The Eclogues

One of the most important forces in Virgil’s Eclogues is not an action at all, but rather a lack of action. Virgil’s shepherds share a love of leisure. Virgil depicts them not hard at work driving goats or tilling fields, but rather in in-between moments, lounging in the shade or enjoying the rustling of leaves as they create songs and enjoy time with their lovers.

In Latin, this concept is called otium, which literally means “leisure time” but also has connotations of a more general peace—freedom from war and violence, the constraints of money and time. This freedom to be “lazy” is a crucial enabler of Arcadia’s lifestyle; the shepherds are only free to compose their songs because they are unimpeded by earthly restraints. It is, in fact, a sign that something is seriously wrong when one of Virgil’s shepherds insists on work over otium. In Eclogue 9, Virgil emphasizes Moeris’s world-weariness with his desire to refrain from singing (Lines 66-67).

This love of leisure had philosophical and personal implications for Virgil and his Roman audience. One prominent philosophical school of the time, Epicureanism (which Virgil himself subscribed to as a youth), emphasized freedom from pain and prioritization of pleasure.