'Six Months of Tribute"

When the 2,000th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth rolls round ( 1634 years hence) most Anglo-Saxons may have all but forgotten him, though Germans will surely stage tremendous demonstrations for "Unser Shakespeare."/- But Italy does not have to wait to celebrate the 2,000th birthday of her bard. From toe to top of the boot-shaped Peninsula, last week, prefects of provinces and podestas (mayors) proclaimed the beginning of "six months of tribute" to Virgil.

Just 2,000 years ago come October 15, was born on a farm near Mantua, Publius Vergilius Maro, greatest Roman poet, suave and brilliant favorite of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, frequent guest of Tycoon Maecenas. From now on until Virgil's 2,000th birthday in October Italian gardeners will be furiously busy planting the Lucus Virgili or "Virgilian Wood," a great new park on the outskirts of Mantua, a modern version of the sacred groves of the ancient Romans, who planted groves of trees which in aspiring to heaven might honor their gods, goddesses. Because Poet Virgil mentioned 25,000 trees, shrubs and plants in his lengthy lays, specimens of all these are being planted in the Lucas.

Naples, where the poet loved to write, and Brindisi where he died, will also observe impressively the "six months of tribute."

/- Rightly do Teutons call the English bard "Our Shakespeare," for they have made him theirs. More performances of his plays are given throughout Germany each winter than in all the rest of the world in a decade.

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