VIRGIL: Virgil and the mouse

[Patrick Roper]

" He stays as the main source of western thought. "   Inspired by the above remark made when we were discussing the pop singer Dido,  I wonder if subscribers feel that our ambiguous affection for mice has anything to do with Virgil's lines from the Georgics: "saepe exiguus mus / sub terris posuitque domos atque horrea fecit."   Virgil is here describing pests of the threshing floor, but with (to my mind) a wonderful compassion.  It is difficult to feel too badly about mice after reading such a line.   Was there a Classical antecedant to this?  Did Burns with his "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie" have "saepe exiguus mus" somewhere in the back of his mind?  Has this love/hate element even crept into Tom and Jerry?   All the rest of the Georgics passage covering moles, toads, weevils and ants seems, perhaps because Virgil writes so well, to elevate these humble creatures far beyond their nuisance as pests.   I suppose it would be rather obvious to suggest in present company that much of our current attitude to wildlife and nature conservation might have originated with Virgil and, in particular, in the Georgics.   Patrick Roper