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.
- In early spring-tide, when the icy drip
- Melts from the mountains hoar, and Zephyr's breath
- Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then 'tis time;
- Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox,
- And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.
- That land the craving farmer's prayer fulfils,
- Which twice the sunshine, twice the frost has felt;
- Ay, that's the land whose boundless harvest-crops
- Burst, see! the barns. But ere our metal cleave
- An unknown surface, heed we to forelearn
- The winds and varying temper of the sky,
- The lineal tilth and habits of the spot,
- What every region yields, and what denies.
- Here blithelier springs the corn, and here the grape,
- There earth is green with tender growth of trees
- And grass unbidden. See how from Tmolus comes
- The saffron's fragrance, ivory from Ind,
- From Saba's weakling sons their frankincense,
- Iron from the naked Chalybs, castor rank
- From Pontus, from Epirus the prize-palms
- O' the mares of Elis. Such the eternal bond
- And such the laws by Nature's hand imposed
- On clime and clime, e'er since the primal dawn
- When old Deucalion on the unpeopled earth
- Cast stones, whence men, a flinty race, were reared.
- Up then! if fat the soil, let sturdy bulls
- Upturn it from the year's first opening months,
- And let the clods lie bare till baked to dust
- By the ripe suns of summer; but if the earth
- Less fruitful just ere Arcturus rise
- With shallower trench uptilt it—'twill suffice;
- There, lest weeds choke the crop's luxuriance, here,
- Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand.
- Then thou shalt suffer in alternate years
- The new-reaped fields to rest, and on the plain
- A crust of sloth to harden; or, when stars
- Are changed in heaven, there sow the golden grain
- Where erst, luxuriant with its quivering pod,
- Pulse, or the slender vetch-crop, thou hast cleared,
- And lupin sour, whose brittle stalks arise,
- A hurtling forest. For the plain is parched
- By flax-crop, parched by oats, by poppies parched
- In Lethe-slumber drenched. Nathless by change
- The travailing earth is lightened, but stint not
- With refuse rich to soak the thirsty soil,
- And shower foul ashes o'er the exhausted fields.
- Thus by rotation like repose is gained,
- Nor earth meanwhile uneared and thankless left.
- Oft, too, 'twill boot to fire the naked fields,
- And the light stubble burn with crackling flames;
- Whether that earth therefrom some hidden strength
- And fattening food derives, or that the fire
- Bakes every blemish out, and sweats away
- Each useless humour, or that the heat unlocks
- New passages and secret pores, whereby
- Their life-juice to the tender blades may win;
- Or that it hardens more and helps to bind
- The gaping veins, lest penetrating showers,
- Or fierce sun's ravening might, or searching blast
- Of the keen north should sear them. Well, I wot,
- He serves the fields who with his harrow breaks
- The sluggish clods, and hurdles osier-twined
- Hales o'er them; from the far Olympian height
- Him golden Ceres not in vain regards;
- And he, who having ploughed the fallow plain
- And heaved its furrowy ridges, turns once more
- Cross-wise his shattering share, with stroke on stroke
- The earth assails, and makes the field his thrall.
- Pray for wet summers and for winters fine,
- Ye husbandmen; in winter's dust the crops
- Exceedingly rejoice, the field hath joy;
- No tilth makes Mysia lift her head so high,
- Nor Gargarus his own harvests so admire.
- Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed,
- Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth
- The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn
- Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain;
- And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades
- Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed,
- See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls,
- Waking hoarse murmurs o'er the polished stones,
- And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty fields?
- Or why of him, who lest the heavy ears
- O'erweigh the stalk, while yet in tender blade
- Feeds down the crop's luxuriance, when its growth
- First tops the furrows? Why of him who drains
- The marsh-land's gathered ooze through soaking sand,
- Chiefly what time in treacherous moons a stream
- Goes out in spate, and with its coat of slime
- Holds all the country, whence the hollow dykes
- Sweat steaming vapour?
