Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. But if one's whole stock fail him at a stroke,
  2. Nor hath he whence to breed the race anew,
  3. 'Tis time the wondrous secret to disclose
  4. Taught by the swain of Arcady, even how
  5. The blood of slaughtered bullocks oft has borne
  6. Bees from corruption. I will trace me back
  7. To its prime source the story's tangled thread,
  8. And thence unravel. For where thy happy folk,
  9. Canopus, city of Pellaean fame,
  10. Dwell by the Nile's lagoon-like overflow,
  11. And high o'er furrows they have called their own
  12. Skim in their painted wherries; where, hard by,
  13. The quivered Persian presses, and that flood
  14. Which from the swart-skinned Aethiop bears him down,
  15. Swift-parted into sevenfold branching mouths
  16. With black mud fattens and makes Aegypt green,
  17. That whole domain its welfare's hope secure
  18. Rests on this art alone. And first is chosen
  19. A strait recess, cramped closer to this end,
  20. Which next with narrow roof of tiles atop
  21. 'Twixt prisoning walls they pinch, and add hereto
  22. From the four winds four slanting window-slits.
  23. Then seek they from the herd a steer, whose horns
  24. With two years' growth are curling, and stop fast,
  25. Plunge madly as he may, the panting mouth
  26. And nostrils twain, and done with blows to death,
  27. Batter his flesh to pulp i' the hide yet whole,
  28. And shut the doors, and leave him there to lie.
  29. But 'neath his ribs they scatter broken boughs,
  30. With thyme and fresh-pulled cassias: this is done
  31. When first the west winds bid the waters flow,
  32. Ere flush the meadows with new tints, and ere
  33. The twittering swallow buildeth from the beams.
  34. Meanwhile the juice within his softened bones
  35. Heats and ferments, and things of wondrous birth,
  36. Footless at first, anon with feet and wings,
  37. Swarm there and buzz, a marvel to behold;
  38. And more and more the fleeting breeze they take,
  39. Till, like a shower that pours from summer-clouds,
  40. Forth burst they, or like shafts from quivering string
  41. When Parthia's flying hosts provoke the fray.