almost accepts Servius' suggestion: "un résumé de ses lectures et de ses
études."]

After an introduction to Varus the poem tells how two shepherds found
Silenus off his guard, bound him, and demanded songs that he had long
promised. The reader will recall, of course, how Plato also likened his
teacher Socrates to Silenus. Silenus sang indeed till hills and valleys
thrilled with the music: of creation of sun and moon, the world of
living things, the golden age, and of the myths of Prometheus, Phaeton,
Pasiphaë, and many others; he even sang of how Gallus had been captured
by the Muses and been made a minister of Apollo.

A strange pastoral it has seemed to many! And yet not so strange when we
bear in mind that the books of Philodemus reveal Vergil and Quintilius
Varus as fellow students at Naples. Surely Servius has provided the key.
The whole poem, with its references to old myths, is merely a rehearsal
of schoolroom reminiscences, as might have been guessed from the fine
Lucretian rhythms with which it begins:

Namque canebat, uti magnum per inane coacta
Semina terrarumque animaeque marisque fuissent
Et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis
Omnia et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis;
Tum durare solum et discludere Nerea ponto
Coeperit, et rerum paulatim sumere formas;
Iamque novum terrae stupeant lucescere solem.
Altius atque cadant summotis nubibus imbres;
Incipiant silvae cum primum surgere, cumque
Rara per ignaros errent animalia montis.