Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Fierce Love it was once steeled a mother's heart
- with her own offspring's blood her hands to imbrue:
- mother, thou too wert cruel; say wert thou
- more cruel, mother, or more ruthless he?
- Ruthless the boy, thou, mother, cruel too.
- Now let the wolf turn tail and fly the sheep,
- tough oaks bear golden apples, alder-trees
- bloom with narcissus-flower, the tamarisk
- sweat with rich amber, and the screech-owl vie
- in singing with the swan: let Tityrus
- be Orpheus, Orpheus in the forest-glade,
- arion 'mid his dolphins on the deep.
- Yea, be the whole earth to mid-ocean turned!
- Farewell, ye woodlands I from the tall peak
- of yon aerial rock will headlong plunge
- into the billows: this my latest gift,
- from dying lips bequeathed thee, see thou keep.
- Cease now, my flute, now cease Maenalian lays.’”