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.
- What now
- Besteads him toil or service? to have turned
- The heavy sod with ploughshare? And yet these
- Ne'er knew the Massic wine-god's baneful boon,
- Nor twice replenished banquets: but on leaves
- They fare, and virgin grasses, and their cups
- Are crystal springs and streams with running tired,
- Their healthful slumbers never broke by care.
- Then only, say they, through that country side
- For Juno's rites were cattle far to seek,
- And ill-matched buffaloes the chariots drew
- To their high fanes. So, painfully with rakes
- They grub the soil, aye, with their very nails
- Dig in the corn-seeds, and with strained neck
- O'er the high uplands drag the creaking wains.
- No wolf for ambush pries about the pen,
- Nor round the flock prowls nightly; pain more sharp
- Subdues him: the shy deer and fleet-foot stags
- With hounds now wander by the haunts of men
- Vast ocean's offspring, and all tribes that swim,
- On the shore's confine the wave washes up,
- Like shipwrecked bodies: seals, unwonted there,
- Flee to the rivers. Now the viper dies,
- For all his den's close winding, and with scales
- Erect the astonied water-worms. The air
- Brooks not the very birds, that headlong fall,
- And leave their life beneath the soaring cloud.
- Moreover now nor change of fodder serves,
- And subtlest cures but injure; then were foiled
- The masters, Chiron sprung from Phillyron,
- And Amythaon's son Melampus. See!
- From Stygian darkness launched into the light
- Comes raging pale Tisiphone; she drives
- Disease and fear before her, day by day
- Still rearing higher that all-devouring head.
- With bleat of flocks and lowings thick resound
- Rivers and parched banks and sloping heights.
- At last in crowds she slaughters them, she chokes
- The very stalls with carrion-heaps that rot
- In hideous corruption, till men learn
- With earth to cover them, in pits to hide.
- For e'en the fells are useless; nor the flesh
- With water may they purge, or tame with fire,
- Nor shear the fleeces even, gnawed through and through
- With foul disease, nor touch the putrid webs;
- But, had one dared the loathly weeds to try,
- Red blisters and an unclean sweat o'erran
- His noisome limbs, till, no long tarriance made,
- The fiery curse his tainted frame devoured.
- Of air-born honey, gift of heaven, I now
- Take up the tale. Upon this theme no less
- Look thou, Maecenas, with indulgent eye.
- A marvellous display of puny powers,
- High-hearted chiefs, a nation's history,
- Its traits, its bent, its battles and its clans,
- All, each, shall pass before you, while I sing.
- Slight though the poet's theme, not slight the praise,
- So frown not heaven, and Phoebus hear his call.