Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Me before all things may the Muses sweet,
  2. Whose rites I bear with mighty passion pierced,
  3. Receive, and show the paths and stars of heaven,
  4. The sun's eclipses and the labouring moons,
  5. From whence the earthquake, by what power the seas
  6. Swell from their depths, and, every barrier burst,
  7. Sink back upon themselves, why winter-suns
  8. So haste to dip 'neath ocean, or what check
  9. The lingering night retards. But if to these
  10. High realms of nature the cold curdling blood
  11. About my heart bar access, then be fields
  12. And stream-washed vales my solace, let me love
  13. Rivers and woods, inglorious. Oh for you
  14. Plains, and Spercheius, and Taygete,
  15. By Spartan maids o'er-revelled! Oh, for one,
  16. Would set me in deep dells of Haemus cool,
  17. And shield me with his boughs' o'ershadowing might!
  18. Happy, who had the skill to understand
  19. Nature's hid causes, and beneath his feet
  20. All terrors cast, and death's relentless doom,
  21. And the loud roar of greedy Acheron.
  22. Blest too is he who knows the rural gods,
  23. Pan, old Silvanus, and the sister-nymphs!
  24. Him nor the rods of public power can bend,
  25. Nor kingly purple, nor fierce feud that drives
  26. Brother to turn on brother, nor descent
  27. Of Dacian from the Danube's leagued flood,
  28. Nor Rome's great State, nor kingdoms like to die;
  29. Nor hath he grieved through pitying of the poor,
  30. Nor envied him that hath. What fruit the boughs,
  31. And what the fields, of their own bounteous will
  32. Have borne, he gathers; nor iron rule of laws,
  33. Nor maddened Forum have his eyes beheld,
  34. Nor archives of the people. Others vex
  35. The darksome gulfs of Ocean with their oars,
  36. Or rush on steel: they press within the courts
  37. And doors of princes; one with havoc falls
  38. Upon a city and its hapless hearths,
  39. From gems to drink, on Tyrian rugs to lie;
  40. This hoards his wealth and broods o'er buried gold;
  41. One at the rostra stares in blank amaze;
  42. One gaping sits transported by the cheers,
  43. The answering cheers of plebs and senate rolled
  44. Along the benches: bathed in brothers' blood
  45. Men revel, and, all delights of hearth and home
  46. For exile changing, a new country seek
  47. Beneath an alien sun. The husbandman
  48. With hooked ploughshare turns the soil; from hence
  49. Springs his year's labour; hence, too, he sustains
  50. Country and cottage homestead, and from hence
  51. His herds of cattle and deserving steers.
  52. No respite! still the year o'erflows with fruit,
  53. Or young of kine, or Ceres' wheaten sheaf,
  54. With crops the furrow loads, and bursts the barns.
  1. Winter is come: in olive-mills they bruise
  2. The Sicyonian berry; acorn-cheered
  3. The swine troop homeward; woods their arbutes yield;
  4. So, various fruit sheds Autumn, and high up
  5. On sunny rocks the mellowing vintage bakes.
  6. Meanwhile about his lips sweet children cling;
  7. His chaste house keeps its purity; his kine
  8. Drop milky udders, and on the lush green grass
  9. Fat kids are striving, horn to butting horn.
  10. Himself keeps holy days; stretched o'er the sward,
  11. Where round the fire his comrades crown the bowl,
  12. He pours libation, and thy name invokes,
  13. Lenaeus, and for the herdsmen on an elm
  14. Sets up a mark for the swift javelin; they
  15. Strip their tough bodies for the rustic sport.
  16. Such life of yore the ancient Sabines led,
  17. Such Remus and his brother: Etruria thus,
  18. Doubt not, to greatness grew, and Rome became
  19. The fair world's fairest, and with circling wall
  20. Clasped to her single breast the sevenfold hills.
  21. Ay, ere the reign of Dicte's king, ere men,
  22. Waxed godless, banqueted on slaughtered bulls,
  23. Such life on earth did golden Saturn lead.
  24. Nor ear of man had heard the war-trump's blast,
  25. Nor clang of sword on stubborn anvil set.