Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Hedges too must be woven and all beasts
  2. Barred entrance, chiefly while the leaf is young
  3. And witless of disaster; for therewith,
  4. Beside harsh winters and o'erpowering sun,
  5. Wild buffaloes and pestering goats for ay
  6. Besport them, sheep and heifers glut their greed.
  7. Nor cold by hoar-frost curdled, nor the prone
  8. Dead weight of summer upon the parched crags,
  9. So scathe it, as the flocks with venom-bite
  10. Of their hard tooth, whose gnawing scars the stem.
  11. For no offence but this to Bacchus bleeds
  12. The goat at every altar, and old plays
  13. Upon the stage find entrance; therefore too
  14. The sons of Theseus through the country-side—
  15. Hamlet and crossway—set the prize of wit,
  16. And on the smooth sward over oiled skins
  17. Dance in their tipsy frolic. Furthermore
  18. The Ausonian swains, a race from Troy derived,
  19. Make merry with rough rhymes and boisterous mirth,
  20. Grim masks of hollowed bark assume, invoke
  21. Thee with glad hymns, O Bacchus, and to thee
  22. Hang puppet-faces on tall pines to swing.
  23. Hence every vineyard teems with mellowing fruit,
  24. Till hollow vale o'erflows, and gorge profound,
  25. Where'er the god hath turned his comely head.
  26. Therefore to Bacchus duly will we sing
  27. Meet honour with ancestral hymns, and cates
  28. And dishes bear him; and the doomed goat
  29. Led by the horn shall at the altar stand,
  30. Whose entrails rich on hazel-spits we'll roast.