The Georgics
 Virgil




Virgil

The Georgics





GEORGIC I


		What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
		Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
		Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
		What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
		Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
		Such are my themes.
		O universal lights
		Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
		Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
		If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
		Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
		And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
		The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
		To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
		And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
		And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
		Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
		Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
		Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
		The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
		Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
		Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
		Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
		And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
		Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
		And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
		And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
		Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
		Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
		The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
		Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
		And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
		What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
		Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
		Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
		That so the mighty world may welcome thee
		Lord of her increase, master of her times,
		Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
		Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
		Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
		Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
		With all her waves for dower; or as a star
		Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
		Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
		A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
		His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
		Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-
		For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,
		Nor may so dire a lust of sovereignty
		E'er light upon thee, howso Greece admire
		Elysium's fields, and Proserpine not heed
		Her mother's voice entreating to return-
		Vouchsafe a prosperous voyage, and smile on this
		My bold endeavour, and pitying, even as I,
		These poor way-wildered swains, at once begin,
		Grow timely used unto the voice of prayer.
		In early spring-tide, when the icy drip
		Melts from the mountains hoar, and Zephyr's breath
		Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then 'tis time;
		Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox,
		And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.
		That land the craving farmer's prayer fulfils,
		Which twice the sunshine, twice the frost has felt;
		Ay, that's the land whose boundless harvest-crops
		Burst, see! the barns.
		But ere our metal cleave
		An unknown surface, heed we to forelearn
		The winds and varying temper of the sky,
		The lineal tilth and habits of the spot,
		What every region yields, and what denies.
		Here blithelier springs the corn, and here the grape,
		There earth is green with tender growth of trees
		And grass unbidden. See how from Tmolus comes
		The saffron's fragrance, ivory from Ind,
		From Saba's weakling sons their frankincense,
		Iron from the naked Chalybs, castor rank
		From Pontus, from Epirus the prize-palms
		O' the mares of Elis.
		Such the eternal bond
		And such the laws by Nature's hand imposed
		On clime and clime, e'er since the primal dawn
		When old Deucalion on the unpeopled earth
		Cast stones, whence men, a flinty race, were reared.
		Up then! if fat the soil, let sturdy bulls
		Upturn it from the year's first opening months,
		And let the clods lie bare till baked to dust
		By the ripe suns of summer; but if the earth
		Less fruitful just ere Arcturus rise
		With shallower trench uptilt it- 'twill suffice;
		There, lest weeds choke the crop's luxuriance, here,
		Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand.
		Then thou shalt suffer in alternate years
		The new-reaped fields to rest, and on the plain
		A crust of sloth to harden; or, when stars
		Are changed in heaven, there sow the golden grain
		Where erst, luxuriant with its quivering pod,
		Pulse, or the slender vetch-crop, thou hast cleared,
		And lupin sour, whose brittle stalks arise,
		A hurtling forest. For the plain is parched
		By flax-crop, parched by oats, by poppies parched
		In Lethe-slumber drenched. Nathless by change
		The travailing earth is lightened, but stint not
		With refuse rich to soak the thirsty soil,
		And shower foul ashes o'er the exhausted fields.
		Thus by rotation like repose is gained,
		Nor earth meanwhile uneared and thankless left.
		Oft, too, 'twill boot to fire the naked fields,
		And the light stubble burn with crackling flames;
		Whether that earth therefrom some hidden strength
		And fattening food derives, or that the fire
		Bakes every blemish out, and sweats away
		Each useless humour, or that the heat unlocks
		New passages and secret pores, whereby
		Their life-juice to the tender blades may win;
		Or that it hardens more and helps to bind
		The gaping veins, lest penetrating showers,
		Or fierce sun's ravening might, or searching blast
		Of the keen north should sear them. Well, I wot,
		He serves the fields who with his harrow breaks
		The sluggish clods, and hurdles osier-twined
		Hales o'er them; from the far Olympian height
		Him golden Ceres not in vain regards;
		And he, who having ploughed the fallow plain
		And heaved its furrowy ridges, turns once more
		Cross-wise his shattering share, with stroke on stroke
		The earth assails, and makes the field his thrall.
		Pray for wet summers and for winters fine,
		Ye husbandmen; in winter's dust the crops
		Exceedingly rejoice, the field hath joy;
		No tilth makes Mysia lift her head so high,
		Nor Gargarus his own harvests so admire.
		Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed,
		Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth
		The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn
		Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain;
		And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades
		Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed,
		See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls,
		Waking hoarse murmurs o'er the polished stones,
		And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty fields?
