Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Many the tasks that lightlier lend themselves
- In chilly night, or when the sun is young,
- And Dawn bedews the world. By night 'tis best
- To reap light stubble, and parched fields by night;
- For nights the suppling moisture never fails.
- And one will sit the long late watches out
- By winter fire-light, shaping with keen blade
- The torches to a point; his wife the while,
- Her tedious labour soothing with a song,
- Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else
- With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down,
- And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.
- But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown,
- And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised
- Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow;
- Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.
- In the cold season farmers wont to taste
- The increase of their toil, and yield themselves
- To mutual interchange of festal cheer.
- Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares,
- As laden keels, when now the port they touch,
- And happy sailors crown the sterns with flowers.
- Nathless then also time it is to strip
- Acorns from oaks, and berries from the bay,
- Olives, and bleeding myrtles, then to set
- Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag,
- And hunt the long-eared hares, then pierce the doe
- With whirl of hempen-thonged Balearic sling,
- While snow lies deep, and streams are drifting ice.
- What need to tell of autumn's storms and stars,
- And wherefore men must watch, when now the day
- Grows shorter, and more soft the summer's heat?
- When Spring the rain-bringer comes rushing down,
- Or when the beards of harvest on the plain
- Bristle already, and the milky corn
- On its green stalk is swelling? Many a time,
- When now the farmer to his yellow fields
- The reaping-hind came bringing, even in act
- To lop the brittle barley stems, have I
- Seen all the windy legions clash in war
- Together, as to rend up far and wide
- The heavy corn-crop from its lowest roots,
- And toss it skyward: so might winter's flaw,
- Dark-eddying, whirl light stalks and flying straws.
- Oft too comes looming vast along the sky
- A march of waters; mustering from above,
- The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim
- With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven,
- And with a great rain floods the smiling crops,
- The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast,
- And the void river-beds swell thunderously,
- And all the panting firths of Ocean boil.
- The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds
- Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk
- Earth at the hurly quakes; the beasts are fled,
- And mortal hearts of every kindred sunk
- In cowering terror; he with flaming brand
- Athos, or Rhodope, or Ceraunian crags
- Precipitates: then doubly raves the South
- With shower on blinding shower, and woods and coasts
- Wail fitfully beneath the mighty blast.
- This fearing, mark the months and Signs of heaven,
- Whither retires him Saturn's icy star,
- And through what heavenly cycles wandereth
- The glowing orb Cyllenian. Before all
- Worship the Gods, and to great Ceres pay
- Her yearly dues upon the happy sward
- With sacrifice, anigh the utmost end
- Of winter, and when Spring begins to smile.
- Then lambs are fat, and wines are mellowest then;
- Then sleep is sweet, and dark the shadows fall
- Upon the mountains. Let your rustic youth
- To Ceres do obeisance, one and all;
- And for her pleasure thou mix honeycombs
- With milk and the ripe wine-god; thrice for luck
- Around the young corn let the victim go,
- And all the choir, a joyful company,
- Attend it, and with shouts bid Ceres come
- To be their house-mate; and let no man dare
- Put sickle to the ripened ears until,
- With woven oak his temples chapleted,
- He foot the rugged dance and chant the lay.