Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- be choked with rushy mire, your ewes with young
- by no strange fodder will be tried, nor hurt
- through taint contagious of a neighbouring flock.
- Happy old man, who 'mid familiar streams
- and hallowed springs, will court the cooling shade!
- Here, as of old, your neighbour's bordering hedge,
- that feasts with willow-flower the Hybla bees,
- shall oft with gentle murmur lull to sleep,
- while the leaf-dresser beneath some tall rock
- uplifts his song, nor cease their cooings hoarse
- the wood-pigeons that are your heart's delight,
- nor doves their moaning in the elm-tree top.
- Sooner shall light stags, therefore, feed in air,
- the seas their fish leave naked on the strand,
- germans and Parthians shift their natural bounds,
- and these the Arar, those the Tigris drink,
- than from my heart his face and memory fade.
- But we far hence, to burning Libya some,
- some to the Scythian steppes, or thy swift flood,
- cretan Oaxes, now must wend our way,