Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. To care of sire the mother's care succeeds.
  2. When great with young they wander nigh their time,
  3. Let no man suffer them to drag the yoke
  4. In heavy wains, nor leap across the way,
  5. Nor scour the meads, nor swim the rushing flood.
  6. In lonely lawns they feed them, by the course
  7. Of brimming streams, where moss is, and the banks
  8. With grass are greenest, where are sheltering caves,
  9. And far outstretched the rock-flung shadow lies.
  10. Round wooded Silarus and the ilex-bowers
  11. Of green Alburnus swarms a winged pest—
  12. Its Roman name Asilus, by the Greeks
  13. Termed Oestros—fierce it is, and harshly hums,
  14. Driving whole herds in terror through the groves,
  15. Till heaven is madded by their bellowing din,
  16. And Tanager's dry bed and forest-banks.
  17. With this same scourge did Juno wreak of old
  18. The terrors of her wrath, a plague devised
  19. Against the heifer sprung from Inachus.
  20. From this too thou, since in the noontide heats
  21. 'Tis most persistent, fend thy teeming herds,
  22. And feed them when the sun is newly risen,
  23. Or the first stars are ushering in the night.
  1. But, yeaning ended, all their tender care
  2. Is to the calves transferred; at once with marks
  3. They brand them, both to designate their race,
  4. And which to rear for breeding, or devote
  5. As altar-victims, or to cleave the ground
  6. And into ridges tear and turn the sod.
  7. The rest along the greensward graze at will.
  8. Those that to rustic uses thou wouldst mould,
  9. As calves encourage and take steps to tame,
  10. While pliant wills and plastic youth allow.
  11. And first of slender withies round the throat
  12. Loose collars hang, then when their free-born necks
  13. Are used to service, with the self-same bands
  14. Yoke them in pairs, and steer by steer compel
  15. Keep pace together. And time it is that oft
  16. Unfreighted wheels be drawn along the ground
  17. Behind them, as to dint the surface-dust;
  18. Then let the beechen axle strain and creak
  19. 'Neath some stout burden, whilst a brazen pole
  20. Drags on the wheels made fast thereto. Meanwhile
  21. For their unbroken youth not grass alone,
  22. Nor meagre willow-leaves and marish-sedge,
  23. But corn-ears with thy hand pluck from the crops.
  24. Nor shall the brood-kine, as of yore, for thee
  25. Brim high the snowy milking-pail, but spend
  26. Their udders' fullness on their own sweet young.