Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- 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.
- Aye, and that these things we might win to know
- By certain tokens, heats, and showers, and winds
- That bring the frost, the Sire of all himself
- Ordained what warnings in her monthly round
- The moon should give, what bodes the south wind's fall,
- What oft-repeated sights the herdsman seeing
- Should keep his cattle closer to their stalls.
- No sooner are the winds at point to rise,
- Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss
- And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard
- Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms
- The beach afar, and through the forest goes
- A murmur multitudinous. By this
- Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels,
- When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main
- Come winging, and their shrieks are shoreward borne,
- When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land
- Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts
- Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud.
- Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see
- From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night
- Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake,
- Or light chaff flit in air with fallen leaves,
- Or feathers on the wave-top float and play.
- But when from regions of the furious North
- It lightens, and when thunder fills the halls
- Of Eurus and of Zephyr, all the fields
- With brimming dikes are flooded, and at sea
- No mariner but furls his dripping sails.
- Never at unawares did shower annoy:
- Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes
- Flee to the vales before it, with face
- Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale
- Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres
- Shrill-twittering flits the swallow, and the frogs
- Crouch in the mud and chant their dirge of old.
- Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells,
- Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys;
- Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host
- Of rooks from food returning in long line
- Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see
- The various ocean-fowl and those that pry
- Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools,
- Cayster, as in eager rivalry,
- About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray,
- Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run
- Into the billows, for sheer idle joy
- Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow
- With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain,
- Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.
- Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task,
- Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock
- They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth
- Of mouldy snuff-clots.
- So too, after rain,
- Sunshine and open skies thou mayst forecast,
- And learn by tokens sure, for then nor dimmed
- Appear the stars' keen edges, nor the moon
- As borrowing of her brother's beams to rise,
- Nor fleecy films to float along the sky.
- Not to the sun's warmth then upon the shore
- Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings,
- Nor filthy swine take thought to toss on high
- With scattering snout the straw-wisps. But the clouds
- Seek more the vales, and rest upon the plain,
- And from the roof-top the night-owl for naught
- Watching the sunset plies her 'lated song.
- Distinct in clearest air is Nisus seen
- Towering, and Scylla for the purple lock
- Pays dear; for whereso, as she flies, her wings
- The light air winnow, lo! fierce, implacable,
- Nisus with mighty whirr through heaven pursues;
- Where Nisus heavenward soareth, there her wings
- Clutch as she flies, the light air winnowing still.
- Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat
- Thrice, four times, o'er repeated, and full oft
- On their high cradles, by some hidden joy
- Gladdened beyond their wont, in bustling throngs
- Among the leaves they riot; so sweet it is,
- When showers are spent, their own loved nests again
- And tender brood to visit. Not, I deem,
- That heaven some native wit to these assigned,
- Or fate a larger prescience, but that when
- The storm and shifting moisture of the air
- Have changed their courses, and the sky-god now,
- Wet with the south-wind, thickens what was rare,
- And what was gross releases, then, too, change
- Their spirits' fleeting phases, and their breasts
- Feel other motions now, than when the wind
- Was driving up the cloud-rack. Hence proceeds
- That blending of the feathered choirs afield,
- The cattle's exultation, and the rooks'
- Deep-throated triumph.
- But if the headlong sun
- And moons in order following thou regard,
- Ne'er will to-morrow's hour deceive thee, ne'er
- Wilt thou be caught by guile of cloudless night.
- When first the moon recalls her rallying fires,
- If dark the air clipped by her crescent dim,
- For folks afield and on the open sea
- A mighty rain is brewing; but if her face
- With maiden blush she mantle, 'twill be wind,
- For wind turns Phoebe still to ruddier gold.
- But if at her fourth rising, for 'tis that
- Gives surest counsel, clear she ride thro' heaven
- With horns unblunted, then shall that whole day,
- And to the month's end those that spring from it,
- Rainless and windless be, while safe ashore
- Shall sailors pay their vows to Panope,
- Glaucus, and Melicertes, Ino's child.
- The sun too, both at rising, and when soon
- He dives beneath the waves, shall yield thee signs;
- For signs, none trustier, travel with the sun,
- Both those which in their course with dawn he brings,
- And those at star-rise. When his springing orb
- With spots he pranketh, muffled in a cloud,
- And shrinks mid-circle, then of showers beware;
- For then the South comes driving from the deep,
- To trees and crops and cattle bringing bane.