- But no whit the more
- For all expedients tried and travail borne
- By man and beast in turning oft the soil,
- Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes
- And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm,
- Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself
- No easy road to husbandry assigned,
- And first was he by human skill to rouse
- The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men
- With care on care, nor suffering realm of his
- In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove
- Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
- To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line—
- Even this was impious; for the common stock
- They gathered, and the earth of her own will
- All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
- He to black serpents gave their venom-bane,
- And bade the wolf go prowl, and ocean toss;
- Shooed from the leaves their honey, put fire away,
- And curbed the random rivers running wine,
- That use by gradual dint of thought on thought
- Might forge the various arts, with furrow's help
- The corn-blade win, and strike out hidden fire
- From the flint's heart. Then first the streams were ware
- Of hollowed alder-hulls: the sailor then
- Their names and numbers gave to star and star,
- Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child
- Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found
- To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime,
- And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.
- Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream,
- Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils
- Along the main; then iron's unbending might,
- And shrieking saw-blade,—for the men of old
- With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;—
- Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all,
- Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push
- In times of hardship. Ceres was the first
- Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod,
- When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear
- Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food
- Dodona gave no more. Soon, too, the corn
- Gat sorrow's increase, that an evil blight
- Ate up the stalks, and thistle reared his spines
- An idler in the fields; the crops die down;
- Upsprings instead a shaggy growth of burrs
- And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim
- Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway.
- Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake
- The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds,
- Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade,
- Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye,
- Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow,
- And in the greenwood from a shaken oak
- Seek solace for thine hunger.
- Now to tell
- The sturdy rustics' weapons, what they are,
- Without which, neither can be sown nor reared
- The fruits of harvest; first the bent plough's share
- And heavy timber, and slow-lumbering wains
- Of the Eleusinian mother, threshing-sleighs
- And drags, and harrows with their crushing weight;
- Then the cheap wicker-ware of Celeus old,
- Hurdles of arbute, and thy mystic fan,
- Iacchus; which, full tale, long ere the time
- Thou must with heed lay by, if thee await
- Not all unearned the country's crown divine.
- While yet within the woods, the elm is tamed
- And bowed with mighty force to form the stock,
- And take the plough's curved shape, then nigh the root
- A pole eight feet projecting, earth-boards twain,
- And share-beam with its double back they fix.
- For yoke is early hewn a linden light,
- And a tall beech for handle, from behind
- To turn the car at lowest: then o'er the hearth
- The wood they hang till the smoke knows it well.
- Many the precepts of the men of old
- I can recount thee, so thou start not back,
- And such slight cares to learn not weary thee.
- And this among the first: thy threshing-floor
- With ponderous roller must be levelled smooth,
- And wrought by hand, and fixed with binding chalk,
- Lest weeds arise, or dust a passage win
- Splitting the surface, then a thousand plagues
- Make sport of it: oft builds the tiny mouse
- Her home, and plants her granary, underground,
- Or burrow for their bed the purblind moles,
- Or toad is found in hollows, and all the swarm
- Of earth's unsightly creatures; or a huge
- Corn-heap the weevil plunders, and the ant,
- Fearful of coming age and penury.
- Mark too, what time the walnut in the woods
- With ample bloom shall clothe her, and bow down
- Her odorous branches, if the fruit prevail,
- Like store of grain will follow, and there shall come
- A mighty winnowing-time with mighty heat;
- But if the shade with wealth of leaves abound,
- Vainly your threshing-floor will bruise the stalks
- Rich but in chaff. Many myself have seen
- Steep, as they sow, their pulse-seeds, drenching them
- With nitre and black oil-lees, that the fruit
- Might swell within the treacherous pods, and they
- Make speed to boil at howso small a fire.
- Yet, culled with caution, proved with patient toil,
- These have I seen degenerate, did not man
- Put forth his hand with power, and year by year
- Choose out the largest. So, by fate impelled,
- Speed all things to the worse, and backward borne
- Glide from us; even as who with struggling oars
- Up stream scarce pulls a shallop, if he chance
- His arms to slacken, lo! with headlong force
- The current sweeps him down the hurrying tide.
