Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. Nay, every race on earth of men, and beasts,
  2. And ocean-folk, and flocks, and painted birds,
  3. Rush to the raging fire: love sways them all.
  4. Never than then more fiercely o'er the plain
  5. Prowls heedless of her whelps the lioness:
  6. Nor monstrous bears such wide-spread havoc-doom
  7. Deal through the forests; then the boar is fierce,
  8. Most deadly then the tigress: then, alack!
  9. Ill roaming is it on Libya's lonely plains.
  10. Mark you what shivering thrills the horse's frame,
  11. If but a waft the well-known gust conveys?
  12. Nor curb can check them then, nor lash severe,
  13. Nor rocks and caverned crags, nor barrier-floods,
  14. That rend and whirl and wash the hills away.
  15. Then speeds amain the great Sabellian boar,
  16. His tushes whets, with forefoot tears the ground,
  17. Rubs 'gainst a tree his flanks, and to and fro
  18. Hardens each wallowing shoulder to the wound.
  19. What of the youth, when love's relentless might
  20. Stirs the fierce fire within his veins? Behold!
  21. In blindest midnight how he swims the gulf
  22. Convulsed with bursting storm-clouds! Over him
  23. Heaven's huge gate thunders; the rock-shattered main
  24. Utters a warning cry; nor parents' tears
  25. Can backward call him, nor the maid he loves,
  26. Too soon to die on his untimely pyre.
  27. What of the spotted ounce to Bacchus dear,
  28. Or warlike wolf-kin or the breed of dogs?
  29. Why tell how timorous stags the battle join?
  30. O'er all conspicuous is the rage of mares,
  31. By Venus' self inspired of old, what time
  32. The Potnian four with rending jaws devoured
  33. The limbs of Glaucus. Love-constrained they roam
  34. Past Gargarus, past the loud Ascanian flood;
  35. They climb the mountains, and the torrents swim;
  36. And when their eager marrow first conceives
  37. The fire, in Spring-tide chiefly, for with Spring
  38. Warmth doth their frames revisit, then they stand
  39. All facing westward on the rocky heights,
  40. And of the gentle breezes take their fill;
  41. And oft unmated, marvellous to tell,
  42. But of the wind impregnate, far and wide
  43. O'er craggy height and lowly vale they scud,
  44. Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's,
  45. But westward and north-west, or whence up-springs
  46. Black Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.
  47. Hence from their groin slow drips a poisonous juice,
  48. By shepherds truly named hippomanes,
  49. Hippomanes, fell stepdames oft have culled,
  50. And mixed with herbs and spells of baneful bode.
  1. Fast flies meanwhile the irreparable hour,
  2. As point to point our charmed round we trace.
  3. Enough of herds. This second task remains,
  4. The wool-clad flocks and shaggy goats to treat.
  5. Here lies a labour; hence for glory look,
  6. Brave husbandmen. Nor doubtfully know
  7. How hard it is for words to triumph here,
  8. And shed their lustre on a theme so slight:
  9. But I am caught by ravishing desire
  10. Above the lone Parnassian steep; I love
  11. To walk the heights, from whence no earlier track
  12. Slopes gently downward to Castalia's spring.
  13. Now, awful Pales, strike a louder tone.