The Bee-Master of Warrilow

MP3 Audio CD. Chapter I



The Honeybee and the old Writers.



"While the great Cesar is like a lightning,

up at the Euphrates

earmarked ............

at that time the pleasant fed

Parthenope me, Virgil, who

in d'exercisee of an unknown

idleness grew ........

(Vergilius-Vondel, Georgica IV)



In Naples-the Parthenope of the ancients-"the best book by the best poet" was written nearly two thousand years ago. For Virgil, the heady, the most refined, but above all else, the apostle of "Simple Life," chose to lead a peaceful existence between his lemon groves and his beehives. In this way he wanted it, while he could have been in the center of glory and honor, in the capital of the Romans; for his friend and patron Maecenas, Prime Minister of Octavian, held open court for all that was great in literature and art.

By modern beekeepers, to Americanization, nowadays little attention is paid to the writings of the man mentioned by Bacon: "the purest and most princely of all poets, who have lived since time immemorial."

And yet, when asked: "Which book is best given first to the pupil-thrower?" Then one can not make a better choice than just that fourth book of the Georgica.

For Virgil immediately reaches the heart of the matter, which is still the same as two thousand years ago: the bee-keeper must first of all feel for bees, or he will never succeed.

And Vergil's love for his bees shines through the whole book from the beginning to the end. It is, of course, that with a writer so full of Greek influences one must expect to find in his work a faithful account of most of the errors made immortal by Aristotle about three hundred years before.