Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Here from distempered heavens erewhile arose
- A piteous season, with the full fierce heat
- Of autumn glowed, and cattle-kindreds all
- And all wild creatures to destruction gave,
- Tainted the pools, the fodder charged with bane.
- Nor simple was the way of death, but when
- Hot thirst through every vein impelled had drawn
- Their wretched limbs together, anon o'erflowed
- A watery flux, and all their bones piecemeal
- Sapped by corruption to itself absorbed.
- Oft in mid sacrifice to heaven—the white
- Wool-woven fillet half wreathed about his brow—
- Some victim, standing by the altar, there
- Betwixt the loitering carles a-dying fell:
- Or, if betimes the slaughtering priest had struck,
- Nor with its heaped entrails blazed the pile,
- Nor seer to seeker thence could answer yield;
- Nay, scarce the up-stabbing knife with blood was stained,
- Scarce sullied with thin gore the surface-sand.
- Hence die the calves in many a pasture fair,
- Or at full cribs their lives' sweet breath resign;
- Hence on the fawning dog comes madness, hence
- Racks the sick swine a gasping cough that chokes
- With swelling at the jaws: the conquering steed,
- Uncrowned of effort and heedless of the sward,
- Faints, turns him from the springs, and paws the earth
- With ceaseless hoof: low droop his ears, wherefrom
- Bursts fitful sweat, a sweat that waxes cold
- Upon the dying beast; the skin is dry,
- And rigidly repels the handler's touch.
- These earlier signs they give that presage doom.
- But, if the advancing plague 'gin fiercer grow,
- Then are their eyes all fire, deep-drawn their breath,
- At times groan-laboured: with long sobbing heave
- Their lowest flanks; from either nostril streams
- Black blood; a rough tongue clogs the obstructed jaws.
- 'Twas helpful through inverted horn to pour
- Draughts of the wine-god down; sole way it seemed
- To save the dying: soon this too proved their bane,
- And, reinvigorate but with frenzy's fire,
- Even at death's pinch—the gods some happier fate
- Deal to the just, such madness to their foes—
- Each with bared teeth his own limbs mangling tore.
- See! as he smokes beneath the stubborn share,
- The bull drops, vomiting foam-dabbled gore,
- And heaves his latest groans. Sad goes the swain,
- Unhooks the steer that mourns his fellow's fate,
- And in mid labour leaves the plough-gear fast.
- Nor tall wood's shadow, nor soft sward may stir
- That heart's emotion, nor rock-channelled flood,
- More pure than amber speeding to the plain:
- But see! his flanks fail under him, his eyes
- Are dulled with deadly torpor, and his neck
- Sinks to the earth with drooping weight.