Virgil's Works: The Aeneid; Eclogues; Georgics (The Modern Library of the World's Best Books, ML 75)

xiv, 352 pp. Translated by J.W. Mackail, with an introduction by Charles L. Durham. A collection of three works by the famous Roman poet. Includes: The Aeneid; Eclogues; Georgics. The Aeneid: Fleeing the ashes of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles' mighty foe in the Iliad, begins an incredible journey to fulfill his destiny as the founder of Rome. His voyage will take him through stormy seas, entangle him in a tragic love affair, and lure him into the world of the dead itself--all the way tormented by the vengeful Juno, Queen of the Gods. Ultimately, he reaches the promised land of Italy where, after bloody battles and with high hopes, he founds what will become the Roman empire. An unsparing portrait of a man caught between love, duty, and fate, the Aeneid redefines passion, nobility, and courage for our times. Eclogues: "The Eclogues, also called Bucolics, is one of three major works by the Latin poet Virgil. Published most likely around 39-38 BC, the "Eclogues" consist of ten short poems in dactylic hexameter, all in a pastoral setting. Georgics: Virgil's classic poem extols the virtues of work, describes the care of crops, trees, animals, and bees, and stresses the importance of moral values. "Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 B.C.), known in English as Virgil, was perhaps the single greatest poet of the Roman empire-a friend to the emperor Augustus and the beneficiary of wealthy and powerful patrons. Most famous for his epic of the founding of Rome, the Aeneid, he wrote two other collections of poems: the Georgics and the Bucolics, or Eclogues.The Eclogues were Virgil's first published poems. Ancient sources say that he spent three years composing and revising them at about the age of thirty. Though these poems begin a sequence that continues with the Georgics and culminates in the Aeneid, they are no less elegant in style or less profound in insight than the later, more extensive works. These intricate and highly polished variations on the idea of the pastoral poem, as practiced by earlier Greek poets, mix political, social, historical, artistic, and moral commentary in musical Latin that exerted a profound influence on subsequent Western poetry."