What do you think?
Rate this book
Aetna
The pseudo-Virgilian Aetna poem has fascinated textual critics for centuries on account of its badly corrupted state. But it is fascinating for its content as well. It appears to date from the first half of the first century AD sometime prior to 79, for it describes Vesuvius as extinct. The highly original account of a volcano with scientific, if eccentric, views of volcanic activity, is enlivened by vivid imagery and digressions such as a section in praise of physical science and the tale of two brothers who rescued their parents from an eruption. A vigorous and enthusiastic poem, it repays further study within the didactic tradition. Robinson Ellis, according to The Times the 'greatest English Latinist' of his age, worked on the poem for decades, and his 1901 edition, which includes a translation and full commentary, constitutes a significant contribution to the study of the poem. His work remains of interest today, both to scholars working on the poem and to historians of
classical scholarship.In her new introduction to this reissue of the complete Latin text and translation of the poem with Ellis's commentary, Katharina Volk discusses Ellis's achievement in the context of his career and as part of the history of critical engagement with the Aetna. She also provides an overview of work on the poem since Ellis's edition, and a bibliography.
classical scholarship.In her new introduction to this reissue of the complete Latin text and translation of the poem with Ellis's commentary, Katharina Volk discusses Ellis's achievement in the context of his career and as part of the history of critical engagement with the Aetna. She also provides an overview of work on the poem since Ellis's edition, and a bibliography.
388 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1923
1 person is currently reading
19 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 13, 2022
I came across this poem as part of a collection of readings for a conference. There was no description, just pages of text with the title: AETNA. I am in awe of it, and further researching it only added to its aura of mysterium tremendum, like finding some lost and holy treasure.
Written in the 1st century AD by an unknown author, it goes into great detail on Mount Etna and that which lies deep within the hollow Earth. It anthropomorphizes the volcano, but it also speaks about it with such scientific detail and precision that I initially thought it was published sometime in the past 300 years. The poem mediates somewhere between poetic humanism and empiricism, but it is so unlike science as we understand it today. In Antiquity, there was no disciplinary distinction between the humanities and science, so merging them would have come naturally to any learned person. Moreover, the author must have obsessively studied Mount Etna for decades.
As I already said, first encountering this poem is like finding a timeless scroll by civilizations long gone. It really makes you sadly appreciate what treasures were lost, written by people whose orientation toward life was so unlike our own but who still possessed such a strong desire for higher means of understanding the World.
Here is my favorite quote from the poem:
> Yet this is man's more primary task — to know the earth and mark all the many wonders nature has yielded there. This is for us a task more akin than the stars of heaven. For what kind of hope is it for mortal man, what madness could be greater — that he should wish to wander and explore in Jove's domain and yet pass by the mighty fabric before his feet and lose it in his negligence?
> We torture ourselves wretchedly over little things: we let toil weigh us down: we peer into crannies and upturn every depth. The quest is now for a germ of silver, now for a vein of gold. Parts of the earth are tortured with flame and tamed with iron till they ransom themselves at a price; and, when they have owned their secret, they are silenced and abandoned to contempt and beggary. Day and night farmers hasten on the cultivation of their fields; hands grow hard with rural toil; we ponder the use of different soils. One is fertile and is more fruitful for corn, another for the vine; this is the soil for plane-trees, this the worthiest of grass crops; this other is hard and better for grazing and trusty to a tree-plantation. The dried parts are held by the olive; elms like a soil more moist. Trivial motives torture men's minds and bodies — to have their barns overflowing, their wine-casks swelling with must, and their haylofts rising higher, charged with the full reapings of the field. So do ye tread the path of greed where sight reveals aught more precious.
Written in the 1st century AD by an unknown author, it goes into great detail on Mount Etna and that which lies deep within the hollow Earth. It anthropomorphizes the volcano, but it also speaks about it with such scientific detail and precision that I initially thought it was published sometime in the past 300 years. The poem mediates somewhere between poetic humanism and empiricism, but it is so unlike science as we understand it today. In Antiquity, there was no disciplinary distinction between the humanities and science, so merging them would have come naturally to any learned person. Moreover, the author must have obsessively studied Mount Etna for decades.
As I already said, first encountering this poem is like finding a timeless scroll by civilizations long gone. It really makes you sadly appreciate what treasures were lost, written by people whose orientation toward life was so unlike our own but who still possessed such a strong desire for higher means of understanding the World.
Here is my favorite quote from the poem:
> Yet this is man's more primary task — to know the earth and mark all the many wonders nature has yielded there. This is for us a task more akin than the stars of heaven. For what kind of hope is it for mortal man, what madness could be greater — that he should wish to wander and explore in Jove's domain and yet pass by the mighty fabric before his feet and lose it in his negligence?
> We torture ourselves wretchedly over little things: we let toil weigh us down: we peer into crannies and upturn every depth. The quest is now for a germ of silver, now for a vein of gold. Parts of the earth are tortured with flame and tamed with iron till they ransom themselves at a price; and, when they have owned their secret, they are silenced and abandoned to contempt and beggary. Day and night farmers hasten on the cultivation of their fields; hands grow hard with rural toil; we ponder the use of different soils. One is fertile and is more fruitful for corn, another for the vine; this is the soil for plane-trees, this the worthiest of grass crops; this other is hard and better for grazing and trusty to a tree-plantation. The dried parts are held by the olive; elms like a soil more moist. Trivial motives torture men's minds and bodies — to have their barns overflowing, their wine-casks swelling with must, and their haylofts rising higher, charged with the full reapings of the field. So do ye tread the path of greed where sight reveals aught more precious.
Displaying 1 of 1 review