University of California Berkeley 
 
THE gEORgiCS OF VIRgiL 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 OF rmgiL 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE 
 LATIN INTO ENGLISH BT 
 J. W.tJMACKAIL FELLOW OF 
 BALLIOL COLLEGE OXFORD 
 
 ilium nostri possunt 
 mutare labores 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 The ^Riverside 'Tress 
 
 
This edition is issued by special permission of 
 . <*Jl4ackail' s English publishers. 
 
GEORGICS. BOOK I. 
 
 HAT makes the cornfields glad ; beneath 
 what star it befits to upturn the ground, 
 z^Waecenas, and clasp the vine to her 
 elm ; the tending of oxen and the charge of the keeper 
 ofajlock; and all the skill of thrifty bees ; of this 
 will I begin to sing. Tou, O bright splendours of the 
 world, who lead on the rolling year through heaven ; 
 Liber and gracious Ceres, if by your gift Earth ex- 
 changed Chaonian acorns for the swelling ear, and 
 tempered her draughts of^Achelous with the discov- 
 ered grape ; and you, O Fauns, guardian presences 
 of the country, trip it together, Fauns and ^Dryad 
 girls; of your gifts I sing. ^4nd thou, Neptune, at 
 whose mighty trident- stroke Earth first bore the 
 neighing steed; and thou, O forester, whose three 
 
 7 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 hundred snow-white bullocks crop the rich Cean 
 brakes; even thou 9 leaving thy native woodland and 
 thy Lycean lawns, Tan of Tegea, shepherd of the 
 Hock, so thou love thy^Maenalus, be gracious and 
 come ; and ^Minerva inventress of the olive, and 
 thou, boy teacher of the crooked plough, and Silvanus 
 carrying thy slim cypress uprooted; gods and god- 
 desses all who keep the fields in your care, or who 
 feed the fresh plants from no sown seed, or who send 
 down on the crops plentiful rain from heaven; and 
 thou, whatsoever place thou art soon to hold in the 
 gods' consistory, whether thou wilt look on cities and 
 have earth in keeping, and the vast world receive 
 thee as fosterer of harvests and sovereign of seasons, 
 and wreathe thy brows with thy mother s myrtle; or 
 whether thou come as god of the infinite sea, and thy 
 deity only be adored of sailors, to thee utmost Thule 
 be tributary, thy hand Tethys purchase for her daugh- 
 ter with dower of all her waves ; or whether thou set 
 thyself as a new sign among the lingering months, 
 where space opens between Erigone and the follow- 
 ing Claws, while before thee the blazing Scorpion 
 draws in his arms, and retreats from more than the 
 allotted space of heaven; whatso thou wilt be -for 
 
 8 
 
BOOK I 
 
 hell cannot hope thy reign, nor may so dread a desire 
 of reigning ever be thine, though Cj-reece be enrapt in 
 her Elysian plains, and Proserpine care not to fol- 
 low the mother who calls her back : grant a fair pas- 
 sage, and favour my bold endeavour, and with me 
 pitying the countryfolk who know not of the way, ad- 
 vance, and even now learn to be called on inprayer. 
 N early spring, when chilly moisture trickles 
 from the hoar hills and the crumbling clod 
 thaws in the west wind, even then would I 
 have the bull begin to groan over the deep-driven 
 plough and the share glitter with polish of the fur- 
 row. That field at last replies to the greedy farmer s 
 prayers, which has twice felt the sun, twice the frost; 
 that bursts his granaries with overflowing harvests. 
 But ere yet our iron cleaves the unknown plain, 
 be our care first to learn the winds, and the sky's 
 shifting mood, and the ground's native nurture and 
 dress, and what each quarter will bear and what 
 each will rejeSt. Here corn, there grapes come more 
 prosperously ; yonder the tree drops her seedlings, 
 and unbidden grasses kindle into green. Seest thou 
 not how Tmolus sends scent of saffron, India ivory, 
 the soft Sabaeans their spice ; but the naked Chaly- 
 
 9 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 bes steel 9 and Tontus the castor drug, Epirus mares 
 for Elean palms ? From of old Nature laid such 
 laws upon certain regions, an everlasting covenant, 
 what time ^Deucalion of old cast on the unpeopled 
 globe those stones whence the hard race of man was 
 born. Come therefore, from the first months of the 
 year straightway let the strong bulls upturn the rich 
 floor of earth, and the full strength of summer suns 
 bake the flat clods to dust. But if the land be not 
 fertile, it will serve to ridge it by shallow furrows 
 hard on <Arfturus rising ; there, lest weeds choke 
 the corn's luxuriance ; here, lest scant moisture leave 
 a barren waste of sand. 
 
 In turn likewise shall thou let the stubbles lie fal- 
 low, and the idle field crust over unstirred; or else 
 there under changed skies sow golden spelt, where 
 before thou hadst reaped the pea with wealth of rat- 
 tling pods, or the tiny vetch crop, or the brittle stalks 
 and rustling underwood of the bitter lupin. For the 
 field is drained by flax-harvest and wheat-harvest, 
 drained by the slumber-steeped poppy of Lethe, but 
 yet rotation lightens the labour; only scorn not to 
 soak the dry soil with fattening dung, nor to scatter 
 grimy ashes over the exhausted lands. Thus too the 
 
 10 
 
BOOK I 
 
 fields find rest in change of crop; nor meanwhile 
 are thanks lost on unploughed land. Often likewise 
 it is well to burn barren fields and consume the light 
 stubble in crackling fiame: whether that earth thence 
 conceives secret strength and sustenance, or all her 
 evil is melted away and her useless moisture sweats 
 out in the fire ; or that the heat opens more of these 
 dufts and blind pores that carry her juices to the 
 fresh herbage ; or rather hardens and binds her gap- 
 ing veins against fine rain or the fierce suns mastery 
 or the frostbite of the searching North. 
 
 (jreat service withal he does the fields who breaks 
 their dull clods with the mattock and drags osier hur- 
 dles over them, nor from high Olympus does golden 
 Ceres regard him in vain ; or he who, raising ridges 
 along the furrowed plain, again turns his plough to 
 break them across, and labours earth incessantly and 
 makes the fields own his sway. 
 
 Tray for dripping midsummers and clear winters, 
 O husbandmen ; from winter dust the spelt grows 
 strongest, and the field is glad; never does (JTWysia 
 triumph in such pride of tillage, or (jargarus him- 
 self wonder at his harvests. Why tell of him, who, 
 when the seed is cast, follows close over the field 
 
 ii 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 and breaks down the lumps of sticky soil? then guides 
 over the crops chasing runlets from the river; and 
 when the blade is dying on the scorched and feverous 
 field, look ! on the brow of the slope he lures the wave 
 from her channel; the falling wave wakens a hoarse 
 chatter among the smooth pebbles, and gushes cool 
 over the parched fields. Why of him, who, lest the 
 stalk sink prone under the heavy ear, grazes dozvn 
 the rankness of the cornfield in the tender blade, when 
 the crop first levels the furrow? or who gathers and 
 drains away the moisture of the marsh with porous 
 gravel, above all if in the doubtful months the floods 
 go out on the river, covering all the broad flats with 
 mud, and leave pools steaming with warm moisture 
 in the hollows. 
 
 Nor yet, though labours of men and oxen have so 
 wrought in turning the soil, are the villain goose and 
 Strymonian crane and the bitter-fibred succory un- 
 availing to injure, or the shade to harm. Our Lord 
 himself willed the way of tillage to be hard, and long 
 ago set art to stir the fields, sharpening the wits of 
 man ivith care, nor suffered his realm to slumber in 
 heavy torpor. Before Jove no tillers made the fields 
 subject; not even might the plain be parted by land- 
 
 12 
 
BOOK I 
 
 mark or boundary line ; men gathered to a common 
 store, and unaided and unasked earth lore all things 
 in a fuller plenty . He it was who gave the black 
 snake his venom, and bade wolves ravin and the sea 
 be tossed, who shook the honey from the leaves and 
 tookjire away, and stopped the brooks that ran wan- 
 dering with wine : that so practice and pondering 
 might slowly forge out many an art, might seek the 
 corn-blade in the furrow and strike hidden jire from 
 the veins of flint. Then first rivers felt the hollowed 
 alder, then the sailor gave the stars their number and 
 name, Tleiads and Hyades and the bright Lyca- 
 onian Bear. Then was invented the snare to catch 
 game and the treacherous lime-twig, and the ring 
 of dogs round the wide forest-lawn ; and even now 
 one whips the wide stream and searches the pool with 
 his casting-net, and another draws his lines drip- 
 ping from the sea. Then rigid iron and the blade of 
 the shrill saw came for they of old split wood in 
 clefts with wedges then arts many in sort; no- 
 thing but yielded to unrelenting toil and the hard 
 pressure of poverty. Ceres first instructed mortals to 
 upturn earth with iron, when now acorns and ar- 
 bute-berries were failing from the sacred forest, and 
 
 13 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 ^Dodona denied them sustenance. Soon the labour 
 of the cornfield too increased; vile mildew must de- 
 vour the stalk and the thistle lift over the field his 
 lazy spears: the crop dwindles, a rough forest of 
 clivers and burs advances, and fruitless darnel and 
 barren wild-oats reign over the shining tilth. Nay, 
 except thou wilt harass the soil with ceaseless mat- 
 tock, and frighten off the birds with clamour, and 
 thy pruning-hook lop the darkening rustic shade and 
 thy prayers call down the rain, ah ! all in vain wilt 
 thou eye the garner pile of another, and allay thine 
 own hunger from the shaken oak in the woodland. 
 Likewise must be told what are the weapons of 
 the hardy countryfolk, without which can be neither 
 sowing nor springing of harvests: the share first, 
 and the heavy strength of the curved plough, and the 
 slow rolling wagons of our Lady ofEleusis, sledges 
 and harrows and the weary weight of the mattock ; 
 withal the slight wicker ware ofCeleus, arbutus hur- 
 dles, and lacchus' mystical winnowing-fan. ^All 
 these thou wilt heedfully provide and lay up long in 
 store, if the divine country keeps her due honour in 
 thine eyes. Early the forest elm is bowed by main 
 force to bend into a share-beam, and takes the shape 
 
BOOK I 
 
 of the curving plough; to the stock of it are jilted 
 the long eight-foot pole, the two mould-boards, and 
 the double back of the share-head; and the light lime 
 is cut to season for the yoke, and the tall beech for the 
 plough-tail that is to turn the carriage from above 
 and behind, and oak battens are hung over thejire 
 for the smoke to search them through. 
 
 I can repeat to thee many a counsel of them of 
 old, if thou shnnk not back nor weary to learn of 
 lowly cares. <^/fbove all must the threshing-floor be 
 levelled with the ponderous roller, and wrought by 
 hand and cemented with clinging potter s clay, that 
 it may not gather weeds nor crack in the reign of 
 dust, and be playground withal for manifold de- 
 stroyers. Often the tiny mouse builds his house and 
 makes his granaries underground, or the eyeless mole 
 scoops his cell; and in chinks is found the toad, and 
 all the swarming vermin that are bred in earth; and 
 the weevil, and the ant that fears a destitute old 
 age, plunder the great pile of spelt. 
 
 Look thou likewise, when the walnut in the wood- 
 land attires herself in wealth of blossom, and bends 
 with scented boughs; if her fruit exceed, the corn 
 will keep pace with it, and abundant threshing come 
 
 15 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 with abundant heat ; but if her shade overflow in 
 luxuriance of leaf, vainly will the chaff-laden straw 
 be beaten on the winnowing-floor. 
 
 In truth I have seen many a sower steep his seeds 
 and wash them beforehand in black olive-lees, that 
 the fruit in the treacherous pod might be larger and 
 soften quickly even over a little Jire : I have seen 
 them, though long chosen and toilsomely approved, 
 still fall off unless the strong hand of man picked 
 the largest year by year: so is it fated that all things 
 run to the worse and fall dropping backwards; even 
 as one who with strain of oarage urges a skiff up 
 stream, if once he slacken his arms, the prone river 
 current sweeps him headlong down. 
 
 Likewise must we no less regard the star ofArc- 
 turus and the days of the Kids and the gleaming 
 Serpent, than they who sailing homeward over wind- 
 swept seas adventure the Tontic and the straits by 
 z^/fbydus' oyster-beds. When the Scales make day- 
 light and sleep equal in hours and just halve the 
 globe between light and shadow, set your bulls at 
 work, O men ! sow the barley -fields, right into the 
 showery skirts of frost-bound midwinter: no less is 
 it time to cover in earth the flax-plant and the corn- 
 16 
 
BOOK I 
 
 poppy, and to urge on the belated ploughs while the 
 dry soil allows it, while the clouds hang aloft. In 
 spring beans are sown ; then the crumbling furrows 
 receive thee likewise, clover of ^Jfrledia, and the 
 yearly care of the millet crop approaches; when the 
 milkwhite Bull with gilded horns opens the year, 
 and, still facing him, the setting "Dogs tar retires. 
 But if for wheaten harvest or strong spelt thou wilt 
 work thy ground, and the corn-ear alone is thy de- 
 sire, first let the ^Atlantides be at their morning 
 setting and the blazing star of the Cretan Crown 
 sink away, ere thou yield their debt of seed to the 
 furrows, or ere thou hasten to intrust the year s hope 
 to an unwilling earth. <*^Many begin before the set- 
 ting of(^Maia; but a harvest of empty ears mocks 
 their expectation. If indeed thou wilt sow the vetch 
 or the common kidney-bean, nor despise the care of 
 the Telusiac lentil, the setting Bear-warden will 
 send thee no uncertain sign ; begin, and carry thy 
 sowing on to the mid-frost. 
 
 To this end the golden sun rules an orbit mea- 
 sured out in certain divisions through the twelve- 
 fold star-girdle of the world. Five zones are placed 
 in heaven ; whereof one ever reddens in the blazing 
 
 17 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 sun and ever is parched by his fire; and round it 
 right and left sweep the utmost two, stiff with blue 
 ice and dark with showers; two between these and 
 the central zone are granted by grace of the gods to 
 weary mortals, and through both a path is drawn 
 where the slant procession of the signs may turn. 
 The world, rising steeply towards Scythia and the 
 T^hipean fortresses, sinks sloping to Libya and the 
 south. This pole of ours is ever uplifted; but the other 
 black Styx and the deep world of ghosts see under- 
 neath their feet. Here the enormous Serpent glides 
 forth, wreathing his coils in fashion of a river around 
 and between the two Bears, the Bears that dare not 
 dip under the Ocean floor: there, one saith, either 
 dead night is soundless, and the gloom thickens in 
 night's perpetual pall, or T)awn returns from us and 
 leads back the day ; and when day spring touches us 
 with his panting horses' breath, there crimson Hes- 
 perus kindles his lamp at evenfall. Hence can we 
 foreknow the changeful sky's seasons, hence the day 
 of harvest and the time of sowing, and when it befits 
 to drive our oars through the treacherous sparkling 
 sea, when to launch armed fleets, or in due season 
 lay low the woodland pine. 
 
 18 
 
BOOK I 
 
 Neither in vain do we mark the signs in their 
 dawning and decease, and the four seasons that 
 make equal division of the year. Whensoever chilly 
 rain keeps the husbandman indoors, many a thing, 
 which must else be hurried through in clear weather 
 afterward, may be done at leisure ; the ploughman 
 beats out the stubborn point of his blunted share ; 
 one hollows troughs out of the tree ; one marks the 
 stamp on the flock or the figures for the granary - 
 heaps ; others sharpen stakes and forked poles, and 
 sort^4merian bands for the trailing vine. Now let 
 the basket be lightly woven of briar-rods, now parch 
 corn over the fire and pound it in the stone. Nay, 
 and even on holy days some works are right and law- 
 ful ; no scruple forbids to guide forth the rivulet, to 
 fence off the cornfield, to set snares for birds, to burn 
 brambles, and to plunge the bleating flock in the 
 healthful stream : often the driver loads his slow- 
 paced donkey's sides with oil or cheap apples, and 
 returning, carries a dressed mill-stone or a lump of 
 black pitch back with him from the town. 
 
