Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Nor is the method of inserting eyes
  2. And grafting one: for where the buds push forth
  3. Amidst the bark, and burst the membranes thin,
  4. Even on the knot a narrow rift is made,
  5. Wherein from some strange tree a germ they pen,
  6. And to the moist rind bid it cleave and grow.
  7. Or, otherwise, in knotless trunks is hewn
  8. A breach, and deep into the solid grain
  9. A path with wedges cloven; then fruitful slips
  10. Are set herein, and—no long time—behold!
  11. To heaven upshot with teeming boughs, the tree
  12. Strange leaves admires and fruitage not its own.
  1. Nor of one kind alone are sturdy elms,
  2. Willow and lotus, nor the cypress-trees
  3. Of Ida; nor of self-same fashion spring
  4. Fat olives, orchades, and radii
  5. And bitter-berried pausians, no, nor yet
  6. Apples and the forests of Alcinous;
  7. Nor from like cuttings are Crustumian pears
  8. And Syrian, and the heavy hand-fillers.
  9. Not the same vintage from our trees hangs down,
  10. Which Lesbos from Methymna's tendril plucks.
  11. Vines Thasian are there, Mareotids white,
  12. These apt for richer soils, for lighter those:
  13. Psithian for raisin-wine more useful, thin
  14. Lageos, that one day will try the feet
  15. And tie the tongue: purples and early-ripes,
  16. And how, O Rhaetian, shall I hymn thy praise?
  17. Yet cope not therefore with Falernian bins.
  18. Vines Aminaean too, best-bodied wine,
  19. To which the Tmolian bows him, ay, and king
  20. Phanaeus too, and, lesser of that name,
  21. Argitis, wherewith not a grape can vie
  22. For gush of wine-juice or for length of years.
  23. Nor thee must I pass over, vine of Rhodes,
  24. Welcomed by gods and at the second board,
  25. Nor thee, Bumastus, with plump clusters swollen.
  26. But lo! how many kinds, and what their names,
  27. There is no telling, nor doth it boot to tell;
  28. Who lists to know it, he too would list to learn
  29. How many sand-grains are by Zephyr tossed
  30. On Libya's plain, or wot, when Eurus falls
  31. With fury on the ships, how many waves
  32. Come rolling shoreward from the Ionian sea.