Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Many the tasks that lightlier lend themselves
  2. In chilly night, or when the sun is young,
  3. And Dawn bedews the world. By night 'tis best
  4. To reap light stubble, and parched fields by night;
  5. For nights the suppling moisture never fails.
  6. And one will sit the long late watches out
  7. By winter fire-light, shaping with keen blade
  8. The torches to a point; his wife the while,
  9. Her tedious labour soothing with a song,
  10. Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else
  11. With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down,
  12. And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.
  13. But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown,
  14. And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised
  15. Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow;
  16. Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.
  17. In the cold season farmers wont to taste
  18. The increase of their toil, and yield themselves
  19. To mutual interchange of festal cheer.
  20. Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares,
  21. As laden keels, when now the port they touch,
  22. And happy sailors crown the sterns with flowers.
  23. Nathless then also time it is to strip
  24. Acorns from oaks, and berries from the bay,
  25. Olives, and bleeding myrtles, then to set
  26. Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag,
  27. And hunt the long-eared hares, then pierce the doe
  28. With whirl of hempen-thonged Balearic sling,
  29. While snow lies deep, and streams are drifting ice.