Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- drive to the drinking-pool, and, as you drive,
- beware the he-goat; with his horn he butts.“
- Ay, or to Varus that half-finished lay,
- “Varus, thy name, so still our Mantua live—
- Mantua to poor Cremona all too near—
- shall singing swans bear upward to the stars.”
- So may your swarms Cyrnean yew-trees shun,
- your kine with cytisus their udders swell,
- begin, if aught you have. The Muses made
- me too a singer; I too have sung; the swains
- call me a poet, but I believe them not:
- for naught of mine, or worthy Varius yet
- or Cinna deem I, but account myself
- a cackling goose among melodious swans.
- 'Twas in my thought to do so, Lycidas;
- even now was I revolving silently
- if this I could recall—no paltry song:
- “Come, Galatea, what pleasure is 't to play
- amid the waves? Here glows the Spring, here earth
- beside the streams pours forth a thousand flowers;