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Wordsworth on Virgil, Georgics 4.228–30

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Duncan Wu
Duncan Wu
Affiliation:
St Catherine's College, Oxford
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Extract

When Wordsworth was eighteen he embarked on a series of translations from Virgil's Georgics. All that survives of them today is a series of rough drafts and jottings, among which is a short note in which he attempts to resolve the well-known crux at 4.228–30

Suppose we read it thus – ‘prius haustu parcus aquarum / Ora fove, etc.’ – and construe it thus:

First sparingly steep the mouth (‘ora’) of the hive in water (‘haustu … aquarum’).

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 561
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

1 The Wordsworthian material in this article is hitherto unpublished, and is taken from notebooks now at the Wordsworth Library, Grasmere. I am grateful to the Chairman and Trustees of the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, for permission to present it here.

2 This may have been suggested by Joseph Warton's translation of The Georgics, which Wordsworth was consulting:

When of its sweet the dome thou would'st deprive.

Diffuse warm-spirted water thro' the hive …

(Warton, , Georgics 4.267–8Google Scholar)

3 Dale, F. R., ‘Virgil, Georgics iv. 228–30’, CR 5 (1955), 14–15Google Scholar.

4 The Georgics of Virgil: A Critical Survey (Cambridge, 1969), p. 266Google Scholar.

5 Virgil: The Georgics I–IV, ed. Thomas, Richard F. (2 vols., Cambridge, 1988), ii. 189Google Scholar.