Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. and Corydon Alexis, each led on
  2. by their own longing. See, the ox comes home
  3. with plough up-tilted, and the shadows grow
  4. to twice their length with the departing sun,
  5. yet me love burns, for who can limit love?
  6. Ah! Corydon, Corydon, what hath crazed your wit?
  7. Your vine half-pruned hangs on the leafy elm;
  8. why haste you not to weave what need requires
  9. of pliant rush or osier? Scorned by this,
  10. elsewhere some new Alexis you will find.”
MENALCAS
  1. Who owns the flock, Damoetas? Meliboeus?
DAMOETAS
  1. Nay, they are Aegon's sheep, of late by him
  2. committed to my care.
MENALCAS
  1. O every way
  2. unhappy sheep, unhappy flock! while he
  3. still courts Neaera, fearing lest her choice
  4. should fall on me, this hireling shepherd here
  5. wrings hourly twice their udders, from the flock
  6. filching the life-juice, from the lambs their milk.
DAMOETAS
  1. Hold! not so ready with your jeers at men!