Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. He too it was, when Caesar's light was quenched,
  2. For Rome had pity, when his bright head he veiled
  3. In iron-hued darkness, till a godless age
  4. Trembled for night eternal; at that time
  5. Howbeit earth also, and the ocean-plains,
  6. And dogs obscene, and birds of evil bode
  7. Gave tokens. Yea, how often have we seen
  8. Etna, her furnace-walls asunder riven,
  9. In billowy floods boil o'er the Cyclops' fields,
  10. And roll down globes of fire and molten rocks!
  11. A clash of arms through all the heaven was heard
  12. By Germany; strange heavings shook the Alps.
  13. Yea, and by many through the breathless groves
  14. A voice was heard with power, and wondrous-pale
  15. Phantoms were seen upon the dusk of night,
  16. And cattle spake, portentous! streams stand still,
  17. And the earth yawns asunder, ivory weeps
  18. For sorrow in the shrines, and bronzes sweat.
  19. Up-twirling forests with his eddying tide,
  20. Madly he bears them down, that lord of floods,
  21. Eridanus, till through all the plain are swept
  22. Beasts and their stalls together. At that time
  23. In gloomy entrails ceased not to appear
  24. Dark-threatening fibres, springs to trickle blood,
  25. And high-built cities night-long to resound
  26. With the wolves' howling. Never more than then
  27. From skies all cloudless fell the thunderbolts,
  28. Nor blazed so oft the comet's fire of bale.
  29. Therefore a second time Philippi saw
  30. The Roman hosts with kindred weapons rush
  31. To battle, nor did the high gods deem it hard
  32. That twice Emathia and the wide champaign
  33. Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood.
  34. Ay, and the time will come when there anigh,
  35. Heaving the earth up with his curved plough,
  36. Some swain will light on javelins by foul rust
  37. Corroded, or with ponderous harrow strike
  38. On empty helmets, while he gapes to see
  39. Bones as of giants from the trench untombed.
  40. Gods of my country, heroes of the soil,
  41. And Romulus, and Mother Vesta, thou
  42. Who Tuscan Tiber and Rome's Palatine
  43. Preservest, this new champion at the least
  44. Our fallen generation to repair
  45. Forbid not. To the full and long ago
  46. Our blood thy Trojan perjuries hath paid,
  47. Laomedon. Long since the courts of heaven
  48. Begrudge us thee, our Caesar, and complain
  49. That thou regard'st the triumphs of mankind,
  50. Here where the wrong is right, the right is wrong,
  51. Where wars abound so many, and myriad-faced
  52. Is crime; where no meet honour hath the plough;
  53. The fields, their husbandmen led far away,
  54. Rot in neglect, and curved pruning-hooks
  55. Into the sword's stiff blade are fused and forged.
  56. Euphrates here, here Germany new strife
  57. Is stirring; neighbouring cities are in arms,
  58. The laws that bound them snapped; and godless war
  59. Rages through all the universe; as when
  60. The four-horse chariots from the barriers poured
  61. Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now
  62. Grasping the reins, the driver by his team
  63. Is onward borne, nor heeds the car his curb.