- Us too behoves Arcturus' sign observe,
- And the Kids' seasons and the shining Snake,
- No less than those who o'er the windy main
- Borne homeward tempt the Pontic, and the jaws
- Of oyster-rife Abydos. When the Scales
- Now poising fair the hours of sleep and day
- Give half the world to sunshine, half to shade,
- Then urge your bulls, my masters; sow the plain
- Even to the verge of tameless winter's showers
- With barley: then, too, time it is to hide
- Your flax in earth, and poppy, Ceres' joy,
- Aye, more than time to bend above the plough,
- While earth, yet dry, forbids not, and the clouds
- Are buoyant. With the spring comes bean-sowing;
- Thee, too, Lucerne, the crumbling furrows then
- Receive, and millet's annual care returns,
- What time the white bull with his gilded horns
- Opens the year, before whose threatening front,
- Routed the dog-star sinks. But if it be
- For wheaten harvest and the hardy spelt,
- Thou tax the soil, to corn-ears wholly given,
- Let Atlas' daughters hide them in the dawn,
- The Cretan star, a crown of fire, depart,
- Or e'er the furrow's claim of seed thou quit,
- Or haste thee to entrust the whole year's hope
- To earth that would not. Many have begun
- Ere Maia's star be setting; these, I trow,
- Their looked-for harvest fools with empty ears.
- But if the vetch and common kidney-bean
- Thou'rt fain to sow, nor scorn to make thy care
- Pelusiac lentil, no uncertain sign
- Bootes' fall will send thee; then begin,
- Pursue thy sowing till half the frosts be done.
- Therefore it is the golden sun, his course
- Into fixed parts dividing, rules his way
- Through the twelve constellations of the world.
- Five zones the heavens contain; whereof is one
- Aye red with flashing sunlight, fervent aye
- From fire; on either side to left and right
- Are traced the utmost twain, stiff with blue ice,
- And black with scowling storm-clouds, and betwixt
- These and the midmost, other twain there lie,
- By the Gods' grace to heart-sick mortals given,
- And a path cleft between them, where might wheel
- On sloping plane the system of the Signs.
- And as toward Scythia and Rhipaean heights
- The world mounts upward, likewise sinks it down
- Toward Libya and the south, this pole of ours
- Still towering high, that other, 'neath their feet,
- By dark Styx frowned on, and the abysmal shades.
- Here glides the huge Snake forth with sinuous coils
- 'Twixt the two Bears and round them river-wise—
- The Bears that fear 'neath Ocean's brim to dip.
- There either, say they, reigns the eternal hush
- Of night that knows no seasons, her black pall
- Thick-mantling fold on fold; or thitherward
- From us returning Dawn brings back the day;
- And when the first breath of his panting steeds
- On us the Orient flings, that hour with them
- Red Vesper 'gins to trim his 'lated fires.
- Hence under doubtful skies forebode we can
- The coming tempests, hence both harvest-day
- And seed-time, when to smite the treacherous main
- With driving oars, when launch the fair-rigged fleet,
- Or in ripe hour to fell the forest-pine.
- Hence, too, not idly do we watch the stars—
- Their rising and their setting-and the year,
- Four varying seasons to one law conformed.
- If chilly showers e'er shut the farmer's door,
- Much that had soon with sunshine cried for haste,
- He may forestall; the ploughman batters keen
- His blunted share's hard tooth, scoops from a tree
- His troughs, or on the cattle stamps a brand,
- Or numbers on the corn-heaps; some make sharp
- The stakes and two-pronged forks, and willow-bands
- Amerian for the bending vine prepare.
- Now let the pliant basket plaited be
- Of bramble-twigs; now set your corn to parch
- Before the fire; now bruise it with the stone.
- Nay even on holy days some tasks to ply
- Is right and lawful: this no ban forbids,
- To turn the runnel's course, fence corn-fields in,
- Make springes for the birds, burn up the briars,
- And plunge in wholesome stream the bleating flock.
- Oft too with oil or apples plenty-cheap
- The creeping ass's ribs his driver packs,
- And home from town returning brings instead
- A dented mill-stone or black lump of pitch.
