The Georgics Part 1

The Georgics.

by Virgil.

GEORGIC I

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer; What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;- Such are my themes.

O universal lights Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild, If by your bounty holpen earth once changed Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear, And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift, The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.

And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke, Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes, The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power, Thy native forest and Lycean lawns, Pan, shepherd-G.o.d, forsaking, as the love Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too, Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung; And boy-discoverer of the curved plough; And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn, Silva.n.u.s, and G.o.ds all and G.o.ddesses, Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse The tender unsown increase, and from heaven Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain: And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon, Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will, Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge, That so the mighty world may welcome thee Lord of her increase, master of her times, Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow, Or as the boundless ocean's G.o.d thou come, Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son With all her waves for dower; or as a star Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer, Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws A s.p.a.ce is opening; see! red Scorpio's self His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt- For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king, Nor may so dire a l.u.s.t of sovereignty E'er light upon thee, howso Greece admire Elysium's fields, and Proserpine not heed Her mother's voice entreating to return- Vouchsafe a prosperous voyage, and smile on this My bold endeavour, and pitying, even as I, These poor way-wildered swains, at once begin, Grow timely used unto the voice of prayer.

In early spring-tide, when the icy drip Melts from the mountains h.o.a.r, and Zephyr's breath Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then 'tis time; Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox, And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.

That land the craving farmer's prayer fulfils, Which twice the sunshine, twice the frost has felt; Ay, that's the land whose boundless harvest-crops Burst, see! the barns.

But ere our metal cleave An unknown surface, heed we to forelearn The winds and varying temper of the sky, The lineal tilth and habits of the spot, What every region yields, and what denies.

Here blithelier springs the corn, and here the grape, There earth is green with tender growth of trees And gra.s.s unbidden. See how from Tmolus comes The saffron's fragrance, ivory from Ind, From Saba's weakling sons their frankincense, Iron from the naked Chalybs, castor rank From Pontus, from Epirus the prize-palms O' the mares of Elis.

Such the eternal bond And such the laws by Nature's hand imposed On clime and clime, e'er since the primal dawn When old Deucalion on the unpeopled earth Cast stones, whence men, a flinty race, were reared.

Up then! if fat the soil, let st.u.r.dy bulls Upturn it from the year's first opening months, And let the clods lie bare till baked to dust By the ripe suns of summer; but if the earth Less fruitful just ere Arcturus rise With shallower trench uptilt it- 'twill suffice; There, lest weeds choke the crop's luxuriance, here, Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand.

Then thou shalt suffer in alternate years The new-reaped fields to rest, and on the plain A crust of sloth to harden; or, when stars Are changed in heaven, there sow the golden grain Where erst, luxuriant with its quivering pod, Pulse, or the slender vetch-crop, thou hast cleared, And lupin sour, whose brittle stalks arise, A hurtling forest. For the plain is parched By flax-crop, parched by oats, by poppies parched In Lethe-slumber drenched. Nathless by change The travailing earth is lightened, but stint not With refuse rich to soak the thirsty soil, And shower foul ashes o'er the exhausted fields.

Thus by rotation like repose is gained, Nor earth meanwhile uneared and thankless left.

Oft, too, 'twill boot to fire the naked fields, And the light stubble burn with crackling flames; Whether that earth therefrom some hidden strength And fattening food derives, or that the fire Bakes every blemish out, and sweats away Each useless humour, or that the heat unlocks New pa.s.sages and secret pores, whereby Their life-juice to the tender blades may win; Or that it hardens more and helps to bind The gaping veins, lest penetrating showers, Or fierce sun's ravening might, or searching blast Of the keen north should sear them. Well, I wot, He serves the fields who with his harrow breaks The sluggish clods, and hurdles osier-twined Hales o'er them; from the far Olympian height Him golden Ceres not in vain regards; And he, who having ploughed the fallow plain And heaved its furrowy ridges, turns once more Cross-wise his shattering share, with stroke on stroke The earth a.s.sails, and makes the field his thrall.

Pray for wet summers and for winters fine, Ye husbandmen; in winter's dust the crops Exceedingly rejoice, the field hath joy; No tilth makes Mysia lift her head so high, Nor Gargarus his own harvests so admire.

Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed, Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain; And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed, See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls, Waking hoa.r.s.e murmurs o'er the polished stones, And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty fields?