 The moon's self ordains the days in their several 
 order to be diverse in luck of labour. Shun the fifth, 
 birthday of pale Orcus and the Eumenides ; on it 
 
 '9 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 earth bore that accursed brood, Coeus and lapetus 
 and fell Typhoeus, and the brothers that leagued to 
 pluck down heaven. Thrice they essayed to plant 
 Ossa on Telion, ay, and roll up leafy Olympus upon 
 Ossa : thrice our Lord shattered the mountain pile 
 with his thunderbolt. The seventeenth is lucky for 
 setting the vine, for catching and breaking oxen, for 
 stringing loops in the loom : the ninth favours run- 
 aways, but thwarts the thief. 
 
 (*JVLany a thing even makes better way in the 
 chill of night, or when at sundawn earth is dewy 
 under the orient star. By night the light stubbles, by 
 night the parched meadows are better mown; cling- 
 ing moisture fails not through the night. ^Andone 
 I know keeps awake late by the winter firelight, 
 and points torchwood with sharp steel : meanwhile, 
 lightening her long toil with song, the wife runs her 
 ringing comb through the web, or boils down the 
 sweet liquid must over the fire and skims with leaves 
 the wave of the bubbling copper. But ruddy corn 
 is cut in noon-day heat, and in noon-day heat the 
 parched grain is trodden on the threshing-floor. 
 
 Strip to plough, strip to sow ; winter is the farm- 
 er s holiday, and the husbandmenfeast on their stores 
 
 20 
 
BOOK I 
 
 all through the frozen time, and spread the banquet 
 among themselves in mirthful round, ^^lerry win- 
 ter bids the guest and lightens the heart ; even as 
 when laden keels at last touch their haven, and the 
 rejoicing mariners hang garlands on the stern. But 
 then nevertheless is the season to strip acorns from 
 the oak and berries of the laurel , the olive and the 
 blood-red myrtle: then to set snares for the crane 
 and nets for the stag, and to hunt the long-eared 
 hare; then to strike down the fallow-deer with the 
 whirling stroke of the hempen Balearic sling, while 
 snow lies deep, while ice blocks the rivers. 
 
 Why tell of autumnal storms and stars, and when 
 now the day is briefer and the summer softer, what 
 watches men must keep ? or when showerful spring 
 pours down, when the spiky harvest even now rip- 
 ples on the plains, and when the green blade swells 
 with her milky grain ? Often have I seen, when the 
 husbandman was marching in his reapers to the 
 golden fields and just cutting the slim-stalked bar- 
 ley, how all the winds, clashing in battle, would tear 
 right from the roots andjling high whole breadths of 
 heavy corn ; in so black a gust would the storm sweep 
 light blade and flying straw away. Often likewise 
 
 21 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 the waters of heaven descend in infinite armies, and 
 clouds charged from the deep thicken into foul wea- 
 ther black with thunder showers : the sky pours sheer 
 down and washes away the glad crops and labours 
 of the oxen withjlooding rain ; ditches Jill, and river 
 channels swell roaring, and the narrow seas seethe 
 and smoke. Our Lord himself in the midnight of the 
 storm-clouds wields thejlashing bolts in his right 
 hand: at their shock ancient Earth trembles, wild 
 beasts slink away, and mortal hearts throughout the 
 nations bow low in terror: he hurls down his flam- 
 ing shaft on ^Athos or T^hpdope or the Ceraunian 
 heights; the south winds blow fiercer and the rain 
 streams drenching down, and the rushing wind 
 wails over forest and shore. 
 
 Fearing this, regard thou heaven in his months 
 and seasons, whither the chill star of Saturn with- 
 draws, to what circles of the sky the Cyllenian wan- 
 derer turns his fire. <^/fbove all, worship thou the 
 gods, and bring great Ceres her yearly offerings, 
 doing sacrifice on the springing grass close on the 
 verge of dying winter, when now spring skies are 
 clear. Then lambs are fat, and then wines mellow- 
 est, then sleep is sweet where the shade thickens on 
 
 22 
 
BOOK I 
 
 the hill. To Ceres let all thy rustic folk do service; 
 to her wash thou the honeycomb with milk and soft 
 wine, and for luck let the victim thrice encircle the 
 springing crops and all the band of thy fellows keep 
 it joyful company, and loudly call Ceres into the 
 homestead: neither let any lay sickle to the ripe ears 
 till in Ceres' praise, his brows wreathed with twisted 
 oak 9 he move in rude dances and chant her hymn. 
 
 t^And these things that we might avail to learn 
 by sure tokens, the heats and the rains and the winds 
 that bring cold weather, our Lord himself hath or- 
 dained what the moon in her month should fore- 
 shadow 9 at what sign the south wind should drop, 
 what husbandmen should often mark and keep their 
 cattle nearer the farmyard. Straightway, when gales 
 are gathering, either the seaways begin to shudder 
 and heave, and a dry roaring to be heard on the 
 mountain heights, or the far-echoing beaches to stir, 
 and a rustling swell through the woodland. Even 
 in that hour the rude surge spares not the curving 
 hull, when gulls jly swiftly back from mid ocean and 
 press screaming shoreward, or when sea-coot play 
 on dry land, and the heron leaves his home on the 
 marshes and soars high above the mist. Often like- 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 wise when a gale is toward wilt thou see shooting 
 stars glide down the sky, and through the darkness 
 of night long trails of flame glimmer in their track : 
 often light chaff and fallen leaves flutter in air 9 or 
 floating feathers dance on the water's surface. But 
 when it lightens from the fierce northern regions, 
 and when Eurus and Zephyrus thunder through 
 their hall, the whole countryside is afloat with brim- 
 ming ditches, and every mariner at sea furls his 
 soaking sails. Never is rain on us unwarned: either 
 as it gathers in the valley bottoms the crane soars 
 high inflight before it; or the heifer gazing up into 
 the sky snuffs the breeze with wide-opened nostril, 
 or the shrill swallow darts circling about the pond, 
 and the frogs in the mire intone their old complaint. 
 Often likewise the ant carries forth her eggs from 
 her secret chambers along her narrow trodden path, 
 and a vast rainbow drinks, and leaving their feed- 
 ing-ground in long column armies of rooks crowd 
 with flapping wings. Then seafowl many in sort, 
 and birds that search the fresh pools round the Asian 
 meadows of Cayster, thou mayest see eagerly splash- 
 ing showers of spray over their shoulders, and now 
 
 ducking in the channels, now running up into the 
 24 
 
BOOK I 
 
 waves, and wantoning in their bath with vain de- 
 sire. Then the villain raven calls full-voiced for 
 rain, and stalks along the dry sand in solitary state. 
 Nor even to girls who ply their spinning nightlong 
 is the storm unknown, while they see the oil sputter, 
 and spongy mould gather on the blazing lamp. 
 
 ^/fnd even thus sunlight after rain and cloud- 
 less clearness mayest thou foresee and know by sure 
 tokens. For then neither is the keen edge of the star- 
 light dulled to view, nor does the moon risejlushed 
 by her brother s rays, nor are thin woolly fleeces borne 
 across the sky ; neither do kingfishers beloved of 
 Thetis spread their plumage to the suns warmth 
 upon the shore, nor unclean swine remember to shake 
 out their litter and toss it with their snout. But the 
 mists gather lower down and settle on the flats, and, 
 constant to sunset, the night-owl from the roof-top 
 keeps vainly calling through the dark. ^4 loft in the 
 liquid sky Nisus is in sight and Scyllapays the debt 
 of that purple hair: wheresoever her pinions cleave 
 the thin air inflight, lo, hostile, fierce, loud-swoop- 
 ing down the wind, Nisus is upon her; where Nisus 
 mounts into the wind, her hurrying pinions cleave 
 the thin air in flight. Therewithal rooks repeat three 
 
 25 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 or four times a clear thin-throated cry, and often 
 where they sit aloft, happy in some strange unwont- 
 ed delight, chatter together among the leaves, glad 
 when rains are over to look to their little brood and 
 darling nests once again; not, to my thinking, that 
 their instinct is divine or their dower of fate a larger 
 foresight into nature : but when the weather veers 
 about and the saturated air shifts, and under drip- 
 ping skies of the south what was rare but now con- 
 denses and what was dense expands, their temper 
 changes countenance, and other motions stir within 
 their breasts than stirred while the clouds drove on 
 before the wind; hence the birds make such chorus in 
 the fields, and the cattle are glad, and the rooks caw 
 in exultation. 
 
 If indeed thou wilt regard the hastening sun and 
 the moons ordered sequences, never will an hour of 
 the morrow deceive thee, nor wilt thou be taken in the 
 wiles of a cloudless night. When the moon first gath- 
 ers her returning fires, if she clasp a dark mist in her 
 dim crescent, drenching rain will be in store for hus- 
 bandman and seafarer; but if a maiden flush suffuse 
 her face, wind is coming: wind always flushes the 
 gold of the moon : while if at her fourth rising (for 
 26 
 
BOOK I 
 
 that is surest of warrant) she travel through the sky 
 with clear sharp-cut horns, both that whole day and 
 those that shall dawn after it till the month be done 
 will be rainless and windless, and sailors come safe 
 ashore will pay their vows to (jlaucus and Tanope 
 and <*jfl4elicertes son of Ino. 
 
 The sun likewise, both in his arising and when he 
 sinks into the waves, will issue signs; most sure are 
 the signs that attend the sun, yielded with morning 
 or at the ascending of the stars. When at day spring 
 he is dappled with spots and sunk in a mist, and his 
 orbed centre retires, mistrust thou of showers; for a 
 gale is bearing hard from seaward, ill-ominous for 
 trees and crops and herds. Either when towards day- 
 break spreading shafts struggle out between thick 
 clouds, or when T)awn springs pale from Tithonus' 
 saffron bed, alas! weak defence will the vine-tendril 
 be then to the mellow cluster, so heavily the rough 
 hail dances rattling on the roofs. This likewise, when 
 he has run his race and is now sinking from the sky, 
 will be of yet more service to remember ; for of ten we 
 see shifting colours fluctuate on his face ; green pre- 
 sages rain, flame-colour east winds; but if spots be- 
 gin to mingle with fiery red, then wilt thou see all 
 
 27 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 a single riot of wind and storm-clouds; not on such 
 a night at any persuasion would I voyage through 
 the deep or part moorings from land. But if his circle 
 be bright alike when he brings the day and buries 
 the day he brought, vain will be thy terror of rain- 
 clouds, and thou shalt discern the forests waving in 
 a clear wind from the north. 
 
 Lastly, what burden evenfall carries, whence the 
 wind chases clear the clouds, what the dripping 
 South broods over, the sun will signify to thee; who 
 shall dare to call the sun untrue? He likewise often 
 warns of the imminence of dim alarms, of treachery 
 and the gathering of hidden wars; he likewise had 
 pity on c ]$ome at Caesar's decease, when he veiled his 
 shining face in dim rusty red, and an evil age dread- 
 ed eternal night. Tet at that season earth too and the 
 plains of sea, and unclean dogs and ominous birds 
 gave presage. How often did we see Ktnajlooding 
 the Cyclopean fields with the torrent bursting from 
 her furnaces, and rolling forth balls oj flame and 
 molten rocks ! Cf-ermany heard the clash of armour 
 Jill the sky; the^/flps quaked with unwonted shocks. 
 (^Moreover a voice was heard of many among silent 
 groves, crying aloud, and phantoms pallid in won- 
 28 
 
BOOK I 
 
 derful wise were seen when night was dim ; and cat- 
 tle spoke, a monstrous thing: rivers stop and earth 
 yawns; and ivory sheds tears of mourning and 
 bronzes sweat in the temples. Eridanus, king of riv- 
 ers, whirled whole forests away in the wash of his 
 raging eddies, and swept herds and stalls together 
 all across the plains. Neither at that same time did 
 boding Jilaments ever cease to show themselves in 
 disastrous victims, or blood to ooze from wells, and 
 high cities to echo nightlong with howling of wolves. 
 Never elsewhere did more lightnings fall from clear 
 skies, or ghastly comets so often blaze. Therefore a 
 second time Thilippi sawT^oman lines meet in shock 
 of equal arms, and our lords forbade not that Ema- 
 thia and the broad plains of Haemus should twice 
 be fattened with our blood. Surely a time too shall 
 come when in those borders the husbandman, as his 
 crooked plough labours the soil, will find spears eaten 
 away with scaling rust, or strike on empty helms 
 with his heavy mattock, and marvel at mighty bones 
 dug up from their tombs, (pods of our fathers, of our 
 country, and thou Romulus, and Vesta, mother who 
 keepest Tuscan Tiber and the ^oman Talatine, for- 
 bid not at least that this our prince may succour a 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 ruined world! Long enough already has our life- 
 blood recompensed Laomedon's perjury at Troy; 
 long already the heavenly palace, O Caesar, grudges 
 thee to us, and murmurs that thou shouldst care for 
 human triumphs, where right and wrong are con- 
 founded, where all these wars cover the world, where 
 wickedness is so manifold and the plough's meed of 
 honour is gone ; thejields thicken with weeds, for the 
 tillers are marched away, and bent sickles are forged 
 into the stiff swordblade: here the Euphrates, there 
 Cjermany heaves with war; neighbouring cities rush 
 into arms one against another over broken laws: the 
 merciless War-Cjod rages through all the world: 
 even as when chariots bursting from their barriers 
 quicken lap by lap, and, vainly tugging 
 at the curb, the driver is swept on 
 by his horses, and the car 
 hearkens not to 
 the rein. 
 
GEORGICS. BOOK II. 
 
 Husfar of tillage of the folds and stars in 
 the sky : now ofthee, Bacchus, will I sing, 
 and with thee no less of woodland copses 
 and the slowly waxing olive growth. Hither, lord 
 of the winepress; here all is full of thy bounties, for 
 thee the field flowers, heavy with tendrils of autumn, 
 and the brimming vintage foams ; come hither, lord 
 of the winepress, by my side pluck off thy buskins 
 and dye thy bared ankles in the new wine. 
 
 f\ xv _-, 
 
 i RST of all, Nature is manifold in the birth 
 of trees. For some with no human urging 
 come at their own will and spread wide 
 by plain and winding river, like the soft osier and 
 tough broom, the poplar, and pale willoiv-beds with 
 their silvery leafage; and some rise from seed they 
 
 3' 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 drop, like the towering chestnuts, and Jove's winter- 
 oak, lordliest of leafage in the woodland, and those 
 oaks that Qreece holds oracular. Others, like the elm 
 and cherry, multiply from the root in serried under- 
 growth; and the tiny bay -tree on Tarnassus springs 
 beneath her mother s vast shade. These ways are of 
 Nature's ancient gift; in these wear their green all 
 the tribes of forest and underwood and sacred grove. 
 
 Others there are, which experience has found out 
 for it self on the way. One tears suckers from their 
 mother s tender stem and sets them in trenches; one 
 plunges in the soil stocks and cross-cleft billets and 
 sharpened stakes from the core: and some forest trees 
 await the layer's pinned arch and slips alive in their 
 parent earth: others need a root in nowise, and the 
 pruner doubts not to commit the topmost twigs to 
 earth's keeping. Nay, and from the dry wood of 
 her sawn trunk, wonderful to tell! the olive pushes 
 forth a root, ^/fnd often we see the boughs of one 
 turn lightly into another's, and the changed pear- 
 tree bear her grafted apples, and plums redden on 
 the stony cornel. 
 
