'A countryman cleaves earth with his crooked
plough. Such is the labour of his life. So he sustains
his native land ...' Virgil's affectionate poem of the
land does not admit brief excerpts, any more than the
labour of the farmer can easily be shortened. His verse,
descriptive and narrative, brings us the disappointments
as well as the rewards of the countryman's year-round
devotion to his crops, his vines and olives, livestock
great and small, and the complex society of bees. Part
agricultural manual, part political poem and allegory,
the Georgics' scenes are real and vivid, and the
poet-farmer Peter Fallon makes us feel the sights,
sounds, and textures of the ancient Italian landscape.
'the combination of truth to the words Virgil wrote,
natural vernacular speech and a general at-homeness on
the land make Fallon's an inspired translation' Seamus
Heaney, Irish Times 'magnificent new
translation...Fallon is the perfect translator for the
Georgics' Bernard O'Donoghue, Times Literary Supplement
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