To care of sire the mother's care succeeds.When great with young they wander nigh their time,Let no man suffer them to drag the yokeIn heavy wains, nor leap across the way,Nor scour the meads, nor swim the rushing flood.In lonely lawns they feed them, by the courseOf brimming streams, where moss is, and the banksWith grass are greenest, where are sheltering caves,And far outstretched the rock-flung shadow lies.Round wooded Silarus and the ilex-bowersOf green Alburnus swarms a winged pest—Its Roman name Asilus, by the GreeksTermed Oestros—fierce it is, and harshly hums,Driving whole herds in terror through the groves,Till heaven is madded by their bellowing din,And Tanager's dry bed and forest-banks.With this same scourge did Juno wreak of oldThe terrors of her wrath, a plague devisedAgainst the heifer sprung from Inachus.From this too thou, since in the noontide heats'Tis most persistent, fend thy teeming herds,And feed them when the sun is newly risen,Or the first stars are ushering in the night.
But, yeaning ended, all their tender careIs to the calves transferred; at once with marksThey brand them, both to designate their race,And which to rear for breeding, or devoteAs altar-victims, or to cleave the groundAnd into ridges tear and turn the sod.The rest along the greensward graze at will.Those that to rustic uses thou wouldst mould,As calves encourage and take steps to tame,While pliant wills and plastic youth allow.And first of slender withies round the throatLoose collars hang, then when their free-born necksAre used to service, with the self-same bandsYoke them in pairs, and steer by steer compelKeep pace together. And time it is that oftUnfreighted wheels be drawn along the groundBehind them, as to dint the surface-dust;Then let the beechen axle strain and creak'Neath some stout burden, whilst a brazen poleDrags on the wheels made fast thereto. MeanwhileFor their unbroken youth not grass alone,Nor meagre willow-leaves and marish-sedge,But corn-ears with thy hand pluck from the crops.Nor shall the brood-kine, as of yore, for theeBrim high the snowy milking-pail, but spendTheir udders' fullness on their own sweet young.
But if fierce squadrons and the ranks of warDelight thee rather, or on wheels to glideAt Pisa, with Alpheus fleeting by,And in the grove of Jupiter urge onThe flying chariot, be your steed's first taskTo face the warrior's armed rage, and brookThe trumpet, and long roar of rumbling wheels,And clink of chiming bridles in the stall;Then more and more to love his master's voiceCaressing, or loud hand that claps his neck.Ay, thus far let him learn to dare, when firstWeaned from his mother, and his mouth at timesYield to the supple halter, even while yetWeak, tottering-limbed, and ignorant of life.But, three years ended, when the fourth arrives,Now let him tarry not to run the ringWith rhythmic hoof-beat echoing, and now learnAlternately to curve each bending leg,And be like one that struggleth; then at lastChallenge the winds to race him, and at speedLaunched through the open, like a reinless thing,Scarce print his footsteps on the surface-sand.As when with power from Hyperborean climesThe north wind stoops, and scatters from his pathDry clouds and storms of Scythia; the tall cornAnd rippling plains 'gin shiver with light gusts;A sound is heard among the forest-tops;Long waves come racing shoreward: fast he flies,With instant pinion sweeping earth and main.A steed like this or on the mighty courseOf Elis at the goal will sweat, and showerRed foam-flakes from his mouth, or, kindlier task,With patient neck support the Belgian car.Then, broken at last, let swell their burly frameWith fattening corn-mash, for, unbroke, they willWith pride wax wanton, and, when caught, refuseTough lash to brook or jagged curb obey. But no device so fortifies their powerAs love's blind stings of passion to forefend,Whether on steed or steer thy choice be set.Ay, therefore 'tis they banish bulls afarTo solitary pastures, or behindSome mountain-barrier, or broad streams beyond,Or else in plenteous stalls pen fast at home.For, even through sight of her, the female wastesHis strength with smouldering fire, till he forgetBoth grass and woodland. She indeed full oftWith her sweet charms can lovers proud compelTo battle for the conquest horn to horn.In Sila's forest feeds the heifer fair,While each on each the furious rivals run;Wound follows wound; the black blood laves their limbs;Horns push and strive against opposing horns,With mighty groaning; all the forest-sideAnd far Olympus bellow back the roar.Nor wont the champions in one stall to couch;But he that's worsted hies him to strange climesFar off, an exile, moaning much the shame,The blows of that proud conqueror, then love's lossAvenged not; with one glance toward the byre,His ancient royalties behind him lie.So with all heed his strength he practiseth,And nightlong makes the hard bare stones his bed,And feeds on prickly leaf and pointed rush,And proves himself, and butting at a treeLearns to fling wrath into his horns, with blowsProvokes the air, and scattering clouds of sandMakes prelude of the battle; afterward,With strength repaired and gathered might breaks camp,And hurls him headlong on the unthinking foe:As in mid ocean when a wave far ofBegins to whiten, mustering from the mainIts rounded breast, and, onward rolled to landFalls with prodigious roar among the rocks,Huge as a very mountain: but the depthsUpseethe in swirling eddies, and disgorgeThe murky sand-lees from their sunken bed. Nay, every race on earth of men, and beasts,And ocean-folk, and flocks, and painted birds,Rush to the raging fire: love sways them all.Never than then more fiercely o'er the plainProwls heedless of her whelps the lioness:Nor monstrous bears such wide-spread havoc-doomDeal through the forests; then the boar is fierce,Most deadly then the tigress: then, alack!Ill roaming is it on Libya's lonely plains.Mark you what shivering thrills the horse's frame,If but a waft the well-known gust conveys?Nor curb can check them then, nor lash severe,Nor rocks and caverned crags, nor barrier-floods,That rend and whirl and wash the hills away.Then speeds amain the great Sabellian boar,His tushes whets, with forefoot tears the ground,Rubs 'gainst a tree his flanks, and to and froHardens each wallowing shoulder to the wound.What of the youth, when love's relentless mightStirs the fierce fire within his veins? Behold!In blindest midnight how he swims the gulfConvulsed with bursting storm-clouds! Over himHeaven's huge gate thunders; the rock-shattered mainUtters a warning cry; nor parents' tearsCan backward call him, nor the maid he loves,Too soon to die on his untimely pyre.What of the spotted ounce to Bacchus dear,Or warlike wolf-kin or the breed of dogs?Why tell how timorous stags the battle join?O'er all conspicuous is the rage of mares,By Venus' self inspired of old, what timeThe Potnian four with rending jaws devouredThe limbs of Glaucus. Love-constrained they roamPast Gargarus, past the loud Ascanian flood;They climb the mountains, and the torrents swim;And when their eager marrow first conceivesThe fire, in Spring-tide chiefly, for with SpringWarmth doth their frames revisit, then they standAll facing westward on the rocky heights,And of the gentle breezes take their fill;And oft unmated, marvellous to tell,But of the wind impregnate, far and wideO'er craggy height and lowly vale they scud,Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's,But westward and north-west, or whence up-springsBlack Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.Hence from their groin slow drips a poisonous juice,By shepherds truly named hippomanes,Hippomanes, fell stepdames oft have culled,And mixed with herbs and spells of baneful bode.