- The moon herself in various rank assigns
- The days for labour lucky: fly the fifth;
- Then sprang pale Orcus and the Eumenides;
- Earth then in awful labour brought to light
- Coeus, Iapetus, and Typhoeus fell,
- And those sworn brethren banded to break down
- The gates of heaven; thrice, sooth to say, they strove
- Ossa on Pelion's top to heave and heap,
- Aye, and on Ossa to up-roll amain
- Leafy Olympus; thrice with thunderbolt
- Their mountain-stair the Sire asunder smote.
- Seventh after tenth is lucky both to set
- The vine in earth, and take and tame the steer,
- And fix the leashes to the warp; the ninth
- To runagates is kinder, cross to thieves.
- Many the tasks that lightlier lend themselves
- In chilly night, or when the sun is young,
- And Dawn bedews the world. By night 'tis best
- To reap light stubble, and parched fields by night;
- For nights the suppling moisture never fails.
- And one will sit the long late watches out
- By winter fire-light, shaping with keen blade
- The torches to a point; his wife the while,
- Her tedious labour soothing with a song,
- Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else
- With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down,
- And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.
- But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown,
- And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised
- Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow;
- Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.
- In the cold season farmers wont to taste
- The increase of their toil, and yield themselves
- To mutual interchange of festal cheer.
- Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares,
- As laden keels, when now the port they touch,
- And happy sailors crown the sterns with flowers.
- Nathless then also time it is to strip
- Acorns from oaks, and berries from the bay,
- Olives, and bleeding myrtles, then to set
- Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag,
- And hunt the long-eared hares, then pierce the doe
- With whirl of hempen-thonged Balearic sling,
- While snow lies deep, and streams are drifting ice.
- What need to tell of autumn's storms and stars,
- And wherefore men must watch, when now the day
- Grows shorter, and more soft the summer's heat?
- When Spring the rain-bringer comes rushing down,
- Or when the beards of harvest on the plain
- Bristle already, and the milky corn
- On its green stalk is swelling? Many a time,
- When now the farmer to his yellow fields
- The reaping-hind came bringing, even in act
- To lop the brittle barley stems, have I
- Seen all the windy legions clash in war
- Together, as to rend up far and wide
- The heavy corn-crop from its lowest roots,
- And toss it skyward: so might winter's flaw,
- Dark-eddying, whirl light stalks and flying straws.
- Oft too comes looming vast along the sky
- A march of waters; mustering from above,
- The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim
- With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven,
- And with a great rain floods the smiling crops,
- The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast,
- And the void river-beds swell thunderously,
- And all the panting firths of Ocean boil.
- The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds
- Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk
- Earth at the hurly quakes; the beasts are fled,
- And mortal hearts of every kindred sunk
- In cowering terror; he with flaming brand
- Athos, or Rhodope, or Ceraunian crags
- Precipitates: then doubly raves the South
- With shower on blinding shower, and woods and coasts
- Wail fitfully beneath the mighty blast.
- This fearing, mark the months and Signs of heaven,
- Whither retires him Saturn's icy star,
- And through what heavenly cycles wandereth
- The glowing orb Cyllenian. Before all
- Worship the Gods, and to great Ceres pay
- Her yearly dues upon the happy sward
- With sacrifice, anigh the utmost end
- Of winter, and when Spring begins to smile.
- Then lambs are fat, and wines are mellowest then;
- Then sleep is sweet, and dark the shadows fall
- Upon the mountains. Let your rustic youth
- To Ceres do obeisance, one and all;
- And for her pleasure thou mix honeycombs
- With milk and the ripe wine-god; thrice for luck
- Around the young corn let the victim go,
- And all the choir, a joyful company,
- Attend it, and with shouts bid Ceres come
- To be their house-mate; and let no man dare
- Put sickle to the ripened ears until,
- With woven oak his temples chapleted,
- He foot the rugged dance and chant the lay.
- Aye, and that these things we might win to know
- By certain tokens, heats, and showers, and winds
- That bring the frost, the Sire of all himself
- Ordained what warnings in her monthly round
- The moon should give, what bodes the south wind's fall,
- What oft-repeated sights the herdsman seeing
- Should keep his cattle closer to their stalls.
