Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- You, Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy
- reclining, on the slender oat rehearse
- your silvan ditties: I from my sweet fields,
- and home's familiar bounds, even now depart.
- Exiled from home am I; while, Tityrus, you
- sit careless in the shade, and, at your call,
- “Fair Amaryllis” bid the woods resound.
- O Meliboeus, 'twas a god vouchsafed
- this ease to us, for him a god will I
- deem ever, and from my folds a tender lamb
- oft with its life-blood shall his altar stain.
- His gift it is that, as your eyes may see,
- my kine may roam at large, and I myself
- play on my shepherd's pipe what songs I will.
- I grudge you not the boon, but marvel more,
- such wide confusion fills the country-side.
- See, sick at heart I drive my she-goats on,
- and this one, O my Tityrus, scarce can lead:
- for 'mid the hazel-thicket here but now
- she dropped her new-yeaned twins on the bare flint,