Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Thus far the tilth of fields and stars of heaven;
- Now will I sing thee, Bacchus, and, with thee,
- The forest's young plantations and the fruit
- Of slow-maturing olive. Hither haste,
- O Father of the wine-press; all things here
- Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee
- With viny autumn laden blooms the field,
- And foams the vintage high with brimming vats;
- Hither, O Father of the wine-press, come,
- And stripped of buskin stain thy bared limbs
- In the new must with me.
- First, nature's law
- For generating trees is manifold;
- For some of their own force spontaneous spring,
- No hand of man compelling, and possess
- The plains and river-windings far and wide,
- As pliant osier and the bending broom,
- Poplar, and willows in wan companies
- With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be
- From chance-dropped seed that rear them, as the tall
- Chestnuts, and, mightiest of the branching wood,
- Jove's Aesculus, and oaks, oracular
- Deemed by the Greeks of old. With some sprouts forth
- A forest of dense suckers from the root,
- As elms and cherries; so, too, a pigmy plant,
- Beneath its mother's mighty shade upshoots
- The bay-tree of Parnassus. Such the modes
- Nature imparted first; hence all the race
- Of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred groves
- Springs into verdure. Other means there are,
- Which use by method for itself acquired.
- One, sliving suckers from the tender frame
- Of the tree-mother, plants them in the trench;
- One buries the bare stumps within his field,
- Truncheons cleft four-wise, or sharp-pointed stakes;
- Some forest-trees the layer's bent arch await,
- And slips yet quick within the parent-soil;
- No root need others, nor doth the pruner's hand
- Shrink to restore the topmost shoot to earth
- That gave it being. Nay, marvellous to tell,
- Lopped of its limbs, the olive, a mere stock,
- Still thrusts its root out from the sapless wood,
- And oft the branches of one kind we see
- Change to another's with no loss to rue,
- Pear-tree transformed the ingrafted apple yield,
- And stony cornels on the plum-tree blush.
- Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs
- According to their kinds, ye husbandmen,
- And tame with culture the wild fruits, lest earth
- Lie idle. O blithe to make all Ismarus
- One forest of the wine-god, and to clothe
- With olives huge Tabernus! And be thou
- At hand, and with me ply the voyage of toil
- I am bound on, O my glory, O thou that art
- Justly the chiefest portion of my fame,
- Maecenas, and on this wide ocean launched
- Spread sail like wings to waft thee. Not that I
- With my poor verse would comprehend the whole,
- Nay, though a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths
- Were mine, a voice of iron; be thou at hand,
- Skirt but the nearer coast-line; see the shore
- Is in our grasp; not now with feigned song
- Through winding bouts and tedious preludings
- Shall I detain thee.
- Those that lift their head
- Into the realms of light spontaneously,
- Fruitless indeed, but blithe and strenuous spring,
- Since Nature lurks within the soil. And yet
- Even these, should one engraft them, or transplant
- To well-drilled trenches, will anon put of
- Their woodland temper, and, by frequent tilth,
- To whatso craft thou summon them, make speed
- To follow. So likewise will the barren shaft
- That from the stock-root issueth, if it be
- Set out with clear space amid open fields:
- Now the tree-mother's towering leaves and boughs
- Darken, despoil of increase as it grows,
- And blast it in the bearing. Lastly, that
- Which from shed seed ariseth, upward wins
- But slowly, yielding promise of its shade
- To late-born generations; apples wane
- Forgetful of their former juice, the grape
- Bears sorry clusters, for the birds a prey.
- Soothly on all must toil be spent, and all
- Trained to the trench and at great cost subdued.
- But reared from truncheons olives answer best,
- As vines from layers, and from the solid wood
- The Paphian myrtles; while from suckers spring
- Both hardy hazels and huge ash, the tree
- That rims with shade the brows of Hercules,
- And acorns dear to the Chaonian sire:
- So springs the towering palm too, and the fir
- Destined to spy the dangers of the deep.
