Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. “You, picking flowers and strawberries that grow
  2. so near the ground, fly hence, boys, get you gone!
  3. There's a cold adder lurking in the grass.”
MENALCAS
  1. “Forbear, my sheep, to tread too near the brink;
  2. yon bank is ill to trust to; even now
  3. the ram himself, see, dries his dripping fleece!”
DAMOETAS
  1. “Back with the she-goats, Tityrus, grazing there
  2. so near the river! I, when time shall serve,
  3. will take them all, and wash them in the pool.”
MENALCAS
  1. “Boys, get your sheep together; if the heat,
  2. as late it did, forestall us with the milk,
  3. vainly the dried-up udders shall we wring.”
DAMOETAS
  1. “How lean my bull amid the fattening vetch!
  2. Alack! alack! for herdsman and for herd!
  3. It is the self-same love that wastes us both.”
MENALCAS
  1. “These truly—nor is even love the cause—