Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- If now their narrow home thou wouldst unseal,
- And broach the treasures of the honey-house,
- With draught of water first toment thy lips,
- And spread before thee fumes of trailing smoke.
- Twice is the teeming produce gathered in,
- Twofold their time of harvest year by year,
- Once when Taygete the Pleiad uplifts
- Her comely forehead for the earth to see,
- With foot of scorn spurning the ocean-streams,
- Once when in gloom she flies the watery Fish,
- And dips from heaven into the wintry wave.
- Unbounded then their wrath; if hurt, they breathe
- Venom into their bite, cleave to the veins
- And let the sting lie buried, and leave their lives
- Behind them in the wound. But if you dread
- Too rigorous a winter, and would fain
- Temper the coming time, and their bruised hearts
- And broken estate to pity move thy soul,
- Yet who would fear to fumigate with thyme,
- Or cut the empty wax away? for oft
- Into their comb the newt has gnawed unseen,
- And the light-loathing beetles crammed their bed,
- And he that sits at others' board to feast,
- The do-naught drone; or 'gainst the unequal foe
- Swoops the fierce hornet, or the moth's fell tribe;
- Or spider, victim of Minerva's spite,
- Athwart the doorway hangs her swaying net.
- The more impoverished they, the keenlier all
- To mend the fallen fortunes of their race
- Will nerve them, fill the cells up, tier on tier,
- And weave their granaries from the rifled flowers.
- Now, seeing that life doth even to bee-folk bring
- Our human chances, if in dire disease
- Their bodies' strength should languish—which anon
- By no uncertain tokens may be told—
- Forthwith the sick change hue; grim leanness mars
- Their visage; then from out the cells they bear
- Forms reft of light, and lead the mournful pomp;
- Or foot to foot about the porch they hang,
- Or within closed doors loiter, listless all
- From famine, and benumbed with shrivelling cold.
- Then is a deep note heard, a long-drawn hum,
- As when the chill South through the forests sighs,
- As when the troubled ocean hoarsely booms
- With back-swung billow, as ravening tide of fire
- Surges, shut fast within the furnace-walls.
- Then do I bid burn scented galbanum,
- And, honey-streams through reeden troughs instilled,
- Challenge and cheer their flagging appetite
- To taste the well-known food; and it shall boot
- To mix therewith the savour bruised from gall,
- And rose-leaves dried, or must to thickness boiled
- By a fierce fire, or juice of raisin-grapes
- From Psithian vine, and with its bitter smell
- Centaury, and the famed Cecropian thyme.
- There is a meadow-flower by country folk
- Hight star-wort; 'tis a plant not far to seek;
- For from one sod an ample growth it rears,
- Itself all golden, but girt with plenteous leaves,
- Where glory of purple shines through violet gloom.
- With chaplets woven hereof full oft are decked
- Heaven's altars: harsh its taste upon the tongue;
- Shepherds in vales smooth-shorn of nibbling flocks
- By Mella's winding waters gather it.
- The roots of this, well seethed in fragrant wine,
- Set in brimmed baskets at their doors for food.
- But if one's whole stock fail him at a stroke,
- Nor hath he whence to breed the race anew,
- 'Tis time the wondrous secret to disclose
- Taught by the swain of Arcady, even how
- The blood of slaughtered bullocks oft has borne
- Bees from corruption. I will trace me back
- To its prime source the story's tangled thread,
- And thence unravel. For where thy happy folk,
- Canopus, city of Pellaean fame,
- Dwell by the Nile's lagoon-like overflow,
- And high o'er furrows they have called their own
- Skim in their painted wherries; where, hard by,
- The quivered Persian presses, and that flood
- Which from the swart-skinned Aethiop bears him down,
- Swift-parted into sevenfold branching mouths
- With black mud fattens and makes Aegypt green,
- That whole domain its welfare's hope secure
- Rests on this art alone. And first is chosen
- A strait recess, cramped closer to this end,
- Which next with narrow roof of tiles atop
- 'Twixt prisoning walls they pinch, and add hereto
- From the four winds four slanting window-slits.
- Then seek they from the herd a steer, whose horns
- With two years' growth are curling, and stop fast,
- Plunge madly as he may, the panting mouth
- And nostrils twain, and done with blows to death,
- Batter his flesh to pulp i' the hide yet whole,
- And shut the doors, and leave him there to lie.
- But 'neath his ribs they scatter broken boughs,
- With thyme and fresh-pulled cassias: this is done
- When first the west winds bid the waters flow,
- Ere flush the meadows with new tints, and ere
- The twittering swallow buildeth from the beams.
- Meanwhile the juice within his softened bones
- Heats and ferments, and things of wondrous birth,
- Footless at first, anon with feet and wings,
- Swarm there and buzz, a marvel to behold;
- And more and more the fleeting breeze they take,
- Till, like a shower that pours from summer-clouds,
- Forth burst they, or like shafts from quivering string
- When Parthia's flying hosts provoke the fray.