 Wherefore come, O husbandmen, learn the proper 
 training of each after their kinds, and soften the wild 
 
BOOK II 
 
 fruits by your nurture, nor let earth lie idle: good 
 it is to plant Ismarus thick with vines and clothe 
 mighty Taburnus in olive. ^And be thou nigh, to 
 fulfil at my side the task begun, (^Maecenas our hon- 
 our, by just due the chief est sharer in our fame, and 
 give thy flying sails to the spacious sea. I ask not to 
 embrace it all in these my verses; no, though I had 
 an hundred tongues and an hundred mouths, and my 
 voice were iron: come, and skirt close by the shore's 
 edge. Land is in reach: I will not keep thee here in 
 mazes and long-drawn preludes of fabulous song. 
 Tlants that rise unbidden into the borders of day 
 are unfruitful indeed, but lusty and strong of growth, 
 for native force is in the soil. Tet even these, if one 
 graft them or transplant them into trenched mould, 
 will outgrow their savagery, and under ceaseless 
 training will soon follow thy call to whatsoever ways 
 thou wilt. Even the barren sucker that springs from 
 the stem's foot will do likewise, if set in rank over a 
 clean plot ; now the mother s deep-foliaged boughs 
 overshadow it, and steal the produce of its growth, 
 and stifle itsfruitfulness. Once more, the tree that 
 rises from shed seed is slow in coming, and will yield 
 shade to thy children's children on a later day; ap- 
 
 33 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 pies dwindle, forgetting their former savour, and 
 ragged clusters hang for birds to plunder from the 
 vine. 
 
 Truth to say, on all must labour be lavished, and 
 all be forced into the furrow and tamed at a great 
 price. But olive-trees answer better in truncheons, 
 vines in layers, myrtles ofTaphos in the solid wood; 
 and from slips are born the hardwood hazel and the 
 mighty ash, and the shady tree of Hercules' gar- 
 land, and the acorns ofourlordofChaonia; in like 
 wise is born the tall palm and the fir that shall look 
 on the perils of the sea: while by grafting the rough 
 arbutus yields the walnut, and barren planes carry 
 sturdy apple-boughs; the mountain-ash silvers with 
 white pear-blossom, the beech with chestnut-blooms, 
 and swine crush acorns beneath the elm. 
 
 Nor is there one single way of grafting and of 
 budding. For where the buds push out from amid 
 the bark and burst their delicate sheaths, there, just 
 on the knot, a narrow slit is made; in it they imbed 
 the shoot of an alien tree, and teach it to grow into 
 the wet sapwood. Or again, smooth trunks are cleft 
 open and a way driven deep by wedges into the core, 
 then grafts of the fruit-tree let in; nor long time, 
 
 34 
 
BOOK II 
 
 and the tree climbs sky ward in breadth of prosperous 
 boughs, and marvels in strange leafage and fruits 
 not her own. 
 
 Furthermore, not single in kind are either strong 
 elms or willow and lotus, or cypresses of Ida; nor 
 in a single likeness is born the fat olive, the ball and 
 the spindle-shaped, and thepausian with bitter ber- 
 ry, nor apples in <^Alcinous f orchards; nor does the 
 same twig bear Crustumian and Syrian pears and 
 the heavy wardens. Not the same is the vintage that 
 trails from trees of ours, and that which Lesbos gath- 
 ers from the branch of ^JMethymna : there are Thas- 
 ian and there are pale ^l^lareotic vines, these meet 
 for a rich, those for a lighter soil; and the Tsithian 
 more serviceable for raisin-wine, and the thin La- 
 gean that in her day will trip the feet and tie the 
 tongue ; and the purple and the earlier grape ; and 
 in what verse may I tell ofthee, O ^Khaetian? yet 
 not even so vie thou with Falernian vaults. Like- 
 wise there are ^/fminaean vines, theirs the soundest 
 wine of all, for which the Tmolian and even the 
 royal Thanaean make room; and the lesser ^/fr- 
 gitis, that none other may rival whether in abundant 
 flow or in lasting through length of years. Let me 
 
 35 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 not pass thee by, O <r Rhpdian, well-beloved of gods 
 and festal boards, and Bumastus with thy swelling 
 clusters. But there is no tale of the manifold kinds 
 or of the names they bear, nor truly were the tale 
 worth reckoning out; whoso will know it, let him 
 choose to learn likewise how many grains of sand 
 eddy in the west wind on the plain of Libya, or to 
 count, when the violent East sweeps down upon the 
 ships, how many waves come shoreward across Io- 
 nian seas. 
 
 JVbr indeed can all soils bear all things. By riv- 
 ersides willows grow, and alders in thick swamps, 
 barren mountain-ashes on rocky hills; on the sea- 
 shore myrtle thickets flourish best; and the god of 
 the vine loves open slopes as yew trees do the freez- 
 ing north. Look, too, where the ends of the earth 
 obey men's tillage, on the (^Arabian dwellings of 
 the East and the painted (jelonian ; so diverse are 
 the native lands of trees, ^/flone India bears black 
 ebony, alone the Sabaeans have their rod of spice. 
 Why should I rehearse to thee the scented wood that 
 drips with balm, and the clusters of the evergreen 
 thorn? why those ^A Ethiopian forests silvered with a 
 soft fleece, or how Chinese comb off leaves their deli- 
 3 6 
 
BOOK II 
 
 cate down? or the groves which India wears Hearing 
 Ocean in the world's utmost recesses, where no ar- 
 row-shot can ever win through air up to the tree-top; 
 and truly these tribes are not slack when they handle 
 the quiver. <*jfl4edia bears the sour juices and linger- 
 ing savour of the citron, than which naught is more 
 sovereign, if ever a cruel step-mother has drugged 
 the cup with mingled herbs and baleful charms, to 
 arrive for succour and expel the black poison from the 
 limbs. The tree is large, and most like a laurel to 
 view,andwere a laurel but for the difference of wide- 
 wafted fragrance; the leaves drop not in any wind, 
 thefiower clings close as may be; with it the Medes 
 anoint their faces and perfume their breath, and cure 
 the pantings of old age. 
 
 But neither those ^^ledian forests where earth is 
 richest, nor fair (janges and Hermus turbid with 
 gold, may vie with the praise of Italy ; not Baftra 
 nor Ind 9 or all Tanchaia with her wealth of spicy 
 sands. This land of ours no bulls withjire-breathing 
 nostrils have upturned where the monstrous dragon s 
 teeth were sown, no harvest of men has bristled up 
 with helms and serried spears ; but heavy cornfields 
 and (^Lassie juice of wine Jill it all, olives and shin- 
 
 37 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 ing herds hold it in keeping. Hence the war-horse 
 issues stately on the plain; hence thy white flocks, 
 Clitumnus, and the lordly victim bull, often bathed 
 in thy holy stream, lead on T^oman triumphs to the 
 gods' temples. Here is perpetual spring and summer 
 in months not her own ; twice the cattle breed, twice 
 the apple tree yields her service. But the raging ti- 
 gress is not there or the fierce lion-brood, nor does 
 monkshood deceive the wretched gatherer, nor the 
 scaly serpent dart in huge coils over the ground or 
 gather so long a train of spires. ^Add thereto all her 
 illustrious cities and the labours wrought in her, all 
 her towns piled high by men's hands on their sheer 
 rocks, and her rivers that glide beneath immemorial 
 walls. Or shall I tell of the seas that wash above her 
 and below ? or her great lakes, thee, lordly Larius, 
 and thee, Benacus, heaving with billows and roar 
 as of the sea ? or tell of her harbours, of the barriers 
 set upon the Lucrine and the thunder of the indig- 
 nant sea where the Julian wave echoes afar in the 
 tideway, and the Tyrrhene surge pours into the chan- 
 nels of^Avernus? She it is likewise who unlocks 
 from her veins streams of silver and ore of brass, and 
 flows with abundant gold: she who rears a valiant 
 38 
 
BOOK II 
 
 race of men, the <*JMarsian and the Sabellian stock, 
 the Ligurian trained in hardship and the Volscian 
 spearmen ; she the Ttecii, the Marii, and the mighty 
 Camilli, the seed of Scipio stern in war, and thee 9 
 princely Caesar, who even now victorious in ^Asia's 
 utmost borders dost keep aloof the unwarlike Indian 
 from the towers ofT^ome. Hail, mighty mother of 
 harvests, O land of Saturn, mighty of men :for thee 
 I tread among the glories and arts of old, and dare 
 to unseal these holy springs, making the song of^fs- 
 cra echo through the ^oman towns. 
 
 Now, for a space, of the tempers of the fields, the 
 strength of each, and the colour, and the native pow- 
 er of fruit-bearing. First, stubborn soils and ungra- 
 cious hills, fields of lean marl and pebbly brushwood, 
 welcome the long-lived olive groves of T alias; for 
 sign thereof, in this same region the oleaster springs 
 abundant, and strews the fields with her wild ber- 
 ries. But fat land glad with sweet moisture, and 
 flats thick with herbage and bounteous in richness, 
 such as often we may look down upon in the cup of 
 a mountain valley (for hither streams trickle from 
 the cliff-tops and draw down their rich mud), and 
 the southern upland that feeds the fern, hateful to 
 
 39 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 crooked ploughs; this one day will yield thee vines ex- 
 celling in strength andjlowing with wealth of wine, 
 this is fertile of the grape, this of such juice as we 
 pour in offering from cups of gold, when the sleek 
 Etruscan blows his ivory jlute by the altars and we 
 offer the steaming entrails on hollow platters . But he 
 whose desire is rather the keeping of cattle and calves, 
 or the breed of sheep or she-goats that strip the plan- 
 tations, let him seek the lawns and distances of rich 
 Tarentum, or such a plain as unhappy ^lantua 
 lost, where snow-white swans feed in the weedy riv- 
 er: not clear springs nor grass will fail the flocks, 
 and how much soever the cattle crop through the long 
 days, as much the chilly dew of a brief night will re- 
 store. Land that is black and rich under the share's 
 pressure, and crumbling-soiled (for this it is that we 
 imitate by ploughing) is always the best for corn : 
 from no otherharvest floor shalt thou discern the slow 
 oxen bring thy wagons oftener home : or where the 
 angry ploughman has carted the forest-trees away, 
 and levelled the copses that lay idle many a year, and 
 rooted clean out the birds 9 ancient homes; they spring 
 sky ward from their abandoned nests, but the tangled 
 
 field gleams behind the driven share. For in truth 
 4 o 
 
BOOK II 
 
 the starved gravel of the hill country scarce serves 
 the bees with dwarf spurge and rosemary; and scal- 
 ing tufa and chalk tunnelled by black-scaled snakes 
 call no other land their like to furnish dainty food 
 and yield winding retreats for serpents. Such land 
 as exhales thin mist andjlitting smoke, and drinks 
 in and drains away the wet at will, such as is ever- 
 green in clothing of native grass, and mars not iron 
 with a scurf of salt rust, this will garland thine elms 
 with laughing vines, this is fruitful of oil, this wilt 
 thou prove in tillage gracious to thejlock and yield- 
 ing under the crooked share. Such is the tilth of 
 wealthy Capua and the coast that borders the Ve- 
 suvian ridge, and where Clanius encroaches on deso- 
 late (^Acerrae. 
 
 Now I will tell in what wise thou mayest know 
 each from each. If thou must know whether it be 
 loose or compact beyond the wont (since the one is 
 good for corn, the other for Bacchus; for the corn- 
 goddess where more compact, where loosest for the 
 wine-god) first shalt thou choose a spot by eye, and 
 bid a pit be sunk deep in the solid ground, and again 
 replace in it all the soil, and level the earth atop 
 with thy feet. If earth is lacking, loose will be the 
 
 41 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 plot and fitter for flocks and gracious vines; but if it 
 refuses to return whence it came, and soil is over 
 when the trenches are full, that land is solid; look 
 for sticky clods and lumpy ridges, and furrow the 
 ground with thy strongest oxen. Salt land more- 
 over, and sour so-called unfruitful for corn it is 
 and no ploughing softens it, nor does the grape keep 
 her race nor orchard-fruits their name therein 
 will offer such proof as this : pluck thou down from 
 the smoky rafters close-plaited wicker-baskets and 
 strainers of wine-presses; herein let that evil soil and 
 sweet spring-water be filled and trodden; all the 
 water will be squeezed out, yes, and large drops 
 trickle through the wickerwork; but the savour will 
 give plain token, and writhe the taster s face with 
 displeasure at its bitterness. ^Again, what land is 
 fat we learn briefly in this wise : when tossed from 
 hand to hand it never crumbles, but grows sticky like 
 pitch on the fingers in the handling. Wet ground 
 nurtures a taller herbage, and the native growth is 
 ranker than is right. ^Ah, may mine be not thus 
 over-fertile, nor show itself too lusty in the early 
 blade! Heavy soil betrays itself without words by 
 weight, light likewise; thine eyes will at first glance 
 42 
 
BOOK II 
 
 know the black, and the several colour of each. But 
 to search out cruel cold is difficult : only that some- 
 times pitch-pines and baleful yews are there, or the 
 dark ivy spreads her creepers. 
 
 Which things regarded, remember long time first 
 to bake thy land in the sun and cleave the broad hill- 
 sides with thy trenches, first to lay bare the upturned 
 clods to the North, ere thou plant in the glad stock 
 of the vine. Fields of crumbling soil are the best; for 
 that winds and icy frosts provide, and the sturdy 
 delver that shakes and stirs the acres. But men who 
 will let nothing escape their vigilance seek out be- 
 forehand a bed where the seedling tree may have 
 her early training, like to that whither thereafter it 
 shall be borne and set in the row, lest a sudden change 
 of mother estrange the plant. Nay, and they score on 
 the bark the quarters of the sky, to replace in each as 
 it stood the face whereon it bore the ardours of the 
 South, the back it turned towards the Tole; so strong 
 is the habit of infancy. 
 
 Whether hill or flat be the better for thy vine-set- 
 ting, inquire beforehand. If thou wilt rule thy plots 
 in a rich plain, plant thickly; thickly set, the vine is 
 no less bounteous in bearing; but if on the sloping soil 
 
 43 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 of knolls or on couchant hills, give the ranks larger 
 room; yet no less let every alley where the trees are 
 set be drawn square and true to line : as often in pomp 
 of war, when a legion deploys in long line of cohorts 
 and draws up from column on the open plain, and the 
 ranks are straightened and all the earth surges wide 
 with sparkle of brass, nor yet do they close in grim 
 conflict, but the War-god wanders wavering amid 
 their arms. Let equal space of passage be measured 
 every way ; not merely that the view may regale a 
 vacant mind, but since none otherwise will earth 
 supply equal strength to all, nor clear space be left 
 for the outstretching boughs. 
 
 Haply too thou mayest inquire of the cuttings for 
 thy trenches. The vine I would dare to intrust to 
 ever so slender a furrow : the tree is sunk deeper and 
 right into the earth; the winter-oak beyond all, who, 
 as high as her top scales the air skyward, strikes her 
 root as deep to hell : therefore not storms nor blasts 
 nor rains uproot her; she abides unstirred, and out- 
 lives many children's children, and sees roll by her 
 many generations of men ; and stretching wide to 
 right and left her strong boughs and arms, uprears 
 the mass of her own enfolding shade. 
 44 
 
BOOK II 
 
 Neither let thy vineyards slope to the setting sun ; 
 neither plant hazel among the vines; neither cut the 
 uppermost vine-switches, or tear away the upper- 
 most shoots from the tree (such is their love of earth); 
 neither plant among them stems of wild olive : for 
 often heedless shepherds drop a spark, which, hiding 
 stealthily at first under the resinous bark,fastens on 
 the core, and, darting out among the high sprays, 
 roars loudly skyward; thence pursues its way, and 
 reigns victorious over bough and summit, and wraps 
 all the woodland inflame, and, thickening, streams 
 into the sky in a cloud of pitch-black gloom: above 
 all if a storm falls prone on the forest and the wind 
 fans and spreads the fire. Where this is, the trees 
 have no force left at root, nor can they recover when 
 cut away, nor grow green again from under earth 
 as before; the barren and bitter-leaved oleaster only 
 is left. 
 