- No sooner are the winds at point to rise,
- Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss
- And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard
- Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms
- The beach afar, and through the forest goes
- A murmur multitudinous. By this
- Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels,
- When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main
- Come winging, and their shrieks are shoreward borne,
- When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land
- Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts
- Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud.
- Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see
- From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night
- Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake,
- Or light chaff flit in air with fallen leaves,
- Or feathers on the wave-top float and play.
- But when from regions of the furious North
- It lightens, and when thunder fills the halls
- Of Eurus and of Zephyr, all the fields
- With brimming dikes are flooded, and at sea
- No mariner but furls his dripping sails.
- Never at unawares did shower annoy:
- Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes
- Flee to the vales before it, with face
- Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale
- Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres
- Shrill-twittering flits the swallow, and the frogs
- Crouch in the mud and chant their dirge of old.
- Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells,
- Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys;
- Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host
- Of rooks from food returning in long line
- Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see
- The various ocean-fowl and those that pry
- Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools,
- Cayster, as in eager rivalry,
- About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray,
- Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run
- Into the billows, for sheer idle joy
- Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow
- With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain,
- Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.
- Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task,
- Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock
- They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth
- Of mouldy snuff-clots.
- So too, after rain,
- Sunshine and open skies thou mayst forecast,
- And learn by tokens sure, for then nor dimmed
- Appear the stars' keen edges, nor the moon
- As borrowing of her brother's beams to rise,
- Nor fleecy films to float along the sky.
- Not to the sun's warmth then upon the shore
- Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings,
- Nor filthy swine take thought to toss on high
- With scattering snout the straw-wisps. But the clouds
- Seek more the vales, and rest upon the plain,
- And from the roof-top the night-owl for naught
- Watching the sunset plies her 'lated song.
- Distinct in clearest air is Nisus seen
- Towering, and Scylla for the purple lock
- Pays dear; for whereso, as she flies, her wings
- The light air winnow, lo! fierce, implacable,
- Nisus with mighty whirr through heaven pursues;
- Where Nisus heavenward soareth, there her wings
- Clutch as she flies, the light air winnowing still.
- Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat
- Thrice, four times, o'er repeated, and full oft
- On their high cradles, by some hidden joy
- Gladdened beyond their wont, in bustling throngs
- Among the leaves they riot; so sweet it is,
- When showers are spent, their own loved nests again
- And tender brood to visit. Not, I deem,
- That heaven some native wit to these assigned,
- Or fate a larger prescience, but that when
- The storm and shifting moisture of the air
- Have changed their courses, and the sky-god now,
- Wet with the south-wind, thickens what was rare,
- And what was gross releases, then, too, change
- Their spirits' fleeting phases, and their breasts
- Feel other motions now, than when the wind
- Was driving up the cloud-rack. Hence proceeds
- That blending of the feathered choirs afield,
- The cattle's exultation, and the rooks'
- Deep-throated triumph.
- But if the headlong sun
- And moons in order following thou regard,
- Ne'er will to-morrow's hour deceive thee, ne'er
- Wilt thou be caught by guile of cloudless night.
- When first the moon recalls her rallying fires,
- If dark the air clipped by her crescent dim,
- For folks afield and on the open sea
- A mighty rain is brewing; but if her face
- With maiden blush she mantle, 'twill be wind,
- For wind turns Phoebe still to ruddier gold.
- But if at her fourth rising, for 'tis that
- Gives surest counsel, clear she ride thro' heaven
- With horns unblunted, then shall that whole day,
- And to the month's end those that spring from it,
- Rainless and windless be, while safe ashore
- Shall sailors pay their vows to Panope,
- Glaucus, and Melicertes, Ino's child.
- The sun too, both at rising, and when soon
- He dives beneath the waves, shall yield thee signs;
- For signs, none trustier, travel with the sun,
- Both those which in their course with dawn he brings,
- And those at star-rise. When his springing orb
- With spots he pranketh, muffled in a cloud,
- And shrinks mid-circle, then of showers beware;
- For then the South comes driving from the deep,
- To trees and crops and cattle bringing bane.
