Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. harder this clay, this wax the softer grows,
  2. so by my love may Daphnis; sprinkle meal,
  3. and with bitumen burn the brittle bays.
  4. Me Daphnis with his cruelty doth burn,
  5. I to melt cruel Daphnis burn this bay.
  6. As when some heifer, seeking for her steer
  7. through woodland and deep grove, sinks wearied out
  8. on the green sedge beside a stream, love-lorn,
  9. nor marks the gathering night that calls her home—
  10. as pines that heifer, with such love as hers
  11. may Daphnis pine, and I not care to heal.
  12. These relics once, dear pledges of himself,
  13. the traitor left me, which, O earth, to thee
  14. here on this very threshold I commit—
  15. pledges that bind him to redeem the debt.
  16. These herbs of bane to me did Moeris give,
  17. in Pontus culled, where baneful herbs abound.