 JVbr let any counsellor how wise soever persuade 
 thee to stir the earth when stiffened under the breath 
 of the North. Then winter keeps the country ice- 
 bound, nor though the seed be scattered lets the fro- 
 zen root fasten in the ground. Best is the setting of 
 vineyards when with thefiush of spring comes that 
 
 45 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 snow-white bird abhorred of long snakes, or hard on 
 the first frost of autumn, when the fiery horses of the 
 sun yet touch not winter, and even now summer 
 passes away. Spring aids woodland leaf and forest 
 tree ; in spring earth yearns and cries for the life- 
 giving seed. Then the lord omnipotent of Sky de- 
 scends in fruitful showers into the lap of his laugh- 
 ing consort, and mingling with her mighty body 
 nourishes all her fruits in might. Then pathless 
 copses ring with warbling birds, and at the appoint- 
 ed days the herds renew their loves ; the bountiful 
 land breaks into birth, and the fields unbosom to 
 warm breezes of the West : everywhere delicate 
 moisture overflows, and the grasses dare in safety to 
 trust themselves to spring suns, nor does the vine- 
 tendril fear gathering gales or sleet driven down the 
 sky by the blustering North, but thrusts forth her 
 buds and uncurls all her leaves. None other to my 
 thinking were the days that shone at the first dawn 
 of the rising world, none other the course they kept; 
 spring was then, spring reigned on the broad earth, 
 and the east wind held back his wintry blasts, when 
 the first-born beasts drank the daylight, and the iron 
 
 brood of men reared their he ad on the firm fields, and 
 4 6 
 
BOOK II 
 
 the wild creatures were let loose in the forests and the 
 stars in heaven. Neither might things so delicate en- 
 dure this their toil, except such space of calm passed 
 between the cold and the heat, and earth were cra- 
 dled by an indulgent sky. 
 
 For the rest, what plantations soever thou wilt 
 set over thyjields, scatter fatting dung, and hide it 
 heedfully deep in earth; dig in porous stone or rough 
 shells, for through them rains will trickle and thin 
 vapour ascend, and the plants take courage; and be- 
 fore now have some been found who would load them 
 down with a stone or the weight of a massy tile, this 
 their defence against streaming rains, this when the 
 dogs tar brings the heat and the fields gape in cracks 
 for thirst. 
 
 The seedlings set, it remains again and again to 
 bank the earth up to the stalks, and swing the stiff 
 hoe, or to work the soil beneath the ploughshare's 
 pressure and wheel thy straining oxen between the 
 vineyard-rows: therewithal to jit together light reeds 
 and shafts of peeled rods, and ashen stakes and strong 
 crutches, in whose strength they may learn to climb, 
 and scorn the winds, and climb from story to story 
 high up the elm. 
 
 47 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 zSfnd while the earlier youth of the fresh foliage 
 grows towards maturity, spare their tenderness; and 
 while the glad shoot springs upward and mounts 
 unchecked into the blue, not yet should it feel the 
 edge ofthepruning-knife, but the leaves be broken off 
 and thinned with bentjingers. Thereafter, when now 
 they have shot up and their strong stems enringed 
 the elm, then strip their tresses, then lop their arms; 
 till then they shrink under the steel; then at last keep 
 imperious rule and check the trailing branches. 
 
 Likewise must hurdles be woven and all thejlock 
 kept away, specially while the leaf is tender and in- 
 nocent of toil ; since besides rude storms and the 
 tyrant sun, buffaloes from the thickets and restless 
 roe-deer make it their play ground, sheep and hungry 
 heifers their pasture. Not so deadly to it is the stiff- 
 ening chill of hoar-frost, or the whole weight of 
 summer brooding on the parched crags, as thejlocks 
 with the poison of their hard teeth, and the indented 
 scar left on the bitten stem. For none other crime is 
 the goat slain to Bacchus on all our altars while the 
 antique plays advance upon the stage, since Theseus' 
 people ordained prizes among the villages and clus- 
 tering hamlets of their tribe , and joyfully amid their 
 4 8 
 
BOOK II 
 
 cups danced on oiled wine-skins in the soft meadows. 
 
 ^/[nd ^Ausonian settlers likewise, the race sent 
 forth from Troy, disport with rude verses and care- 
 less jest, and put on frowning masks of hollow cork, 
 and call on thee, O Bacchus, in joyous song, and to 
 thee hang swinging amulets from the lofty pine. Thus 
 all their vines ripen with abundant increase, and 
 teem in hollow dells and deep lawns and whereso- 
 ever the god turns his goodly head. Therefore meet- 
 ly shall we recite Bacchus' due honour in ancestral 
 hymns, and bear cakes and platters, and led by the 
 horn the victim goat shall stand by the altar, and 
 the fat flesh roast on spits ofhazelwood. 
 
 Likewise is there that other labour of vine-dress- 
 ing, which nothing is ever enough to satisfy; for year 
 by year must all the soil thrice and again be loosened, 
 and, the mattock everlastingly turned to break the 
 clod, must all the orchard be lightened of his leaf. 
 The circling toil of the husbandman returns even as 
 the year rolls back on itself along the familiar track, 
 (^/fndnow what time the vineyard sheds her linger- 
 ing leaves and the icy North scatters the tresses of 
 the forest, even then the active farmer reaches his 
 care into the coming year, and presses on to lop the 
 
 49 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 bared vine and trim it into shape with the crooked 
 tooth of Saturn. Be first to dig the ground, first to 
 wheel away and burn theprunings, and first to carry 
 the vine-poles indoors; be last to gather the vintage. 
 Twice the shade thickens on thy vines, twice weeds 
 clothe the field with thick entanglement ; both make 
 hard work; praise great estates, farm a little one. 
 ^4nd therewithal the rough shoots of broom are cut 
 in the woodland, and the river-reed on the banks, 
 and the wild osier-bed gives work to keep. Now the 
 vines are tied, now the shrubberies lay by the prun- 
 ing-knife, now the last vine-dresser sings over his 
 finished plots; yet must the soil be broken and the 
 dust stirred, and the lord of the sky be dreaded for 
 the grapes even as they ripen. 
 
 Contrariwise olives grow all untended; they look 
 not for the sickle-shaped knife or the stiff hoe, when 
 once they have struck root on the field and borne the 
 weather: earth herself,when laid open by the crooked 
 fang, yields sap in sufficience and heavy crops fol- 
 lowing the ploughshare: so shall thou nurture the fat 
 olive dear to Teace. 
 
 Orchard-trees likewise, so soon as they feel strength 
 in their stem and possess their full vigour, climb fast 
 5 
 
BOOK II 
 
 skyward of their own force and needing no aid of 
 ours : no less withal the whole woodland grows heavy 
 with increase, and the untilled haunts of birds flush 
 with blood-red berries; the cytisus is mown, the high 
 forest yields store of firewood, and nightlong the 
 fires are fed and scatter their radiance; and do men 
 doubt to plant and lavish their care ? Winy should I 
 keep by larger trees ? the osier and the low broom, 
 even they yield leafage to the herd or shade to the 
 herdsman, and hedge the crops andpasture the honey- 
 bee. <^Andfain would I gaze on Cy torus billowy 
 with boxwood, or groves of Nary cian pine ;fain see 
 fields that owe no debt to the mattock nor to any 
 mortal care. 'Even fruitless forests on a Caucasian 
 summit, which angry east winds perpetually shatter 
 and toss, yield produce after their kind, yield profit 
 of timber, pines for ships y cedar and cypress for dwell- 
 ings; from one the countryfolk turn spokes for wheels, 
 from one fashion drum-he ads for wagons and curv- 
 ing keels of ships; withies grow thick on osiers, leaves 
 on elms, but strong spear-shafts on the myrtle and 
 the cornel trusty in battle ; the Ituraean yew is bent 
 into bows; therewithal smooth lime and polished box- 
 wood take shape under the lathe or are hollowed out 
 
 5' 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 by the sharp chisel ; and therewithal the light alder, 
 sent down the Po, swims on the bubbling wave ; 
 and therewithal the bees hide their swarms in the 
 hollow bark or the shell of a mouldering ilex. What 
 have Bacchus' gifts bestowed of equalrenown? Bac- 
 chus gives cause for blame likewise; he it was who 
 laid the mad Centaurs low in death, c l$hpetus and 
 Tholus, and Hylaeus as he aimed that great jlagon 
 at the Lapithae. 
 
 (^/fh too fortunate the husbandmen, did they know 
 their own felicity ! on whom far from the clash of 
 arms Earth their most just mistress lavishes from the 
 soil a plenteous sustenance. Though no highproud- 
 port ailed house pours fourth the vast tide of morning 
 visitants that Jill her halls; though they feed no gaze 
 on doors inlaid with lovely tortoise-shell or raiment 
 tricked out with gold or bronzes ofEphyre; though 
 the fleece's whiteness is not stained with ^/Is Syrian 
 dye nor the clear olive-oil spoiled for use with cinna- 
 mon; but careless quiet and life ignorant of disap- 
 pointment, wealthy in manifold riches ,but the peace 
 of broad lands, caverns and living lakes, but cool 
 pleasances and the lowing of oxen and soft slum- 
 bers beneath the tree fail not there ; there are the 
 52 
 
BOOK II 
 
 glades and covers of game, and youth hardy in toil 
 and trained to simplicity, divine worship and rever- 
 end age; among them Justice set her last footprints 
 as she passed away from earth. 
 
 <*_JI/[e indeed Jirst and before all things may the 
 sweet (pluses, whose priest 7 am and whose great 
 love had smitten me, take to themselves and show 
 me the pathways of the sky, the stars, and the di- 
 verse eclipses of the sun and the moons travails ; 
 whence is the earthquake; by what force the seas 
 swell high over their burst barriers and sink back 
 into themselves again ; why winter suns so hasten 
 to dip in Ocean, or what hindrance keeps back the 
 lingering nights. But if I may not so attain to this 
 side of nature for the clog of chilly blood about my 
 heart, may the country and the streams that water 
 the valleys content me, and lost to fame let me love 
 stream andwoodland. ^Ah,where the plains spread 
 by Spercheus, and Laconian girls revel on Taygetus ! 
 ah,for one to lay me in Haemus'cool dells and cover 
 me in immeasurable shade of boughs! Happy he who 
 hath availed to know the causes of things, and hath 
 laid all fears and immitigable Fate and the roar of 
 hungry ^Acheron under his feet; yet he no less is 
 
 53 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 blessed, who knows the gods of the country, Tan and 
 oldSilvanus and the Nymphs' sisterhood. Himfasces 
 of the people or purple of kings sway not, not mad- 
 dening discord among treacherous brethren, nor the 
 Ttacian swarming down from the leagued 'Dan- 
 ube, not the T^oman state or realms destined to de- 
 cay; nor may pity of the poor or envy of the rich cost 
 him a pang. What fruits the boughs, what the gra- 
 cious fields bear of their own free will, these he gath- 
 ers, and sees not the iron of justice or the mad forum 
 and the archives of the people. Others vex blind sea- 
 ways with their oars, or rush upon the sword, pierce 
 the courts and chambers of kings ; one aims destruc- 
 tion at the city and her wretched homes, that he may 
 drink from gems and sleep on Tyrian scarlet; an- 
 other heaps up wealth and broods over buried gold; 
 one hangs rapt in amaze before the T^ostra ; one the 
 applause of populace and senate re-echoing again 
 over the theatre carries open-mouthed away '.joyful- 
 ly they steep themselves in blood of their brethren, 
 and exchange for exile the dear thresholds of their 
 homes, and seek a country spread under an alien 
 sun. The husbandman sunders the soil with curving 
 plough ;from this is the labour of his year, from this 
 54 
 
BOOK II 
 
 the sustenance of his native land and his little grand- 
 children, of his herds of oxen and his faithful bul- 
 locks ; and unceasingly the year lavishes fruit or 
 young of the flock or sheaf of the corn-blade, and 
 loads the furrow and overflows the granary with in- 
 crease. Winter is come; the Sicyonian berry is crushed 
 in the olive-presses, the swine come home sleek from 
 their acorns, the woodland yields herarbute-dusters, 
 and autumn drops his manifold fruitage , and high 
 up the mellow vintage ripens on the sunny rock. 
 (^Meanwhile sweet children cling round his kisses, 
 the home abides in sacred purity, the kine droop their 
 milky udders, and on the shining grass fat kids wres- 
 tle with confronting horns. Himself keeps holiday, 
 and stretched on the sward where the fire is in the 
 midmost and the company wreathe the wine-bowl, 
 calls on thee, god of the winepress, in libation, and 
 marks an elm for contests of the jly ing javelin among 
 the keepers of the flock, or they strip their hardy limbs 
 for the rustic wrestling-match. This life the ancient 
 Sabines kept long ago, this l^emus and his brother; 
 even thus Etruria waxed mighty, ay, and <r f(ome 
 grew fairest of the world and ringed her sevenfold 
 fortresses with a single wall. Tes, before the sceptre 
 
 55 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 of that Cretan king, before a guilty race slew oxen 
 
 for the banquet, this life golden Saturn led on earth; 
 
 nor yet withal had they heard war-trumpets blown, 
 
 nor yet the hard anvil clink under the sword. 
 
 But we have crossed a boundless breadth 
 
 of plain, and now is time to 
 
 loosen the necks of 
 
 our steaming 
 
 horses. 
 # 
 
GEORGICS. BOOK III. 
 
 HEE also, mighty Tales, and thee will we 
 sing, O renowned shepherd of^/fmphry- 
 sus y and you, Lycaean woods and rivers, 
 else that might have held idle minds fast in 
 song is staled by usage now : who knows not cruel 
 Eurystheus or accursed Busir is* altars ? to whom is 
 untold the boy Hylas, and Latona in Ttelos, and 
 Hippodame, or the hero of the ivory shoulder, the 
 keen horseman Telops ? <^/f path must be adven- 
 tured where I too may rise from earth and fly tri- 
 umphing on the lips of men. First will I lead home 
 with me, if life but last, the Muses from their Aonian 
 hill; first, my <^l4antua, bring thee back the palms 
 of Idume, and build a shrine of marble on the green 
 meadow by the waterside, where broad zJMi 
 
 57 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 wanders in slow windings, and borders his banks 
 with delicate reed. In the midst shall Caesar be my 
 temple's habitant : to him will I, splendid in Tyrian 
 scarlet, drive in triumph by the river an hundred 
 chariots four-fold yoked; for me all (jreece, leaving 
 ^Alpheus and the groves of^^Iolorchus, shall con- 
 tend in the foot-race or with the raw hide boxing- 
 glove. (^Myself, chapleted with stripped leaves of 
 olive, I will bear offerings : even now is it good to 
 lead the fitly ordered processions to the shrines and 
 see the oxen sacrificed, or the stage opening as the 
 scenes swing round, and the inwoven Britons rising 
 on the crimson curtains. On the doors I will fashion 
 in gold and solid ivory the tribes of the Changes in 
 battle and Quirinus' conquering arms, and here Nile 
 surging in war with swollen flood, and columns ris- 
 ing decked with the bronze of ships; and beside them, 
 vanquished ^/fsian cities and Niphates driven in 
 rout, and the Tarthian confident inflight and in his 
 arrows shot backward, and the double trophy torn 
 in fight from a diverse foe, and the nations twice 
 triumphed over from either shore. There too shall 
 stand breathing images in Tarian stone 9 the brood 
 of^Assaracus and the names of the nation of Jove's 
 58 
 
BOOK III 
 
 descent, and Tros their ancestor, and the Cynthian 
 founder of Troy : and wretched Envy shall fear the 
 Furies and Cocytus' relentless river, the twisted ser- 
 pents of Ixion, the awful wheel and the stone that 
 never may scale the steep. ^Meanwhile follow we 
 the zvoodland ways and fresh lawns of the wood- 
 nymphs; thine, ^laecenas, are no light commands. 
 Without thee my spirit never springs aloft ; lo, up ! 
 break off dull delay! with ringing cries Cithaeron 
 summons, and Taygetus with his hounds and Epi- 
 daurus trainer of steeds, and the call echoes back re- 
 doubled from the applauding woods. Yet soon will 
 I gird myself to tell of Caesar s fiery battles, and 
 carry his name's renown through as many years as 
 separate Caesar from Tiihonus primal birth. 
 