- But the rough arbutus with walnut-fruit
- Is grafted; so have barren planes ere now
- Stout apples borne, with chestnut-flower the beech,
- The mountain-ash with pear-bloom whitened o'er,
- And swine crunched acorns 'neath the boughs of elms.
- Nor is the method of inserting eyes
- And grafting one: for where the buds push forth
- Amidst the bark, and burst the membranes thin,
- Even on the knot a narrow rift is made,
- Wherein from some strange tree a germ they pen,
- And to the moist rind bid it cleave and grow.
- Or, otherwise, in knotless trunks is hewn
- A breach, and deep into the solid grain
- A path with wedges cloven; then fruitful slips
- Are set herein, and—no long time—behold!
- To heaven upshot with teeming boughs, the tree
- Strange leaves admires and fruitage not its own.
- Nor of one kind alone are sturdy elms,
- Willow and lotus, nor the cypress-trees
- Of Ida; nor of self-same fashion spring
- Fat olives, orchades, and radii
- And bitter-berried pausians, no, nor yet
- Apples and the forests of Alcinous;
- Nor from like cuttings are Crustumian pears
- And Syrian, and the heavy hand-fillers.
- Not the same vintage from our trees hangs down,
- Which Lesbos from Methymna's tendril plucks.
- Vines Thasian are there, Mareotids white,
- These apt for richer soils, for lighter those:
- Psithian for raisin-wine more useful, thin
- Lageos, that one day will try the feet
- And tie the tongue: purples and early-ripes,
- And how, O Rhaetian, shall I hymn thy praise?
- Yet cope not therefore with Falernian bins.
- Vines Aminaean too, best-bodied wine,
- To which the Tmolian bows him, ay, and king
- Phanaeus too, and, lesser of that name,
- Argitis, wherewith not a grape can vie
- For gush of wine-juice or for length of years.
- Nor thee must I pass over, vine of Rhodes,
- Welcomed by gods and at the second board,
- Nor thee, Bumastus, with plump clusters swollen.
- But lo! how many kinds, and what their names,
- There is no telling, nor doth it boot to tell;
- Who lists to know it, he too would list to learn
- How many sand-grains are by Zephyr tossed
- On Libya's plain, or wot, when Eurus falls
- With fury on the ships, how many waves
- Come rolling shoreward from the Ionian sea.
- Not that all soils can all things bear alike.
- Willows by water-courses have their birth,
- Alders in miry fens; on rocky heights
- The barren mountain-ashes; on the shore
- Myrtles throng gayest; Bacchus, lastly, loves
- The bare hillside, and yews the north wind's chill.
- Mark too the earth by outland tillers tamed,
- And Eastern homes of Arabs, and tattooed
- Geloni; to all trees their native lands
- Allotted are; no clime but India bears
- Black ebony; the branch of frankincense
- Is Saba's sons' alone; why tell to thee
- Of balsams oozing from the perfumed wood,
- Or berries of acanthus ever green?
- Of Aethiop forests hoar with downy wool,
- Or how the Seres comb from off the leaves
- Their silky fleece? Of groves which India bears,
- Ocean's near neighbour, earth's remotest nook,
- Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the air
- Above their tree-tops? yet no laggards they,
- When girded with the quiver! Media yields
- The bitter juices and slow-lingering taste
- Of the blest citron-fruit, than which no aid
- Comes timelier, when fierce step-dames drug the cup
- With simples mixed and spells of baneful power,
- To drive the deadly poison from the limbs.
- Large the tree's self in semblance like a bay,
- And, showered it not a different scent abroad,
- A bay it had been; for no wind of heaven
- Its foliage falls; the flower, none faster, clings;
- With it the Medes for sweetness lave the lips,
- And ease the panting breathlessness of age.
