35 pages • 1 hour read
VirgilThe Eclogues
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Eclogue 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Eclogue 9 Summary
Eclogue 9 is a dialogue between two neighbors, the elderly Moeris and the young Lycidas. When Lycidas asks Moeris if he’s heading to town, the latter responds with disturbing news: A “stranger” possessed the farm of his master Menalcas, and Moeris must drive this interloper’s sheep (Lines 1-6). The news shocks and saddens Lycidas. Moeris gives a warning: “our songs are worth as much among the weapons of Mars [god of war] / as Chaonian doves, they say, before the eagle’s flight” (Lines 11-13); war has no reverence for the arts. Lycidas remarks that the countryside will lose a true artisan in Moeris (Lines 17-25).
The two reminisce about memorable songs they heard from each other and Menalcas in the past (Lines 37-50). “Time bears away all,” Moeris comments, “The mind as well. As a boy / I recall spending the long sunlit days in song. / Now I’ve forgotten so many songs” (Lines 51-53).
Lycidas attempts to lighten the mood as their dwelling on hardships delays the relief they might find in song: “all the sea is smooth and still, and see, / all the breath of murmuring breezes has died away” (Lines 56-57). The men agree to sing as they continue on their way. Lycidas wants to stop and rest where they are, but Moeris drives them on.
Eclogue 9 Analysis
Eclogue 9 mirrors Eclogue 1: The harsh realities of Roman political life during the first century BCE intrude on the idyllic landscape of Arcadia. Like Meliboeus in Eclogue 1, Moeris’s master, the poet Menalcas, was evicted from his farm. The slave Moeris was either passed onto the interloper or otherwise lost his tenancy. Like Tityrus in Eclogue 1, Moeris’s friend Lycidas gets to maintain his lifestyle—but is put in the awkward position of trying to comfort his friend.
While Eclogue 1 explores the new and striking differences between the lives of its two speakers, Eclogue 9 focuses on another unspoken casualty of war: loss of culture and community. With the eviction of Menalcas, the neighborhood loses their best musician and poet, Moeris. War, as Moeris points out in Lines 11-13, does not care about such things. Soldiers intrude on lands where they have no personal or ancestral connections. This migration of people—even Roman citizens, from one territory to the next—disrupted local communities. The mobilization (and globalization) following the Roman civil conflicts stands in stark contrast to the paradise imagined in Eclogue 4, where an abundance of goods renders trade unnecessary (Lines 37-45).
Like in Eclogue 1, there may be a personal connection in play for Eclogue 9. Moeris mentions Mantua in Lines 27-29, a small city in northern Italy with one claim to fame: It is the birthplace of Virgil. Like Tityrus and Menalcas, Virgil himself was evicted from his home farm by Varus, who in turn restored his land to him (after Octavian intervened on Virgil’s behalf). Virgil continues to highlight those who lose the most during (and after) war. While Rome is mostly at peace, civil conflict changed some of its unluckier citizens’ lives forever.
