Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. in the mid-frost should drink of Hebrus' stream,
  2. and in wet winters face Sithonian snows,
  3. or, when the bark of the tall elm-tree bole
  4. of drought is dying, should, under Cancer's Sign,
  5. in Aethiopian deserts drive our flocks.
  6. Love conquers all things; yield we too to love!”
  7. These songs, Pierian Maids, shall it suffice
  8. your poet to have sung, the while he sat,
  9. and of slim mallow wove a basket fine:
  10. to Gallus ye will magnify their worth,
  11. Gallus, for whom my love grows hour by hour,
  12. as the green alder shoots in early Spring.
  13. Come, let us rise: the shade is wont to be
  14. baneful to singers; baneful is the shade
  15. cast by the juniper, crops sicken too
  16. in shade. Now homeward, having fed your fill—
  17. eve's star is rising—go, my she-goats, go.