Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- And I myself, were I not even now
- Furling my sails, and, nigh the journey's end,
- Eager to turn my vessel's prow to shore,
- Perchance would sing what careful husbandry
- Makes the trim garden smile; of Paestum too,
- Whose roses bloom and fade and bloom again;
- How endives glory in the streams they drink,
- And green banks in their parsley, and how the gourd
- Twists through the grass and rounds him to paunch;
- Nor of Narcissus had my lips been dumb,
- That loiterer of the flowers, nor supple-stemmed
- Acanthus, with the praise of ivies pale,
- And myrtles clinging to the shores they love.
- For 'neath the shade of tall Oebalia's towers,
- Where dark Galaesus laves the yellowing fields,
- An old man once I mind me to have seen—
- From Corycus he came—to whom had fallen
- Some few poor acres of neglected land,
- And they nor fruitful' neath the plodding steer,
- Meet for the grazing herd, nor good for vines.
- Yet he, the while his meagre garden-herbs
- Among the thorns he planted, and all round
- White lilies, vervains, and lean poppy set,
- In pride of spirit matched the wealth of kings,
- And home returning not till night was late,
- With unbought plenty heaped his board on high.
- He was the first to cull the rose in spring,
- He the ripe fruits in autumn; and ere yet
- Winter had ceased in sullen ire to rive
- The rocks with frost, and with her icy bit
- Curb in the running waters, there was he
- Plucking the rathe faint hyacinth, while he chid
- Summer's slow footsteps and the lagging West.
- Therefore he too with earliest brooding bees
- And their full swarms o'erflowed, and first was he
- To press the bubbling honey from the comb;
- Lime-trees were his, and many a branching pine;
- And all the fruits wherewith in early bloom
- The orchard-tree had clothed her, in full tale
- Hung there, by mellowing autumn perfected.
- He too transplanted tall-grown elms a-row,
- Time-toughened pear, thorns bursting with the plum
- And plane now yielding serviceable shade
- For dry lips to drink under: but these things,
- Shut off by rigorous limits, I pass by,
- And leave for others to sing after me.
- Come, then, I will unfold the natural powers
- Great Jove himself upon the bees bestowed,
- The boon for which, led by the shrill sweet strains
- Of the Curetes and their clashing brass,
- They fed the King of heaven in Dicte's cave.
- Alone of all things they receive and hold
- Community of offspring, and they house
- Together in one city, and beneath
- The shelter of majestic laws they live;
- And they alone fixed home and country know,
- And in the summer, warned of coming cold,
- Make proof of toil, and for the general store
- Hoard up their gathered harvesting. For some
- Watch o'er the victualling of the hive, and these
- By settled order ply their tasks afield;
- And some within the confines of their home
- Plant firm the comb's first layer, Narcissus' tear,
- And sticky gum oozed from the bark of trees,
- Then set the clinging wax to hang therefrom.
- Others the while lead forth the full-grown young,
- Their country's hope, and others press and pack
- The thrice repured honey, and stretch their cells
- To bursting with the clear-strained nectar sweet.
- Some, too, the wardship of the gates befalls,
- Who watch in turn for showers and cloudy skies,
- Or ease returning labourers of their load,
- Or form a band and from their precincts drive
- The drones, a lazy herd. How glows the work!
- How sweet the honey smells of perfumed thyme
- Like the Cyclopes, when in haste they forge
- From the slow-yielding ore the thunderbolts,
- Some from the bull's-hide bellows in and out
- Let the blasts drive, some dip i' the water-trough
- The sputtering metal: with the anvil's weight
- Groans Etna: they alternately in time
- With giant strength uplift their sinewy arms,
- Or twist the iron with the forceps' grip—
- Not otherwise, to measure small with great,
- The love of getting planted in their breasts
- Goads on the bees, that haunt old Cecrops' heights,
- Each in his sphere to labour. The old have charge
- To keep the town, and build the walled combs,
- And mould the cunning chambers; but the youth,
- Their tired legs packed with thyme, come labouring home
- Belated, for afar they range to feed
- On arbutes and the grey-green willow-leaves,
- And cassia and the crocus blushing red,
- Glue-yielding limes, and hyacinths dusky-eyed.
