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Animal Rights History Timeline » [BCE-CE] Antiquity » Virgil

Virgil

Georgics and AEneids

Emotion of Animals

Vigil.Org: Bibliography, Links, Translations, Search

[1st c.] Virgil, Georgics and AEneids in The Works of Virgil, translated by Charles Kennedy (London, 1891; Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks.

Charles Kennedy, Life of Virgil in The Works of Virgil, translated by Charles Kennedy (London, 1891); Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks.

W. Liebeschuetz, "Beast and Man in the Third Book of Virgil's Georgics, " Greece and Rome (Second Series) 12 )(1965) 67-77.

Virgil assures us of the passion of love in all animals—

And thus all earthly creatures, brutes and men,
Cattle and scaly tribes and painted fowl,
To fiery madness rush; love burns in all.

(Virgil, Georgic III, Lines 284-6)

and ascribes other "emotions" as well to animals…particularly to "cattle and feathered tribes," who at times are "weary," at other times "rejoicing"…

Then sea-birds and the piscatory fowl
In sweet Cayster's lake by Asian meads
In rival sport are splashing them with dews,
Now dipping heads, now running in the tide,
Laving in unrestraint and wanton joy:
The crow for rain importunately cries.

(Virgil, Georgic I, Lines 444-9)

Rejoicing to revisit after rain
Their nests and precious young, not, I believe,
That any genius heaven-born is theirs,
or deeper insight in the fate of things;
But as the season's temper and the course
Of airy fluids change, as Jupiter,
Charged with the humid south, what late was thin
Condenses, and the dense attenuates,
Their breasts to new emotions are alive,
To other images, than when the rack
A breeze was driving. Hence the little birds
In concert warble, cattle frisking play.

(Virgil, Georgic I, Lines 475-486)

Observe the joyful gathering of those birds,
Twelve cygnets, whom but late a swooping eagle
Scatter'd in air, now hovering in a line,
To flight preparing or to choose their ground:
As in a flock they muster or return,
And flap their wings and utter notes of glee.

(Virgil, Æneid I, Lines 452-7)

'Twas the night, and o'er the earth in gentle sleep
Lay weary creatures; woods and turbid seas
Were hush'd; it was the hour when stars revolve
Their middle course, and every field is still;
Cattle and feather'd tribes, that wing the lake
Or haunt the bosky dell, in silence all
Were couch'd to rest, forgetting toil and care.

(Virgil, Æneid IV, Lines 596-602)

"[Virgil] exalts the character of bees, by ascribing to them the feelings, passions, and impulses of men; and represents them as living in a sort of republic, with laws and political regulations" (Charles Kennedy, Works of Virgil, Georgic IV, "The Argument").

A picture wonderful, an insect race,
Their customs, manners, nations I describe.

(Virgil, Georgic IV, Lines 4-5)