Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. wax-welded? in the cross-ways used you not
  2. on grating straw some miserable tune
  3. to mangle?
DAMOETAS
  1. Well, then, shall we try our skill
  2. each against each in turn? Lest you be loth,
  3. I pledge this heifer; every day she comes
  4. twice to the milking-pail, and feeds withal
  5. two young ones at her udder: say you now
  6. what you will stake upon the match with me.
MENALCAS
  1. Naught from the flock I'll venture, for at home
  2. I have a father and a step-dame harsh,
  3. and twice a day both reckon up the flock,
  4. and one withal the kids. But I will stake,
  5. seeing you are so mad, what you yourself
  6. will own more priceless far—two beechen cups
  7. by the divine art of Alcimedon
  8. wrought and embossed, whereon a limber vine,
  9. wreathed round them by the graver's facile tool,
  10. twines over clustering ivy-berries pale.
  11. Two figures, one Conon, in the midst he set,