		Or why of him, who lest the heavy ears
		O'erweigh the stalk, while yet in tender blade
		Feeds down the crop's luxuriance, when its growth
		First tops the furrows? Why of him who drains
		The marsh-land's gathered ooze through soaking sand,
		Chiefly what time in treacherous moons a stream
		Goes out in spate, and with its coat of slime
		Holds all the country, whence the hollow dykes
		Sweat steaming vapour?
		But no whit the more
		For all expedients tried and travail borne
		By man and beast in turning oft the soil,
		Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes
		And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm,
		Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself
		No easy road to husbandry assigned,
		And first was he by human skill to rouse
		The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men
		With care on care, nor suffering realm of his
		In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove
		Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
		To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line-
		Even this was impious; for the common stock
		They gathered, and the earth of her own will
		All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
		He to black serpents gave their venom-bane,
		And bade the wolf go prowl, and ocean toss;
		Shook from the leaves their honey, put fire away,
		And curbed the random rivers running wine,
		That use by gradual dint of thought on thought
		Might forge the various arts, with furrow's help
		The corn-blade win, and strike out hidden fire
		From the flint's heart. Then first the streams were ware
		Of hollowed alder-hulls: the sailor then
		Their names and numbers gave to star and star,
		Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child
		Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found
		To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime,
		And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.
		Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream,
		Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils
		Along the main; then iron's unbending might,
		And shrieking saw-blade,– for the men of old
		With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;-
		Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all,
		Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push
		In times of hardship. Ceres was the first
		Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod,
		When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear
		Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food
		Dodona gave no more. Soon, too, the corn
		Gat sorrow's increase, that an evil blight
		Ate up the stalks, and thistle reared his spines
		An idler in the fields; the crops die down;
		Upsprings instead a shaggy growth of burrs
		And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim
		Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway.
		Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake
		The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds,
		Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade,
		Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye,
		Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow,
		And in the greenwood from a shaken oak
		Seek solace for thine hunger.
		Now to tell
		The sturdy rustics' weapons, what they are,
		Without which, neither can be sown nor reared
		The fruits of harvest; first the bent plough's share
		And heavy timber, and slow-lumbering wains
		Of the Eleusinian mother, threshing-sleighs
		And drags, and harrows with their crushing weight;
		Then the cheap wicker-ware of Celeus old,
		Hurdles of arbute, and thy mystic fan,
		Iacchus; which, full tale, long ere the time
		Thou must with heed lay by, if thee await
		Not all unearned the country's crown divine.
		While yet within the woods, the elm is tamed
		And bowed with mighty force to form the stock,
		And take the plough's curved shape, then nigh the root
		A pole eight feet projecting, earth-boards twain,
		And share-beam with its double back they fix.
		For yoke is early hewn a linden light,
		And a tall beech for handle, from behind
		To turn the car at lowest: then o'er the hearth
		The wood they hang till the smoke knows it well.
		Many the precepts of the men of old
		I can recount thee, so thou start not back,
		And such slight cares to learn not weary thee.
		And this among the first: thy threshing-floor
		With ponderous roller must be levelled smooth,
		And wrought by hand, and fixed with binding chalk,
		Lest weeds arise, or dust a passage win
		Splitting the surface, then a thousand plagues
		Make sport of it: oft builds the tiny mouse
		Her home, and plants her granary, underground,
		Or burrow for their bed the purblind moles,
		Or toad is found in hollows, and all the swarm
		Of earth's unsightly creatures; or a huge
		Corn-heap the weevil plunders, and the ant,
		Fearful of coming age and penury.
		Mark too, what time the walnut in the woods
		With ample bloom shall clothe her, and bow down
		Her odorous branches, if the fruit prevail,
		Like store of grain will follow, and there shall come
		A mighty winnowing-time with mighty heat;
		But if the shade with wealth of leaves abound,
		Vainly your threshing-floor will bruise the stalks
		Rich but in chaff. Many myself have seen
		Steep, as they sow, their pulse-seeds, drenching them
		With nitre and black oil-lees, that the fruit
		Might swell within the treacherous pods, and they
		Make speed to boil at howso small a fire.
		Yet, culled with caution, proved with patient toil,
		These have I seen degenerate, did not man
		Put forth his hand with power, and year by year
		Choose out the largest. So, by fate impelled,
		Speed all things to the worse, and backward borne
		Glide from us; even as who with struggling oars
		Up stream scarce pulls a shallop, if he chance
		His arms to slacken, lo! with headlong force
		The current sweeps him down the hurrying tide.