- But no, not Mede-land with its wealth of woods,
- Nor Ganges fair, and Hermus thick with gold,
- Can match the praise of Italy; nor Ind,
- Nor Bactria, nor Panchaia, one wide tract
- Of incense-teeming sand. Here never bulls
- With nostrils snorting fire upturned the sod
- Sown with the monstrous dragon's teeth, nor crop
- Of warriors bristled thick with lance and helm;
- But heavy harvests and the Massic juice
- Of Bacchus fill its borders, overspread
- With fruitful flocks and olives. Hence arose
- The war-horse stepping proudly o'er the plain;
- Hence thy white flocks, Clitumnus, and the bull,
- Of victims mightiest, which full oft have led,
- Bathed in thy sacred stream, the triumph-pomp
- Of Romans to the temples of the gods.
- Here blooms perpetual spring, and summer here
- In months that are not summer's; twice teem the flocks;
- Twice doth the tree yield service of her fruit.
- But ravening tigers come not nigh, nor breed
- Of savage lion, nor aconite betrays
- Its hapless gatherers, nor with sweep so vast
- Doth the scaled serpent trail his endless coils
- Along the ground, or wreathe him into spires.
- Mark too her cities, so many and so proud,
- Of mighty toil the achievement, town on town
- Up rugged precipices heaved and reared,
- And rivers undergliding ancient walls.
- Or should I celebrate the sea that laves
- Her upper shores and lower? or those broad lakes?
- Thee, Larius, greatest and, Benacus, thee
- With billowy uproar surging like the main?
- Or sing her harbours, and the barrier cast
- Athwart the Lucrine, and how ocean chafes
- With mighty bellowings, where the Julian wave
- Echoes the thunder of his rout, and through
- Avernian inlets pours the Tuscan tide?
- A land no less that in her veins displays
- Rivers of silver, mines of copper ore,
- Ay, and with gold hath flowed abundantly.
- A land that reared a valiant breed of men,
- The Marsi and Sabellian youth, and, schooled
- To hardship, the Ligurian, and with these
- The Volscian javelin-armed, the Decii too,
- The Marii and Camilli, names of might,
- The Scipios, stubborn warriors, ay, and thee,
- Great Caesar, who in Asia's utmost bounds
- With conquering arm e'en now art fending far
- The unwarlike Indian from the heights of Rome.
- Hail! land of Saturn, mighty mother thou
- Of fruits and heroes; 'tis for thee I dare
- Unseal the sacred fountains, and essay
- Themes of old art and glory, as I sing
- The song of Ascra through the towns of Rome.
- Now for the native gifts of various soils,
- What powers hath each, what hue, what natural bent
- For yielding increase. First your stubborn lands
- And churlish hill-sides, where are thorny fields
- Of meagre marl and gravel, these delight
- In long-lived olive-groves to Pallas dear.
- Take for a sign the plenteous growth hard by
- Of oleaster, and the fields strewn wide
- With woodland berries. But a soil that's rich,
- In moisture sweet exulting, and the plain
- That teems with grasses on its fruitful breast,
- Such as full oft in hollow mountain-dell
- We view beneath us—from the craggy heights
- Streams thither flow with fertilizing mud—
- A plain which southward rising feeds the fern
- By curved ploughs detested, this one day
- Shall yield thee store of vines full strong to gush
- In torrents of the wine-god; this shall be
- Fruitful of grapes and flowing juice like that
- We pour to heaven from bowls of gold, what time
- The sleek Etruscan at the altar blows
- His ivory pipe, and on the curved dish
- We lay the reeking entrails. If to rear
- Cattle delight thee rather, steers, or lambs,
- Or goats that kill the tender plants, then seek
- Full-fed Tarentum's glades and distant fields,
- Or such a plain as luckless Mantua lost
- Whose weedy water feeds the snow-white swan:
- There nor clear springs nor grass the flocks will fail,
- And all the day-long browsing of thy herds
- Shall the cool dews of one brief night repair.
