Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- First find your bees a settled sure abode,
- Where neither winds can enter (winds blow back
- The foragers with food returning home)
- Nor sheep and butting kids tread down the flowers,
- Nor heifer wandering wide upon the plain
- Dash off the dew, and bruise the springing blades.
- Let the gay lizard too keep far aloof
- His scale-clad body from their honied stalls,
- And the bee-eater, and what birds beside,
- And Procne smirched with blood upon the breast
- From her own murderous hands. For these roam wide
- Wasting all substance, or the bees themselves
- Strike flying, and in their beaks bear home, to glut
- Those savage nestlings with the dainty prey.
- But let clear springs and moss-green pools be near,
- And through the grass a streamlet hurrying run,
- Some palm-tree o'er the porch extend its shade,
- Or huge-grown oleaster, that in Spring,
- Their own sweet Spring-tide, when the new-made chiefs
- Lead forth the young swarms, and, escaped their comb,
- The colony comes forth to sport and play,
- The neighbouring bank may lure them from the heat,
- Or bough befriend with hospitable shade.
- O'er the mid-waters, whether swift or still,
- Cast willow-branches and big stones enow,
- Bridge after bridge, where they may footing find
- And spread their wide wings to the summer sun,
- If haply Eurus, swooping as they pause,
- Have dashed with spray or plunged them in the deep.
- And let green cassias and far-scented thymes,
- And savory with its heavy-laden breath
- Bloom round about, and violet-beds hard by
- Sip sweetness from the fertilizing springs.
- For the hive's self, or stitched of hollow bark,
- Or from tough osier woven, let the doors
- Be strait of entrance; for stiff winter's cold
- Congeals the honey, and heat resolves and thaws,
- To bees alike disastrous; not for naught
- So haste they to cement the tiny pores
- That pierce their walls, and fill the crevices
- With pollen from the flowers, and glean and keep
- To this same end the glue, that binds more fast
- Than bird-lime or the pitch from Ida's pines.
- Oft too in burrowed holes, if fame be true,
- They make their cosy subterranean home,
- And deeply lodged in hollow rocks are found,
- Or in the cavern of an age-hewn tree.
- Thou not the less smear round their crannied cribs
- With warm smooth mud-coat, and strew leaves above;
- But near their home let neither yew-tree grow,
- Nor reddening crabs be roasted, and mistrust
- Deep marish-ground and mire with noisome smell,
- Or where the hollow rocks sonorous ring,
- And the word spoken buffets and rebounds.
- What more? When now the golden sun has put
- Winter to headlong flight beneath the world,
- And oped the doors of heaven with summer ray,
- Forthwith they roam the glades and forests o'er,
- Rifle the painted flowers, or sip the streams,
- Light-hovering on the surface. Hence it is
- With some sweet rapture, that we know not of,
- Their little ones they foster, hence with skill
- Work out new wax or clinging honey mould.
- So when the cage-escaped hosts you see
- Float heavenward through the hot clear air, until
- You marvel at yon dusky cloud that spreads
- And lengthens on the wind, then mark them well;
- For then 'tis ever the fresh springs they seek
- And bowery shelter: hither must you bring
- The savoury sweets I bid, and sprinkle them,
- Bruised balsam and the wax-flower's lowly weed,
- And wake and shake the tinkling cymbals heard
- By the great Mother: on the anointed spots
- Themselves will settle, and in wonted wise
- Seek of themselves the cradle's inmost depth.
- But if to battle they have hied them forth—
- For oft 'twixt king and king with uproar dire
- Fierce feud arises, and at once from far
- You may discern what passion sways the mob,
- And how their hearts are throbbing for the strife;
- Hark! the hoarse brazen note that warriors know
- Chides on the loiterers, and the ear may catch
- A sound that mocks the war-trump's broken blasts;
- Then in hot haste they muster, then flash wings,
- Sharpen their pointed beaks and knit their thews,
- And round the king, even to his royal tent,
- Throng rallying, and with shouts defy the foe.
- So, when a dry Spring and clear space is given,
- Forth from the gates they burst, they clash on high;
- A din arises; they are heaped and rolled
- Into one mighty mass, and headlong fall,
- Not denselier hail through heaven, nor pelting so
- Rains from the shaken oak its acorn-shower.
- Conspicuous by their wings the chiefs themselves
- Press through the heart of battle, and display
- A giant's spirit in each pigmy frame,
- Steadfast no inch to yield till these or those
- The victor's ponderous arm has turned to flight.
- Such fiery passions and such fierce assaults
- A little sprinkled dust controls and quells.