Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Thee too, great Pales, will I hymn, and thee,
- Amphrysian shepherd, worthy to be sung,
- You, woods and waves Lycaean. All themes beside,
- Which else had charmed the vacant mind with song,
- Are now waxed common. Of harsh Eurystheus who
- The story knows not, or that praiseless king
- Busiris, and his altars? or by whom
- Hath not the tale been told of Hylas young,
- Latonian Delos and Hippodame,
- And Pelops for his ivory shoulder famed,
- Keen charioteer? Needs must a path be tried,
- By which I too may lift me from the dust,
- And float triumphant through the mouths of men.
- Yea, I shall be the first, so life endure,
- To lead the Muses with me, as I pass
- To mine own country from the Aonian height;
- I, Mantua, first will bring thee back the palms
- Of Idumaea, and raise a marble shrine
- On thy green plain fast by the water-side,
- Where Mincius winds more vast in lazy coils,
- And rims his margent with the tender reed.
- Amid my shrine shall Caesar's godhead dwell.
- To him will I, as victor, bravely dight
- In Tyrian purple, drive along the bank
- A hundred four-horse cars. All Greece for me,
- Leaving Alpheus and Molorchus' grove,
- On foot shall strive, or with the raw-hide glove;
- Whilst I, my head with stripped green olive crowned,
- Will offer gifts. Even 'tis present joy
- To lead the high processions to the fane,
- And view the victims felled; or how the scene
- Sunders with shifted face, and Britain's sons
- Inwoven thereon with those proud curtains rise.
- Of gold and massive ivory on the doors
- I'll trace the battle of the Gangarides,
- And our Quirinus' conquering arms, and there
- Surging with war, and hugely flowing, the Nile,
- And columns heaped on high with naval brass.
- And Asia's vanquished cities I will add,
- And quelled Niphates, and the Parthian foe,
- Who trusts in flight and backward-volleying darts,
- And trophies torn with twice triumphant hand
- From empires twain on ocean's either shore.
- And breathing forms of Parian marble there
- Shall stand, the offspring of Assaracus,
- And great names of the Jove-descended folk,
- And father Tros, and Troy's first founder, lord
- Of Cynthus. And accursed Envy there
- Shall dread the Furies, and thy ruthless flood,
- Cocytus, and Ixion's twisted snakes,
- And that vast wheel and ever-baffling stone.
- Meanwhile the Dryad-haunted woods and lawns
- Unsullied seek we; 'tis thy hard behest,
- Maecenas. Without thee no lofty task
- My mind essays. Up! break the sluggish bonds
- Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls,
- Steed-taming Epidaurus, and thy hounds,
- Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves
- With peal on peal reverberate the roar.
- Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long
- The fiery fights of Caesar, speed his name
- Through ages, countless as to Caesar's self
- From the first birth-dawn of Tithonus old.
- If eager for the prized Olympian palm
- One breed the horse, or bullock strong to plough,
- Be his prime care a shapely dam to choose.
- Of kine grim-faced is goodliest, with coarse head
- And burly neck, whose hanging dewlaps reach
- From chin to knee; of boundless length her flank;
- Large every way she is, large-footed even,
- With incurved horns and shaggy ears beneath.
- Nor let mislike me one with spots of white
- Conspicuous, or that spurns the yoke, whose horn
- At times hath vice in't: liker bull-faced she,
- And tall-limbed wholly, and with tip of tail
- Brushing her footsteps as she walks along.
- The age for Hymen's rites, Lucina's pangs,
- Ere ten years ended, after four begins;
- Their residue of days nor apt to teem,
- Nor strong for ploughing. Meantime, while youth's delight
- Survives within them, loose the males: be first
- To speed thy herds of cattle to their loves,
- Breed stock with stock, and keep the race supplied.
- Ah! life's best hours are ever first to fly
- From hapless mortals; in their place succeed
- Disease and dolorous eld; till travail sore
- And death unpitying sweep them from the scene.
- Still will be some, whose form thou fain wouldst change;
- Renew them still; with yearly choice of young
- Preventing losses, lest too late thou rue.
- Nor steeds crave less selection; but on those
- Thou think'st to rear, the promise of their line,
- From earliest youth thy chiefest pains bestow.
- See from the first yon high-bred colt afield,
- His lofty step, his limbs' elastic tread:
- Dauntless he leads the herd, still first to try
- The threatening flood, or brave the unknown bridge,
- By no vain noise affrighted; lofty-necked,
- With clean-cut head, short belly, and stout back;
- His sprightly breast exuberant with brawn.
- Chestnut and grey are good; the worst-hued white
- And sorrel. Then lo! if arms are clashed afar,
- Bide still he cannot: ears stiffen and limbs quake;
- His nostrils snort and roll out wreaths of fire.
- Dense is his mane, that when uplifted falls
- On his right shoulder; betwixt either loin
- The spine runs double; his earth-dinting hoof
- Rings with the ponderous beat of solid horn.
- Even such a horse was Cyllarus, reined and tamed
- By Pollux of Amyclae; such the pair
- In Grecian song renowned, those steeds of Mars,
- And famed Achilles' team: in such-like form
- Great Saturn's self with mane flung loose on neck
- Sped at his wife's approach, and flying filled
- The heights of Pelion with his piercing neigh.
- Even him, when sore disease or sluggish eld
- Now saps his strength, pen fast at home, and spare
- His not inglorious age. A horse grown old
- Slow kindling unto love in vain prolongs
- The fruitless task, and, to the encounter come,
- As fire in stubble blusters without strength,
- He rages idly. Therefore mark thou first
- Their age and mettle, other points anon,
- As breed and lineage, or what pain was theirs
- To lose the race, what pride the palm to win.
- Seest how the chariots in mad rivalry
- Poured from the barrier grip the course and go,
- When youthful hope is highest, and every heart
- Drained with each wild pulsation? How they ply
- The circling lash, and reaching forward let
- The reins hang free! Swift spins the glowing wheel;
- And now they stoop, and now erect in air
- Seem borne through space and towering to the sky:
- No stop, no stay; the dun sand whirls aloft;
- They reek with foam-flakes and pursuing breath;
- So sweet is fame, so prized the victor's palm.
- 'Twas Ericthonius first took heart to yoke
- Four horses to his car, and rode above
- The whirling wheels to victory: but the ring
- And bridle-reins, mounted on horses' backs,
- The Pelethronian Lapithae bequeathed,
- And taught the knight in arms to spurn the ground,
- And arch the upgathered footsteps of his pride.
- Each task alike is arduous, and for each
- A horse young, fiery, swift of foot, they seek;
- How oft so-e'er yon rival may have chased
- The flying foe, or boast his native plain
- Epirus, or Mycenae's stubborn hold,
- And trace his lineage back to Neptune's birth.
- These points regarded, as the time draws nigh,
- With instant zeal they lavish all their care
- To plump with solid fat the chosen chief
- And designated husband of the herd:
- And flowery herbs they cut, and serve him well
- With corn and running water, that his strength
- Not fail him for that labour of delight,
- Nor puny colts betray the feeble sire.
- The herd itself of purpose they reduce
- To leanness, and when love's sweet longing first
- Provokes them, they forbid the leafy food,
- And pen them from the springs, and oft beside
- With running shake, and tire them in the sun,
- What time the threshing-floor groans heavily
- With pounding of the corn-ears, and light chaff
- Is whirled on high to catch the rising west.
- This do they that the soil's prolific powers
- May not be dulled by surfeiting, nor choke
- The sluggish furrows, but eagerly absorb
- Their fill of love, and deeply entertain.