Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- oft with its life-blood shall his altar stain.
- His gift it is that, as your eyes may see,
- my kine may roam at large, and I myself
- play on my shepherd's pipe what songs I will.
- I grudge you not the boon, but marvel more,
- such wide confusion fills the country-side.
- See, sick at heart I drive my she-goats on,
- and this one, O my Tityrus, scarce can lead:
- for 'mid the hazel-thicket here but now
- she dropped her new-yeaned twins on the bare flint,
- hope of the flock—an ill, I mind me well,
- which many a time, but for my blinded sense,
- the thunder-stricken oak foretold, oft too
- from hollow trunk the raven's ominous cry.
- But who this god of yours? Come, Tityrus, tell.
- The city, Meliboeus, they call Rome,
- I, simpleton, deemed like this town of ours,
- whereto we shepherds oft are wont to drive
- the younglings of the flock: so too I knew
- whelps to resemble dogs, and kids their dams,