The Bees

In Book 4 the Golden Age passages, which are here considered to be those on the bees and the Corycian gardener, are not, as in Book 3, travesties of the Golden Age but again, as in Books 1 and 2 approximations of the Golden Age, in which disparities between real and ideal lead to subtle ironies and new perspectives on questions central to the poem.

As often noted, the bees of 4.1–115 and 149–280 recall in their selflessness and sharing the Golden Age ethic as described in Book 1. As a consequence they have been viewed at times as Virgil's model for the moral and political renewal of Rome, a new Golden Age. This interpretation, based upon an assumed equation of the bees with the Roman people and of Aristaeus with Octavian,^[45] sees in the bees' "resurrection" an image of the

[44] Benefacta had particular currency as a political term in the Roman party system. Cf. David Ross, Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry (Cambridge, 1969), 83–86.

[45] E.g., Perret, 83–85; Steele Commager, ed., Virgil: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York, 1966), 3; Hellfried Dahlmann, "Die Bienenstaat in Vergils Georgica, " in Kleinen Schriften (Hildesheim, 1970), 189.

rebirth of Rome under the leadership of Octavian. The perceived optimism of the poem as a whole resides especially in this conclusion to Book 4, where the miraculous birth of the bees is felt to resolve the tensions of the poem and to portend a positive future. This reading, although of long standing, has begun to meet with objections, for the bees appear seriously flawed as models of a renewed Golden Age.^[46] Rather the portrait of them is a complex one in which strengths and weaknesses combine to form a morally ambiguous picture, identifying the bees as typical Iron Age creatures rather than as models for a moral Golden Age.

The Georgic poet devotes a disproportionate space to bees, given their relative lack of importance on a farm. Other small farm animals, such as dogs or fowl, omitted from this book, would reasonably deserve equal treatment. In addition, as Hellfried Dahlmann usefully noted,^[47] the jussive form of the verb is infrequent in this passage, suggesting that here, as elsewhere, the Georgic poet does not have a conventional didactic purpose in mind. His focus is descriptive rather than prescriptive. It is the character of the bees' life, as he describes it, that is the focus of interest. His account derives in part from traditional wisdom about the bees and in part from an interest in certain of their behaviors that seem particularly Roman or, perhaps, in which Romans might well see themselves reflected, if obliquely and with some distance and perspective.

Aristotle (Hist. an. 5.21–23) classified bees with wasps, cranes, and men as political (living in a polis ) and as having shared work (koinon ergon ). Equally Varro (3.16.3, 3.16.6) noted their similarities to human beings and especially their talent for cooperative effort.

In the Georgics the analogy between bees and human beings is unmistakable from the book's opening verses, with their references to magnanimosque duces . . . et populos et proelia:

[46] Putnam, Poem of the Earth, 244–63, and Griffin, "Fourth Georgic, " passim, write perceptively on the bees' flaws.

[47] Dahlmann, 186.

admiranda tibi levium spectacula rerum
magnanimosque duces totiusque ordine gentis
mores et studia et populos et proelia dicam.
(4.3–5)

I'll tell of tiny
Things that make a show well worth your admiration—
Great-hearted leaders, a whole nation whose work is planned,
Their morals, strivings, tribes and battles—I'll tell you in due order.

Parallels between the bees' existence and that of human beings are clear. Jove establishes for both the laboring way of life:

Nunc age, naturas apibus quas Iuppiter ipse
addidit expediam, pro qua mercede canoros
Curetum sonitus crepitantiaque aera secutae
Dictaeo caeli regem pavere sub antro.
(4.149–52)

Well then, let me speak of the natural gifts that Jove himself
Bestowed on the bees, their reward
For obeying the charms—the chorus and clashing brass of the priests—
And feeding the king of heaven when he hid in that Cretan cave.

(Cf. 1.121–24, cited on p. 96.) This intervention also entails cura (4.178), amor (4.177), ars (4.56), labor (4.184), pursuit of gloria (4.205), all without rest (mora 4.185): a collocation of features that defines the Iron Age as represented in this poem. Like men, bees have tiny enemies who undermine their labor (4.13ff., 242ff., cf. 1.118–21, 176–86); they suffer from plague (casus . . . nostros, "our ills" 4.251). All these features suggest their similarity to mankind in general.

In other ways their ordered and religious society is represented as specifically Roman, as the terms larem (43), magnis . . . legibus (154), patriam and penates (155) suffice to suggest.^[48]

In their sharing the bees certainly recall the Golden Age. Their lives are very much communal experiences:

[48] Contrast Thomas at 4.201 concerning Quirites .

solae communis natos, consortia tecta
urbis habent
(4.153–54)

They alone have their children in common, a city shared
Beneath one roof

et in medium quaesita reponunt^[49
] (4.157)

and put their gains into a common store

omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus
(4.184)

For one and all one work-time and alike one rest from work.

Chastity, though not specifically a Golden Age feature, also distinguishes the bees from the Iron Age creatures of Book 3. The bees are apparently free of those destructive passions that characterize all other mortal creatures (amor omnibus idem 3.244). The poet emphasizes the bees' reputation for chastity by adducing the least scientific of contemporary hypotheses to explain their reproduction:

verum ipsae e foliis natos, e suavibus herbis
ore legunt, ipsae regem parvosque Quirites
sufficiunt
(4.200–2)

But all by themselves from leaves and sweet herbs they will gather
Their children in their mouths, themselves supply the succession
And the tiny citizens.

(Cf. the suggestive contrast of apibus fetis, "mother bees" 4.139).

