Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Us too behoves Arcturus' sign observe,
- And the Kids' seasons and the shining Snake,
- No less than those who o'er the windy main
- Borne homeward tempt the Pontic, and the jaws
- Of oyster-rife Abydos. When the Scales
- Now poising fair the hours of sleep and day
- Give half the world to sunshine, half to shade,
- Then urge your bulls, my masters; sow the plain
- Even to the verge of tameless winter's showers
- With barley: then, too, time it is to hide
- Your flax in earth, and poppy, Ceres' joy,
- Aye, more than time to bend above the plough,
- While earth, yet dry, forbids not, and the clouds
- Are buoyant. With the spring comes bean-sowing;
- Thee, too, Lucerne, the crumbling furrows then
- Receive, and millet's annual care returns,
- What time the white bull with his gilded horns
- Opens the year, before whose threatening front,
- Routed the dog-star sinks. But if it be
- For wheaten harvest and the hardy spelt,
- Thou tax the soil, to corn-ears wholly given,
- Let Atlas' daughters hide them in the dawn,
- The Cretan star, a crown of fire, depart,
- Or e'er the furrow's claim of seed thou quit,
- Or haste thee to entrust the whole year's hope
- To earth that would not. Many have begun
- Ere Maia's star be setting; these, I trow,
- Their looked-for harvest fools with empty ears.
- But if the vetch and common kidney-bean
- Thou'rt fain to sow, nor scorn to make thy care
- Pelusiac lentil, no uncertain sign
- Bootes' fall will send thee; then begin,
- Pursue thy sowing till half the frosts be done.
- Therefore it is the golden sun, his course
- Into fixed parts dividing, rules his way
- Through the twelve constellations of the world.
- Five zones the heavens contain; whereof is one
- Aye red with flashing sunlight, fervent aye
- From fire; on either side to left and right
- Are traced the utmost twain, stiff with blue ice,
- And black with scowling storm-clouds, and betwixt
- These and the midmost, other twain there lie,
- By the Gods' grace to heart-sick mortals given,
- And a path cleft between them, where might wheel
- On sloping plane the system of the Signs.
- And as toward Scythia and Rhipaean heights
- The world mounts upward, likewise sinks it down
- Toward Libya and the south, this pole of ours
- Still towering high, that other, 'neath their feet,
- By dark Styx frowned on, and the abysmal shades.
- Here glides the huge Snake forth with sinuous coils
- 'Twixt the two Bears and round them river-wise—
- The Bears that fear 'neath Ocean's brim to dip.
- There either, say they, reigns the eternal hush
- Of night that knows no seasons, her black pall
- Thick-mantling fold on fold; or thitherward
- From us returning Dawn brings back the day;
- And when the first breath of his panting steeds
- On us the Orient flings, that hour with them
- Red Vesper 'gins to trim his 'lated fires.
- Hence under doubtful skies forebode we can
- The coming tempests, hence both harvest-day
- And seed-time, when to smite the treacherous main
- With driving oars, when launch the fair-rigged fleet,
- Or in ripe hour to fell the forest-pine.