- One hour for rest have all, and one for toil:
- With dawn they hurry from the gates—no room
- For loiterers there: and once again, when even
- Now bids them quit their pasturing on the plain,
- Then homeward make they, then refresh their strength:
- A hum arises: hark! they buzz and buzz
- About the doors and threshold; till at length
- Safe laid to rest they hush them for the night,
- And welcome slumber laps their weary limbs.
- But from the homestead not too far they fare,
- When showers hang like to fall, nor, east winds nigh,
- Confide in heaven, but 'neath the city walls
- Safe-circling fetch them water, or essay
- Brief out-goings, and oft weigh-up tiny stones,
- As light craft ballast in the tossing tide,
- Wherewith they poise them through the cloudy vast.
- This law of life, too, by the bees obeyed,
- Will move thy wonder, that nor sex with sex
- Yoke they in marriage, nor yield their limbs to love,
- Nor know the pangs of labour, but alone
- From leaves and honied herbs, the mothers, each,
- Gather their offspring in their mouths, alone
- Supply new kings and pigmy commonwealth,
- And their old court and waxen realm repair.
- Oft, too, while wandering, against jagged stones
- Their wings they fray, and 'neath the burden yield
- Their liberal lives: so deep their love of flowers,
- So glorious deem they honey's proud acquist.
- Therefore, though each a life of narrow span,
- Ne'er stretched to summers more than seven, befalls,
- Yet deathless doth the race endure, and still
- Perennial stands the fortune of their line,
- From grandsire unto grandsire backward told.
- Moreover, not Aegyptus, nor the realm
- Of boundless Lydia, no, nor Parthia's hordes,
- Nor Median Hydaspes, to their king
- Do such obeisance: lives the king unscathed,
- One will inspires the million: is he dead,
- Snapt is the bond of fealty; they themselves
- Ravage their toil-wrought honey, and rend amain
- Their own comb's waxen trellis. He is the lord
- Of all their labour; him with awful eye
- They reverence, and with murmuring throngs surround,
- In crowds attend, oft shoulder him on high,
- Or with their bodies shield him in the fight,
- And seek through showering wounds a glorious death.
- Led by these tokens, and with such traits to guide,
- Some say that unto bees a share is given
- Of the Divine Intelligence, and to drink
- Pure draughts of ether; for God permeates all—
- Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault of heaven—
- From whom flocks, herds, men, beasts of every kind,
- Draw each at birth the fine essential flame;
- Yea, and that all things hence to Him return,
- Brought back by dissolution, nor can death
- Find place: but, each into his starry rank,
- Alive they soar, and mount the heights of heaven.
- If now their narrow home thou wouldst unseal,
- And broach the treasures of the honey-house,
- With draught of water first toment thy lips,
- And spread before thee fumes of trailing smoke.
- Twice is the teeming produce gathered in,
- Twofold their time of harvest year by year,
- Once when Taygete the Pleiad uplifts
- Her comely forehead for the earth to see,
- With foot of scorn spurning the ocean-streams,
- Once when in gloom she flies the watery Fish,
- And dips from heaven into the wintry wave.
- Unbounded then their wrath; if hurt, they breathe
- Venom into their bite, cleave to the veins
- And let the sting lie buried, and leave their lives
- Behind them in the wound. But if you dread
- Too rigorous a winter, and would fain
- Temper the coming time, and their bruised hearts
- And broken estate to pity move thy soul,
- Yet who would fear to fumigate with thyme,
- Or cut the empty wax away? for oft
- Into their comb the newt has gnawed unseen,
- And the light-loathing beetles crammed their bed,
- And he that sits at others' board to feast,
- The do-naught drone; or 'gainst the unequal foe
- Swoops the fierce hornet, or the moth's fell tribe;
- Or spider, victim of Minerva's spite,
- Athwart the doorway hangs her swaying net.
- The more impoverished they, the keenlier all
- To mend the fallen fortunes of their race
- Will nerve them, fill the cells up, tier on tier,
- And weave their granaries from the rifled flowers.
- Now, seeing that life doth even to bee-folk bring
- Our human chances, if in dire disease
- Their bodies' strength should languish—which anon
- By no uncertain tokens may be told—
- Forthwith the sick change hue; grim leanness mars
- Their visage; then from out the cells they bear
- Forms reft of light, and lead the mournful pomp;
- Or foot to foot about the porch they hang,
- Or within closed doors loiter, listless all
- From famine, and benumbed with shrivelling cold.
