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Studygirltash: On the plus side, Virgil has an awful lot else to say about love, a lot of which you might find more comforting than that one line. For that matter, can I recommend, as I will whenever possible, Propertius? His Odes cover the action of obsessive and romantic love, but also show how a human being can focus on other matters, can develop and grow, even when that person's love returns from the grave to upbraid them for their recovery.
Which is sort of the point. Now, to return to Virgil, after the plaintive "omnia vincit amor; nos cedamus amori", he, addressing the lovesick poet Gallus, says:
Gallo, cuius amor tantum mihi crescit in horas,
quantum vere novo viridis se subicit alnus.
Surgamus; solet esse gravis cantantibus umbra;
iuniperi gravis umbra; nocent et frugibus umbrae.
Which, if you'll forgive me my poor and drunken translation, means (approximately)
For Gallus, for whom my love grows such in time,
as the the alder sinks itself beneath green shoots
every new Spring, I say "let us arise".
The shade has never been
but sorrowful for those who sing;
this heavy juniper shade.
These shadows hurt the crops as well.
I have no doubt that somebody will come up with a better translation, but the point is that Gallus is experiencing love in a very specific way - the love he feels is a military force to match his own military service, a conqueror that he has to submit to, as do all things. But, if you throw yourself into the cold shadow of a hopeless love, you will wither. You have to stand, and grow, and let new feelings take you back to life. Virgil never thought that love conquers all - he knew that the kind of love Gallus was struck by was powerful and all-consuming, and, in the end, didn't stop the goats needing somebody to drive them home, or somebody to make the crops grow... |
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