		Us too behoves Arcturus' sign observe,
		And the Kids' seasons and the shining Snake,
		No less than those who o'er the windy main
		Borne homeward tempt the Pontic, and the jaws
		Of oyster-rife Abydos. When the Scales
		Now poising fair the hours of sleep and day
		Give half the world to sunshine, half to shade,
		Then urge your bulls, my masters; sow the plain
		Even to the verge of tameless winter's showers
		With barley: then, too, time it is to hide
		Your flax in earth, and poppy, Ceres' joy,
		Aye, more than time to bend above the plough,
		While earth, yet dry, forbids not, and the clouds
		Are buoyant. With the spring comes bean-sowing;
		Thee, too, Lucerne, the crumbling furrows then
		Receive, and millet's annual care returns,
		What time the white bull with his gilded horns
		Opens the year, before whose threatening front,
		Routed the dog-star sinks. But if it be
		For wheaten harvest and the hardy spelt,
		Thou tax the soil, to corn-ears wholly given,
		Let Atlas' daughters hide them in the dawn,
		The Cretan star, a crown of fire, depart,
		Or e'er the furrow's claim of seed thou quit,
		Or haste thee to entrust the whole year's hope
		To earth that would not. Many have begun
		Ere Maia's star be setting; these, I trow,
		Their looked-for harvest fools with empty ears.
		But if the vetch and common kidney-bean
		Thou'rt fain to sow, nor scorn to make thy care
		Pelusiac lentil, no uncertain sign
		Bootes' fall will send thee; then begin,
		Pursue thy sowing till half the frosts be done.
		Therefore it is the golden sun, his course
		Into fixed parts dividing, rules his way
		Through the twelve constellations of the world.
		Five zones the heavens contain; whereof is one
		Aye red with flashing sunlight, fervent aye
		From fire; on either side to left and right
		Are traced the utmost twain, stiff with blue ice,
		And black with scowling storm-clouds, and betwixt
		These and the midmost, other twain there lie,
		By the Gods' grace to heart-sick mortals given,
		And a path cleft between them, where might wheel
		On sloping plane the system of the Signs.
		And as toward Scythia and Rhipaean heights
		The world mounts upward, likewise sinks it down
		Toward Libya and the south, this pole of ours
		Still towering high, that other, 'neath their feet,
		By dark Styx frowned on, and the abysmal shades.
		Here glides the huge Snake forth with sinuous coils
		'Twixt the two Bears and round them river-wise-
		The Bears that fear 'neath Ocean's brim to dip.
		There either, say they, reigns the eternal hush
		Of night that knows no seasons, her black pall
		Thick-mantling fold on fold; or thitherward
		From us returning Dawn brings back the day;
		And when the first breath of his panting steeds
		On us the Orient flings, that hour with them
		Red Vesper 'gins to trim his his 'lated fires.
		Hence under doubtful skies forebode we can
		The coming tempests, hence both harvest-day
		And seed-time, when to smite the treacherous main
		With driving oars, when launch the fair-rigged fleet,
		Or in ripe hour to fell the forest-pine.
		Hence, too, not idly do we watch the stars-
		Their rising and their setting-and the year,
		Four varying seasons to one law conformed.
		If chilly showers e'er shut the farmer's door,
		Much that had soon with sunshine cried for haste,
		He may forestall; the ploughman batters keen
		His blunted share's hard tooth, scoops from a tree
		His troughs, or on the cattle stamps a brand,
		Or numbers on the corn-heaps; some make sharp
		The stakes and two-pronged forks, and willow-bands
		Amerian for the bending vine prepare.
		Now let the pliant basket plaited be
		Of bramble-twigs; now set your corn to parch
		Before the fire; now bruise it with the stone.
		Nay even on holy days some tasks to ply
		Is right and lawful: this no ban forbids,
		To turn the runnel's course, fence corn-fields in,
		Make springes for the birds, burn up the briars,
		And plunge in wholesome stream the bleating flock.
		Oft too with oil or apples plenty-cheap
		The creeping ass's ribs his driver packs,
		And home from town returning brings instead
		A dented mill-stone or black lump of pitch.
		The moon herself in various rank assigns
		The days for labour lucky: fly the fifth;
		Then sprang pale Orcus and the Eumenides;
		Earth then in awful labour brought to light
		Coeus, Iapetus, and Typhoeus fell,
		And those sworn brethren banded to break down
		The gates of heaven; thrice, sooth to say, they strove
		Ossa on Pelion's top to heave and heap,
		Aye, and on Ossa to up-roll amain
		Leafy Olympus; thrice with thunderbolt
		Their mountain-stair the Sire asunder smote.
