Eclogues

Virgil

Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

  1. Did I not see you, rogue, in ambush lie
  2. for Damon's goat, while loud Lycisca barked?
  3. And when I cried, “Where is he off to now?
  4. Gather your flock together, Tityrus,”
  5. you hid behind the sedges.
DAMOETAS
  1. Well, was he
  2. whom I had conquered still to keep the goat.
  3. Which in the piping-match my pipe had won!
  4. You may not know it, but the goat was mine.
MENALCAS
  1. You out-pipe him? when had you ever pipe
  2. wax-welded? in the cross-ways used you not
  3. on grating straw some miserable tune
  4. to mangle?
DAMOETAS
  1. Well, then, shall we try our skill
  2. each against each in turn? Lest you be loth,
  3. I pledge this heifer; every day she comes
  4. twice to the milking-pail, and feeds withal
  5. two young ones at her udder: say you now
  6. what you will stake upon the match with me.
MENALCAS
  1. Naught from the flock I'll venture, for at home