The issue to consider is whether the bees' undeniable Roman and Golden Age features suggest that the Romans, to the degree to which they are symbolized by the bees, have or are to have a new Golden Age. Although some have assumed that the bees

[49] Putnam, Poem of the Earth, 254, writes interestingly on the differences between quaerebant (1.127) and reponunt (4.157), inferring from reponunt that "the bees' existence is a decline from, rather than a reversion to, the Golden Age."

represent a Roman society perfected and renewed,^[50] others have written perceptively about the bees' flaws, which are incompatible with a humane and creative society. The bees' undeniable virtues are in tension with failings that compromise them as moral models. For the Romans, therefore, the bees' flaws might be as instructive as their virtues; for while they embody to a degree a social and moral ideal, they represent equally a life without consciousness or pity.

The poet implies that the bees' sharing is achieved at the cost of individuality and reflection. For example, once their king dies, they are lost, incapable of individual or reflective action. Here total community is not necessarily a good, as it can lead to total self-destruction:

praeterea regem non sic Aegyptus et ingens
Lydia nec populi Parthorum aut Medus Hydaspes
observant. rege incolumi mens omnibus una est;
amisso rupere fidem, constructaque mella
diripuere ipsae et cratis solvere favorum.
ille operum custos, illum admirantur et omnes
circumstant fremitu denso stipantque frequentes,
et saepe attollunt umeris et corpora bello
obiectant pulchramque petunt per vulnera mortem.
(4.210–18)

Besides, they esteem royalty more than Egypt does or enormous
Lydia even, or the peoples of Parthia, or the Mede by Hydaspes.
Let the king be safe—they are bound by a single faith and purpose:
Lose him—then unity's gone, and they loot the honey cells
They built themselves, and break down the honeycomb's withy well.
Guardian of all their works he is. They hold him in awe.
Thick is their humming murmur as they crowd around and mob him.
Often they chair him shoulder high: and in war they shelter
His body with theirs, desiring the wounds of a noble death.

[50] So Antonio La Penna, "Senex Corycius, " in Atti del Convegno Virgiliano sul Bimillenario delle Georgiche (Naples, 1977), 65: "That the society of the bees constitutes an ethical-political Augustan model is a truth which does not need to be confirmed."

Their uncritical obedience to their king is made to parallel that of the peoples of the (decadent, effeminate) East, whom the Romans did not admire and whose values were fundamentally opposed to Roman republican tradition. Thus, uniform community comes with a certain cost.

A lack of thoughtfulness in the bees accompanies their militarism. Bees' similarities to soldiers are implicit in such terms as signa ("standards" 108), castris ("camp" 108), speculantur ("are on watch" 166), custodia ("keeping guard" 165), agmine facto ("in martial array" 167) and in 4.193–94, which suggests military maneuvers and soldiers in a besieged town. The poet has imagined or created for bees this militaristic character since bees do not, in reality, behave as belligerently as is indicated here. The bee battle is a "literary flight of fancy"^[51] that creates a correlation between militarism and absence of reflection. Bees prepare with excitement (4.69–70, 73) for wars without substance, sacrificing their lives with alacrity in battles that have no urgency (cf. animasque in vulnere ponunt 238). They die for glory, for the appearance of "beautiful" death (pulchra mors 218), thus adhering to the heroic code.^[52] Yet to the poet their dramas appear more pathetic than heroic:

hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta
pulveris exigui iactu compresses quiescent.
(4.86–87)

And all these epic battles and turbulent hearts you can silence
By flinging a handful of dust.

Further complicating the bees' claimed status as figures of moral renewal is that their lauded continence and lack of passion is more apparent than real, since they seem merely to have replaced sexual amor with another sort, that is, passion for gain:

illum adeo placuisse apibus mirabere morem,
quod neque concubitu indulgent, nec corpora segnes
in Venerem solvunt aut fetus nixibus edunt.
(4.197–99)

[51] Wilkinson, Georgics, 2.63. Cf. Klingner, Virgil, 304, on the epic language used to describe the bee battle, as well as other differences from Varro's account.

[52] Quinn, 1–22.

Most you shall marvel at this habit peculiar to bees—
That they have no sexual union: their bodies never dissolve
Lax into love, nor bear with pangs the birth of their young

Cecropias innatus apes  amor  urget habendi
(4.177)

An inborn love of possession impels the bees

(In Aen. 8.327 in the narration of Evander amor habendi, "love of gain,"^[53] and belli rabies, "madness of war," bring about the dissolution of the Golden Age.) That the poet intends to represent the gathering of honey as a substitute for sexual activity is further indicated by the use of terms that denote passion and birth:

tantus amor florum et  generandi  gloria mellis
(4.205)

Such is their love for flowers and the glory of producing
[generating] honey.

Thus, although bees do not weaken their bodies with sexual activity (198–199), they do expend them in battle (218) or in pursuit of honey (205) without consideration of their lives' value. Therefore the same drive that appears as sexual passion in other animals is expressed in the bees' lives as an urgent acquisitiveness or materialism and an unreflecting negligence of life (204, 218) in pursuit of glory.

While, then, the bees have the Golden Age virtues of community and sharing, in their case these come at the cost of their militaristic and appetitive passions. Although they are as flawed as human beings, yet they are without human virtues, such as song or poetry, which distinguish man from beast and serve to define human culture. Neglectful of individual lives, without individual satisfaction or sentiment, they achieve mere existence, existence without meaning. In comparison to the other important figures of this book, they are anonymous and lacking the unique creativity and devotion to beauty of the Corycian gar-

[53] See Johnston, 101, who cites parallels: amor terrae of plants at G. 2.301; amor laudum of horses at G. 3.112, 185–86.

dener, the individual persistence of Aristaeus, and the potential for song and beauty of Orpheus. The bees as well as the human individuals of Book 4 have powerful and destructive passions that exist in tension with their virtues and achievements. None of these figures is a model for flawless existence; all embody conflicts that are illuminated but not resolved by the Georgic poet.