Georgics

Virgil

Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

  1. First find your bees a settled sure abode,
  2. Where neither winds can enter (winds blow back
  3. The foragers with food returning home)
  4. Nor sheep and butting kids tread down the flowers,
  5. Nor heifer wandering wide upon the plain
  6. Dash off the dew, and bruise the springing blades.
  7. Let the gay lizard too keep far aloof
  8. His scale-clad body from their honied stalls,
  9. And the bee-eater, and what birds beside,
  10. And Procne smirched with blood upon the breast
  11. From her own murderous hands. For these roam wide
  12. Wasting all substance, or the bees themselves
  13. Strike flying, and in their beaks bear home, to glut
  14. Those savage nestlings with the dainty prey.
  15. But let clear springs and moss-green pools be near,
  16. And through the grass a streamlet hurrying run,
  17. Some palm-tree o'er the porch extend its shade,
  18. Or huge-grown oleaster, that in Spring,
  19. Their own sweet Spring-tide, when the new-made chiefs
  20. Lead forth the young swarms, and, escaped their comb,
  21. The colony comes forth to sport and play,
  22. The neighbouring bank may lure them from the heat,
  23. Or bough befriend with hospitable shade.
  24. O'er the mid-waters, whether swift or still,
  25. Cast willow-branches and big stones enow,
  26. Bridge after bridge, where they may footing find
  27. And spread their wide wings to the summer sun,
  28. If haply Eurus, swooping as they pause,
  29. Have dashed with spray or plunged them in the deep.
  30. And let green cassias and far-scented thymes,
  31. And savory with its heavy-laden breath
  32. Bloom round about, and violet-beds hard by
  33. Sip sweetness from the fertilizing springs.
  34. For the hive's self, or stitched of hollow bark,
  35. Or from tough osier woven, let the doors
  36. Be strait of entrance; for stiff winter's cold
  37. Congeals the honey, and heat resolves and thaws,
  38. To bees alike disastrous; not for naught
  39. So haste they to cement the tiny pores
  40. That pierce their walls, and fill the crevices
  41. With pollen from the flowers, and glean and keep
  42. To this same end the glue, that binds more fast
  43. Than bird-lime or the pitch from Ida's pines.
  44. Oft too in burrowed holes, if fame be true,
  45. They make their cosy subterranean home,
  46. And deeply lodged in hollow rocks are found,
  47. Or in the cavern of an age-hewn tree.
  48. Thou not the less smear round their crannied cribs
  49. With warm smooth mud-coat, and strew leaves above;
  50. But near their home let neither yew-tree grow,
  51. Nor reddening crabs be roasted, and mistrust
  52. Deep marish-ground and mire with noisome smell,
  53. Or where the hollow rocks sonorous ring,
  54. And the word spoken buffets and rebounds.