Abstract

BAUZA, Hugo Francisco. Virgil and the Orphism. Nova tellus [online]. 2015, vol.32, n.2, pp.251-269. ISSN 0185-3058.

Even though Virgil suggests traces of different philosophical and religious systems, Orphism seems to prevail as central theme. According to his first biographer, before traveling to Greece the poet commissioned his friend L. Varius to burn the Aeneid, in case something happened to him. Therefore, if we consider that unfulfilled desire, the corpus he would have wanted to bequeath to posterity would consist only in Eclogues and Georgics, no reference of the Appendix Vergiliana. The poet chooses the eclogue of Tityrus and Meliboeus as a gateway of his vast work even if it is not the first of the Eclogues composed by him. This composition refers to an Orphic image when he explains that the singing of one of the pastors has thaumaturgic effect that moves the whole nature. The last Georgic also ends with a reference to Orphism expressed in the epýllion of Orpheus and Eurydice; thus we see that the figure of Orpheus embraces all his compositions as an important symbol. Moreover, if we consider the Aeneid in the hero’s katábasis to the underworld, the Thracian bard is also found in a preferential place.

Keywords : Virgil; Orpheus; Orphism.