BEES AND PLANT LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 20592, 18 September 1930, Page 16

BEES AND PLANT LIFE

STUDIES OF THE POET VIRGIL The poet .Virgil was presented from two aspects at tho joint meeting of members of the Classical Association and the Otago Institute on Tuesday night..Dr J E. Holloway and Mr B, H. Howard gave the addresses, and Mr S. Angel (president of the institute) presided over a large attendance. Hr Holloway took as Id’s subject ‘Virgil, a Lover of Plant Life.’ Ho said that this was tho 2000th anniversary of the birth of Virgil, and he proposed to deal with some of the writings of the great Roman poet. Virgil, as a lover of Nature, had a very real message to tho people in his time, and it was a message which was also of great value to the people of their own time. Virgil had given them beautiful scones of village life, tho landscape, thsmeadows, the soil, and the animals. He had been brought up for thirty years in tho primeval life of Northern Italy. When he moved south to the fife of the city ho never forgot tho simple life of his earlier days. It was then ho wrote the four books of ' The Georgies.’ Virgil had a full knowledge of tbo work of tbo husbandman and tho activities in which tin- farmer engaged, and ho gave them the information straight from his heart, because he loved Nature. He revealed this love to them by his beautiful poesy and word pictures. Virgil was a true child of Nature, with a great delight in its beauties. The lecturer quoted from the poems of Virgil to show how he loved Nature, realised tho wonderful changes of the seasons, and the varying aspects of the fruits of tiu harvest. What beautiful pictures he had painted. The world was full of beauty and happiness for those who had eyes to see, but it was only those with a natural simple instinct of the poet who could tell about these things. Tho contact of tho city, with its competition and bustle, spoiled the Nature-loving spirit, and Virgil realised this, and tried to combat it by telling them his message. Tho scientific mind should take heed of Virgil’s message. The scientific mind might miss the ]oy and beauty of natural objects, and might not see the wood for the trees. Virgil had a message for them all. Ho realised what a steadying, stabilising? influence a love of one’s country had on a people. That was where their true love of a country came from—because of tho things which were in it. They looked on Mother Nature, and behold it was very good. It brought satisfaction, peace of mind, and contentment. Virgil’s teaching was a good sound one for them to emphasise to-day. The contemplation and enjoyment of tho things which Nature had in store for her children begot a spirit of gratitude and simple, heartfelt thankfulness, as Virgil showed. Tho spirit of thankfulness, moreover, had been truly described as the philosopher’s touchstone. Mr Howard, who,has an intimate knowledge of the art of beekeepers, took as his subject ‘ Virgil and His Bees,’ and said ho proposed to place before them “ tho problem of the fourth Georgia.” One-seventh of the book was devoted to the inculcation of tho art of beekeeping, but, continued the lecturer, it was_ inadequate. Tho advice given concerning the external management of tho hive was, however, fairly sound and practical until it touched the bees themselves. The statements made by Virgil Were analysed, and the question was asked. “ Is tho Fourth Georgia then nothin hut an unsuccessful treatise on beekeeping? ” the lecturer answering it by stating that the Georgia was poetry in the highest sense. True poetry did not present facts as facts; it presented facts as seen through the refractory prism of the poet’s mind. Virgil did not take them with him to study beekeeping, but to watch the wondrous little community through, his idealising eyes and to follow his musings and emotional reactions. The lecturer further analysed the thoughts of Virgil, and concluded by stating that the poet had, from little things, created a wondrous spectacle—tho visionary’s dream of the real Roman State—the climax and close of a work which above and around its practical intent breathed the ecstatic patriotism and sympathy of a poet who in Ills poem set up for grateful worship two deities side by side—the Divine Augustus and Doa Roma, the spirit of the City Undying.