Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Not thus the tribes
- Of Scythia by the far Maeotic wave,
- Where turbid Ister whirls his yellow sands,
- And Rhodope stretched out beneath the pole
- Comes trending backward. There the herds they keep
- Close-pent in byres, nor any grass is seen
- Upon the plain, nor leaves upon the tree:
- But with snow-ridges and deep frost afar
- Heaped seven ells high the earth lies featureless:
- Still winter? still the north wind's icy breath!
- Nay, never sun disparts the shadows pale,
- Or as he rides the steep of heaven, or dips
- In ocean's fiery bath his plunging car.
- Quick ice-crusts curdle on the running stream,
- And iron-hooped wheels the water's back now bears,
- To broad wains opened, as erewhile to ships;
- Brass vessels oft asunder burst, and clothes
- Stiffen upon the wearers; juicy wines
- They cleave with axes; to one frozen mass
- Whole pools are turned; and on their untrimmed beards
- Stiff clings the jagged icicle. Meanwhile
- All heaven no less is filled with falling snow;
- The cattle perish: oxen's mighty frames
- Stand island-like amid the frost, and stags
- In huddling herds, by that strange weight benumbed,
- Scarce top the surface with their antler-points.
- These with no hounds they hunt, nor net with toils,
- Nor scare with terror of the crimson plume;
- But, as in vain they breast the opposing block,
- Butcher them, knife in hand, and so dispatch
- Loud-bellowing, and with glad shouts hale them home.
- Themselves in deep-dug caverns underground
- Dwell free and careless; to their hearths they heave
- Oak-logs and elm-trees whole, and fire them there,
- There play the night out, and in festive glee
- With barm and service sour the wine-cup mock.
- So 'neath the seven-starred Hyperborean wain
- The folk live tameless, buffeted with blasts
- Of Eurus from Rhipaean hills, and wrap
- Their bodies in the tawny fells of beasts.