- Land which the burrowing share shows dark and rich,
- With crumbling soil—for this we counterfeit
- In ploughing—for corn is goodliest; from no field
- More wains thou'lt see wend home with plodding steers;
- Or that from which the husbandman in spleen
- Has cleared the timber, and o'erthrown the copse
- That year on year lay idle, and from the roots
- Uptorn the immemorial haunt of birds;
- They banished from their nests have sought the skies;
- But the rude plain beneath the ploughshare's stroke
- Starts into sudden brightness. For indeed
- The starved hill-country gravel scarce serves the bees
- With lowly cassias and with rosemary;
- Rough tufa and chalk too, by black water-worms
- Gnawed through and through, proclaim no soils beside
- So rife with serpent-dainties, or that yield
- Such winding lairs to lurk in. That again,
- Which vapoury mist and flitting smoke exhales,
- Drinks moisture up and casts it forth at will,
- Which, ever in its own green grass arrayed,
- Mars not the metal with salt scurf of rust—
- That shall thine elms with merry vines enwreathe;
- That teems with olive; that shall thy tilth prove kind
- To cattle, and patient of the curved share.
- Such ploughs rich Capua, such the coast that skirts
- Thy ridge, Vesuvius, and the Clanian flood,
- Acerrae's desolation and her bane.
- How each to recognize now hear me tell.
- Dost ask if loose or passing firm it be—
- Since one for corn hath liking, one for wine,
- The firmer sort for Ceres, none too loose
- For thee, Lyaeus?—with scrutinizing eye
- First choose thy ground, and bid a pit be sunk
- Deep in the solid earth, then cast the mould
- All back again, and stamp the surface smooth.
- If it suffice not, loose will be the land,
- More meet for cattle and for kindly vines;
- But if, rebellious, to its proper bounds
- The soil returns not, but fills all the trench
- And overtops it, then the glebe is gross;
- Look for stiff ridges and reluctant clods,
- And with strong bullocks cleave the fallow crust.
- Salt ground again, and bitter, as 'tis called—
- Barren for fruits, by tilth untamable,
- Nor grape her kind, nor apples their good name
- Maintaining—will in this wise yield thee proof:
- Stout osier-baskets from the rafter-smoke,
- And strainers of the winepress pluck thee down;
- Hereinto let that evil land, with fresh
- Spring-water mixed, be trampled to the full;
- The moisture, mark you, will ooze all away,
- In big drops issuing through the osier-withes,
- But plainly will its taste the secret tell,
- And with a harsh twang ruefully distort
- The mouths of them that try it. Rich soil again
- We learn on this wise: tossed from hand to hand
- Yet cracks it never, but pitch-like, as we hold,
- Clings to the fingers. A land with moisture rife
- Breeds lustier herbage, and is more than meet
- Prolific. Ah I may never such for me
- O'er-fertile prove, or make too stout a show
- At the first earing! Heavy land or light
- The mute self-witness of its weight betrays.
- A glance will serve to warn thee which is black,
- Or what the hue of any. But hard it is
- To track the signs of that pernicious cold:
- Pines only, noxious yews, and ivies dark
- At times reveal its traces.
- All these rules
- Regarding, let your land, ay, long before,
- Scorch to the quick, and into trenches carve
- The mighty mountains, and their upturned clods
- Bare to the north wind, ere thou plant therein
- The vine's prolific kindred. Fields whose soil
- Is crumbling are the best: winds look to that,
- And bitter hoar-frosts, and the delver's toil
- Untiring, as he stirs the loosened glebe.
- But those, whose vigilance no care escapes,
- Search for a kindred site, where first to rear
- A nursery for the trees, and eke whereto
- Soon to translate them, lest the sudden shock
- From their new mother the young plants estrange.
- Nay, even the quarter of the sky they brand
- Upon the bark, that each may be restored,
- As erst it stood, here bore the southern heats,
- Here turned its shoulder to the northern pole;
- So strong is custom formed in early years.
- Whether on hill or plain 'tis best to plant
- Your vineyard first inquire. If on some plain
- You measure out rich acres, then plant thick;
- Thick planting makes no niggard of the vine;
- But if on rising mound or sloping bill,
- Then let the rows have room, so none the less
- Each line you draw, when all the trees are set,
- May tally to perfection. Even as oft
- In mighty war, whenas the legion's length
- Deploys its cohorts, and the column stands
- In open plain, the ranks of battle set,
- And far and near with rippling sheen of arms
- The wide earth flickers, nor yet in grisly strife
- Foe grapples foe, but dubious 'twixt the hosts
- The war-god wavers; so let all be ranged
- In equal rows symmetric, not alone
- To feed an idle fancy with the view,
- But since not otherwise will earth afford
- Vigour to all alike, nor yet the boughs
- Have power to stretch them into open space.
