Eclogues

Virgil

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

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

chews the pale herbage, or some heifer tracks

amid the crowding herd. Now close, ye Nymphs,

ye Nymphs of Dicte, close the forest-glades,

if haply there may chance upon mine eyes

the white bull's wandering foot-prints: him belike

following the herd, or by green pasture lured,

some kine may guide to the Gortynian stalls.

Then sings he of the maid so wonder-struck

with the apples of the Hesperids, and then

with moss-bound, bitter bark rings round the forms

of Phaethon's fair sisters, from the ground