Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Did I not see you, rogue, in ambush lie
- for Damon's goat, while loud Lycisca barked?
- And when I cried, “Where is he off to now?
- Gather your flock together, Tityrus,”
- you hid behind the sedges.
- Well, was he
- whom I had conquered still to keep the goat.
- Which in the piping-match my pipe had won!
- You may not know it, but the goat was mine.
- You out-pipe him? when had you ever pipe
- wax-welded? in the cross-ways used you not
- on grating straw some miserable tune
- to mangle?
- Well, then, shall we try our skill
- each against each in turn? Lest you be loth,
- I pledge this heifer; every day she comes
- twice to the milking-pail, and feeds withal
- two young ones at her udder: say you now
- what you will stake upon the match with me.
- Naught from the flock I'll venture, for at home