AITCHISON'S HONEY HARVEST IS THE BEST EVER

Virgil’s description of the behaviour of bees in Georgics: Book IV is sometimes taken as a comment on the civil war just coming to an end when the poem was written. The Roman belief in the spontaneous generation of bees from the bodies of sacrificed bullocks serves as a convenient metaphor, perhaps, for Virgil’s faith in the political and moral renewal of Rome under Octavian; the bees’ loyalty and selflessness can be seen as a paradigm of the co-operation on which security and survival depend. But Virgil’s poem is not just about moving from the arts of war to those of peace. John Dryden’s translation of 1697 helped establish it as one of the foundational texts of the pastoral tradition whose healing promise of rural paradise has haunted poets ever since.  And so it should haunt humankind, which would falter in the absence of bees.