- Or when at day-break through dark clouds his rays
- Burst and are scattered, or when rising pale
- Aurora quits Tithonus' saffron bed,
- But sorry shelter then, alack I will yield
- Vine-leaf to ripening grapes; so thick a hail
- In spiky showers spins rattling on the roof.
- And this yet more 'twill boot thee bear in mind,
- When now, his course upon Olympus run,
- He draws to his decline: for oft we see
- Upon the sun's own face strange colours stray;
- Dark tells of rain, of east winds fiery-red;
- If spots with ruddy fire begin to mix,
- Then all the heavens convulsed in wrath thou'lt see—
- Storm-clouds and wind together. Me that night
- Let no man bid fare forth upon the deep,
- Nor rend the rope from shore. But if, when both
- He brings again and hides the day's return,
- Clear-orbed he shineth,idly wilt thou dread
- The storm-clouds, and beneath the lustral North
- See the woods waving. What late eve in fine
- Bears in her bosom, whence the wind that brings
- Fair-weather-clouds, or what the rain South
- Is meditating, tokens of all these
- The sun will give thee. Who dare charge the sun
- With leasing? He it is who warneth oft
- Of hidden broils at hand and treachery,
- And secret swelling of the waves of war.
- He too it was, when Caesar's light was quenched,
- For Rome had pity, when his bright head he veiled
- In iron-hued darkness, till a godless age
- Trembled for night eternal; at that time
- Howbeit earth also, and the ocean-plains,
- And dogs obscene, and birds of evil bode
- Gave tokens. Yea, how often have we seen
- Etna, her furnace-walls asunder riven,
- In billowy floods boil o'er the Cyclops' fields,
- And roll down globes of fire and molten rocks!
- A clash of arms through all the heaven was heard
- By Germany; strange heavings shook the Alps.
- Yea, and by many through the breathless groves
- A voice was heard with power, and wondrous-pale
- Phantoms were seen upon the dusk of night,
- And cattle spake, portentous! streams stand still,
- And the earth yawns asunder, ivory weeps
- For sorrow in the shrines, and bronzes sweat.
- Up-twirling forests with his eddying tide,
- Madly he bears them down, that lord of floods,
- Eridanus, till through all the plain are swept
- Beasts and their stalls together. At that time
- In gloomy entrails ceased not to appear
- Dark-threatening fibres, springs to trickle blood,
- And high-built cities night-long to resound
- With the wolves' howling. Never more than then
- From skies all cloudless fell the thunderbolts,
- Nor blazed so oft the comet's fire of bale.
- Therefore a second time Philippi saw
- The Roman hosts with kindred weapons rush
- To battle, nor did the high gods deem it hard
- That twice Emathia and the wide champaign
- Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood.
- Ay, and the time will come when there anigh,
- Heaving the earth up with his curved plough,
- Some swain will light on javelins by foul rust
- Corroded, or with ponderous harrow strike
- On empty helmets, while he gapes to see
- Bones as of giants from the trench untombed.
- Gods of my country, heroes of the soil,
- And Romulus, and Mother Vesta, thou
- Who Tuscan Tiber and Rome's Palatine
- Preservest, this new champion at the least
- Our fallen generation to repair
- Forbid not. To the full and long ago
- Our blood thy Trojan perjuries hath paid,
- Laomedon. Long since the courts of heaven
- Begrudge us thee, our Caesar, and complain
- That thou regard'st the triumphs of mankind,
- Here where the wrong is right, the right is wrong,
- Where wars abound so many, and myriad-faced
- Is crime; where no meet honour hath the plough;
- The fields, their husbandmen led far away,
- Rot in neglect, and curved pruning-hooks
- Into the sword's stiff blade are fused and forged.
- Euphrates here, here Germany new strife
- Is stirring; neighbouring cities are in arms,
- The laws that bound them snapped; and godless war
- Rages through all the universe; as when
- The four-horse chariots from the barriers poured
- Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now
- Grasping the reins, the driver by his team
- Is onward borne, nor heeds the car his curb.