John Dryden’s translations of Virgil’s Aeneid and Georgics engage with an early modern discourse of reproduction that encouraged maximizing production while warning against disorderly generativity. While Virgil and Dryden both had political reasons to be invested in patrilineage, their shared interest in Epicureanism, with its denial of life after death, may have driven these poets to search for an alternative form of immortality in reproduction. Dryden’s choices as a translator reveal cultural anxieties around women’s role in procreation and suggest a preference for adoption as a model for reproductive success because it allows women to be cut out of the process. Ultimately, Aeneas’ decision to identify with his deceased, adopted son rather than his living biological son in the poem’s final lines suggests a turning away from futurity and acceptance of death.

约翰·德莱顿（John Dryden）对维吉尔（Virgil）的《埃涅伊德与乔治》（Georgics）的翻译参与早期的现代繁殖学说，该学说鼓励最大程度地生产，同时警告不要乱世代。虽然维吉尔和德莱顿都有政治上的理由要投资于父系制，但他们对伊壁鸠鲁主义的共同兴趣以及死后的生命剥夺，可能促使这些诗人在生殖中寻求永生的另一种形式。德莱登（Dryden）担任翻译的选择揭示了围绕女性在生殖方面的作用的文化焦虑，并暗示了偏爱采用这种方式作为生殖成功的典范，因为它可以使女性脱离这一过程。最终，埃涅阿斯决定在诗的最后几句话中与死者的被收养的儿子相识，而不是与生下的亲生儿子相识，这表明人们放弃了对未来的理解和对死亡的接受。