Georgics

The Georgics (literally 'the farmer's life') is Virgil's great poem of the land, part farming manual, part hymn of praise, containing some of Virgil's finest descriptive writing. Peter Fallon's wonderful new translation, first published in 2004 by Fallon's Gallery Press, has won plaudits from all sides, including the Poetry Book Society Recommendation and praise from Seamus Heaney, Bernard Donoghue and Jonathan Bate. Coupled here with an introduction and notes by the classical scholar Elaine Fantham, it offers the best introduction to Virgil's masterpiece. Fallon is both a poet and a farmer, uniquely suited to translating this poem. Elaine Fantham's introduction considers Virgil's life and poetry in its historical context and the special qualities of the poem. Her notes gloss the many classical and mythological allusions. 'A countryman cleaves earth with his crooked plough. Such is the labour of his life. So he sustains his native land ...' Virgil's affectionate poem of the land does not admit brief excerpts, any more than the labour of the farmer can easily be shortened. His verse, descriptive and narrative, brings us the disappointments as well as the rewards of the countryman's year-round devotion to his crops, his vines and olives, livestock great and small, and the complex society of bees. Part agricultural manual, part political poem and allegory, the Georgics' scenes are real and vivid, and the poet-farmer Peter Fallon makes us feel the sights, sounds, and textures of the ancient Italian landscape.