- Then is a deep note heard, a long-drawn hum,
- As when the chill South through the forests sighs,
- As when the troubled ocean hoarsely booms
- With back-swung billow, as ravening tide of fire
- Surges, shut fast within the furnace-walls.
- Then do I bid burn scented galbanum,
- And, honey-streams through reeden troughs instilled,
- Challenge and cheer their flagging appetite
- To taste the well-known food; and it shall boot
- To mix therewith the savour bruised from gall,
- And rose-leaves dried, or must to thickness boiled
- By a fierce fire, or juice of raisin-grapes
- From Psithian vine, and with its bitter smell
- Centaury, and the famed Cecropian thyme.
- There is a meadow-flower by country folk
- Hight star-wort; 'tis a plant not far to seek;
- For from one sod an ample growth it rears,
- Itself all golden, but girt with plenteous leaves,
- Where glory of purple shines through violet gloom.
- With chaplets woven hereof full oft are decked
- Heaven's altars: harsh its taste upon the tongue;
- Shepherds in vales smooth-shorn of nibbling flocks
- By Mella's winding waters gather it.
- The roots of this, well seethed in fragrant wine,
- Set in brimmed baskets at their doors for food.
- But if one's whole stock fail him at a stroke,
- Nor hath he whence to breed the race anew,
- 'Tis time the wondrous secret to disclose
- Taught by the swain of Arcady, even how
- The blood of slaughtered bullocks oft has borne
- Bees from corruption. I will trace me back
- To its prime source the story's tangled thread,
- And thence unravel. For where thy happy folk,
- Canopus, city of Pellaean fame,
- Dwell by the Nile's lagoon-like overflow,
- And high o'er furrows they have called their own
- Skim in their painted wherries; where, hard by,
- The quivered Persian presses, and that flood
- Which from the swart-skinned Aethiop bears him down,
- Swift-parted into sevenfold branching mouths
- With black mud fattens and makes Aegypt green,
- That whole domain its welfare's hope secure
- Rests on this art alone. And first is chosen
- A strait recess, cramped closer to this end,
- Which next with narrow roof of tiles atop
- 'Twixt prisoning walls they pinch, and add hereto
- From the four winds four slanting window-slits.
- Then seek they from the herd a steer, whose horns
- With two years' growth are curling, and stop fast,
- Plunge madly as he may, the panting mouth
- And nostrils twain, and done with blows to death,
- Batter his flesh to pulp i' the hide yet whole,
- And shut the doors, and leave him there to lie.
- But 'neath his ribs they scatter broken boughs,
- With thyme and fresh-pulled cassias: this is done
- When first the west winds bid the waters flow,
- Ere flush the meadows with new tints, and ere
- The twittering swallow buildeth from the beams.
- Meanwhile the juice within his softened bones
- Heats and ferments, and things of wondrous birth,
- Footless at first, anon with feet and wings,
- Swarm there and buzz, a marvel to behold;
- And more and more the fleeting breeze they take,
- Till, like a shower that pours from summer-clouds,
- Forth burst they, or like shafts from quivering string
- When Parthia's flying hosts provoke the fray.
- Say what was he, what God, that fashioned forth
- This art for us, O Muses? of man's skill
- Whence came the new adventure? From thy vale,
- Peneian Tempe, turning, bee-bereft,
- So runs the tale, by famine and disease,
- Mournful the shepherd Aristaeus stood
- Fast by the haunted river-head, and thus
- With many a plaint to her that bare him cried:
- “Mother, Cyrene, mother, who hast thy home
- Beneath this whirling flood, if he thou sayest,
- Apollo, lord of Thymbra, be my sire,
- Sprung from the Gods' high line, why barest thou me
- With fortune's ban for birthright? Where is now
- Thy love to me-ward banished from thy breast?
- O! wherefore didst thou bid me hope for heaven?
- Lo! even the crown of this poor mortal life,
- Which all my skilful care by field and fold,
- No art neglected, scarce had fashioned forth,
- Even this falls from me, yet thou call'st me son.
- Nay, then, arise! With thine own hands pluck up
- My fruit-plantations: on the homestead fling
- Pitiless fire; make havoc of my crops;
- Burn the young plants, and wield the stubborn axe
- Against my vines, if there hath taken the
- Such loathing of my greatness.”