Ecloga 5: Cur non Mopse Add a review

Eclogue 5 (Ecloga V; Bucolica V) is a pastoral poem by the Latin poet Virgil, one of his book of ten poems known as the Eclogues. In form, this is an expansion of the first Idyll of Theocritus, which contains a song about the death of the semi-divine herdsman Daphnis. In the first half of Virgil's poem, the goatherd Mopsus sings a song lamenting the death of Daphnis; in the second half, his friend Menalcas sings a song of equal length telling of Daphnis' welcome among the gods, and the rites paid to him as a divinity.

The poem has sometimes been held (though perhaps on slight grounds) to be allegorical, celebrating the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, which was confirmed by a solemn act passed in BC 42. Another suggestion is that the "god" in this poem, which recalls Eclogue 1 in its language, represents not Julius Caesar but his adopted son Octavian. Scholars have also noted in Virgil's deification of Daphnis echoes of the poet Lucretius's deification of the philosopher Epicurus. According to another interpretation, Daphnis, in this and other eclogues, allegorically represents Lucretius himself.