		Seventh after tenth is lucky both to set
		The vine in earth, and take and tame the steer,
		And fix the leashes to the warp; the ninth
		To runagates is kinder, cross to thieves.
		Many the tasks that lightlier lend themselves
		In chilly night, or when the sun is young,
		And Dawn bedews the world. By night 'tis best
		To reap light stubble, and parched fields by night;
		For nights the suppling moisture never fails.
		And one will sit the long late watches out
		By winter fire-light, shaping with keen blade
		The torches to a point; his wife the while,
		Her tedious labour soothing with a song,
		Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else
		With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down,
		And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.
		But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown,
		And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised
		Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow;
		Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.
		In the cold season farmers wont to taste
		The increase of their toil, and yield themselves
		To mutual interchange of festal cheer.
		Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares,
		As laden keels, when now the port they touch,
		And happy sailors crown the sterns with flowers.
		Nathless then also time it is to strip
		Acorns from oaks, and berries from the bay,
		Olives, and bleeding myrtles, then to set
		Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag,
		And hunt the long-eared hares, then pierce the doe
		With whirl of hempen-thonged Balearic sling,
		While snow lies deep, and streams are drifting ice.
		What need to tell of autumn's storms and stars,
		And wherefore men must watch, when now the day
		Grows shorter, and more soft the summer's heat?
		When Spring the rain-bringer comes rushing down,
		Or when the beards of harvest on the plain
		Bristle already, and the milky corn
		On its green stalk is swelling? Many a time,
		When now the farmer to his yellow fields
		The reaping-hind came bringing, even in act
		To lop the brittle barley stems, have I
		Seen all the windy legions clash in war
		Together, as to rend up far and wide
		The heavy corn-crop from its lowest roots,
		And toss it skyward: so might winter's flaw,
		Dark-eddying, whirl light stalks and flying straws.
		Oft too comes looming vast along the sky
		A march of waters; mustering from above,
		The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim
		With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven,
		And with a great rain floods the smiling crops,
		The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast,
		And the void river-beds swell thunderously,
		And all the panting firths of Ocean boil.
		The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds
		Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk
		Earth at the hurly quakes; the beasts are fled,
		And mortal hearts of every kindred sunk
		In cowering terror; he with flaming brand
		Athos, or Rhodope, or Ceraunian crags
		Precipitates: then doubly raves the South
		With shower on blinding shower, and woods and coasts
		Wail fitfully beneath the mighty blast.
		This fearing, mark the months and Signs of heaven,
		Whither retires him Saturn's icy star,
		And through what heavenly cycles wandereth
		The glowing orb Cyllenian. Before all
		Worship the Gods, and to great Ceres pay
		Her yearly dues upon the happy sward
		With sacrifice, anigh the utmost end
		Of winter, and when Spring begins to smile.
		Then lambs are fat, and wines are mellowest then;
		Then sleep is sweet, and dark the shadows fall
		Upon the mountains. Let your rustic youth
		To Ceres do obeisance, one and all;
		And for her pleasure thou mix honeycombs
		With milk and the ripe wine-god; thrice for luck
		Around the young corn let the victim go,
		And all the choir, a joyful company,
		Attend it, and with shouts bid Ceres come
		To be their house-mate; and let no man dare
		Put sickle to the ripened ears until,
		With woven oak his temples chapleted,
		He foot the rugged dance and chant the lay.
		Aye, and that these things we might win to know
		By certain tokens, heats, and showers, and winds
		That bring the frost, the Sire of all himself
		Ordained what warnings in her monthly round
		The moon should give, what bodes the south wind's fall,
		What oft-repeated sights the herdsman seeing
		Should keep his cattle closer to their stalls.
		No sooner are the winds at point to rise,
		Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss
		And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard
		Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms
		The beach afar, and through the forest goes
		A murmur multitudinous. By this
		Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels,
		When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main
		Come winging, and their shrieks are shoreward borne,
		When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land
		Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts
		Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud.
		Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see
		From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night
		Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake,
		Or light chaff flit in air with fallen leaves,
		Or feathers on the wave-top float and play.
		But when from regions of the furious North
		It lightens, and when thunder fills the halls
		Of Eurus and of Zephyr, all the fields
		With brimming dikes are flooded, and at sea
		No mariner but furls his dripping sails.
