Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Apples, moreover, soon as first they feel
  2. Their stems wax lusty, and have found their strength,
  3. To heaven climb swiftly, self-impelled, nor crave
  4. Our succour. All the grove meanwhile no less
  5. With fruit is swelling, and the wild haunts of birds
  6. Blush with their blood-red berries. Cytisus
  7. Is good to browse on, the tall forest yields
  8. Pine-torches, and the nightly fires are fed
  9. And shoot forth radiance. And shall men be loath
  10. To plant, nor lavish of their pains? Why trace
  11. Things mightier? Willows even and lowly brooms
  12. To cattle their green leaves, to shepherds shade,
  13. Fences for crops, and food for honey yield.
  14. And blithe it is Cytorus to behold
  15. Waving with box, Narycian groves of pitch;
  16. Oh! blithe the sight of fields beholden not
  17. To rake or man's endeavour! the barren woods
  18. That crown the scalp of Caucasus, even these,
  19. Which furious blasts for ever rive and rend,
  20. Yield various wealth, pine-logs that serve for ships,
  21. Cedar and cypress for the homes of men;
  22. Hence, too, the farmers shave their wheel-spokes, hence
  23. Drums for their wains, and curved boat-keels fit;
  24. Willows bear twigs enow, the elm-tree leaves,
  25. Myrtle stout spear-shafts, war-tried cornel too;
  26. Yews into Ituraean bows are bent:
  27. Nor do smooth lindens or lathe-polished box
  28. Shrink from man's shaping and keen-furrowing steel;
  29. Light alder floats upon the boiling flood
  30. Sped down the Padus, and bees house their swarms
  31. In rotten holm-oak's hollow bark and bole.
  32. What of like praise can Bacchus' gifts afford?
  33. Nay, Bacchus even to crime hath prompted, he
  34. The wine-infuriate Centaurs quelled with death,
  35. Rhoetus and Pholus, and with mighty bowl
  36. Hylaeus threatening high the Lapithae.
  1. Oh! all too happy tillers of the soil,
  2. Could they but know their blessedness, for whom
  3. Far from the clash of arms all-equal earth
  4. Pours from the ground herself their easy fare!
  5. What though no lofty palace portal-proud
  6. From all its chambers vomits forth a tide
  7. Of morning courtiers, nor agape they gaze
  8. On pillars with fair tortoise-shell inwrought,
  9. Gold-purfled robes, and bronze from Ephyre;
  10. Nor is the whiteness of their wool distained
  11. With drugs Assyrian, nor clear olive's use
  12. With cassia tainted; yet untroubled calm,
  13. A life that knows no falsehood, rich enow
  14. With various treasures, yet broad-acred ease,
  15. Grottoes and living lakes, yet Tempes cool,
  16. Lowing of kine, and sylvan slumbers soft,
  17. They lack not; lawns and wild beasts' haunts are there,
  18. A youth of labour patient, need-inured,
  19. Worship, and reverend sires: with them from earth
  20. Departing justice her last footprints left.
  1. Me before all things may the Muses sweet,
  2. Whose rites I bear with mighty passion pierced,
  3. Receive, and show the paths and stars of heaven,
  4. The sun's eclipses and the labouring moons,
  5. From whence the earthquake, by what power the seas
  6. Swell from their depths, and, every barrier burst,
  7. Sink back upon themselves, why winter-suns
  8. So haste to dip 'neath ocean, or what check
  9. The lingering night retards. But if to these
  10. High realms of nature the cold curdling blood
  11. About my heart bar access, then be fields
  12. And stream-washed vales my solace, let me love
  13. Rivers and woods, inglorious. Oh for you
  14. Plains, and Spercheius, and Taygete,
  15. By Spartan maids o'er-revelled! Oh, for one,
  16. Would set me in deep dells of Haemus cool,
  17. And shield me with his boughs' o'ershadowing might!
  18. Happy, who had the skill to understand
  19. Nature's hid causes, and beneath his feet
  20. All terrors cast, and death's relentless doom,
  21. And the loud roar of greedy Acheron.
  22. Blest too is he who knows the rural gods,
  23. Pan, old Silvanus, and the sister-nymphs!
  24. Him nor the rods of public power can bend,
  25. Nor kingly purple, nor fierce feud that drives
  26. Brother to turn on brother, nor descent
  27. Of Dacian from the Danube's leagued flood,
  28. Nor Rome's great State, nor kingdoms like to die;
  29. Nor hath he grieved through pitying of the poor,
  30. Nor envied him that hath. What fruit the boughs,
  31. And what the fields, of their own bounteous will
  32. Have borne, he gathers; nor iron rule of laws,
  33. Nor maddened Forum have his eyes beheld,
  34. Nor archives of the people. Others vex
  35. The darksome gulfs of Ocean with their oars,
  36. Or rush on steel: they press within the courts
  37. And doors of princes; one with havoc falls
  38. Upon a city and its hapless hearths,
  39. From gems to drink, on Tyrian rugs to lie;
  40. This hoards his wealth and broods o'er buried gold;
  41. One at the rostra stares in blank amaze;
  42. One gaping sits transported by the cheers,
  43. The answering cheers of plebs and senate rolled
  44. Along the benches: bathed in brothers' blood
  45. Men revel, and, all delights of hearth and home
  46. For exile changing, a new country seek
  47. Beneath an alien sun. The husbandman
  48. With hooked ploughshare turns the soil; from hence
  49. Springs his year's labour; hence, too, he sustains
  50. Country and cottage homestead, and from hence
  51. His herds of cattle and deserving steers.
  52. No respite! still the year o'erflows with fruit,
  53. Or young of kine, or Ceres' wheaten sheaf,
  54. With crops the furrow loads, and bursts the barns.
  1. Winter is come: in olive-mills they bruise
  2. The Sicyonian berry; acorn-cheered
  3. The swine troop homeward; woods their arbutes yield;
  4. So, various fruit sheds Autumn, and high up
  5. On sunny rocks the mellowing vintage bakes.
  6. Meanwhile about his lips sweet children cling;
  7. His chaste house keeps its purity; his kine
  8. Drop milky udders, and on the lush green grass
  9. Fat kids are striving, horn to butting horn.
  10. Himself keeps holy days; stretched o'er the sward,
  11. Where round the fire his comrades crown the bowl,
  12. He pours libation, and thy name invokes,
  13. Lenaeus, and for the herdsmen on an elm
  14. Sets up a mark for the swift javelin; they
  15. Strip their tough bodies for the rustic sport.
  16. Such life of yore the ancient Sabines led,
  17. Such Remus and his brother: Etruria thus,
  18. Doubt not, to greatness grew, and Rome became
  19. The fair world's fairest, and with circling wall
  20. Clasped to her single breast the sevenfold hills.
  21. Ay, ere the reign of Dicte's king, ere men,
  22. Waxed godless, banqueted on slaughtered bulls,
  23. Such life on earth did golden Saturn lead.
  24. Nor ear of man had heard the war-trump's blast,
  25. Nor clang of sword on stubborn anvil set.
  1. But lo! a boundless space we have travelled o'er;
  2. 'Tis time our steaming horses to unyoke.