Appendix Vergiliana

Culex

Ciris
Copa
Moretum
Dirae
Lydia
Priapea 
Catalepton



Zijn de werken in de Appendix van Vergilius? Daar breken de geleerden zich graag het hoofd over.
Eerst maar eens de Culex.
Suetonius/Donatus, Martialis en Lucanus beweren of gaan er van uit dat de Culex een werk van Vergilius is. De geleerden van onze tijd zijn verdeeld in hun mening. H.J. Rose in zijn A Handbook of Latin Literature: ... the author is not Vergil but some foolish pedant with a certain knack of turning verse.
Kox is niet overtuigd door de argumenten van Rose. Kox vindt het een heel aardig gedicht. Als het niet van Vergilius is, is het van iemand anders. Het gedicht blijft dan nog steeds heel aardig. Daarom maakt hij een werkvertaling, en misschien ook nog wel een dichterlijke vertaling. De Culex is nog nooit in het Nederlands vertaald! Wat een uitdaging!
Over de andere gedichten uit de Appendix later meer ... 

Fragment: Vita Vergiliana van Aelius Donatus:

Poeticam puer adhuc auspicatus in Ballistam ludi magistrum ob infamiam latrociniorum coopertum lapidibus distichon fecit:

"monte sub hoc lapidum tegitur Ballista sepultus;
nocte die tutum carpe viator iter."

deinde Catalepton et Priapeia et Epigrammata et Diras, item Cirim et Culicem, cum esset annorum XXVI. Cuius materia talis est. Pastor fatigatur aestu; cum sub arbore condormisset et serpens ad eum proreperet, e palude culex provolavit atque inter duo tempora aculeum fixit pastori. At ille continuo culicem contrivit et serpentem interemit ac sepulchrum culici statuit et distichon fecit:

"Parve culex, pecudum custos tibi tale merenti
funeris officium vitae pro munere reddit."

Scripsit etiam de qua ambigitur Aetnam.

Fragment uit Suetonius: The Life of Vergil
This Life, which survives in Donatus' commentary, is attributed to Suetonius.
Loeb Translation, 1913

He made his first attempt at poetry when he was still a boy, composing the following couplet on a schoolmaster called Ballista, who was stoned to death because of his evil reputation for brigandage:

" Under this mountain of stones Ballista is covered and buried
Wayfarer, now night and day follow your course without fear."

Then he wrote the "Catalepton," "Priapea," "Epigrams" and the "Dirae," as well as the "Ciris " and the "Culex" when he was sixteen years old. The story of the "Culex" is this. When a shepherd exhausted by the heat, had fallen asleep under a tree, and a snake was creeping upon him, a bat flew from a marsh and stung the shepherd between his two temples; he at once crushed the gnat and killed the snake; then he made a tomb for the insect, inscribed with this couplet:

'Thee, tiny gnat, well deserving, the flock's grateful keeper now offers
For the gift of his life due funeral rites in requital."

He also wrote the "Aetna," though its authorship is disputed.