		Never at unawares did shower annoy:
		Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes
		Flee to the vales before it, with face
		Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale
		Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres
		Shrill-twittering flits the swallow, and the frogs
		Crouch in the mud and chant their dirge of old.
		Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells,
		Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys;
		Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host
		Of rooks from food returning in long line
		Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see
		The various ocean-fowl and those that pry
		Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools,
		Cayster, as in eager rivalry,
		About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray,
		Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run
		Into the billows, for sheer idle joy
		Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow
		With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain,
		Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.
		Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task,
		Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock
		They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth
		Of mouldy snuff-clots.
		So too, after rain,
		Sunshine and open skies thou mayst forecast,
		And learn by tokens sure, for then nor dimmed
		Appear the stars' keen edges, nor the moon
		As borrowing of her brother's beams to rise,
		Nor fleecy films to float along the sky.
		Not to the sun's warmth then upon the shore
		Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings,
		Nor filthy swine take thought to toss on high
		With scattering snout the straw-wisps. But the clouds
		Seek more the vales, and rest upon the plain,
		And from the roof-top the night-owl for naught
		Watching the sunset plies her 'lated song.
		Distinct in clearest air is Nisus seen
		Towering, and Scylla for the purple lock
		Pays dear; for whereso, as she flies, her wings
		The light air winnow, lo! fierce, implacable,
		Nisus with mighty whirr through heaven pursues;
		Where Nisus heavenward soareth, there her wings
		Clutch as she flies, the light air winnowing still.
		Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat
		Thrice, four times, o'er repeated, and full oft
		On their high cradles, by some hidden joy
		Gladdened beyond their wont, in bustling throngs
		Among the leaves they riot; so sweet it is,
		When showers are spent, their own loved nests again
		And tender brood to visit. Not, I deem,
		That heaven some native wit to these assigned,
		Or fate a larger prescience, but that when
		The storm and shifting moisture of the air
		Have changed their courses, and the sky-god now,
		Wet with the south-wind, thickens what was rare,
		And what was gross releases, then, too, change
		Their spirits' fleeting phases, and their breasts
		Feel other motions now, than when the wind
		Was driving up the cloud-rack. Hence proceeds
		That blending of the feathered choirs afield,
		The cattle's exultation, and the rooks'
		Deep-throated triumph.
		But if the headlong sun
		And moons in order following thou regard,
		Ne'er will to-morrow's hour deceive thee, ne'er
		Wilt thou be caught by guile of cloudless night.
		When first the moon recalls her rallying fires,
		If dark the air clipped by her crescent dim,
		For folks afield and on the open sea
		A mighty rain is brewing; but if her face
		With maiden blush she mantle, 'twill be wind,
		For wind turns Phoebe still to ruddier gold.
		But if at her fourth rising, for 'tis that
		Gives surest counsel, clear she ride thro' heaven
		With horns unblunted, then shall that whole day,
		And to the month's end those that spring from it,
		Rainless and windless be, while safe ashore
		Shall sailors pay their vows to Panope,
		Glaucus, and Melicertes, Ino's child.
		The sun too, both at rising, and when soon
		He dives beneath the waves, shall yield thee signs;
		For signs, none trustier, travel with the sun,
		Both those which in their course with dawn he brings,
		And those at star-rise. When his springing orb
		With spots he pranketh, muffled in a cloud,
		And shrinks mid-circle, then of showers beware;
		For then the South comes driving from the deep,
		To trees and crops and cattle bringing bane.
		Or when at day-break through dark clouds his rays
		Burst and are scattered, or when rising pale
		Aurora quits Tithonus' saffron bed,
		But sorry shelter then, alack I will yield
		Vine-leaf to ripening grapes; so thick a hail
		In spiky showers spins rattling on the roof.
		And this yet more 'twill boot thee bear in mind,
		When now, his course upon Olympus run,
		He draws to his decline: for oft we see
		Upon the sun's own face strange colours stray;
		Dark tells of rain, of east winds fiery-red;
		If spots with ruddy fire begin to mix,
		Then all the heavens convulsed in wrath thou'lt see-
		Storm-clouds and wind together. Me that night
		Let no man bid fare forth upon the deep,
		Nor rend the rope from shore. But if, when both
		He brings again and hides the day's return,
		Clear-orbed he shineth, idly wilt thou dread
		The storm-clouds, and beneath the lustral North
		See the woods waving. What late eve in fine
		Bears in her bosom, whence the wind that brings
		Fair-weather-clouds, or what the rain South
		Is meditating, tokens of all these
		The sun will give thee. Who dare charge the sun
		With leasing? He it is who warneth oft
		Of hidden broils at hand and treachery,
		And secret swelling of the waves of war.