- Shouldst haply of the furrow's depth inquire,
- Even to a shallow trench I dare commit
- The vine; but deeper in the ground is fixed
- The tree that props it, aesculus in chief,
- Which howso far its summit soars toward heaven,
- So deep strikes root into the vaults of hell.
- It therefore neither storms, nor blasts, nor showers
- Wrench from its bed; unshaken it abides,
- Sees many a generation, many an age
- Of men roll onward, and survives them all,
- Stretching its titan arms and branches far,
- Sole central pillar of a world of shade.
- Nor toward the sunset let thy vineyards slope,
- Nor midst the vines plant hazel; neither take
- The topmost shoots for cuttings, nor from the top
- Of the supporting tree your suckers tear;
- So deep their love of earth; nor wound the plants
- With blunted blade; nor truncheons intersperse
- Of the wild olive: for oft from careless swains
- A spark hath fallen, that, 'neath the unctuous rind
- Hid thief-like first, now grips the tough tree-bole,
- And mounting to the leaves on high, sends forth
- A roar to heaven, then coursing through the boughs
- And airy summits reigns victoriously,
- Wraps all the grove in robes of fire, and gross
- With pitch-black vapour heaves the murky reek
- Skyward, but chiefly if a storm has swooped
- Down on the forest, and a driving wind
- Rolls up the conflagration. When 'tis so,
- Their root-force fails them, nor, when lopped away,
- Can they recover, and from the earth beneath
- Spring to like verdure; thus alone survives
- The bare wild olive with its bitter leaves.
- Let none persuade thee, howso weighty-wise,
- To stir the soil when stiff with Boreas' breath.
- Then ice-bound winter locks the fields, nor lets
- The young plant fix its frozen root to earth.
- Best sow your vineyards when in blushing Spring
- Comes the white bird long-bodied snakes abhor,
- Or on the eve of autumn's earliest frost,
- Ere the swift sun-steeds touch the wintry Signs,
- While summer is departing. Spring it is
- Blesses the fruit-plantation, Spring the groves;
- In Spring earth swells and claims the fruitful seed.
- Then Aether, sire omnipotent, leaps down
- With quickening showers to his glad wife's embrace,
- And, might with might commingling, rears to life
- All germs that teem within her; then resound
- With songs of birds the greenwood-wildernesses,
- And in due time the herds their loves renew;
- Then the boon earth yields increase, and the fields
- Unlock their bosoms to the warm west winds;
- Soft moisture spreads o'er all things, and the blades
- Face the new suns, and safely trust them now;
- The vine-shoot, fearless of the rising south,
- Or mighty north winds driving rain from heaven,
- Bursts into bud, and every leaf unfolds.
- Even so, methinks, when Earth to being sprang,
- Dawned the first days, and such the course they held;
- 'Twas Spring-tide then, ay, Spring, the mighty world
- Was keeping: Eurus spared his wintry blasts,
- When first the flocks drank sunlight, and a race
- Of men like iron from the hard glebe arose,
- And wild beasts thronged the woods, and stars the heaven.
- Nor could frail creatures bear this heavy strain,
- Did not so large a respite interpose
- 'Twixt frost and heat, and heaven's relenting arms
- Yield earth a welcome.
- For the rest, whate'er
- The sets thou plantest in thy fields, thereon
- Strew refuse rich, and with abundant earth
- Take heed to hide them, and dig in withal
- Rough shells or porous stone, for therebetween
- Will water trickle and fine vapour creep,
- And so the plants their drooping spirits raise.
- Aye, and there have been, who with weight of stone
- Or heavy potsherd press them from above;
- This serves for shield in pelting showers, and this
- When the hot dog-star chaps the fields with drought.
