Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- or, if we fear the night may gather rain
- ere we arrive, then singing let us go,
- our way to lighten; and, that we may thus
- go singing, I will case you of this load.
- Cease, boy, and get we to the work in hand:
- we shall sing better when himself is come.
- This now, the very latest of my toils,
- vouchsafe me, Arethusa! needs must I
- sing a brief song to Gallus—brief, but yet
- such as Lycoris' self may fitly read.
- Who would not sing for Gallus? So, when thou
- beneath Sicanian billows glidest on,
- may Doris blend no bitter wave with thine,
- begin! The love of Gallus be our theme,
- and the shrewd pangs he suffered, while, hard by,
- the flat-nosed she-goats browse the tender brush.
- We sing not to deaf ears; no word of ours
- but the woods echo it. What groves or lawns
- held you, ye Dryad-maidens, when for love—
- love all unworthy of a loss so dear—