Sound and Silence in Calpurnius Siculus

This article examines the rupture of pastoral exchange between human music and natural sound, familiar from Theocritus and Vergil, as well as the later Western pastoral, in the Eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus. Calpurnius’ focus on nature as obstructive, and on the importance of silence to composition of song, is a distinctive feature of his pastoral poetics that builds on moments of discord between man and nature in Vergil’s Eclogues. The appearance of the motif in the poetry of Calpurnius’ successor, Nemesianus, alongside the better-known motif of cooperation between man and nature in creating music, sheds light on the alternative trajectory in the development of the pastoral tradition.