 HOSO either breeds horses for the won- 
 dered prize of Olympian palm, or strong 
 bullocks for the plough, let his foremost 
 choice be of the mothers of the herd. The best cow is 
 ugly-shapen; her he ad coarse, her neck of the largest, 
 with dewlaps hanging down from chin to leg ; and 
 to her length ofjlank there is no limit ; large of limb 
 and of foot, and with shaggy ears under inward- 
 curving horns. JVbr would I quarrel with one marked 
 
 59 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 with spots of white, or one reluctant to the yoke and 
 sometimes hasty with her horn, and almost like a bull 
 to view, and tall all her length, with a tail that 
 sweeps her footprints below her as she moves. The 
 age for just marriage and travail of birth ceases be- 
 fore the tenth, begins after the fourth year. Beyond 
 these, she is neither Jit for breeding nor strong for 
 the plough; between them, while the lusty youth of 
 thy flock endures, let loose the males, put thy herds 
 early to breeding, and generation by generation keep 
 up the succession of thy stock. In this poor mortal life 
 the fairest day is ever the first to fly ; sickness and 
 melancholy age advance, and toil and hard deaths 
 pitilessness sweep us away. Ever will there be some 
 stock that thou wouldst exchange: then ever replace 
 them, and that thou miss not the lost, be beforehand 
 in selecting the young of the herd year by year. 
 
 Even in like wise must the breed of horses too be 
 chosen : only do thou, on such as thou purposest to 
 nurture for the hope of the race, lavish from infancy 
 onward thy foremost pains. From the first a well- 
 bred foal in the fields lifts a higher pace and plants 
 a lighter limb; he dares to advance in front and to 
 try the threatening torrent, and trust the unknown 
 60 
 
BOOK III 
 
 bridge, and starts not at vain noises : his are a high 
 crest and fine head, a short belly and fleshy back, and 
 a breast rippling in proud slopes of muscle. Bays 
 and greys are proper, the worst coloured are white 
 and dun. ^loreover, if haply armour clashes near, 
 he may not stand still, he pricks his ears and quivers 
 in all his limbs, and snorting, rolls from his nostrils 
 a volume ofjiery breath. His mane is thick, and when 
 flung up falls back on the right shoulder: a double 
 ridge runs between his loins, and his hoof of solid 
 horn prints the sod with heavy clatter. Such was 
 that Cyllarus who obeyed ^4 my clean Pollux rein, 
 and the twy -yoked steeds of \JMars, chronicled of 
 Qrecian poets, and mighty ^Achilles' team : such 
 too fleet Saturn's self when he shook the horse-mane 
 free over his neck at his consort's coming, and filled 
 high Telion with his shrill neighing as he fled. 
 
 Even him, when failing either from weight of 
 sickness or dulness of growing years, house out of 
 sight and be not over-tender with the faults of age. 
 <^/fge is cold to love, and vainly drags on the un- 
 grateful task, and when the battle is come, as it were 
 afire blazing without strength among stubble, he 
 rages to no avail. Therefore spirit and youth thou 
 
 61 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 wilt mark beyond all ; then his other merits, his par- 
 ents' breeding , and his own grief at defeat and ex- 
 ultation in victory. Seest thou not when in headlong 
 contest chariots shoot into the racecourse and pour 
 streaming from the barrier, wlnen the young drivers 9 
 hopes are at height, and throbbing fear drains their 
 riotous hearts ? they ply the curling lash and stoop 
 loose over the rein; the glowing axle flies fiercely on; 
 and now they sink, and now rising high they seem to 
 bound through empty air and mount into the wind : 
 no slackening nor stay ; the sand rises in a yellow 
 cloud, and they are wetted by the foam and breath 
 of the pursuers ; so great is desire of honour, so great 
 their care for victory. First Erichthonius dared to 
 yoke four steeds to the chariot and stand triumphant 
 above the racing wheels; the Telethronian Lapithae 
 mounted on horseback and bequeathed the bridle and 
 the ring, and taught the armed rider to spurn the sod 
 and gather his feet proudly in the canter. For both 
 the task is alike, alike the trainer searches out one in 
 his prime, hot of spirit and fleet of pace, how often so- 
 ever another have driven the flying foe in rout, and 
 boast Epirus or valiant ^\/Lycenae for his country, 
 
 and trace his line from Neptune's own ancestry. 
 62 
 
BOOK III 
 
 Which things regarded, they are busier as the time 
 draws near, and lavish all their care to Jill out with 
 firm fat him whom they have chosen leader and 
 named bridegroom of the herd; and mow flowering 
 grass and supply river-water and corn, lest he fail 
 of mastery in the delicious toil, and ill-fed fathers 
 have their record in weakling sons. The brood mares 
 moreover they purposely starve into leanness, and 
 when now the instinctive pleasure stirs them first to 
 union, deny them the boughs and fence them from 
 the fountain, and often shake them with galloping 
 and tire them in the sun, while the threshing-noor 
 groans dully under the corn-flail, and while the 
 empty chaff flutters to the freshening west wind. 
 This they do, that the fruitful Jield be not dulled for 
 use and the sluggish furrows choked by over abun- 
 dant ease, but thirstily swallow the seed and hide 
 it deeper within. 
 
 ^Again the care of the sires begins to drop and 
 of the dams to follow in turn. When the breeding 
 mares wander at the months' fulfilment, let no one 
 allow them to draw heavy wagon-yokes, nor clear 
 the road at a leap and dart over the meadows in vio- 
 lent speed or swim in rushing rivers. On clear lawns 
 
 6 3 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 they feed them and beside brimming streams, where 
 moss grows and the grass is greenest on the bank, by 
 sheltering caves and jutting shadow of cliff's. About 
 the groves ofSilarus and^/flburnus evergreen with 
 ilex there swarms a fly whose Ttynan name is asilus, 
 oestrus the (jreeks render it in their speech, fierce, 
 shrill of note, that scatters whole herds distracted 
 through the forest : their bellowings madden the 
 shaken air and the woods and the parched Tanagers 
 bank. With this plague Juno of old wreaked the ter- 
 rors of her wrath and counselled woe on the heifer- 
 daughter oflnachus : this likewise, for it attacks more 
 fiercely in the burning noons, thou shall ward off 
 from the breeding flock, and pasture thy herds when 
 the sun is newly risen or the stars usher in the night, 
 z^/ffter birth all the care passes to the calves in 
 turn ; and immediately they brand the name and 
 mark of race on such as they choose to rear for stock- 
 breeding, or to keep sacred for the altar, or to cleave 
 the soil and upturn the broken clods of the ridgy 
 meadow. The rest of the herd are at pasture on the 
 grassy green ; such as thou wilt shape to pursuit and 
 profit of husbandry, instruct while yet ungrown, 
 
 and set on the road of training while their minds are 
 6 4 
 
BOOK III 
 
 light in youth and their age flexible, ^/fnd first tie 
 round their shoulders loose rings of light osier: next, 
 when the free neck is grown used to bondage, match 
 and yoke the bullocks in pairs by the collars, and make 
 them keep step each with each ; and now let empty 
 carts be often drawn by them along the ground and 
 score a light track on the dust : thereafter may the 
 beechen axle creak to the strain of a weighty load, 
 and the brazen shaft pull the harnessed wheels. 
 (^I4eanwhilefor their unbroken youth thou shalt cut 
 not grass alone, nor thin willow-leaves and marsh 
 sedge, but the corn sown by thine hand; nor shall the 
 mother cows after ancient use Jill the snowy milk- 
 ing-pails, but spend all their udders on their darling 
 children. 
 
 But if thy desire be rather towards wars and fiery 
 squadrons, or to roll charioted by Tisa's ^Alphean 
 streams and urge thejlying team in the grove of Ju- 
 piter, the charger s first task is to look on warriors in 
 pride of arms, and endure the bugle note, and stand 
 the scream of the dragging wheel, and hear the rat- 
 tle of harness in the stall; then more and more to 
 rejoice in a kind word of praise from the trainer and 
 love the sound when his neck is patted, ^/fnd ven- 
 
 65 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 luring this even when just zveanedfrom his mother, 
 again in turn let him yield his mouth to the soft hal- 
 ter, while weak and yet unsteady and yet ignorant 
 in youth. But when three summers are past and the 
 fourth is come, presently he may begin to pace the 
 ring and mark time with clattering footfall, and 
 bend his legs in alternating curves, and take the look 
 of work; then let him challenge the gale in speed, 
 and flying over open spaces, as though free from the 
 rein, hardly lay his foot-prints on the soil's surface : 
 even as, when the gathered North wind swoops 
 down from Hyperborean borders and scatters the 
 wintry and waterless clouds of Scythia, the deep 
 cornfields and floating plains shiver in light gusts, 
 and the forest tops utter a cry and the long waves 
 race to the beach ; he wings his way, sweeping field 
 and flood in his level flight. Such an one shall either 
 sweat towards Elean goals over long spaces of plain 
 with mouth spurting bloody foam, or his supple neck 
 better bear on the Belgic car. Then at last when now 
 they are broken, let their body fill out with coarse 
 mash; for before breaking their pride will swell high, 
 and they will refuse when taken in hand to endure 
 the tough lash and obey the cruel curb. 
 
 66 
 
BOOK III 
 
 But no diligence more confirms their strength than 
 to keep love and the stings of blind passion aloof, 
 whether profit of oxen or of horses be more to our 
 mind. ^And therefore they banish the bull far into 
 lonely pasturage, behind a mountain barrier and 
 across broad streams, or keep him shut indoors by the 
 rich farmyard; for the female gradually wastes his 
 strength and consumes him in gazing and allows 
 him not to remember woodland or meadow ;yes and 
 often her sweet allurements drive her proud lovers 
 to let their horns decide the rivalry. On broad Sila 
 grazes the shapely heifer: they join in violent battle 
 and alternate the frequent wound; dark blood bathes 
 their bodies and their crashing horns strain in con- 
 fronting pressure, while forest and far-stretching 
 sky echo back. JVbr will the warriors herd together; 
 but the conquered retires, and keeps exile afar in 
 strange regions, making many a moan over his dis- 
 grace and the haughty conqueror's blows and his 
 love's loss unavenged; and gazing on the stall he 
 quits his ancestral realm. Therefore with all diligence 
 he trains his strength and lies nightlong on an un- 
 strewn couch among flinty rocks, feeding on prickly 
 leaves and sharp rushes ; and tries himself, and 
 
 67 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 learns to throw his rage into his horns by butting at 
 a tree trunk, and buffets the winds with blows, and 
 scatters the sand in rehearsal of battle. Thereafter, 
 in gathered might and strength renewed, he advan- 
 ces his standard and rushes headlong on his forgetful 
 foe : as a billow beginning to whiten in mid ocean 
 gathers a lengthening curve from the deep, and as 
 rolling landward it thunders over the rocks and falls 
 in very mountain mass, while the wave boils up ed- 
 dying from the bottom and hurls the black shingle 
 high up the beach. 
 
 Tes all on earth, the race of man and beast, the 
 tribes of the sea, cattle and coloured birds break into 
 fury and fire ; in all love is the same. At none other 
 season does the lioness forgetful of her whelps range 
 fiercer on the plains, nor the clumsy bear deal so many 
 a death and such widespread devastation through 
 the forests. Then the wild boar is fierce, then the ti- 
 gress most fell : ah, ill is it then to stray in the soli- 
 tary Libyan land ! Seest thou not the shudder that 
 thrills the whole body of the horse, if only the famil- 
 iar scent is wafted on the gale? and now neither reins 
 nor cruel whips of men, not cliffs or caverned rocks 
 delay him, nor barring rivers that unseat and whirl 
 
 68 
 
BOOK III 
 
 away mountains with their wave. The great Sabel- 
 lian boar charges with whetted tusks, tramples the 
 earth before him and chafes his flanks on a tree, and 
 on this side and that hardens his shoulders against 
 wounds. What of the youth, through whose frame 
 unrelenting love darts his mastering fire? late in the 
 blind night he swims the straits vexed by stormy 
 gusts, and over him thunders the mighty gate of 
 heaven, and the seas dash echoing on the crags ; nor 
 can his wretched parents call him back, nor the maid-_ 
 en left with cruel death for her doom. What of Bac- 
 chus' dappled lynxes, and the fierce tribe of wolves 
 and hounds? what of the battles fought by unwar- 
 like deer? Ttoubtless before all the madness of mares 
 is eminent, and Venus' very self inspired them on the 
 day when that Totnian chariot-team champed the 
 limbs of (jlaucus in their jaws. ^Across C^argarus 
 and across the roaring ^/[scanius love leads them ; 
 they scale the mountain and swim the river, ^/fnd 
 all at once when their inward longing kindles into 
 flame (in spring the rather, since in spring their vi- 
 tal heat returns), they all wheel and stand facing 
 the West on rocky heights, and snuff the light breezes, 
 and often without bodily union, wind-impregned, 
 
 6 9 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 wonderful to tell, over crag and cliff and deep-sunken 
 vale they scatter inflight not to thy springs, O East, 
 nor to the rising of the sun, but towards the north 
 and northwest winds, or whence the South issues 
 wrapped in gloom and saddens heaven with his chil- 
 ly rains. Then that clammy fluid, rightly named hip- 
 pomanes in shepherds' language, oozes from their 
 groin : the hippomanes that wicked stepmothers often 
 gather, and mingle with herbs and baleful spells. 
 
 But time fleets meanwhile, fleets beyond recovery, 
 while in loving enthralment we pass on and on. 
 Enough now of cattle: half of our charge is left, the 
 herding of fleecy flocks and rough she-goats. Here is 
 work ; hence look for praise, sturdy tillers of the soil. 
 Nor am I of doubtful mind how hard it is to win all 
 this in words, and crown things so slight with hon- 
 our. But in fond desire I am rapt over ^Parnassus' 
 lonely steeps, fain to pass along the hill where the 
 trace of no earlier wheel winds down the soft slope 
 to Castaly. 
 
