Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Fast flies meanwhile the irreparable hour,
- As point to point our charmed round we trace.
- Enough of herds. This second task remains,
- The wool-clad flocks and shaggy goats to treat.
- Here lies a labour; hence for glory look,
- Brave husbandmen. Nor doubtfully know
- How hard it is for words to triumph here,
- And shed their lustre on a theme so slight:
- But I am caught by ravishing desire
- Above the lone Parnassian steep; I love
- To walk the heights, from whence no earlier track
- Slopes gently downward to Castalia's spring.
- Now, awful Pales, strike a louder tone.
- First, for the sheep soft pencotes I decree
- To browse in, till green summer's swift return;
- And that the hard earth under them with straw
- And handfuls of the fern be littered deep,
- Lest chill of ice such tender cattle harm
- With scab and loathly foot-rot. Passing thence
- I bid the goats with arbute-leaves be stored,
- And served with fresh spring-water, and their pens
- Turned southward from the blast, to face the suns
- Of winter, when Aquarius' icy beam
- Now sinks in showers upon the parting year.
- These too no lightlier our protection claim,
- Nor prove of poorer service, howsoe'er
- Milesian fleeces dipped in Tyrian reds
- Repay the barterer; these with offspring teem
- More numerous; these yield plenteous store of milk:
- The more each dry-wrung udder froths the pail,
- More copious soon the teat-pressed torrents flow.
- Ay, and on Cinyps' bank the he-goats too
- Their beards and grizzled chins and bristling hair
- Let clip for camp-use, or as rugs to wrap
- Seafaring wretches. But they browse the woods
- And summits of Lycaeus, and rough briers,
- And brakes that love the highland: of themselves
- Right heedfully the she-goats homeward troop
- Before their kids, and with plump udders clogged
- Scarce cross the threshold. Wherefore rather ye,
- The less they crave man's vigilance, be fain
- From ice to fend them and from snowy winds;
- Bring food and feast them with their branchy fare,
- Nor lock your hay-loft all the winter long.
- But when glad summer at the west wind's call
- Sends either flock to pasture in the glades,
- Soon as the day-star shineth, hie we then
- To the cool meadows, while the dawn is young,
- The grass yet hoary, and to browsing herds
- The dew tastes sweetest on the tender sward.
- When heaven's fourth hour draws on the thickening drought,
- And shrill cicalas pierce the brake with song,
- Then at the well-springs bid them, or deep pools,
- From troughs of holm-oak quaff the running wave:
- But at day's hottest seek a shadowy vale,
- Where some vast ancient-timbered oak of Jove
- Spreads his huge branches, or where huddling black
- Ilex on ilex cowers in awful shade.
- Then once more give them water sparingly,
- And feed once more, till sunset, when cool eve
- Allays the air, and dewy moonbeams slake
- The forest glades, with halcyon's song the shore,
- And every thicket with the goldfinch rings.
- Of Libya's shepherds why the tale pursue?
- Why sing their pastures and the scattered huts
- They house in? Oft their cattle day and night
- Graze the whole month together, and go forth
- Into far deserts where no shelter is,
- So flat the plain and boundless. All his goods
- The Afric swain bears with him, house and home,
- Arms, Cretan quiver, and Amyclaean dog;
- As some keen Roman in his country's arms
- Plies the swift march beneath a cruel load;
- Soon with tents pitched and at his post he stands,
- Ere looked for by the foe.