Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. the fields we hallow. Long as the wild boar
  2. shall love the mountain-heights, and fish the streams,
  3. while bees on thyme and crickets feed on dew,
  4. thy name, thy praise, thine honour, shall endure.
  5. Even as to Bacchus and to Ceres, so
  6. to thee the swain his yearly vows shall make;
  7. and thou thereof, like them, shalt quittance claim.”
MOPSUS
  1. How, how repay thee for a song so rare?
  2. For not the whispering south-wind on its way
  3. so much delights me, nor wave-smitten beach,
  4. nor streams that race adown their bouldered beds.
MENALCAS
  1. First this frail hemlock-stalk to you I give,
  2. which taught me “Corydon with love was fired
  3. for fair Alexis,” ay, and this beside,
  4. “Who owns the flock?—Meliboeus?”
MOPSUS
  1. But take you
  2. this shepherd's crook, which, howso hard he begged,
  3. antigenes, then worthy to be loved,
  4. prevailed not to obtain—with brass, you see,
  5. and equal knots, Menalcas, fashioned fair!