The Georgics
Four books on farming that are really about labour, loss and the Orpheus who looked back.
What this poem is
The Georgics ( JOR-jiks; Latin: Georgica [ɡeˈoːrɡɪka]) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word γεωργικά, geōrgiká, i.e. "agricultural [things]"), the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose.
The Georgics is considered Virgil's second major work, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present.
The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article “Georgics” (revision 1369695795), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Laurel's own notes and measurements are not from Wikipedia.
Measured across the book
Across its 2,725 lines, 96% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 95% to 96%). Alliteration runs at 1.21 times what shuffling the words would give (0.40 observed against 0.33 expected). 9% of the lines have a feminine ending.
Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.
Contents
About this text
Public domain. Text from The Georgics, Project Gutenberg ebook #232. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.