Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- “Bring water, and with soft wool-fillet bind
- these altars round about, and burn thereon
- rich vervain and male frankincense, that I
- may strive with magic spells to turn astray
- my lover's saner senses, whereunto
- there lacketh nothing save the power of song.
- Songs can the very moon draw down from heaven
- circe with singing changed from human form
- the comrades of Ulysses, and by song
- is the cold meadow-snake, asunder burst.
- These triple threads of threefold colour first
- I twine about thee, and three times withal
- around these altars do thine image bear:
- uneven numbers are the god's delight.