Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
- Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
- Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
- What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
- Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;—
- Such are my themes. O universal lights
- Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
- Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
- If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
- Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
- And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
- The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
- To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
- And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
- And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
- Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
- Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
- Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
- The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
- Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
- Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
- Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
- And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
- Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
- And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
- And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
- Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
- Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
- The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
- Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
- And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
- What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
- Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
- Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
- That so the mighty world may welcome thee
- Lord of her increase, master of her times,
- Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
- Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
- Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
- Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
- With all her waves for dower; or as a star
- Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
- Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
- A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
- His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
- Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt—
- For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,
- Nor may so dire a lust of sovereignty
- E'er light upon thee, howso Greece admire
- Elysium's fields, and Proserpine not heed
- Her mother's voice entreating to return—
- Vouchsafe a prosperous voyage, and smile on this
- My bold endeavour, and pitying, even as I,
- These poor way-wildered swains, at once begin,
- Grow timely used unto the voice of prayer.