>It may help this discussion to recall the philology with which Mynors >always began his Georgics lectures. "You will find many jokes in the >Georgics, as Virgil warns us in the very first line. The bright young >things in Rome are meant to dream of a romantic picture of happy, waving >crops (laetas segetes), but, as any good farmer knows, crops only wave >in the wind after a good dose of manure. Go and look up laetamen in your >dictionary and work out what censored verb the words must really come >from." I missed this sorely in his official edition of the Georgics. I >always used it up to the time I retired. >I know that doesn't help with compost; sorry. >Rob Dyer > Yes, Virgil's rude little secret is out: the Georgics is really all about -- bullshit.
James L. P. Butrica Department of Classics The Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's NL A1C 5S7 (709) 737-7914 / (709) 753-5799 (home) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