Or why of him, who lest the heavy ears O'erweigh the stalk, while yet in tender blade Feeds down the crop's luxuriance, when its growth First tops the furrows? Why of him who drains The marsh-land's gathered ooze through soaking sand, Chiefly what time in treacherous moons a stream Goes out in spate, and with its coat of slime Holds all the country, whence the hollow d.y.k.es Sweat steaming vapour?

But no whit the more For all expedients tried and travail borne By man and beast in turning oft the soil, Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm, Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself No easy road to husbandry a.s.signed, And first was he by human skill to rouse The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men With care on care, nor suffering realm of his In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen; To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line- Even this was impious; for the common stock They gathered, and the earth of her own will All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.

He to black serpents gave their venom-bane, And bade the wolf go prowl, and ocean toss; Shook from the leaves their honey, put fire away, And curbed the random rivers running wine, That use by gradual dint of thought on thought Might forge the various arts, with furrow's help The corn-blade win, and strike out hidden fire From the flint's heart. Then first the streams were ware Of hollowed alder-hulls: the sailor then Their names and numbers gave to star and star, Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime, And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.

Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream, Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils Along the main; then iron's unbending might, And shrieking saw-blade,- for the men of old With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;- Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all, Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push In times of hardship. Ceres was the first Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod, When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food Dodona gave no more. Soon, too, the corn Gat sorrow's increase, that an evil blight Ate up the stalks, and thistle reared his spines An idler in the fields; the crops die down; Upsprings instead a s.h.a.ggy growth of burrs And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway.

Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds, Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade, Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye, Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow, And in the greenwood from a shaken oak Seek solace for thine hunger.

Now to tell The st.u.r.dy rustics' weapons, what they are, Without which, neither can be sown nor reared The fruits of harvest; first the bent plough's share And heavy timber, and slow-lumbering wains Of the Eleusinian mother, threshing-sleighs And drags, and harrows with their crushing weight; Then the cheap wicker-ware of Celeus old, Hurdles of arbute, and thy mystic fan, Iacchus; which, full tale, long ere the time Thou must with heed lay by, if thee await Not all unearned the country's crown divine.

While yet within the woods, the elm is tamed And bowed with mighty force to form the stock, And take the plough's curved shape, then nigh the root A pole eight feet projecting, earth-boards twain, And share-beam with its double back they fix.

For yoke is early hewn a linden light, And a tall beech for handle, from behind To turn the car at lowest: then o'er the hearth The wood they hang till the smoke knows it well.

Many the precepts of the men of old I can recount thee, so thou start not back, And such slight cares to learn not weary thee.

And this among the first: thy threshing-floor With ponderous roller must be levelled smooth, And wrought by hand, and fixed with binding chalk, Lest weeds arise, or dust a pa.s.sage win Splitting the surface, then a thousand plagues Make sport of it: oft builds the tiny mouse Her home, and plants her granary, underground, Or burrow for their bed the purblind moles, Or toad is found in hollows, and all the swarm Of earth's unsightly creatures; or a huge Corn-heap the weevil plunders, and the ant, Fearful of coming age and penury.

Mark too, what time the walnut in the woods With ample bloom shall clothe her, and bow down Her odorous branches, if the fruit prevail, Like store of grain will follow, and there shall come A mighty winnowing-time with mighty heat; But if the shade with wealth of leaves abound, Vainly your threshing-floor will bruise the stalks Rich but in chaff. Many myself have seen Steep, as they sow, their pulse-seeds, drenching them With nitre and black oil-lees, that the fruit Might swell within the treacherous pods, and they Make speed to boil at howso small a fire.

Yet, culled with caution, proved with patient toil, These have I seen degenerate, did not man Put forth his hand with power, and year by year Choose out the largest. So, by fate impelled, Speed all things to the worse, and backward borne Glide from us; even as who with struggling oars Up stream scarce pulls a shallop, if he chance His arms to slacken, lo! with headlong force The current sweeps him down the hurrying tide.