 Now, august Tales, now must sound an ampler 
 tone. In the beginning I ordain that sheep crop their 
 fodder in the soft pens while leafy summer lingers 
 
 on his return, and that the hard ground be strewn 
 
 70 
 
BOOK III 
 
 beneath them with abundant straw and trusses of 
 fern, lest chill frost hurt the tender flock, and bring 
 mange or rotting feet. Thence I pass on and order for 
 the goats store of arbute-sprays and supply of fresh 
 river-water, and wind-sheltered pens turned to the 
 mid-day and facing the winter sun, even when chill 
 ^/fquarius is now setting showerful upon the verge 
 of the dying year. Them too must we guard with no 
 lighter carefulness : nor will the profit be less, how 
 great a price soever be exchanged for Milesian fleeces 
 steeped in Tyrian crimsons :from them is a more nu- 
 merous breed, from them wealth of abundant milk; 
 the fuller the pails have foamed from their drained 
 udders, the richer will drip the stream when the teats 
 are squeezed anew, ^/fnd no less withal men shear 
 the beards and silvered chins of the Cinyphian he- 
 goat, and his hairy bristles, for service of the camp 
 and sailcloth for hapless seafarers. Their pasture in- 
 deed is on Lycaean wood and hill-top, rough briars 
 and brushwood clinging to the steep ; and unherded 
 they return heedfully home, leading their young, and 
 hardly lift their heavy udders through the doorway. 
 Therefore with all diligence, as their need of human 
 care is the less, wilt thou guard them from frost and 
 
 71 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 snowy winds, and cheerfully deal them sustenance 
 and fodder of boughs, and keep thine hay-lofts un- 
 locked all mid-winter. But indeed when western 
 breezes call, and glad summer sends forth either flock 
 into lawn and mead, with the glimmer of the morn- 
 ing star let us haste to the chilly countryside while 
 morning is fresh and the grass frosty-white, and the 
 dew on the tender herbage sweetest to the cattle. 
 Thereafter, when the fourth hour in heaven has gath- 
 ered thirst and the note of the shrill tree-crickets 
 pierces the copses, by wells or by deep pools I will bid 
 the flocks drink the wave that runs in troughs of 
 ilex; but in the noonday heats seek some shady dell, 
 where Jove's great oak, massy and old, stretches his 
 giant boughs, or where, dark with many an ilex, 
 broods the sacred shadow of the grove : then once 
 more offer them the thin runlets and feed them once 
 more about set of sun, when cool evening allays the 
 air and now the dewy moonlight revives the lawns, 
 and the kingfisher is loud on the shore and the war- 
 bler in the thickets. 
 
 Why pursue to thee in verse the shepherds of Libya, 
 why their pastures and the scattered roofs of the huts 
 
 that are their home? Often daylong and nightlong 
 
 72 
 
BOOK III 
 
 and the whole month unbroken, the flock goes graz- 
 ing for lonely leagues without a dwelling; so wide 
 stretches the plain. The African herdsman carries 
 with him all his wealth, his house and household god, 
 his weapons and^fmyclaean dog and Cretan qui- 
 ver ; even as the valiant <r Rvman in his ancestral 
 arms, when he speeds his march beneath a cruel bur- 
 den, and the column halts and the camp is pitched 
 beside the surprised foe. 
 
 But not so where the tribes of Scythia border the 
 (^I4aeotic wave and the yellow "Danube rolls thick 
 with sand, or where outstretched ^hpdope runs back 
 under the mid pole. There they keep their herds shut 
 in stall, and no grass shows on the plain or leaf on 
 the tree ; but earth lies featureless in mounded snow 
 and deep fields of ice that rise to seven fathoms, un- 
 der eternal winter and eternal breath of icy north- 
 west winds. Nor ever does the sun pierce that pallid 
 gloom, neither when he rides his horses up the steep 
 of sky, nor when he slakes his headlong chariot in 
 Ocean s ruddy floor. Sudden ice-flakes gather on the 
 running stream, and even now the water bears iron- 
 tired wheels on its back, and gives broad wagons the 
 harbourage it gave to ships before. Brass vessels burst 
 
 73 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 continually, and clothes stiffen on the body, and li- 
 quid wine is cut with hatchets; whole pools turn into 
 solid ice, and the rough icicle congeals on the shaggy 
 beard. (^Meanwhile all the air is a single drift of 
 snow : the cattle die, the broad-backed oxen stand in 
 a frosty shroud, and the deer huddle in troops, be- 
 numbed by the fresh masses that their antler tips 
 barely outreach. On them men slip not the hounds, 
 hunt them not with any nets or the terror of crim- 
 son-feathered toils; but while they vainly push a- 
 gainst the breasting hill, slay them steel in hand and 
 cut them down deep-braying, and with merry clam- 
 our carry them home. Themselves in caverns deep 
 sunken under earth they fleet their careless leisure, 
 and roll to the hearth oak from the wood-pile and 
 whole elms to feed the fire. Here they pass the night 
 in games, and with beer and bitter me aths joyously 
 counterfeit draughts of the vine. Such is the wild 
 race of men that lies under the seven stars of the ut- 
 most North, buffeted by T^hipaean gales and wrap- 
 ped in the tawny fur of beasts. 
 
 If wool-groiving be thy care, first keep far from 
 brushwood, from bur and briar; shun rank pastur- 
 age ; and choose from the beginning a white and 
 74 
 
BOOK III 
 
 soft-fleeced flock. The ram moreover, be he else sil- 
 very as may be, if only his tongue is black under the 
 moist palate, reject thou, or he will darken the lambs' 
 fleeces with dusky spots, and choose another from 
 the flock that fills the meadow. With such snowy 
 wool for dower, if belief be deigned, Tan the god 
 of z^f ready ensnared thee, O <^loon, in his treach- 
 ery, when he called thee into the depth of woodland 
 and thou didst not scorn his call. 
 
 But whoso sets his heart on milk, let him with 
 his own hand carry store of lucerne and lotus, and 
 salted grass to the pens : so they desire water the 
 more, and the more swell their udders, and give 
 back in the milk an undertaste of salt. <*JWLany re- 
 move the new-born kids from their mothers, and fix 
 iron-spiked muzzles on their baby mouths. What 
 they milk at day spring or in the daylight hours, they 
 let curdle at night ; what at gathering dusk and 
 with the setting sun, they send off in pails at dawn 
 and the shepherd trudges to the town; or sprinkle 
 it sparingly with salt and store it up for winter. 
 
 Neither be the care of thy dogs the last-deferred; 
 but feed together on fattening whey the puppies of 
 the fleet Spartan and the keen <^Lolossian : never 
 
 75 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 in their guard shall thou dread thief by night in thy 
 pens or inroad of wolves or restless Iberians behind 
 thee ; often likewise wilt thou urge the chase of the 
 shy wild ass, and course hare or fallow deer with 
 thy hounds, often rout the boar startled with their 
 bay ing from his woodland wallowing-pool, and high 
 among the hills drive the lordly stag with shouts 
 into thy nets. 
 
 Learn also to burn scented cedar in the stalls, and 
 clear out noisome scaled snakes with fumes of gum. 
 Often under sheds long unmoved the dangerous vi- 
 per lurks and shrinks fearfully out of the daylight ; 
 or that sore plague of oxen, wont to glide under the 
 shadow of the roof and dart his venom at the flock, 
 the snake nestles in the ground. Snatch up sticks and 
 stones, O shepherd, and as he rises threatening and 
 puffs out his hissing throat, strike him down! and 
 now he hides his head deep in fearful flight, while 
 his coiling body and the last folds of his tail un- 
 wind, and he slowly trails the utmost curve of his 
 rings. Likewise there is that malign serpent of Cal- 
 abrian lawns that rolls along with uplifted breast, 
 scaly-backed and marked with large spots down the 
 length of his belly; who while streams yet gushfrom 
 76 
 
BOOK III 
 
 their fountain-heads, and while earth is wet with 
 moist spring and southern rains, lives in ponds and 
 housing on river banks, there greedily Jills his black 
 gorge with fish and chattering frogs ; after the 
 marsh is burnt up and the earth cracks in the blaz- 
 ing sun 9 he darts to dry land and rages over the 
 fields, rolling his fiery eyes, exasperate in thirst and 
 frantic with heat. <*JI4ay I not then be tempted to 
 take soft sleep beneath the sky, or lie along the grass 
 on the forest ridge, when fresh from his cast slough 
 and glittering in youth he glides forth stately in the 
 sunlight, leaving his young or his eggs at home, and 
 his mouth fiickers with triple -forked tongue. 
 
 Likewise will I instruct thee of diseases in their 
 sources and signs. Trotting mange attacks sheep 
 when icy rains and the hoarfrost of rough midwin- 
 ter sink deep in their live flesh, or when, after shear- 
 ing, the sweat clots unwashed and tangled briars 
 cut their body. Therefore the keepers bathe all the 
 flock in fresh running water, and the ram is plunged 
 in the pool and sent floating down stream with 
 drenched fleece: or they smear the shorn bodies with 
 bitter olive-lees, and mingle scum of silver and vir- 
 gin sulphur, pitch of Ida and wax ointment, and 
 
 77 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 squills and strong-smelling hellebore and black as- 
 phalt. Tet no device helps the trouble more, than 
 when one can cut away the festering surface with 
 steel; the sore is fed into life by concealment while the 
 shepherd refuses to lay healing hands to the wound 
 or sits idly praying to his gods for better fortune. 
 Nay, and when raging pains run deep in the bleat- 
 ing people and parching fever preys on their limbs , 
 it is found of service to allay the burning heat and 
 strike a vein where it throbs with blood between the 
 hoofs: as is the wonted manner ofBisaltae, or of the 
 fierce (jelonian in retreat to T^hpdope or Qetan soli- 
 tudes, whose drink is milk curdled with blood of 
 mares. If from far thou seest one passing oftener into 
 the languid shade, or more listlessly cropping the 
 tops of grass and following behind the rest, or lying 
 down in mid-pasture of the meadow and retiring 
 alone before deepening night, straightway check the 
 evil with thy knife, ere the terrible infection spread 
 through the heedless multitude. Not so heavy comes 
 the rush of rain when a squall sweeps over the sea, 
 as diseases multiply in thejlock : neither do ailments 
 seize them singly, but whole summer-pastures at a 
 stroke, thejlock and the flock's hope together, and 
 78 
 
BOOK III 
 
 all the race, root and branch; as any may know who 
 sees even now so long afterward, by soaring ^4lps 
 and None hill-forts and fields oflapydian Timav- 
 us, the deserted pastoral realm and far-stretching 
 lawns left desolate. 
 
 Here once the air sickened and a woful season 
 came, that kindling with the gathered heat of au- 
 tumn dealt death on all the tribes of cattle and wild 
 beasts, and poisoned the rotting pools and putrid 
 fodder. Nor was the march of death straightfor- 
 ward: but when fiery thirst, coursing in all the veins, 
 had shrunk the aching limbs, again the watery hu- 
 mours 'flooded out, and all the bones, dissolving under 
 the disease, melted into them piecemeal. Often amid 
 divine sacrifice the victim standing by the altar, 
 while the snowy -ribboned fillet of wool was being 
 twined about it, fell dying among the tardy minis- 
 trants. Or had the priestly steel slain in time, no 
 jlame rises from those filaments when laid upon the 
 altar, nor can the soothsayer return counsel or reply : 
 hardly is the knife at the throat stained by the blood 
 or the sand's surface darkened by the thin gore. Next, 
 calves lie dying all over the luxuriant grass, and 
 yield up their sweet life by the full manger: next, 
 
 79 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 madness comes on the kindly dogs, and a hard rat- 
 tling cough and choking swelling of the throat on 
 the sickened swine. Joyless in his exercises and heed- 
 less of the grass, the viffior steed pines, and turns 
 away from the fountain, and beats the earth with 
 impatient foot : his ears droop, and by them sweat 
 comes and goes, and that cold and betokening death: 
 his skin is dry and hard when stroked, and resists the 
 touch. Such are the signs that for the first days fore- 
 shadow the end; but as the sickness begins to ad- 
 vance and gather violence, then indeed their eyes 
 burn and their breath is fetched deep, heavy with 
 broken moans, their Jlanks below heave with long- 
 drawn sobs, black blood oozes from their nostrils, 
 and their throat is blocked by their rough and swol- 
 len tongue. It helped to thrust in a horn and pour 
 down it juice of the winepress ; that seemed the one 
 restorative for the dying : in short space the very cure 
 was fatal; reviving, they maddened in fever, and 
 even in mortal weakness (the gods send better things 
 to the righteous and that bewilderment on our foes !) 
 they tore and mangled their own limbs with naked 
 teeth. ^Ind lo, smoking under the iron share the 
 
 bull drops down, spurts from his mouth mingled 
 80 
 
BOOK III 
 
 blood and foam, and heaves a last groan : sadly the 
 ploughman advancing unyokes the bullock mourn- 
 ing his brother s death and leaves the plough stuck 
 fast in mid-furrow. Not shades of stately groves, 
 not soft meadows can stir his sense, not the river 
 that curls brighter than amber over his rocks to seek 
 the plain ; but his deepjlanks relax, his dull eyes are 
 weighed down in stupor, and his neck sinks droop- 
 ing heavily to earth. What avails his toil or his ser- 
 vices ? What that his ploughshare has upturned the 
 ponderous clods? ^Andyet no Classic bounty of 
 the vine, no crowding banquets have done harm to 
 these ; they feed on leaves and simple pasture of 
 grass, their cups are clear springs and racing rivers, 
 nor does care break their healthful sleep. Then as 
 never before they say that in that countryside oxen 
 were to seek for Juno's rites, and chariots were 
 drawn by ill-matched buffaloes to the high votive 
 shrines. Therefore they wearily furrow earth with 
 mattocks, and cover in the seed-corn with their own 
 nails, and with straining necks drag their creaking 
 wagons over the hill heights. No more does the wolf 
 prowl in ambush round the sheepfolds nor pace 
 nightlong nigh thejlocks; a fiercer care makes him 
 
 81 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 tame. Shy fallow deer and timid stags now stray 
 among the dogs and about the houses. Nay, the 
 brood of the infinite sea and all the tribe of swim- 
 ming creatures lie on the verge of the strand like 
 shipwrecked corpses in the wash of the wave, and 
 seals take unwonted refuge in the rivers: an din the 
 vain defence of her winding recesses the viper per- 
 ishes, and the snake with scales stiffened in dismay : 
 to the very birds the air is cruel, and they drop, leav- 
 ing their life high under the clouds. Furthermore, 
 no change of food is now aught of avail, and arts 
 are sought but for harm ; Chiron son ofThillyra and 
 ^Amythaonian (^Melampus give up their mastery . 
 Loosed into daylight from Stygian gloom wan Tis- 
 iphone maddens, and drives plague and panic before 
 her, and day by day towers insatiate with higher up- 
 lifted head; river and parched bank and couchant 
 hills echo with incessant lowings and bleating of 
 flocks. ^And now she deals destruction in battal- 
 ions, and heaps the very folds with carcases rotting 
 in foul decay, till men learn to cover them with 
 earth and hide them out of sight in pits. For neither 
 might the hides be used, nor can any one dissolve or 
 consume thejlesh in water or flame : not even can 
 82 
 
BOOK III 
 
 they shear the fleeces, eaten through by corruption of 
 
 the pestilence, nor set hand to the rotten web: nay, 
 
 even if any had braved so abhorred a garment, 
 
 burning pustules and foul-smelling sweat 
 
 overran his limbs, and in no long 
 
 space of delay thereafter the 
 
 fatal Jire devoured 
 
 his infected 
 
 frame. 
 
GEORGICS. BOOK IV 
 
 EXT will I advance to heaven-born hon- 
 ey, the gift of air (let this likewise, 
 (^Maecenas, share thy regard), and 
 tell thee of the wondrous show of a tiny state, of 
 high-hearted princes and a whole nation's ordered 
 works and ways, tribes and battles. Slight is the field 
 of labour; but not slight the glory, if but thwarting 
 deities allow, and ^/fpoll.o listen to prayer. 
 
