A Virgilian Thanksgiving

The great Roman poet on love and loss, life and death, man and nature...

(Autumn sunset over the Tuscan hills. Photo: Getty Images)

“Perhaps even these things, one day, will be pleasing to remember.”
~ Virgil

“A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.”
~ Cicero

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.”
~ Seneca

Joel Bowman, scribbling today from Buenos Aires, Argentina…

With the holidays nigh upon us, we count the tasks outstanding against the year’s twilight hours and discover, without surprise, that the former far outnumber the latter. 

There are deadlines to meet... invitations to send... victuals to prepare... libations to sup... and of course, friends and family to gather near (such as geography and busy schedules permit).

No doubt you’ve plenty on your own proverbial plate, too. Allow us, therefore, to relieve one item from your brimming to-do list. Or at least, to offer up a humble suggestion, on behalf of one of our favorite poets... 

Publius Vergilius Maro, known more commonly as Virgil, was born in 70 BC in what the Romans knew as Cisalpine Gaul, today’s northern, alpine Italy. Before he passed into the realm of the shades, just half a century later, Virgil had composed three of the most important poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and of course the foundational epic, the Aeneid.

In this second work, which follows the tensions of the seasons and man’s struggle with, and eventual triumph over, the havoc and danger of the natural world, Virgil presents a masterpiece at turns didactic, elegiac, epic and even (as in the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice) epyllion. Loosely modeled on (the Greek poet) Hesiod’s famous Works and Days (composed around 700-650 BC), Virgil’s own poem muses on the classic, universal dichotomies of myth and reality, power and politics, cause and effect, heaven and earth, love and loss, life and death...

Under a Tuscan Sun

Many modern moons ago, having once again taken to wandering the world as a homeless peripatetic, your flâneuring correspondent found himself holed up in the ancient township of Città di Cortona, in Tuscany.

(Tuscan room with a view. Cortona, 2014 Photo: Dear Wife, Anya)

The fortified hamlet sits atop a picturesque Italian hillside, which overlooks the same fertile plains as once viewed by the Etruscans... the Romans... perhaps even Virgil himself (who would have traveled south to Rome and onto the port city of Brundisium, modern day Brindisi, where he eventually gave up the ghost). 

Perched on a fine little Juliette balcony, we lazed one afternoon under a late Tuscan sun, Sangiovese (literally: “blood of Jove”) within easy reach. Through the wrought iron we scanned the plains below, plowed through the ages by man and beast, tiny clumps and copses scattered between the fields, green and fallow. Virgil’s work lay open in our lap, Book I... 

(“Wait… where exactly did I leave Jupiter’s blood, again?” Photo: Dear Wife, Anya)

It is from the first book of the Georgics, in part a supplication to the Gods (as well as Augustus himself), that we recite our yearly Thanksgiving toast, remembering always those who went before us... as well as the halcyon days in Virgil’s birth country... and the longed-for future, when we will venture there once more. Please enjoy the immortal poet’s words, below… 

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A Thanksgiving toast, from Virgil’s Georgics, Book I

What makes a plenteous Harvest, when to turn
The fruitful Soil, and when to sowe the Corn;
The Care of Sheep, of Oxen, and of Kine;
And how to raise on Elms the teeming Vine:
The Birth and Genius of the frugal Bee,
I sing, Mecaenas, and I sing to thee.

Ye Deities! who Fields and Plains protect,
Who rule the Seasons, and the Year direct;
Bacchus and fost'ring Ceres, Pow'rs Divine,
Who gave us Corn for Mast, for Water Wine.

Ye Fawns, propitious to the Rural Swains,
Ye Nymphs that haunt the Mountains and the Plains,
Join in my Work, and to my Numbers bring
Your needful Succour, for your Gifts I sing.

(As translated by the English poet, John Dryden, 1631-1700)

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And finally today…

A special thanks to you, dear reader, for your support and patronage over the past year.

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And whatever you’re up to today, we hope you’re enjoying it with friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving from your Modern Flâneur...

Prosit!

Joel Bowman