Georgics

Virgil

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

  1. No delay:
  2. The self-same hour he hies him forth to do
  3. His mother's bidding: to the shrine he came,
  4. The appointed altars reared, and thither led
  5. Four chosen bulls of peerless form and bulk,
  6. With kine to match, that never yoke had known;
  7. Then, when the ninth dawn had led in the day,
  8. To Orpheus sent his funeral dues, and sought
  9. The grove once more. But sudden, strange to tell
  10. A portent they espy: through the oxen's flesh,
  11. Waxed soft in dissolution, hark! there hum
  12. Bees from the belly; the rent ribs overboil
  13. In endless clouds they spread them, till at last
  14. On yon tree-top together fused they cling,
  15. And drop their cluster from the bending boughs.