Us too behoves Arcturus' sign observe, And the Kids' seasons and the shining Snake, No less than those who o'er the windy main Borne homeward tempt the Pontic, and the jaws Of oyster-rife Abydos. When the Scales Now poising fair the hours of sleep and day Give half the world to sunshine, half to shade, Then urge your bulls, my masters; sow the plain Even to the verge of tameless winter's showers With barley: then, too, time it is to hide Your flax in earth, and poppy, Ceres' joy, Aye, more than time to bend above the plough, While earth, yet dry, forbids not, and the clouds Are buoyant. With the spring comes bean-sowing; Thee, too, Lucerne, the crumbling furrows then Receive, and millet's annual care returns, What time the white bull with his gilded horns Opens the year, before whose threatening front, Routed the dog-star sinks. But if it be For wheaten harvest and the hardy spelt, Thou tax the soil, to corn-ears wholly given, Let Atlas' daughters hide them in the dawn, The Cretan star, a crown of fire, depart, Or e'er the furrow's claim of seed thou quit, Or haste thee to entrust the whole year's hope To earth that would not. Many have begun Ere Maia's star be setting; these, I trow, Their looked-for harvest fools with empty ears.

But if the vetch and common kidney-bean Thou'rt fain to sow, nor scorn to make thy care Pelusiac lentil, no uncertain sign Bootes' fall will send thee; then begin, Pursue thy sowing till half the frosts be done.

Therefore it is the golden sun, his course Into fixed parts dividing, rules his way Through the twelve constellations of the world.

Five zones the heavens contain; whereof is one Aye red with flashing sunlight, fervent aye From fire; on either side to left and right Are traced the utmost twain, stiff with blue ice, And black with scowling storm-clouds, and betwixt These and the midmost, other twain there lie, By the G.o.ds' grace to heart-sick mortals given, And a path cleft between them, where might wheel On sloping plane the system of the Signs.

And as toward Scythia and Rhipaean heights The world mounts upward, likewise sinks it down Toward Libya and the south, this pole of ours Still towering high, that other, 'neath their feet, By dark Styx frowned on, and the abysmal shades.

Here glides the huge Snake forth with sinuous coils 'Twixt the two Bears and round them river-wise- The Bears that fear 'neath Ocean's brim to dip.

There either, say they, reigns the eternal hush Of night that knows no seasons, her black pall Thick-mantling fold on fold; or thitherward From us returning Dawn brings back the day; And when the first breath of his panting steeds On us the Orient flings, that hour with them Red Vesper 'gins to trim his his 'lated fires.

Hence under doubtful skies forebode we can The coming tempests, hence both harvest-day And seed-time, when to smite the treacherous main With driving oars, when launch the fair-rigged fleet, Or in ripe hour to fell the forest-pine.

Hence, too, not idly do we watch the stars- Their rising and their setting-and the year, Four varying seasons to one law conformed.

If chilly showers e'er shut the farmer's door, Much that had soon with sunshine cried for haste, He may forestall; the ploughman batters keen His blunted share's hard tooth, scoops from a tree His troughs, or on the cattle stamps a brand, Or numbers on the corn-heaps; some make sharp The stakes and two-p.r.o.nged forks, and willow-bands Amerian for the bending vine prepare.

Now let the pliant basket plaited be Of bramble-twigs; now set your corn to parch Before the fire; now bruise it with the stone.

Nay even on holy days some tasks to ply Is right and lawful: this no ban forbids, To turn the runnel's course, fence corn-fields in, Make springes for the birds, burn up the briars, And plunge in wholesome stream the bleating flock.

Oft too with oil or apples plenty-cheap The creeping a.s.s's ribs his driver packs, And home from town returning brings instead A dented mill-stone or black lump of pitch.

The moon herself in various rank a.s.signs The days for labour lucky: fly the fifth; Then sprang pale Orcus and the Eumenides; Earth then in awful labour brought to light Coeus, Iapetus, and Typhoeus fell, And those sworn brethren banded to break down The gates of heaven; thrice, sooth to say, they strove Ossa on Pelion's top to heave and heap, Aye, and on Ossa to up-roll amain Leafy Olympus; thrice with thunderbolt Their mountain-stair the Sire asunder smote.

Seventh after tenth is lucky both to set The vine in earth, and take and tame the steer, And fix the leashes to the warp; the ninth To runagates is kinder, cross to thieves.

Many the tasks that lightlier lend themselves In chilly night, or when the sun is young, And Dawn bedews the world. By night 'tis best To reap light stubble, and parched fields by night; For nights the suppling moisture never fails.

And one will sit the long late watches out By winter fire-light, shaping with keen blade The torches to a point; his wife the while, Her tedious labour soothing with a song, Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down, And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.

But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown, And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow; Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.

In the cold season farmers wont to taste The increase of their toil, and yield themselves To mutual interchange of festal cheer.

Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares, As laden keels, when now the port they touch, And happy sailors crown the sterns with flowers.

