Virgil, the one whom the professors call the swan of Mantua, certainly because that is not where he was born, appeared to him as one of the most unbearable nuisances that antiquity has ever produced, as well as one of the most terrible pedants . His shepherds all neat and dressed up, who take turns inundating each other with sentient and cold verses, his Orpheus whom he compares to a nightingale in tears, his Aristaeus who whimpers about bees, his Aeneas, character indecisive and inconstant who moves like a Chinese shadow, with wooden gestures, behind the transparent and poorly oiled poem, exasperated him. (Joris-Karl Huysmans)

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Virgil, the one whom the professors call the swan of Mantua, certainly because that is not where he was born, appeared to him as one of the most unbearable nuisances that antiquity has ever produced, as well as one of the most terrible pedants . His shepherds all neat and dressed up, who take turns inundating each other with sentient and cold verses, his Orpheus whom he compares to a nightingale in tears, his Aristaeus who whimpers about bees, his Aeneas, character indecisive and inconstant who moves like a Chinese shadow, with wooden gestures, behind the transparent and poorly oiled poem, exasperated him. (Joris-Karl Huysmans)" in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.