Abstract
The episode of the beekeeper Aristaeus in Book IV of Virgil’s Georgics is the most striking manifestation of the generic complexity of this extraordinary work. The story of Aristaeus forms an enclave within the poem, yet is organically linked to it and plays a full part in the unity of the innovative literary object that is the Georgics. He deepens this graft by extending to the sublime a lyrical vein which culminates in the embedded story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and hybridizes in a fusion with epic verse, the didactic foundation and the bucolic antecedents of the work. Through the adventure of Aristaeus, the princeps beekeeper of Western literature, Virgil’s entire poetic, political and philosophical ideal is defined.
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