Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. Fierce Love it was once steeled a mother's heart
  2. with her own offspring's blood her hands to imbrue:
  3. mother, thou too wert cruel; say wert thou
  4. more cruel, mother, or more ruthless he?
  5. Ruthless the boy, thou, mother, cruel too.
  6. Now let the wolf turn tail and fly the sheep,
  7. tough oaks bear golden apples, alder-trees
  8. bloom with narcissus-flower, the tamarisk
  9. sweat with rich amber, and the screech-owl vie
  10. in singing with the swan: let Tityrus
  11. be Orpheus, Orpheus in the forest-glade,
  12. arion 'mid his dolphins on the deep.
  13. Yea, be the whole earth to mid-ocean turned!
  14. Farewell, ye woodlands I from the tall peak
  15. of yon aerial rock will headlong plunge
  16. into the billows: this my latest gift,
  17. from dying lips bequeathed thee, see thou keep.