Editing Virgil (section)

===''Eclogues''===
{{Main article| Eclogues}}
[[File:RomanVirgilFolio001rEclogues.jpg|thumb|Page from the beginning of the ''Eclogues'' in the 5th-century ''Vergilius Romanus'']]

The ''Eclogues'' (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the [[bucolic]] (that is, "pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poet [[Theocritus]], which were written in [[dactylic hexameter]]. While some readers have identified the poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god (''Ecl''. 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, ''Ecl''. 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues (''Ecl''. 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from works of fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought.

The ten ''Eclogues'' present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love (''Ecl''. 2) and attraction toward people of any gender (''Ecl''. 3). [[Eclogue 4|''Eclogue'' 4]], addressed to [[Asinius Pollio]], the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (who the child was meant to be has been subject to debate). 5 and 8 describe the myth of [[Daphnis]] in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of [[Silenus]]; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet [[Cornelius Gallus]]. Virgil in his ''Eclogues'' is credited with establishing [[Arcadia (utopia)|Arcadia]] as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts<ref>{{cite book |last1=Snell |first1=Bruno |title=The Discovery of the Mind: the Greek Origins of European Thought |date=1960 |publisher=Harper |pages=281–282}}</ref> and with setting the stage for the development of Latin pastoral by [[Calpurnius Siculus]], [[Nemesianus]] and later writers.