Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. Not mine betwixt such rivals to decide:
  2. you well deserve the heifer, so does he,
  3. with all who either fear the sweets of love,
  4. or taste its bitterness. Now, boys, shut off
  5. the sluices, for the fields have drunk their fill.
  • muses of Sicily, essay we now
  • a somewhat loftier task! Not all men love
  • coppice or lowly tamarisk: sing we woods,
  • woods worthy of a Consul let them be.
  • Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
  • has come and gone, and the majestic roll
  • of circling centuries begins anew:
  • justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
  • with a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
  • Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom
  • the iron shall cease, the golden race arise,
  • befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own
  • apollo reigns. And in thy consulate,
  • this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin,
  • and the months enter on their mighty march.