Blessings and Curses in Virgil's Eclogues

Gagliardi, Paola (2020) Blessings and Curses in Virgil's Eclogues. ACTA ANTIQUA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE, 60 (3-4). pp. 257-272. ISSN 0044-5975 (print); 1588-2543 (online)

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Abstract

In Virgil’s Eclogues curses and blessings are the heritage of the Theocritean tradition, which in turn reproduced a common feature in folk poetry. But in comparison to Theocritus, who uses these topics to give his poems a folkloric flavour, the Latin poet treats them in a very different way, removing excessively vulgar phrases from his verses, and using curses and blessings in order to give voice to deep feelings on the part of his characters. Sometimes these τόpoi express positive or negative hopes in a contrasting pattern (in ecl. 3. 89–91; 7. 21–28, and, first of all, 1. 59–66, which is a special case), while sometimes there is only a positive (ecl. 5. 60–61, 65 and 76–77; ecl. 9. 30–31) or negative (ecl. 8. 52–58) view. The most common figure of speech for curses and blessings is the adynaton.

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