Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- But if fierce squadrons and the ranks of war
- Delight thee rather, or on wheels to glide
- At Pisa, with Alpheus fleeting by,
- And in the grove of Jupiter urge on
- The flying chariot, be your steed's first task
- To face the warrior's armed rage, and brook
- The trumpet, and long roar of rumbling wheels,
- And clink of chiming bridles in the stall;
- Then more and more to love his master's voice
- Caressing, or loud hand that claps his neck.
- Ay, thus far let him learn to dare, when first
- Weaned from his mother, and his mouth at times
- Yield to the supple halter, even while yet
- Weak, tottering-limbed, and ignorant of life.
- But, three years ended, when the fourth arrives,
- Now let him tarry not to run the ring
- With rhythmic hoof-beat echoing, and now learn
- Alternately to curve each bending leg,
- And be like one that struggleth; then at last
- Challenge the winds to race him, and at speed
- Launched through the open, like a reinless thing,
- Scarce print his footsteps on the surface-sand.
- As when with power from Hyperborean climes
- The north wind stoops, and scatters from his path
- Dry clouds and storms of Scythia; the tall corn
- And rippling plains 'gin shiver with light gusts;
- A sound is heard among the forest-tops;
- Long waves come racing shoreward: fast he flies,
- With instant pinion sweeping earth and main.
- A steed like this or on the mighty course
- Of Elis at the goal will sweat, and shower
- Red foam-flakes from his mouth, or, kindlier task,
- With patient neck support the Belgian car.
- Then, broken at last, let swell their burly frame
- With fattening corn-mash, for, unbroke, they will
- With pride wax wanton, and, when caught, refuse
- Tough lash to brook or jagged curb obey.
- But no device so fortifies their power
- As love's blind stings of passion to forefend,
- Whether on steed or steer thy choice be set.
- Ay, therefore 'tis they banish bulls afar
- To solitary pastures, or behind
- Some mountain-barrier, or broad streams beyond,
- Or else in plenteous stalls pen fast at home.
- For, even through sight of her, the female wastes
- His strength with smouldering fire, till he forget
- Both grass and woodland. She indeed full oft
- With her sweet charms can lovers proud compel
- To battle for the conquest horn to horn.
- In Sila's forest feeds the heifer fair,
- While each on each the furious rivals run;
- Wound follows wound; the black blood laves their limbs;
- Horns push and strive against opposing horns,
- With mighty groaning; all the forest-side
- And far Olympus bellow back the roar.
- Nor wont the champions in one stall to couch;
- But he that's worsted hies him to strange climes
- Far off, an exile, moaning much the shame,
- The blows of that proud conqueror, then love's loss
- Avenged not; with one glance toward the byre,
- His ancient royalties behind him lie.
- So with all heed his strength he practiseth,
- And nightlong makes the hard bare stones his bed,
- And feeds on prickly leaf and pointed rush,
- And proves himself, and butting at a tree
- Learns to fling wrath into his horns, with blows
- Provokes the air, and scattering clouds of sand
- Makes prelude of the battle; afterward,
- With strength repaired and gathered might breaks camp,
- And hurls him headlong on the unthinking foe:
- As in mid ocean when a wave far of
- Begins to whiten, mustering from the main
- Its rounded breast, and, onward rolled to land
- Falls with prodigious roar among the rocks,
- Huge as a very mountain: but the depths
- Upseethe in swirling eddies, and disgorge
- The murky sand-lees from their sunken bed.
- Nay, every race on earth of men, and beasts,
- And ocean-folk, and flocks, and painted birds,
- Rush to the raging fire: love sways them all.
- Never than then more fiercely o'er the plain
- Prowls heedless of her whelps the lioness:
- Nor monstrous bears such wide-spread havoc-doom
- Deal through the forests; then the boar is fierce,
- Most deadly then the tigress: then, alack!
- Ill roaming is it on Libya's lonely plains.
- Mark you what shivering thrills the horse's frame,
- If but a waft the well-known gust conveys?
- Nor curb can check them then, nor lash severe,
- Nor rocks and caverned crags, nor barrier-floods,
- That rend and whirl and wash the hills away.
- Then speeds amain the great Sabellian boar,
- His tushes whets, with forefoot tears the ground,
- Rubs 'gainst a tree his flanks, and to and fro
- Hardens each wallowing shoulder to the wound.
- What of the youth, when love's relentless might
- Stirs the fierce fire within his veins? Behold!
- In blindest midnight how he swims the gulf
- Convulsed with bursting storm-clouds! Over him
- Heaven's huge gate thunders; the rock-shattered main
- Utters a warning cry; nor parents' tears
- Can backward call him, nor the maid he loves,
- Too soon to die on his untimely pyre.
- What of the spotted ounce to Bacchus dear,
- Or warlike wolf-kin or the breed of dogs?
- Why tell how timorous stags the battle join?
- O'er all conspicuous is the rage of mares,
- By Venus' self inspired of old, what time
- The Potnian four with rending jaws devoured
- The limbs of Glaucus. Love-constrained they roam
- Past Gargarus, past the loud Ascanian flood;
- They climb the mountains, and the torrents swim;
- And when their eager marrow first conceives
- The fire, in Spring-tide chiefly, for with Spring
- Warmth doth their frames revisit, then they stand
- All facing westward on the rocky heights,
- And of the gentle breezes take their fill;
- And oft unmated, marvellous to tell,
- But of the wind impregnate, far and wide
- O'er craggy height and lowly vale they scud,
- Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's,
- But westward and north-west, or whence up-springs
- Black Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.
- Hence from their groin slow drips a poisonous juice,
- By shepherds truly named hippomanes,
- Hippomanes, fell stepdames oft have culled,
- And mixed with herbs and spells of baneful bode.