Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. So in old age, you happy man, your fields
  2. will still be yours, and ample for your need!
  3. Though, with bare stones o'erspread, the pastures all
  4. be choked with rushy mire, your ewes with young
  5. by no strange fodder will be tried, nor hurt
  6. through taint contagious of a neighbouring flock.
  7. Happy old man, who 'mid familiar streams
  8. and hallowed springs, will court the cooling shade!
  9. Here, as of old, your neighbour's bordering hedge,
  10. that feasts with willow-flower the Hybla bees,
  11. shall oft with gentle murmur lull to sleep,
  12. while the leaf-dresser beneath some tall rock
  13. uplifts his song, nor cease their cooings hoarse
  14. the wood-pigeons that are your heart's delight,
  15. nor doves their moaning in the elm-tree top.
TITYRUS
  1. Sooner shall light stags, therefore, feed in air,
  2. the seas their fish leave naked on the strand,
  3. germans and Parthians shift their natural bounds,
  4. and these the Arar, those the Tigris drink,
  5. than from my heart his face and memory fade.