Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Nor be thy dogs last cared for; but alike
- Swift Spartan hounds and fierce Molossian feed
- On fattening whey. Never, with these to watch,
- Dread nightly thief afold and ravening wolves,
- Or Spanish desperadoes in the rear.
- And oft the shy wild asses thou wilt chase,
- With hounds, too, hunt the hare, with hounds the doe;
- Oft from his woodland wallowing-den uprouse
- The boar, and scare him with their baying, and drive,
- And o'er the mountains urge into the toils
- Some antlered monster to their chiming cry.
- Learn also scented cedar-wood to burn
- Within the stalls, and snakes of noxious smell
- With fumes of galbanum to drive away.
- Oft under long-neglected cribs, or lurks
- A viper ill to handle, that hath fled
- The light in terror, or some snake, that wont
- 'Neath shade and sheltering roof to creep, and shower
- Its bane among the cattle, hugs the ground,
- Fell scourge of kine. Shepherd, seize stakes, seize stones!
- And as he rears defiance, and puffs out
- A hissing throat, down with him! see how low
- That cowering crest is vailed in flight, the while,
- His midmost coils and final sweep of tail
- Relaxing, the last fold drags lingering spires.
- Then that vile worm that in Calabrian glades
- Uprears his breast, and wreathes a scaly back,
- His length of belly pied with mighty spots—
- While from their founts gush any streams, while yet
- With showers of Spring and rainy south-winds earth
- Is moistened, lo! he haunts the pools, and here
- Housed in the banks, with fish and chattering frogs
- Crams the black void of his insatiate maw.
- Soon as the fens are parched, and earth with heat
- Is gaping, forth he darts into the dry,
- Rolls eyes of fire and rages through the fields,
- Furious from thirst and by the drought dismayed.
- Me list not then beneath the open heaven
- To snatch soft slumber, nor on forest-ridge
- Lie stretched along the grass, when, slipped his slough,
- To glittering youth transformed he winds his spires,
- And eggs or younglings leaving in his lair,
- Towers sunward, lightening with three-forked tongue.
- Of sickness, too, the causes and the signs
- I'll teach thee. Loathly scab assails the sheep,
- When chilly showers have probed them to the quick,
- And winter stark with hoar-frost, or when sweat
- Unpurged cleaves to them after shearing done,
- And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is
- Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams,
- While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell,
- The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide.
- Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er
- With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum
- And native sulphur and Idaean pitch,
- Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith
- Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black.
- Yet ne'er doth kindlier fortune crown his toil,
- Than if with blade of iron a man dare lance
- The ulcer's mouth ope: for the taint is fed
- And quickened by confinement; while the swain
- His hand of healing from the wound withholds,
- Or sits for happier signs imploring heaven.
- Aye, and when inward to the bleater's bones
- The pain hath sunk and rages, and their limbs
- By thirsty fever are consumed, 'tis good
- To draw the enkindled heat therefrom, and pierce
- Within the hoof-clefts a blood-bounding vein.
- Of tribes Bisaltic such the wonted use,
- And keen Gelonian, when to Rhodope
- He flies, or Getic desert, and quaffs milk
- With horse-blood curdled. Seest one far afield
- Oft to the shade's mild covert win, or pull
- The grass tops listlessly, or hindmost lag,
- Or, browsing, cast her down amid the plain,
- At night retire belated and alone;
- With quick knife check the mischief, ere it creep
- With dire contagion through the unwary herd.
- Less thick and fast the whirlwind scours the main
- With tempest in its wake, than swarm the plagues
- Of cattle; nor seize they single lives alone,
- But sudden clear whole feeding grounds, the flock
- With all its promise, and extirpate the breed.
- Well would he trow it who, so long after, still
- High Alps and Noric hill-forts should behold,
- And Iapydian Timavus' fields,
- Ay, still behold the shepherds' realms a waste,
- And far and wide the lawns untenanted.