Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- No delay:
- The self-same hour he hies him forth to do
- His mother's bidding: to the shrine he came,
- The appointed altars reared, and thither led
- Four chosen bulls of peerless form and bulk,
- With kine to match, that never yoke had known;
- Then, when the ninth dawn had led in the day,
- To Orpheus sent his funeral dues, and sought
- The grove once more. But sudden, strange to tell
- A portent they espy: through the oxen's flesh,
- Waxed soft in dissolution, hark! there hum
- Bees from the belly; the rent ribs overboil
- In endless clouds they spread them, till at last
- On yon tree-top together fused they cling,
- And drop their cluster from the bending boughs.
- So sang I of the tilth of furrowed fields,
- Of flocks and trees, while Caesar's majesty
- Launched forth the levin-bolts of war by deep
- Euphrates, and bare rule o'er willing folk
- Though vanquished, and essayed the heights of heaven.
- I Virgil then, of sweet Parthenope
- The nursling, wooed the flowery walks of peace
- Inglorious, who erst trilled for shepherd-wights
- The wanton ditty, and sang in saucy youth
- Thee, Tityrus, 'neath the spreading beech tree's shade.