SOURCE: “Molle atque facetum” in The “Eclogues” of Vergil, University of California Press, 1942, pp. 24-44.

In the following essay, Rose reviews contemporary issues surrounding Vergil's Eclogues, commenting in particular on the criticism of Horace and on political and economic factors that may have influenced Vergil's poetry.

In trying to appreciate an ancient work, or any work not of our own age and country, it is often useful to discover what the critics said about it when it was new. It is our good fortune to have a contemporary mention of the Eclogues by no less a connoisseur than Horace, who says, in a passage mentioned at the end of the last chapter, that the Muses who delight in the country-side have granted to Vergil molle atque facetum. Since, in the comparatively small Latin vocabulary, a word is apt to have a confusing variety of meanings, or at least...