		He too it was, when Caesar's light was quenched,
		For Rome had pity, when his bright head he veiled
		In iron-hued darkness, till a godless age
		Trembled for night eternal; at that time
		Howbeit earth also, and the ocean-plains,
		And dogs obscene, and birds of evil bode
		Gave tokens. Yea, how often have we seen
		Etna, her furnace-walls asunder riven,
		In billowy floods boil o'er the Cyclops' fields,
		And roll down globes of fire and molten rocks!
		A clash of arms through all the heaven was heard
		By Germany; strange heavings shook the Alps.
		Yea, and by many through the breathless groves
		A voice was heard with power, and wondrous-pale
		Phantoms were seen upon the dusk of night,
		And cattle spake, portentous! streams stand still,
		And the earth yawns asunder, ivory weeps
		For sorrow in the shrines, and bronzes sweat.
		Up-twirling forests with his eddying tide,
		Madly he bears them down, that lord of floods,
		Eridanus, till through all the plain are swept
		Beasts and their stalls together. At that time
		In gloomy entrails ceased not to appear
		Dark-threatening fibres, springs to trickle blood,
		And high-built cities night-long to resound
		With the wolves' howling. Never more than then
		From skies all cloudless fell the thunderbolts,
		Nor blazed so oft the comet's fire of bale.
		Therefore a second time Philippi saw
		The Roman hosts with kindred weapons rush
		To battle, nor did the high gods deem it hard
		That twice Emathia and the wide champaign
		Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood.
		Ay, and the time will come when there anigh,
		Heaving the earth up with his curved plough,
		Some swain will light on javelins by foul rust
		Corroded, or with ponderous harrow strike
		On empty helmets, while he gapes to see
		Bones as of giants from the trench untombed.
		Gods of my country, heroes of the soil,
		And Romulus, and Mother Vesta, thou
		Who Tuscan Tiber and Rome's Palatine
		Preservest, this new champion at the least
		Our fallen generation to repair
		Forbid not. To the full and long ago
		Our blood thy Trojan perjuries hath paid,
		Laomedon. Long since the courts of heaven
		Begrudge us thee, our Caesar, and complain
		That thou regard'st the triumphs of mankind,
		Here where the wrong is right, the right is wrong,
		Where wars abound so many, and myriad-faced
		Is crime; where no meet honour hath the plough;
		The fields, their husbandmen led far away,
		Rot in neglect, and curved pruning-hooks
		Into the sword's stiff blade are fused and forged.
		Euphrates here, here Germany new strife
		Is stirring; neighbouring cities are in arms,
		The laws that bound them snapped; and godless war
		Rages through all the universe; as when
		The four-horse chariots from the barriers poured
		Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now
		Grasping the reins, the driver by his team
		Is onward borne, nor heeds the car his curb.




GEORGIC II


		Thus far the tilth of fields and stars of heaven;
		Now will I sing thee, Bacchus, and, with thee,
		The forest's young plantations and the fruit
		Of slow-maturing olive. Hither haste,
		O Father of the wine-press; all things here
		Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee
		With viny autumn laden blooms the field,
		And foams the vintage high with brimming vats;
		Hither, O Father of the wine-press, come,
		And stripped of buskin stain thy bared limbs
		In the new must with me.
		First, nature's law
		For generating trees is manifold;
		For some of their own force spontaneous spring,
		No hand of man compelling, and possess
		The plains and river-windings far and wide,
		As pliant osier and the bending broom,
		Poplar, and willows in wan companies
		With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be
		From chance-dropped seed that rear them, as the tall
		Chestnuts, and, mightiest of the branching wood,
		Jove's Aesculus, and oaks, oracular
		Deemed by the Greeks of old. With some sprouts forth
		A forest of dense suckers from the root,
		As elms and cherries; so, too, a pigmy plant,
		Beneath its mother's mighty shade upshoots
		The bay-tree of Parnassus. Such the modes
		Nature imparted first; hence all the race
		Of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred groves
		Springs into verdure.
		Other means there are,
		Which use by method for itself acquired.
		One, sliving suckers from the tender frame
		Of the tree-mother, plants them in the trench;
		One buries the bare stumps within his field,
		Truncheons cleft four-wise, or sharp-pointed stakes;
		Some forest-trees the layer's bent arch await,




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