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Georgics
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===Book Four=== [[File:Virgil,_Georgics,_Vaticanus_Palatinus_lat._1632.jpg|thumb|Fourth book of Virgil's ''Georgics'' in ms. [[Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana]], Vaticanus Palatinus lat. 1632, fol. 51v.|upright=1]] Book four, a tonal counterpart to book two, is divided approximately in half; the first half (1β280) is didactic and deals with the life and habits of bees, as a model for human society. Bees resemble man in that their labour is devoted to a king and they give their lives for the sake of the community, but they lack the arts and love. In spite of their labour, the bees perish and the entire colony dies. The restoration of the bees is accomplished by [[bugonia]], spontaneous rebirth from the carcass of an ox. This process is described twice in the second half (281β568) and frames the [[Aristaeus]] [[epyllion]] beginning at line 315. The tone of the book changes from didactic to epic and [[elegiac]] in this epyllion, which contains within it the story of [[Orpheus and Eurydice]]. Aristaeus, after losing his bees, descends to the home of his mother, the nymph [[Cyrene (mythology)|Cyrene]], where he is given instructions on how to restore his colonies. He must capture the seer [[Proteus]] and force him to reveal which divine spirit he angered and how to restore his bee colonies. After binding Proteus (who changes into many forms to no avail), Aristaeus is told by the seer that he angered the nymphs by causing the death of the nymph Eurydice, wife of [[Orpheus]]. Proteus describes the descent of Orpheus into the underworld to retrieve [[Eurydice]], the backward look that caused her return to [[Tartarus]], and at last Orpheus' death at the hands of the [[Ciconian]] women. Book four concludes with an eight-line [[Sphragis (literary device)|sphragis]], or seal, in which Virgil contrasts his life of poetry with that of Octavian the general.
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