The Georgics

Virgil (70 BC–19 BC), translated by Kline, A.S., (contact-email)

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The Georgics, written by Virgil in 29 BCE, is a Latin poem in four books, totalling 2,188 hexametric lines. The work is a detailed treatise on the agricultural practices of its time. Despite its pastoral subject, the poem is imbued with thematic and existential contrasts. Serving as Virgil’s intermediary piece between the Eclogues and the Aeneid, it synthesises a range of earlier works and has left a substantial imprint on subsequent literature. The astronomical references are to the visible heavens at that period, these being subject to subsequent precession of the equinoxes, meaning that Virgil’s references do not completely apply to contemporary times.

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Kline, A.S.,

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