- Or when at day-break through dark clouds his rays
- Burst and are scattered, or when rising pale
- Aurora quits Tithonus' saffron bed,
- But sorry shelter then, alack I will yield
- Vine-leaf to ripening grapes; so thick a hail
- In spiky showers spins rattling on the roof.
- And this yet more 'twill boot thee bear in mind,
- When now, his course upon Olympus run,
- He draws to his decline: for oft we see
- Upon the sun's own face strange colours stray;
- Dark tells of rain, of east winds fiery-red;
- If spots with ruddy fire begin to mix,
- Then all the heavens convulsed in wrath thou'lt see—
- Storm-clouds and wind together. Me that night
- Let no man bid fare forth upon the deep,
- Nor rend the rope from shore. But if, when both
- He brings again and hides the day's return,
- Clear-orbed he shineth,idly wilt thou dread
- The storm-clouds, and beneath the lustral North
- See the woods waving. What late eve in fine
- Bears in her bosom, whence the wind that brings
- Fair-weather-clouds, or what the rain South
- Is meditating, tokens of all these
- The sun will give thee. Who dare charge the sun
- With leasing? He it is who warneth oft
- Of hidden broils at hand and treachery,
- And secret swelling of the waves of war.
- He too it was, when Caesar's light was quenched,
- For Rome had pity, when his bright head he veiled
- In iron-hued darkness, till a godless age
- Trembled for night eternal; at that time
- Howbeit earth also, and the ocean-plains,
- And dogs obscene, and birds of evil bode
- Gave tokens. Yea, how often have we seen
- Etna, her furnace-walls asunder riven,
- In billowy floods boil o'er the Cyclops' fields,
- And roll down globes of fire and molten rocks!
- A clash of arms through all the heaven was heard
- By Germany; strange heavings shook the Alps.
- Yea, and by many through the breathless groves
- A voice was heard with power, and wondrous-pale
- Phantoms were seen upon the dusk of night,
- And cattle spake, portentous! streams stand still,
- And the earth yawns asunder, ivory weeps
- For sorrow in the shrines, and bronzes sweat.
- Up-twirling forests with his eddying tide,
- Madly he bears them down, that lord of floods,
- Eridanus, till through all the plain are swept
- Beasts and their stalls together. At that time
- In gloomy entrails ceased not to appear
- Dark-threatening fibres, springs to trickle blood,
- And high-built cities night-long to resound
- With the wolves' howling. Never more than then
- From skies all cloudless fell the thunderbolts,
- Nor blazed so oft the comet's fire of bale.
- Therefore a second time Philippi saw
- The Roman hosts with kindred weapons rush
- To battle, nor did the high gods deem it hard
- That twice Emathia and the wide champaign
- Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood.
- Ay, and the time will come when there anigh,
- Heaving the earth up with his curved plough,
- Some swain will light on javelins by foul rust
- Corroded, or with ponderous harrow strike
- On empty helmets, while he gapes to see
- Bones as of giants from the trench untombed.
- Gods of my country, heroes of the soil,
- And Romulus, and Mother Vesta, thou
- Who Tuscan Tiber and Rome's Palatine
- Preservest, this new champion at the least
- Our fallen generation to repair
- Forbid not. To the full and long ago
- Our blood thy Trojan perjuries hath paid,
- Laomedon. Long since the courts of heaven
- Begrudge us thee, our Caesar, and complain
- That thou regard'st the triumphs of mankind,
- Here where the wrong is right, the right is wrong,
- Where wars abound so many, and myriad-faced
- Is crime; where no meet honour hath the plough;
- The fields, their husbandmen led far away,
- Rot in neglect, and curved pruning-hooks
- Into the sword's stiff blade are fused and forged.
- Euphrates here, here Germany new strife
- Is stirring; neighbouring cities are in arms,
- The laws that bound them snapped; and godless war
- Rages through all the universe; as when
- The four-horse chariots from the barriers poured
- Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now
- Grasping the reins, the driver by his team
- Is onward borne, nor heeds the car his curb.