Eclogues

Virgil

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

garlands to fetters turned, they bind him fast.

Then Aegle, fairest of the Naiad-band,

aegle came up to the half-frightened boys,

came, and, as now with open eyes he lay,

with juice of blood-red mulberries smeared him o'er,

both brow and temples. Laughing at their guile,

and crying, “Why tie the fetters? loose me, boys;

enough for you to think you had the power;

now list the songs you wish for—songs for you,

another meed for her”—forthwith began.

Then might you see the wild things of the wood,

with Fauns in sportive frolic beat the time,

and stubborn oaks their branchy summits bow.

Not Phoebus doth the rude Parnassian crag

so ravish, nor Orpheus so entrance the heights

of Rhodope or Ismarus: for he sang

how through the mighty void the seeds were driven

of earth, air, ocean, and of liquid fire,

how all that is from these beginnings grew,

and the young world itself took solid shape,