The first eclogue opens with an exposition, put in the mouth of Meliboeus (1.1–5):

These five lines receive two and a half pages in Coleman's commentary, five in Clausen's, six in the recent commentary by Cucchiarelli, and eighteen in Paraskeviotis's unpublished thesis on the Eclogues’ sources.Footnote ¹ Yet on the central line and a half (3–4a), in which Meliboeus speaks about himself rather than Tityrus, only Cucchiarelli spends more (but only slightly more) than half a page. For lines 1–2 and 4b–5, focussed on Tityrus, numerous intertexts have been suggested: Theocritus 1.1–3 and 7.88–9, Lucretius 4.589 and 5.1398, Meleager, AP 7.196.2, Callimachus, Aetia fr. 73 Pfeiffer, to list the most important ones.Footnote ² No allusion seems to have been detected in 3–4a.

This intertextual vacuum can arguably be filled by two similar contexts in Tyrtaeus’ fragments. It seems no coincidence that Meliboeus speaks of his exile in such a way as to evoke, firstly, Tyrtaeus’ account of the fate of the Messenians after the first Messenian war (fr. 5 West):

In a sense, the pronounced opposition of Tityrus (tu) and Meliboeus (nos)—the former continuing to enjoy the bucolic world, the latter leaving it—can be read against that of the victorious Spartans and the conquered Messenians: the agricultural paradise of Messenia is gained by the former while lost by the latter (fr. 5.2–3 West). Secondly, Meliboeus’ words are paralleled in a passage warning against the same fate that now, as the second Messenian war is fought, threatens in turn the Spartans (Tyrtaeus, fr. 10.1–6 West):Footnote ³

The two Tyrtaean contexts clearly parallel each other.Footnote ⁴ Virgil combines elements specific to either of them: the hendiadys patriae finis et … arua is closer to the wording of fr. 10.3 πόλιν καὶ … ἀγρούς, whereas fugimus corresponds to fr. 5.8 φεῦγον.

Moreover, both fragments elicit further resonances in the rest of the eclogue. Most conspicuously, just as the annexation of the Messenians’ fertile lands was not a mere by-product of the war, but the expressed goal (fr. 5.2–3 West), so Meliboeus’ well-cultivated farm is not just abandoned, but confiscated in favour of a barbarous soldier (1.70–3):

Since in the first eclogue non-bucolic themes intrude, it is hardly surprising that Virgil should look for intertexts in other genres.Footnote ⁵ But the appearance of Tyrtaeus may require some explanation. To begin with, it is not clear how much of his poetry was available to Virgil.Footnote ⁶ Yet, while it can be doubted that Virgil had access to the complete corpus of Tyrtaeus’ works,Footnote ⁷ the circulation in the first century b.c. of a single-book collection,Footnote ⁸ or at least of an anthology including elegies by Tyrtaeus, does not seem unlikely. Horace is the only classical Latin poet who explicitly refers to Tyrtaeus (Ars P. 401–3 post hos insignis Homerus | Tyrtaeusque mares animos in Martia bella | uersibus exacuit). While the context in the Ars Poetica does not betray first-hand acquaintance with Tyrtaeus’ poetry, points of contact with the surviving fragments have been suggested in Horace's ode 3.2.Footnote ⁹ Most relevantly, line 13 dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is arguably modelled on the first couplet of fr. 10, a fragment that likewise appears to be alluded to in the eclogue: if Horace knew it, Virgil is likely to have known it as well.

But why does Virgil choose Tyrtaeus? Is Tyrtaean elegy a mere inert source of motifs and imagery, or is it meant to have a recognizable voice in the Eclogues’ intertextual polyphony? Apart from the obvious fact that dispossession of agricultural land is at issue in both texts, two reasons make Tyrtaeus a particularly relevant intertext. First, there is possibly a geographical connection. In an epic-like passage, Virgil heavily emphasizes the geography of exile: Africa, Scythia and Britain are likely destinations for Meliboeus and the likes of him (1.61–6). By contrast, though this information is absent from the extant fragments of Tyrtaeus, among the places that sheltered the Messenian exiles were Arcadia and Sicily.Footnote ¹⁰ The Messenians, as it were, take refuge in Virgil's bucolic world, which Meliboeus is about to leave. In a sense, the penetrability of geographic borders mirrors that of generic boundaries.Footnote ¹¹ Second, and perhaps more importantly, the Roman civil wars find a much closer analogue in the conflict between Sparta and Messenia than, for instance, in the Trojan war. It is against this similarity of situations that the difference between Virgil's and Tyrtaeus’ attitudes becomes especially pointed.

For Tyrtaeus, there are two sides in the conflict, with no prospect of reconciliation: the victory of one side means exile or enslavement for the other. Moreover, Tyrtaeus is no impartial observer: his aim is to stir up the Spartans against the Messenians, even though he is able to see that the same fate awaits either side in the case of defeat. Virgil's world is more complex. Both Meliboeus and Tityrus belong to the defeated side, though neither was directly involved in the civil war. Both could lose their land, but it is only Meliboeus who actually does. Tityrus, on the contrary, is able not only to keep his land, but also to leave slavery.Footnote ¹² While Tyrtaeus’ ideological stance is more than straightforward, Virgil's position towards his characters is notoriously ambiguous.

The ‘two voices’ paradigm, initially used to interpret the Aeneid, has been fruitfully applied to the first eclogue: Tityrus’ optimistic and Meliboeus’ pessimistic voices clearly form a relationship of counterpoint.Footnote ¹³ A further, more specific extrapolation seems possible. It has been suggested that each of the Aeneid's two voices can be associated with a particular genre.Footnote ¹⁴ Likewise, in the first eclogue Tyrtaean motifs do not create a neutral intertextual background, but primarily contribute to shaping the part of one character, Meliboeus.Footnote ¹⁵ It is Meliboeus who, like Tyrtaeus, thinks in polarities,Footnote ¹⁶ and lives in a world in which the loser loses everything. It is Meliboeus who, in accordance with Tyrtaeus’ warning, goes into exile, where he is to be followed—the fragment goes on—by all manner of misfortune (fr. 10.7–10 West):

Indeed, on top of everything, Meliboeus has just been forced to abandon two new-born kids, spem gregis (1.15). Yet, eventually the Tyrtaean paradigm, established at the eclogue's very beginning, is broken. For Tyrtaeus, the exile will be unwelcome to everyone he encounters (fr. 10.7 West): as if to refute this, the eclogue closes with Tityrus inviting Meliboeus to stay overnight with him (1.79–81).Footnote ¹⁷