myths aims to shed light on the same things a discourse of war would: the evil within mankind.

Then follows the more traditionally pastoral discourse of unhappy love. Silenus sings of poor Pasiphae who fell in love with and made love to a white bull, sent by an angry Poseidon, and thus she mothered a Minotaur. The song tells of how unhappy the unnatural union made the maid, and points out how the animal is probably unfazed and following the herd.

Finally the song of Silenus reaches story of how Gallus, a poet admired by Vergil, is transported to the Aonian mountains and greeted by Phoebus (also known as Apollo, god of the sun) and the singer and shepherd, Linus, who presents him with reeds from the Muses in order for him to tell beautifully of Apollo’s groves. After the story of the poet Silenus again brings the song back to myths of tragic fates; Scylla the sea monster, Tereus and Philomel, the unhappy swallow.

As Silenus’ song comes to an end, Vesper, the evening star or in fact evening itself, comes and tells the shepherds to just tell of sheep and put them in their pen for the night. In other words; the themes of Silenus’ song is not fitted for shepherds either.

It appears that in the sixth Eclogue Vergil wishes to ponder human nature and especially with regards to the human factor in war, violence and battle. However he knows that this is not suitable material for a pastoral mode of writing and therefore it seems that the mythical Silenus becomes a vessel for Vergil to bring in his points through in a more appropriate setting. By having Silenus singing and nymphs and shepherds listening he brings his message into a more pastoral realm and in juxtaposing and jumbling up several of the Greek myths the Eclogue attempts to unify the commenting with the mode. However it seems Vergil has his doubts about the success of this experiment since the end suggests the evening dismissing even the mythical tale as too much for a shepherd to tell, and therefore he should leave it to the greater things of the world, such as gods like Silenus to tell them.

MIA