 "IRST of all a home must be sought for 
 bees, and a post where neither winds 
 may have entry for winds hinder them 
 carrying their forage home nor sheep and butting 
 kids tread down the flowers, or the straying heifer 
 brush the dew from the meadow and trample the 
 springing grass. Likewise let the bright scale-backed 
 8 4 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 lizard be far from their rich folds, and the birds that 
 come with the bee-eater, and the swallow, her breast 
 marked with those blood-stained hands : for they 
 spread universal havoc, and carry off the bees on 
 the wing, dainty morsels for their fierce nestlings. 
 But let clear springs be nigh, and ponds green with 
 moss, and a thread of rill fleeting through the grass; 
 and let a palm or tall wild-olive overshadow the 
 entrance, that when the new kings shall lead forth 
 their earliest swarms in the sweet springtime, and 
 the young brood disport unprisoned from the comb, 
 the bordering bank may woo them to cool retreat, 
 and the tree meet and stay them in her leafy shelter. 
 ^4mid the water, whether it stagnate or run, cast 
 large stones and willow-boughs crosswise, that they 
 may have many a bridge to stand on and spread their 
 wings to the summer sun, if haply a shower overtake 
 them, or a gust of wind plunge them in the watery 
 realm. All round green casia and far-fragrant wild 
 thyme and wealth of heavy-scented savory should 
 bloom, and violet beds drink the channelled spring. 
 Let thy hives, moreover, whether they be stitched of 
 hollow bark or woven from pliant osier, have narrow 
 doorways ;for the honey freezes in winter cold, and 
 
 85 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 again melts and wastes in the heat. Extreme of either 
 the bees dread alike; nor in vain do they eagerly plas- 
 ter with wax the draughty chinks in the roof and 
 stop up the rims with pollen of flowers, and for this 
 very service gather and store their gum, stickier than 
 bird-lime or pitch from ^Phrygian Ida. Often like- 
 wise, if the tale is true, they keep house in recesses 
 scooped out underground, or are found deep in hol- 
 low sandstone or the cavern of a mouldering tree. 
 Yet do thou smear smooth clay warmly round about 
 their creviced chambers, and spread on the top a 
 thin coat of leaves. Neither suffer the yew too near 
 their house, neither burn crab-shells to redness in 
 the fire, neither trust them where a marsh is deep, 
 or by a strong smell of mire, or where encircling 
 rocks echo to a stroke and fling back the phantom of 
 a call. 
 
 For the rest, when the golden sun has driven win- 
 ter routed underground and flung wide the sky in 
 summer light, forthwith they range over lawn and 
 wood, and harvest the shining blossoms and sip 
 lightly of the streams ; then glad with some strange 
 delight, they nurture their brood in the nest, then 
 deftly forge the fresh wax and mould the clammy 
 
 86 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 honey. Then, as looking up thou seest their armies 
 swarming skyward from the hives and floating 
 through the clear summer air, andwonderest at their 
 dim cloud trailing in the wind, mark ! ever they steer 
 for sweet water and leafy shelter. Here sprinkle 
 the odours ordained, crushed balm and lowly tufts 
 of honey wort, and make a tinkling roundabout and 
 clash the cymbals of our Lady ; themselves will set- 
 tle on the scented seat, themselves in their wonted 
 way creep into the inmost covert of their nest. 
 
 But further, if they are gone forth to battle, 
 for often high swelling discord arises between two 
 kings, and at once and afar thou mayest foreknow 
 the raging of the multitude and the hearts beating 
 fast for war; for a note as of the hoarse brass of our 
 zJI4ars chides the lingerers and a cry is heard that 
 mimics broken trumpet-blasts, then they muster 
 hurriedly together with vibrating wings, and whet 
 their stings on their beaks and brace their arms, and 
 crowd in mingled mass round their king and close 
 up to the royal tent, and with loud cries challenge 
 the enemy. So when they find the spring sky rainless 
 and their field open, they sally from the gates ; high 
 in air the armies clash and the din swells ; gather- 
 
 87 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 ing they cluster in a great ball and come tumbling 
 down, thick as hailstones through the air or the rain 
 of acorns from the shaken ilex. The monarchs move 
 splendid-winged amid the ranks, and mighty pas- 
 sions stir in their tiny breasts, stubborn to the last 
 not to retreat, till weight of the conqueror forces 
 these or those to turn backward injlying rout. These 
 stormy passions and these mighty conflicts are lulled 
 to rest by a handful of scattered dust. 
 
 But when thou hast recalled both leaders from 
 the battle-field, do to death him who seems inferior, 
 that he be not a waste and harm; let the better reign 
 in a clear court. One will be ablaze with spots of 
 embossed gold; for there are two kinds, this the bet- 
 ter, fair of feature and splendid infiashing scales ; 
 the other, rough-coated and sluggish, crawls meanly 
 with his breadth of belly, ^/fs the two kings in as- 
 pet, so are their subjects shapen ;for some are rough 
 and dirty, even as a traveller when he issues from 
 deep dust and spits from his mouth the gritty soil, 
 all athirst ; others shine and sparkle in splendour, 
 and their bodies blaze with evenly-marked drops of 
 gold. These are the choicer breed; from their combs 
 at the ordained season of the skies thou shall squeeze 
 
 88 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 sweet honey, and yet less sweet than crystal-clear, 
 to soften the harsh taste of wine. 
 
 But when the swarms fly aimlessly at play in the 
 sky, and despise their combs and leave their house to 
 grow cold, thou shalt stop their light-minded and 
 idle game. JVor is it much work to stop ; tear off the 
 wings of the kings ; while they linger, not a bee will 
 dare to set out on their aery way or move standard 
 from the camp. Let garden plots woo them with 
 fragrance of their yellow flowers, and the watch- 
 man of thieves and birds, Hellespontic Triapus, 
 keep them in guard with his hook of willow. Him- 
 self should the keeper of such plant about their houses 
 broad belts of thyme and pines brought from the hill 
 heights ; himself wear his hand hard with work, 
 himself bed the soil with fruitful shoots and water 
 them with kindly showers. 
 
 </nd truly, but that already Hearing my task's 
 final limit I furl my sails and hasten to turn my 
 prow to land, perchance I might also sing of the care 
 and keeping that deck the rich garden mould, and 
 of the Taestan rosebeds with their double blossom- 
 ing, and how the endive rejoices in drinking the rill 
 
 and the banks are green with parsley, and how the 
 
 8 9 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 curved gourd swells bellying along the grass, not 
 had kept silence of the late-cowering narcissus or 
 the shoot of the curled acanthus , and pale ivy-sprays 
 and the myrtles that love the shore. For I remember 
 how, beneath the towered fortress ofOebalia, where 
 dark (jalaesus moistens his golden cornfields, I saw 
 an old man of Corycus, who owned some few acres 
 of waste land, afield neither rich for grazing nor 
 favorable to thejlock nor apt for the vineyard; yet 
 he, setting thinly sown garden-stuff among the 
 brushwood, with borders of white lilies and vervain 
 and the seeded poppy, equalled in his content the 
 wealth of kings; and, returning home when night 
 was late, would heap his table with unbought dain- 
 ties. The first roses of spring, the first apples of au- 
 tumn he would gather; and when even yet the frost 
 of bitter winter cleft the rocks and laid an icy curb 
 on the running waters, already he plucked the soft- 
 tressed hyacinth, chiding the late-lingering summer 
 and the west wind's delay. So likewise was he the 
 first for whom the bees' brood overflowed in swarm- 
 ing multitudes, and the frothing honey drained from 
 the squeezed combs ; lime trees were his, and wealth 
 of pine ; and as many apples as had arrayed his or- 
 9 o 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 chard-tree in the fresh blossom, so many it carried 
 ripe at autumn. He too transplanted into rows full- 
 grown elms and the hard-wood pear, and the black- 
 thorn with sloes already upon it, and the plane al- 
 ready yielding shade to the drinker. But this for my 
 part, debarred by jealous limits, I pass by and leave 
 to be told by others after me. 
 
 Now come, I will set forth the gifts wherewith 
 Jove himself has dowered bees at birth, their wa- 
 ges when, following the musical cries and tinkling 
 brasses of the Curetes, they fed the king of heaven 
 in that low cave of Crete. ^Alone they have com- 
 munity of children and shelter of a confederate city, 
 and spend their life under majesty of law; alone they 
 know a native country and established gods of the 
 household, and, mindful of winter s coming, they 
 ply their summer task and lay up their gatherings 
 in a common store. For some are diligent to provide 
 food, and labour in the fields, by ordinance of the 
 league ; others within their fortified houses lay the 
 combs' first foundations with tear of narcissus and 
 sticky resin of bark, and hang thereon the clinging 
 waxen walls: some guide forth the grown brood, 
 their nation's hope; others press down the pure virgin 
 
 9 1 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 honey and brim the cells with liquid sweets. To cer- 
 tain of them falls the lot of guard at the gates, and 
 in turn they keep watch on showers and cloudy skies, 
 or take the loads of the incomers, or in ranked array 
 keep the drones, that idle gang, aloof from the folds: 
 the work is all aswarm, and fragrance breathes from 
 the thyme-scented honey, ^/fnd even as when the 
 Cyclopean forgers of the thunder hurry on the duc- 
 tile ore, some make the wind come and go in bellows 
 of bull-hide, some dip the hissing brass in the trough; 
 Etna groans under their anvils' pressure, as alter- 
 nating they lift their arms mightily in time, and 
 turn the iron about in the grip of their tongs : even 
 so, if small things may be compared with great, are 
 our^Attic bees urge don each in her proper duty by 
 inborn love of possession. The aged have the town 
 in charge, and the walling of the combs and the 
 shaping of the curious chambers; but the younger 
 return weary when night grows late, their thighs 
 laden with thyme, and pasture all abroad on arbu- 
 tus and grey willow, on casia and the crimsoned 
 crocus, and the rich lime-blossom and the rust-red 
 hyacinth. For all is one rest from toil, work-time for 
 
 all is one. With morning they stream out of their 
 92 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 gates, with never a lingerer ; alike again, when 
 evening warns them at last to quit their meadow 
 pasture, then they seek their home, then they refresh 
 their bodies; murmuring, they hum around the edges 
 of the doorway. Thereafter, when now they are quiet 
 in their cells, silence deepens with night, and kindly 
 slumber overspreads their tired limbs. JVbr indeed 
 when rain threatens do they withdraw very far from 
 their folds, or trust the sky when east winds are on 
 their way ; but fetch water in shelter close round 
 their city walls, and essay short sallies, and often 
 lift pebbles, as boats take in ballast when they rock 
 in the tossing surge, and poise themselves so among 
 the bodiless clouds. 
 
 This custom approved of bees may truly waken thy 
 wonder, that they neither delight in bodily union, nor 
 melt away in languor of love, nor bear their young 
 by birth-throes ; but straight from the leaves and 
 scented herbage they gather their children in their 
 mouths, themselves keep up the succession of king 
 and tiny citizens, and fashion anew their halls and 
 waxen realm. Often moreover in wandering they 
 crush their wings against flinty rocks and freely yield 
 their life beneath the burden ; such is their love of 
 
 93 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 flowers and their pride in honey-making. Therefore, 
 although their own life be brief and soon taken to its 
 rest, since to the seventh summer it lasts and no 
 further, yet the race abides immortal, and through 
 many years the Fortune of their house stands, and 
 their ancestors are counted to the third and fourth 
 generation. 
 
 Furthermore, not Egypt and mighty Lydia, not 
 the Tarthian peoples or the (Jldede by Hydaspes 
 so adore their king. Their king safe, all are of one 
 mind ; he lost, they break allegiance, plunder the 
 honey-cells themselves have built, and break open the 
 plaited combs. He is guardian of their labours ; him 
 they regard, and all gather round in murmuring 
 throng and encompass him in their swarms ; and 
 often lift him on their shoulders and shield him in 
 war with their bodies, and seek through wounds a 
 glorious death. 
 
 Noting this and led by these instances, certain 
 have claimed for bees a share of some divine intelli- 
 gence and a draught of the springs of heaven. For 
 (pod, they say, extends through all lands and spaces 
 of sea and depths of sky ;from him flocks and herds 
 and men and all the race of wild creatures, each at 
 
 94 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 birth, draw the slender stream of life ; to him there- 
 after all things as surely return, and are dissolved 
 into him again; nor is there place for death; but liv- 
 ing they Jlit to their starry mansions and rise to a 
 heaven above. 
 
 If ever thou wilt unseal their imperial dwellings 
 and the stored honey in their treasuries, first sprinkle 
 thyself and wash thy mouth with a draught of wa- 
 ter and hold forth searching smoke in thine hand. 
 Twice men gather the heavy foison in two seasons 
 of harvest : so soon as Taygete the Tleiad shows 
 forth her august face upon the world, and spurns 
 with her foot the recoiling ocean streams ; or again 
 when retreating before the star of the rainy Fish she 
 sinks from a glooming sky into the wintry waves. 
 They are furious beyond measure, and when attacked 
 breathe venom in their bite, and fastening on the 
 veins leave their buried stings behind and lay down 
 their lives in the wound. But if, dreading a hard 
 winter, thou wilt spare future provision and com- 
 passionate their broken spirit and shattered estate, 
 yet to fumigate with thyme and cut away the empty 
 cells who could hesitate ?for often unnoticed the eft 
 nibbles at the combs, and beetles build their nests 
 
 95 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 and hide out of the light, and the drone, sitting idle 
 at another's board, or the fierce hornet joins battle 
 with overpowering arms, or moths, an ill-omened 
 tribe, or the spider hated of ^I4inerva spreads her 
 loose web in the doorway. The lower they are brought, 
 the more eagerly will all press on to repair the ruin 
 of their fallen race, and will fill their galleries and 
 build their woven granaries of blossoms. 
 
 If indeed, since to bees also life brings such mis- 
 chances as ours, they droop under sore bodily ail- 
 ment ; and this thou wilt readily know by no un- 
 certain signs : straightway their colour changes in 
 sickness ; they lose their looks and grow thin and 
 haggard, and carry out of doors the bodies of their 
 dead and lead the gloomy funeral train ; and either 
 hang clutching by their feet at the doorway, or shut 
 their house and idle within, hungry and spiritless, 
 and benumbed by a cramping chill. Then a deeper 
 hum is heard, and they murmur in long-drawn tone, 
 like the cold south wind sighing in the forest, like 
 the hissing waves of a restless ebbing sea, like the 
 fierce fire roaring behind the furnace doors. Here- 
 at I will counsel thee to burn scented gum, and drip 
 honey in through pipes of reed, calling with unin- 
 9 6 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 vited urgence the tired creatures to their familiar 
 food. It will be well to mingle withal juice of pound- 
 ed galls, and dry rose leaves, or wine boiled thick 
 over a strong fire, or raisin-clusters from the Psithian 
 vine, and ^Attic thyme and strong-smelling cen- 
 taury. Likewise there is a meadow-flower named 
 amellus by husbandmen, a plant easily found by the 
 seeker, for it lifts from a single stalk a dense growth 
 of shoots; golden the flower, but the petals that clus- 
 ter thickly round it are dark violet shot with crim- 
 son; often the gods' altars are decked with its woven 
 wreaths ; it tastes bitter in the mouth ; shepherds 
 gather it in the cropped valley grass and beside the 
 winding streams of \JVLdla. Boil the roots of this 
 in fragrant wine and set it in basketfuls for food by 
 the doorway. 
 
 But for one whom the whole breed shall fail of a 
 sudden, and he have nothing left to renew the race 
 in a fresh family, it is time to unfold further the 
 famed invention of the ^Arcadian keeper, and in 
 what wise often ere now bees have been born from 
 the putrefying blood of a slain bullock. <*JMore fully 
 will I discover all the tale and trace it from its ear- 
 liest source. For where the favoured race o 
 
 97 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 cedonian Canopus dwell by the still broad overflow 
 of Nile and ride round their own farms in painted 
 boats, and where the quivered Tersian land presses 
 nigh, and the rushing river that pours straight down 
 from the swarthy Indians parts into seven separate 
 mouths [_and enriches green Egypt with its dark 
 sand"], all the realm builds on this art a certain rem- 
 edy. First a small room is chosen, straitened down 
 just to serve for this; they confine it by a narrow 
 tiled roof and cramped walls, and towards the four 
 winds add four windows with slanting lights. Then 
 is sought a calf of two years old, with horns already 
 curving from his forehead; his double nostrils and 
 breathing mouth are sewed up, spite of all his strug- 
 gling, and he is beaten to death and the flesh pound- 
 ed to pulp through the unbroken skin. Thus they 
 leave him shut close, laying under his sides broken 
 boughs and thyme, and fresh sprays of casia. This 
 is done when west winds first ruffle the waters, ere 
 yet the meadows flush with fresh colours, ere yet the 
 chattering swallow hang her nest from the rafters. 
 (^I4eanwhile the humours heat and ferment in the 
 soft bones, and creatures wonderfully fashioned may 
 
 be seen, at first limbless, but soon they stir with 
 9 8 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 rustling wings, and more and more adventure the 
 delicate air : until like a shower bursting from sum- 
 mer clouds they swarm forth, or like arrows from the 
 quivering bowstring when light Tarthian skirmish- 
 ers advance to battle. 
 
