The Eclogues

The final poem of the collection, Eclogue 10, opens with the speaker invoking a new Muse, Arethusa. (Arethusa was a nymph who fled her home of Arcadia and became a freshwater spring in Syracuse, Sicily—the home of the Greek inventor of pastoral poetry, Theocritus. Arethusa has strong associations with the genre as a whole.) The speaker wishes for her help in composing a “little song” for Gallus, Virgil’s fellow poet and friend.

The speaker describes the woodland community mourning with Gallus, who is “perishing of unrequited love” (Lines 9-10). Plants, natural features of the land, fellow shepherds, and even gods like Apollo and Pan visit the languishing poet (Lines 11-30). Pan, one of the forest gods, tells Gallus “Enough! Love cares not for such. Cruel, neither is he sated with tears nor grass with brooks / nor bees with clovers nor nanny goats with leafy sprays” (Lines 28-30).

In Line 33, Gallus himself begins to speak, wishing he could while away the time with his lover Lycoris: “Now a mad love / keeps me in the arms of Mars amid his weapons with foes / opposed” (Lines 43-45). Lycoris herself retreated to snowy climbs, pursuing another lover and leaving Gallus alone.