Eclogues

Virgil

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

'gan first to rise, and living things to roam

scattered among the hills that knew them not.

Then sang he of the stones by Pyrrha cast,

of Saturn's reign, and of Prometheus' theft,

and the Caucasian birds, and told withal

nigh to what fountain by his comrades left

the mariners cried on Hylas till the shore

then re-echoed “Hylas, Hylas!” soothed

pasiphae with the love of her white bull—

happy if cattle-kind had never been!—

o ill-starred maid, what frenzy caught thy soul

the daughters too of Proetus filled the fields

with their feigned lowings, yet no one of them

of such unhallowed union e'er was fain

as with a beast to mate, though many a time

on her smooth forehead she had sought for horns,

and for her neck had feared the galling plough.

O ill-starred maid! thou roamest now the hills,

while on soft hyacinths he, his snowy side

reposing, under some dark ilex now