Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. Ah! may the frost not hurt thee, may the sharp
  2. and jagged ice not wound thy tender feet!
  3. I will depart, re-tune the songs I framed
  4. in verse Chalcidian to the oaten reed
  5. of the Sicilian swain. Resolved am I
  6. in the woods, rather, with wild beasts to couch,
  7. and bear my doom, and character my love
  8. upon the tender tree-trunks: they will grow,
  9. and you, my love, grow with them. And meanwhile
  10. I with the Nymphs will haunt Mount Maenalus,
  11. or hunt the keen wild boar. No frost so cold
  12. but I will hem with hounds thy forest-glades,
  13. parthenius. Even now, methinks, I range
  14. o'er rocks, through echoing groves, and joy to launch
  15. Cydonian arrows from a Parthian bow.—
  16. as if my madness could find healing thus,
  17. or that god soften at a mortal's grief!
  18. Now neither Hamadryads, no, nor songs
  19. delight me more: ye woods, away with you!
  20. No pangs of ours can change him; not though we