Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. These fields are mine.” Now, cowed and out of heart,
  2. since Fortune turns the whole world upside down,
  3. we are taking him—ill luck go with the same!—
  4. these kids you see.
LYCIDAS
  1. But surely I had heard
  2. that where the hills first draw from off the plain,
  3. and the high ridge with gentle slope descends,
  4. down to the brook-side and the broken crests
  5. of yonder veteran beeches, all the land
  6. was by the songs of your Menalcas saved.
MOERIS
  1. Heard it you had, and so the rumour ran,
  2. but 'mid the clash of arms, my Lycidas,
  3. our songs avail no more than, as 'tis said,
  4. doves of Dodona when an eagle comes.
  5. Nay, had I not, from hollow ilex-bole
  6. warned by a raven on the left, cut short
  7. the rising feud, nor I, your Moeris here,
  8. no, nor Menalcas, were alive to-day.
LYCIDAS
  1. Alack! could any of so foul a crime
  2. be guilty? Ah! how nearly, thyself,