Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. But from the homestead not too far they fare,
  2. When showers hang like to fall, nor, east winds nigh,
  3. Confide in heaven, but 'neath the city walls
  4. Safe-circling fetch them water, or essay
  5. Brief out-goings, and oft weigh-up tiny stones,
  6. As light craft ballast in the tossing tide,
  7. Wherewith they poise them through the cloudy vast.
  8. This law of life, too, by the bees obeyed,
  9. Will move thy wonder, that nor sex with sex
  10. Yoke they in marriage, nor yield their limbs to love,
  11. Nor know the pangs of labour, but alone
  12. From leaves and honied herbs, the mothers, each,
  13. Gather their offspring in their mouths, alone
  14. Supply new kings and pigmy commonwealth,
  15. And their old court and waxen realm repair.
  16. Oft, too, while wandering, against jagged stones
  17. Their wings they fray, and 'neath the burden yield
  18. Their liberal lives: so deep their love of flowers,
  19. So glorious deem they honey's proud acquist.
  20. Therefore, though each a life of narrow span,
  21. Ne'er stretched to summers more than seven, befalls,
  22. Yet deathless doth the race endure, and still
  23. Perennial stands the fortune of their line,
  24. From grandsire unto grandsire backward told.
  25. Moreover, not Aegyptus, nor the realm
  26. Of boundless Lydia, no, nor Parthia's hordes,
  27. Nor Median Hydaspes, to their king
  28. Do such obeisance: lives the king unscathed,
  29. One will inspires the million: is he dead,
  30. Snapt is the bond of fealty; they themselves
  31. Ravage their toil-wrought honey, and rend amain
  32. Their own comb's waxen trellis. He is the lord
  33. Of all their labour; him with awful eye
  34. They reverence, and with murmuring throngs surround,
  35. In crowds attend, oft shoulder him on high,
  36. Or with their bodies shield him in the fight,
  37. And seek through showering wounds a glorious death.
  1. Led by these tokens, and with such traits to guide,
  2. Some say that unto bees a share is given
  3. Of the Divine Intelligence, and to drink
  4. Pure draughts of ether; for God permeates all—
  5. Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault of heaven—
  6. From whom flocks, herds, men, beasts of every kind,
  7. Draw each at birth the fine essential flame;
  8. Yea, and that all things hence to Him return,
  9. Brought back by dissolution, nor can death
  10. Find place: but, each into his starry rank,
  11. Alive they soar, and mount the heights of heaven.