- The slips once planted, yet remains to cleave
- The earth about their roots persistently,
- And toss the cumbrous hoes, or task the soil
- With burrowing plough-share, and ply up and down
- Your labouring bullocks through the vineyard's midst,
- Then too smooth reeds and shafts of whittled wand,
- And ashen poles and sturdy forks to shape,
- Whereby supported they may learn to mount,
- Laugh at the gales, and through the elm-tops win
- From story up to story.
- Now while yet
- The leaves are in their first fresh infant growth,
- Forbear their frailty, and while yet the bough
- Shoots joyfully toward heaven, with loosened rein
- Launched on the void, assail it not as yet
- With keen-edged sickle, but let the leaves alone
- Be culled with clip of fingers here and there.
- But when they clasp the elms with sturdy trunks
- Erect, then strip the leaves off, prune the boughs;
- Sooner they shrink from steel, but then put forth
- The arm of power, and stem the branchy tide.
- Hedges too must be woven and all beasts
- Barred entrance, chiefly while the leaf is young
- And witless of disaster; for therewith,
- Beside harsh winters and o'erpowering sun,
- Wild buffaloes and pestering goats for ay
- Besport them, sheep and heifers glut their greed.
- Nor cold by hoar-frost curdled, nor the prone
- Dead weight of summer upon the parched crags,
- So scathe it, as the flocks with venom-bite
- Of their hard tooth, whose gnawing scars the stem.
- For no offence but this to Bacchus bleeds
- The goat at every altar, and old plays
- Upon the stage find entrance; therefore too
- The sons of Theseus through the country-side—
- Hamlet and crossway—set the prize of wit,
- And on the smooth sward over oiled skins
- Dance in their tipsy frolic. Furthermore
- The Ausonian swains, a race from Troy derived,
- Make merry with rough rhymes and boisterous mirth,
- Grim masks of hollowed bark assume, invoke
- Thee with glad hymns, O Bacchus, and to thee
- Hang puppet-faces on tall pines to swing.
- Hence every vineyard teems with mellowing fruit,
- Till hollow vale o'erflows, and gorge profound,
- Where'er the god hath turned his comely head.
- Therefore to Bacchus duly will we sing
- Meet honour with ancestral hymns, and cates
- And dishes bear him; and the doomed goat
- Led by the horn shall at the altar stand,
- Whose entrails rich on hazel-spits we'll roast.
- This further task again, to dress the vine,
- Hath needs beyond exhausting; the whole soil
- Thrice, four times, yearly must be cleft, the sod
- With hoes reversed be crushed continually,
- The whole plantation lightened of its leaves.
- Round on the labourer spins the wheel of toil,
- As on its own track rolls the circling year.
- Soon as the vine her lingering leaves hath shed,
- And the chill north wind from the forests shook
- Their coronal, even then the careful swain
- Looks keenly forward to the coming year,
- With Saturn's curved fang pursues and prunes
- The vine forlorn, and lops it into shape.
- Be first to dig the ground up, first to clear
- And burn the refuse-branches, first to house
- Again your vine-poles, last to gather fruit.
- Twice doth the thickening shade beset the vine,
- Twice weeds with stifling briers o'ergrow the crop;
- And each a toilsome labour. Do thou praise
- Broad acres, farm but few. Rough twigs beside
- Of butcher's broom among the woods are cut,
- And reeds upon the river-banks, and still
- The undressed willow claims thy fostering care.
- So now the vines are fettered, now the trees
- Let go the sickle, and the last dresser now
- Sings of his finished rows; but still the ground
- Must vexed be, the dust be stirred, and heaven
- Still set thee trembling for the ripened grapes.
- Not so with olives; small husbandry need they,
- Nor look for sickle bowed or biting rake,
- When once they have gripped the soil, and borne the breeze.
- Earth of herself, with hooked fang laid bare,
- Yields moisture for the plants, and heavy fruit,
- The ploughshare aiding; therewithal thou'lt rear
- The olive's fatness well-beloved of Peace.