I hate to bring it down to this level, I am not much of a classicist, but I have long planned to adopt a French bulldog & name it Virgil.
Publius Vergilius Maro, or Virgil, as he was referred to in my Classics class, was born on this day, 70 B.C., in a region of northern Italy near Mantua. The name "Virgil" is from the Latin virga, or "wand". In the ancient Roman manner, poets were thought to be gifted with mystical & supernatural powers.
Legend has it that when Virgil was in the womb, his mother had a dream that she gave birth to a laurel branch, that when planted, sprung within moments into a tree heavy with fruit & flowers. The very next day, Virgil's mother was walking along a dirt path when she suddenly flung herself into a ditch & delivered an extraordinarily mild mannered child that all who encountered him remarked that he destined for greatness.
Virgil was said to have been a lovely, if not healthy man. He was an ascetic, notoriously picky about food & wine. Although he avoided the gymnasium, Virgil was assuredly a homosexual. He had a large collection of original Broadway Cast Albums & was noted for his floral designs & brunches. He had an especially close relationship with a man named Alexander, whom he wrote about as "Alexis".
Virgil intended his great work The Aeneid to be a the Roman counterpart to Greek Homer's Odyssey & Iliad.
Virgil died in 19 B.C. & he had asked that The Aeneid go with him to the grave. Apparently unsatisfied with the manuscript, he dictated in his will that it be destroyed, but his former classmate & patron Emperor Augustus, to the immense benefit of subsequent generations of scholars & literary enthusiasts, turned it over to Virgil's friends Tucca & Varius (not to self: terrific dog names?). The men gave the manuscript a bit polish, adding nothing to the text, but correcting obvious errors. Although the epic includes a moving episode between the male lovers Nisus & Euryalus, Virgil’s greatest gay works are in his The Eclogues. The second of those poems is to his beloved Alexis:
The shepherd Corydon with love was fired
For fair Alexis, his own master's joy.
Although he was a popular poet in his lifetime, The Aeneid is Virgil's masterpiece, giving more fame than he had enjoyed during his lifetime. In the years following his death Virgil acquired a mystical persona; Dante even selected him as the guide through the Underworld in The Inferno.
On his deathbed, Virgil composed the following epitaph, which was inscribed on his tombstone in Naples: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces ("Mantua gave me birth; Calabria took me away; & now Naples holds me; I sang of pastures, farms, leaders"). The words refer to Virgil's remarkable poems. They serve as the voice of Romans past & present, powerful & pedestrian, who created one of the greatest empires of all time.
Publius Vergilius Maro, or Virgil, as he was referred to in my Classics class, was born on this day, 70 B.C., in a region of northern Italy near Mantua. The name "Virgil" is from the Latin virga, or "wand". In the ancient Roman manner, poets were thought to be gifted with mystical & supernatural powers.
Legend has it that when Virgil was in the womb, his mother had a dream that she gave birth to a laurel branch, that when planted, sprung within moments into a tree heavy with fruit & flowers. The very next day, Virgil's mother was walking along a dirt path when she suddenly flung herself into a ditch & delivered an extraordinarily mild mannered child that all who encountered him remarked that he destined for greatness.
Virgil was said to have been a lovely, if not healthy man. He was an ascetic, notoriously picky about food & wine. Although he avoided the gymnasium, Virgil was assuredly a homosexual. He had a large collection of original Broadway Cast Albums & was noted for his floral designs & brunches. He had an especially close relationship with a man named Alexander, whom he wrote about as "Alexis".
Virgil intended his great work The Aeneid to be a the Roman counterpart to Greek Homer's Odyssey & Iliad.
Virgil died in 19 B.C. & he had asked that The Aeneid go with him to the grave. Apparently unsatisfied with the manuscript, he dictated in his will that it be destroyed, but his former classmate & patron Emperor Augustus, to the immense benefit of subsequent generations of scholars & literary enthusiasts, turned it over to Virgil's friends Tucca & Varius (not to self: terrific dog names?). The men gave the manuscript a bit polish, adding nothing to the text, but correcting obvious errors. Although the epic includes a moving episode between the male lovers Nisus & Euryalus, Virgil’s greatest gay works are in his The Eclogues. The second of those poems is to his beloved Alexis:
The shepherd Corydon with love was fired
For fair Alexis, his own master's joy.
Although he was a popular poet in his lifetime, The Aeneid is Virgil's masterpiece, giving more fame than he had enjoyed during his lifetime. In the years following his death Virgil acquired a mystical persona; Dante even selected him as the guide through the Underworld in The Inferno.
On his deathbed, Virgil composed the following epitaph, which was inscribed on his tombstone in Naples: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces ("Mantua gave me birth; Calabria took me away; & now Naples holds me; I sang of pastures, farms, leaders"). The words refer to Virgil's remarkable poems. They serve as the voice of Romans past & present, powerful & pedestrian, who created one of the greatest empires of all time.
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