Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. I to melt cruel Daphnis burn this bay.
  2. As when some heifer, seeking for her steer
  3. through woodland and deep grove, sinks wearied out
  4. on the green sedge beside a stream, love-lorn,
  5. nor marks the gathering night that calls her home—
  6. as pines that heifer, with such love as hers
  7. may Daphnis pine, and I not care to heal.
  8. These relics once, dear pledges of himself,
  9. the traitor left me, which, O earth, to thee
  10. here on this very threshold I commit—
  11. pledges that bind him to redeem the debt.
  12. These herbs of bane to me did Moeris give,
  13. in Pontus culled, where baneful herbs abound.
  14. With these full oft have I seen Moeris change
  15. to a wolf's form, and hide him in the woods,
  16. oft summon spirits from the tomb's recess,
  17. and to new fields transport the standing corn.