 Who, O (J/J4uses, who wrought for us this mira- 
 culous art ? Whence did this strange experience en- 
 ter the paths of men ? 
 
 The shepherd Aristaeusjled from Peneian Tempe, 
 his bees lost, they say, by sickness and scarcity, and 
 stood sad by the holy spring of the river-head, and 
 with many a complaint called thus upon her who 
 bore him. <*Jl4other, Cyrene mother, who dwellest 
 here deep beneath the flood, why hast thou borne me 
 in the gods' illustrious line if indeed my father is 
 he whom thou sayest, ^/f polio of Thymbra to be 
 the scorn of doom ? or whither is thy love for me 
 swept away ? why didst thou bid me aspire to hea- 
 ven ? Lo, even this mere pride of my mortal life, so 
 hardly wrought out by infinite endeavour in skilful 
 tendance of harvest and herd, this, and thou art my 
 mother, I see depart. Nay come, and with thine own 
 hand uproot my fruitful orchards, carry destroying 
 jire into the folds and kill the harvests, wither the 
 
 99 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 cornfields and wield the strong axe upon the vines, 
 if thou art grown so weary of my praise. 
 
 But from her chamber in the river depth the mo- 
 ther heard his cry. o^/f round her the Nymphs carded 
 ^Idilesianfleeces stained with rich sea-dyes, 'Dry- 
 mo and Xantho 9 Ligea and Thyllodoce, their bright 
 tresses falling loose over their snowy necks; and Cy- 
 dippe and golden-haired Lycorias, the one a maid- 
 en, the other even then knowing thejirst throes of 
 travail; and Clio, and Beroe her sister, both daugh- 
 ters of Ocean, both decked with gold, both girt with 
 dappled skins ; and Ephyre and Opis and ^Asian 
 'Deiopea, and fleet ^/frethusa, her arrows at last 
 laid by. <^And among them Clymene was telling of 
 Vulcan s fruitless care, and the wiles of^JMars and 
 the stolen sweetness, and recounting from Chaos 
 downward the myriad loves of the gods. And while 
 amid the witchery of her song the soft spun wool 
 curls off their distaffs, again <>sfristaeus' lament 
 thrilled his mother's ears, and all were motionless 
 on their crystal chairs ; but before the rest of the sis- 
 terhood ^4 rethusa glanced forth, lifting her golden 
 head above the wave, and cried from far : O not 
 vainly startled by so heavy a moan, Cyrene sister, 
 
 IOO 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 he thine own, thy chief est care, mourning 
 taeus stands in tears by ancient Teneus' wave, and 
 calls thee cruel and names thy name. To her the mo- 
 ther, stricken in soul with fresh alarm , Lead him, 
 quick, lead him to us ; he, she cries, may unforbidden 
 tread the threshold of gods. With that she bids the 
 deep streams retire, leaving a broad path for his steps 
 to enter in. But round him the mountain-wave stood 
 curving and clasped him in its mighty fold, and sped 
 him beneath the river. ^And now marvelling at 
 his mother s home and watery realm, cavern-locked 
 pools and roaring forests, he passed on, and, stunned 
 by the vast whirl of waters, gazed on all the great 
 floods of distant regions rolling under earth, Tha- 
 sis and Lycus, and the spring head whence breaks 
 forth high Enipeus' source, whence the lord of Ti- 
 ber and whence the streams of(^Anio, and Hypanis 
 roaring over his rocks, and (^Mysian Caicus and, 
 with the twin gilded horns on his bull's forehead, 
 Eridanus, than whom no other river flows fiercer 
 down through his rich tilth into the shining sea. 
 zSffter they entered the chamber with its hanging 
 roof of rock, and Cyrene heard her son's idle tale of 
 tears, her sisters duly pour clear spring-water on his 
 
 IOI 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 hands and bring towels with dose-cut fleece : others 
 pile the banquet on the board and array the brim- 
 ming cups; flame ofTanchaean spice swells from 
 the altars , and his mother cries, Take up a flagon of 
 (^Maeonian wine; let us pour libation to Oceanus. 
 Herself therewithal offers prayer to Oceanus father 
 of all things, and to the Nymphs' sisterhood who 
 have an hundred forests, an hundred floods in their 
 keeping: thrice she poured clear neftar over the blaz- 
 ing altar-fire, thrice the flame sank and flared up 
 again to the crown of the roof, ^/fnd strengthening 
 his courage by this omen, she thus begins : 
 
 In the Carpathian sea-gulf dwells a soothsayer, 
 blue ^Proteus, whose chariot yoked withjishes and 
 twy -footed coursers spans the mighty ocean plain. 
 He now visits again Emathias borders and his 
 birthplace of Tallene ; to him we Nymphs do wor- 
 ship, and aged Nereus our lord; for he has the seer's 
 knowledge of all things that are or that have been 
 or that draw nigh to their coming : this by grace of 
 Neptune, whose monstrous flocks and ugly seals he 
 herds under the gulf . Him, my son, must thou first 
 enfetter, that he may fully unfold the source of the 
 sickness, and give prosperous issue. For without force 
 
 102 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 he will give counsel in nowise, nor wilt thou bend 
 him by entreaties ; with sheer force and fetters must 
 thou tie thy prisoner; around them his wiles at last 
 will break unavailing. Myself will lead thee, when 
 the sun has kindled the heat ofnoon,when the grass 
 is athirst and the shade now grows more grateful 
 to the flock, to the old mans covert, his retreat from 
 the weary waves, that while he lies asleep thou 
 mayest lightly assail him. But when thou shall hold 
 him caught and fettered in thine hands, even then 
 the form and visage of manifold wild beasts shall 
 mock thee ;for in a moment he will turn to a bristly 
 boar or a black tiger, a scaly serpent and tawny - 
 necked lioness, or will roar shrill in flame and so 
 slip out of the fetters, or will melt into thin water 
 and be gone. But the more he changes into endless 
 shapes, the more do thou, my son, strain tight the 
 grasp of his fetters, until his body change again into 
 the likeness thou sawest when his eyes drooped and 
 his sleep began. 
 
 So says she and sprinkles on him liquid scent of 
 ambrosia, anointing with it all the body of her son : 
 but his ranged curls breathed a sweet fragrance, 
 
 and supple strength grew in his limbs. There is a vast 
 
 103 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 cave in the hollowed mountain side, where countless 
 waves are driven before the gale and break among 
 the deep recesses : of old a sure anchorage for mari- 
 ners caught by storm : within it ^Proteus takes shel- 
 ter behind the barrier of a mighty rock. Here the 
 Nymph places her son in hiding aw ay from the light, 
 and herself stands apart, dim in a mist. Now fierce 
 Sirius blazed from the sky, scorching the thirsty In- 
 dian, and the fiery sun had swept to his mid arch: 
 the grass was parched, and in hollow river-beds, dry- 
 mouthed, the heated mud baked in his rays ; when 
 <Troteus advanced from the waves to seek his fam- 
 iliar cavern; around him the wet tribes of the mighty 
 deep gambolling splashed wide the briny spray. His 
 seals stretch themselves asleep here and there along 
 the shore; he, as some guardian of a hill-fold when 
 evening leads the calves homeward from pasture 
 and the wolves rouse as they hear the bleating of the 
 lambs, takes his seat on a rock among them and tells 
 their tale. ^^4nd upon himAristaeus, as his chance 
 offers, hardly allowing the ancient to settle his weary 
 limbs, darts with a loud cry and slips the shackles 
 over him as he lies. He in return, not unmindful of 
 
 his cunning, transforms himself into things mani- 
 104 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 fold and marvellous, fire and dreadful wild beast 
 andflowing river. But when none of his magic finds 
 him escape, he returns foiled into his own shape and 
 at length speaks with human visage: ^/fh, who bade 
 thee, most venturous youth, draw nigh our home? or 
 what wouldst thou ? he cries. But he : Thou know- 
 est, O Troteus, thyself knowest : nor canst thou at 
 all delude me. But cease to struggle. Following di- 
 vine commands we are come, to seek here oracular 
 counsel for a fallen estate. So far he spoke : thereat 
 the soothsayer at last violently rolled the glassy orbs 
 ofhisfiaming eyes, and gnashing his teeth heavily 
 thus gave voice to fate : 
 
 Not save by wrath of deity art thou plagued : 
 great is the crime thou dost expiate. This punish- 
 ment wretched Orpheus for no desert of his calls 
 forth upon thee unless Fate oppose in mad grief 
 for his wife torn away. She indeed,jlying headlong 
 before thee through the river, saw not her death up- 
 on her in the deep grass before her girlish feet, where 
 that monstrous snake guarded the bank. But the 
 band of her Ttry ad playmates filled the mountain 
 summits with their cries : < T$hpdopeian fortresses 
 wept, and Tangaean heights and c Rhesus martial 
 
 105 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 land, 0-etae and Hebrus, and ^/[Stian Orithyia. 
 He, soothing his love-sickness on his hollow shell, 
 sang ofthee, O sweet wife, ofthee alone on the soli- 
 tary shore, ofthee at day spring, ofthee at the death 
 of day. Even that gorge of Taenarus, the high gate- 
 way of Tfe, and the grove that glooms in horror of 
 darkness he entered, and drew nigh the ghostly peo- 
 ple and their awful king, and the hearts that know 
 not to melt at human supplications. But, startled 
 by his song, from the deep sunken realm of Erebus 
 thin shadows rose and phantoms of the lost to light, 
 millionfold as birds shelter in the leaves when even- 
 fall or wintry rain drives them from the hill; ma- 
 trons and men and bodies of high-hearted heroes 
 whose life was done, boys and unwedded girls and 
 young men laid on the pyre before their parents' 
 eyes: whom all round the black slime and ugly reeds 
 of Cocytus and the sluggish wave of the unlovely 
 pool enfetter, and Styx severs with the barrier of 
 her ninefold flood. Nay, the very halls of death and 
 Hell's recesses were amazed, and the Furies with 
 livid serpents twined in their tresses ; Cerberus held 
 his triple jaws agape, and Ixions whirling wheel 
 hung motionless on the wind. And now his return- 
 
 106 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 ing feet had outsped every peril, and his regained 
 Eurydice was issuing to upper air, following at his 
 back for thus had Proserpine ordained when a 
 sudden madness seized the unwary lover, surely to be 
 forgiven, if ^Death knew forgiveness. He stopped; 
 his own Eurydice was just on the edge of daylight; 
 forgetful, alas! and impassioned he looked round on 
 her. There all his toil was spilt and the treaty bro- 
 ken with that merciless monarch; and thrice a thun- 
 der pealed over the pools of^Avernus. Who, woe's 
 me ! she cries, hath destroyed me, and thee with me, 
 Orpheus ? what frenzy is this ? Lo, again the cruel 
 fates call me backward, and sleep hides my swim- 
 ming eyes. And now goodbye: I pass away wrapped 
 in a great darkness, and helplessly stretching to- 
 wards thee the hands that, alas! are not thine. She 
 spoke, and suddenly out of his eyes, like vapour melt- 
 ing in the thin air, fled into the distance, neither saw 
 him more as he vainly grasped at the shadows and 
 fain would say many a word; nor did the gate- 
 keeper of Orcus suffer him again to cross that bar- 
 ring pool. What could he do ? or whither turn now 
 his wife was twice torn away ? how with words or 
 with weeping stir the realm ofDeath? and she even 
 
 107 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 now floated cold in the Stygian bark. Seven whole 
 months unbroken they say he wept beneath an aery 
 rock by Strymons solitary wave, and poured forth 
 all his tale deep in icy caverns, soothing tigresses 
 and moving oaks with song : even as the nightingale 
 mourning under the poplar shade moans her lost 
 brood, whom the cruel ploughman has marked and 
 torn unfledged from the nest : but she weeps night- 
 long, and seated on the bough renews her pitiable 
 song and Jills the region round with her mournful 
 complaint. Never did love nor ever a bridal stir his 
 spirit : alone he ranged Hyperborean icefields and 
 snowy Tanais and <r R]upaean plains that never un- 
 loose their frosts, murmuring over his lost Eurydice 
 and the vain gifts of Ttis : till slighted by such tri- 
 bute, Ciconian matrons, amid divine sacrifice and 
 Bacchic revels by night, rent him asunder and scat- 
 tered him wide over the land. Even then, when torn 
 from the marble neck his head went rolling down 
 the mid-eddies of Oeagrian Hebrus, the very voice 
 and chill tongue cried Eurydice ! ah poor Eurydice ! 
 as their life ebbed away : Eurydice ! the banks re- 
 echoed all down the stream. 
 
 Thus Troteus, and sprang with a bound into the 
 
 108 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 sea depths, and where he sprang the wave spun ed- 
 dying in foam. But not so Cyrene : for she accosted 
 him in words of cheer: 
 
 O my son, thou mayest dismiss the care that sad- 
 dens thy soul. This is all the source of the sickness; 
 this why the Nymphs with whom she wheeled the 
 dance in depth of groves have dealt destruction on 
 thy poor lees. *Do thou humbly seek their favour with 
 gifts outstretched, and worship the gracious maidens 
 of the lawn :for to thy prayers they will yield par- 
 don and relent from wrath. But first I will tell thee 
 duly what is the way of supplication. Choose out 
 four noble bulls of stately girth that now graze the 
 heights of green Lycaeus, and as many heifers whose 
 neck knows not the yoke ; for these rear four altars 
 by the lofty shrines of the goddesses, and let the de- 
 voted blood trickle from their throats, and leave the 
 bodies of the oxen alone in the leafy copse. There- 
 after, when the ninth dawn brightens to her birth, 
 thou shall send Lethean poppies for funeral gifts to 
 Orpheus, and adore appeased Eurydice with a slain 
 heifer-calf, and sacrifice a black ewe and again seek 
 the grove. 
 
 ^Delaying not, forthwith he fulfils his mother s 
 
 109 
 
GEORGICS 
 
 counsels. He comes to the shrines ; he bids the or- 
 dained altars rise; four noble bulls of stately girth he 
 leads up, and as many heifers whose neck knows not 
 the yoke ; thereafter, when the ninth dawn had risen 
 to her birth, he sends funeral gifts to Orpheus and 
 again seeks the grove. Here indeed they descry a por- 
 tent sudden and strange to tell; bees humming among 
 the dissolving flesh of the carcases and swarming 
 forth from the rent sides of the oxen, and trailing in 
 endless clouds, till now they stream together on the 
 tree-top and hang clustering from the pliant boughs. 
 
 # # # 
 
 Thus I sang of the tending of fields andjlocks and 
 trees, while great Caesar hurled wars lightnings 
 by high Euphrates and gave statutes among the na- 
 tions in welcome supremacy, and scaled the path to 
 heaven. Even in that season I, Virgil, nurtured in 
 sweet Parthenope, went in the flowery ways of lowly 
 Quiet : I who once played with shepherd's 
 songs, and in youths hardihood 
 sang thee, O Tityrus, un- 
 der the covert of 
 spreading 
 beech. 
 * 
 
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 FOR HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & 
 
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233