Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Thee too, great Pales, will I hymn, and thee,
  2. Amphrysian shepherd, worthy to be sung,
  3. You, woods and waves Lycaean. All themes beside,
  4. Which else had charmed the vacant mind with song,
  5. Are now waxed common. Of harsh Eurystheus who
  6. The story knows not, or that praiseless king
  7. Busiris, and his altars? or by whom
  8. Hath not the tale been told of Hylas young,
  9. Latonian Delos and Hippodame,
  10. And Pelops for his ivory shoulder famed,
  11. Keen charioteer? Needs must a path be tried,
  12. By which I too may lift me from the dust,
  13. And float triumphant through the mouths of men.
  14. Yea, I shall be the first, so life endure,
  15. To lead the Muses with me, as I pass
  16. To mine own country from the Aonian height;
  17. I, Mantua, first will bring thee back the palms
  18. Of Idumaea, and raise a marble shrine
  19. On thy green plain fast by the water-side,
  20. Where Mincius winds more vast in lazy coils,
  21. And rims his margent with the tender reed.
  22. Amid my shrine shall Caesar's godhead dwell.
  23. To him will I, as victor, bravely dight
  24. In Tyrian purple, drive along the bank
  25. A hundred four-horse cars. All Greece for me,
  26. Leaving Alpheus and Molorchus' grove,
  27. On foot shall strive, or with the raw-hide glove;
  28. Whilst I, my head with stripped green olive crowned,
  29. Will offer gifts. Even 'tis present joy
  30. To lead the high processions to the fane,
  31. And view the victims felled; or how the scene
  32. Sunders with shifted face, and Britain's sons
  33. Inwoven thereon with those proud curtains rise.
  34. Of gold and massive ivory on the doors
  35. I'll trace the battle of the Gangarides,
  36. And our Quirinus' conquering arms, and there
  37. Surging with war, and hugely flowing, the Nile,
  38. And columns heaped on high with naval brass.
  39. And Asia's vanquished cities I will add,
  40. And quelled Niphates, and the Parthian foe,
  41. Who trusts in flight and backward-volleying darts,
  42. And trophies torn with twice triumphant hand
  43. From empires twain on ocean's either shore.
  44. And breathing forms of Parian marble there
  45. Shall stand, the offspring of Assaracus,
  46. And great names of the Jove-descended folk,
  47. And father Tros, and Troy's first founder, lord
  48. Of Cynthus. And accursed Envy there
  49. Shall dread the Furies, and thy ruthless flood,
  50. Cocytus, and Ixion's twisted snakes,
  51. And that vast wheel and ever-baffling stone.
  52. Meanwhile the Dryad-haunted woods and lawns
  53. Unsullied seek we; 'tis thy hard behest,
  54. Maecenas. Without thee no lofty task
  55. My mind essays. Up! break the sluggish bonds
  56. Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls,
  57. Steed-taming Epidaurus, and thy hounds,
  58. Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves
  59. With peal on peal reverberate the roar.
  60. Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long
  61. The fiery fights of Caesar, speed his name
  62. Through ages, countless as to Caesar's self
  63. From the first birth-dawn of Tithonus old.