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Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land
Penguin Classics, 2009
“One of the greatest poems of the classical world, Virgil’s Georgics is a glorious celebration of the eternal beauty of the natural world, now brought vividly to life in a powerful new translation.
“Expansive in its scope, lush in its language, this extraordinary work is at once a reflection on the cycles of life, death and rebirth, an argument for the nobility of labour and an impassioned reflection on the Roman Empire of Virgil’s times. Kimberly Johnson’s lyrical verse translation captures all the rich beauty and abundant imagery of the original, re-creating this ancient masterpiece for our times.”
— Penguin Classics Catalogue
Read a review of Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land in The Times (UK).
Read a review of Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land in The Independent (UK).
Read a review of Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land in Books and Culture .
Excerpts from Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land
What cheers the grain, beneath what star to turn
the soil, Maecenas, when to wed vines
to the elms, what care the cows, what care
the flocks require, what skill the thrifty bees,—
here I begin my song.
(Georgics 1.1-5)
Latin verse
Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram
vertere, Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere vites
conveniat, quae cura boum, qui cultus habendo
sit pecori, apibus quanta experientia parcis,
hinc canere incipiam.
O come and ply with me this ventured task,
spread open sails and wing for open sea!
I don’t desire to comprehend the universe in my verse,
not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,
an iron voice. O come and coast the headland’s hem
hard by the shore…
(Georgics 2.39-44)
Latin verse
tuque ades inceptumque una decurre laborem,
pelagoque volans da vela patenti.
non ego cuncta meis amplecti versibus opto,
non, mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum,
ferrea vox. ades et primi lege litoris oram…
"Dazzling ... She writes with Milton open at her elbow but with the real dirt of a real Utah under her fingertips."
— The Yale Review
"It is a beautiful book, and an unusual one ... Its remarkable lucidity, its seductive energy, its lushness, and its music form a vision in which the real and the transcendental are indistinguishable."
— Mark Strand
A Poem of the Land
"Kimberly Johnson's superbly colourful, rhythmic and readable new translation...finds a way of feeding the Virgilian strain of English verse – from Milton to Wordsworth and beyond – back into her lines." — The Independent (UK)