Nathless then also time it is to strip Acorns from oaks, and berries from the bay, Olives, and bleeding myrtles, then to set Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag, And hunt the long-eared hares, then pierce the doe With whirl of hempen-thonged Balearic sling, While snow lies deep, and streams are drifting ice.

What need to tell of autumn's storms and stars, And wherefore men must watch, when now the day Grows shorter, and more soft the summer's heat?

When Spring the rain-bringer comes rushing down, Or when the beards of harvest on the plain Bristle already, and the milky corn On its green stalk is swelling? Many a time, When now the farmer to his yellow fields The reaping-hind came bringing, even in act To lop the brittle barley stems, have I Seen all the windy legions clash in war Together, as to rend up far and wide The heavy corn-crop from its lowest roots, And toss it skyward: so might winter's flaw, Dark-eddying, whirl light stalks and flying straws.

Oft too comes looming vast along the sky A march of waters; mustering from above, The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven, And with a great rain floods the smiling crops, The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast, And the void river-beds swell thunderously, And all the panting firths of Ocean boil.

The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk Earth at the hurly quakes; the beasts are fled, And mortal hearts of every kindred sunk In cowering terror; he with flaming brand Athos, or Rhodope, or Ceraunian crags Precipitates: then doubly raves the South With shower on blinding shower, and woods and coasts Wail fitfully beneath the mighty blast.

This fearing, mark the months and Signs of heaven, Whither retires him Saturn's icy star, And through what heavenly cycles wandereth The glowing orb Cyllenian. Before all Worship the G.o.ds, and to great Ceres pay Her yearly dues upon the happy sward With sacrifice, anigh the utmost end Of winter, and when Spring begins to smile.

Then lambs are fat, and wines are mellowest then; Then sleep is sweet, and dark the shadows fall Upon the mountains. Let your rustic youth To Ceres do obeisance, one and all; And for her pleasure thou mix honeycombs With milk and the ripe wine-G.o.d; thrice for luck Around the young corn let the victim go, And all the choir, a joyful company, Attend it, and with shouts bid Ceres come To be their house-mate; and let no man dare Put sickle to the ripened ears until, With woven oak his temples chapleted, He foot the rugged dance and chant the lay.

Aye, and that these things we might win to know By certain tokens, heats, and showers, and winds That bring the frost, the Sire of all himself Ordained what warnings in her monthly round The moon should give, what bodes the south wind's fall, What oft-repeated sights the herdsman seeing Should keep his cattle closer to their stalls.

No sooner are the winds at point to rise, Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms The beach afar, and through the forest goes A murmur mult.i.tudinous. By this Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels, When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main Come winging, and their shrieks are sh.o.r.eward borne, When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud.

Oft, too, when wind is toward, the stars thou'lt see From heaven shoot headlong, and through murky night Long trails of fire white-glistening in their wake, Or light chaff flit in air with fallen leaves, Or feathers on the wave-top float and play.

But when from regions of the furious North It lightens, and when thunder fills the halls Of Eurus and of Zephyr, all the fields With br.i.m.m.i.n.g dikes are flooded, and at sea No mariner but furls his dripping sails.

Never at unawares did shower annoy: Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes Flee to the vales before it, with face Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres Shrill-twittering flits the swallow, and the frogs Crouch in the mud and chant their dirge of old.

Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells, Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys; Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host Of rooks from food returning in long line Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see The various ocean-fowl and those that pry Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools, Cayster, as in eager rivalry, About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray, Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run Into the billows, for sheer idle joy Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain, Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.

Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task, Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth Of mouldy snuff-clots.

So too, after rain, Sunshine and open skies thou mayst forecast, And learn by tokens sure, for then nor dimmed Appear the stars' keen edges, nor the moon As borrowing of her brother's beams to rise, Nor fleecy films to float along the sky.

Not to the sun's warmth then upon the sh.o.r.e Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings, Nor filthy swine take thought to toss on high With scattering snout the straw-wisps. But the clouds Seek more the vales, and rest upon the plain, And from the roof-top the night-owl for naught Watching the sunset plies her 'lated song.

Distinct in clearest air is Nisus seen Towering, and Scylla for the purple lock Pays dear; for whereso, as she flies, her wings The light air winnow, lo! fierce, implacable, Nisus with mighty whirr through heaven pursues; Where Nisus heavenward soareth, there her wings Clutch as she flies, the light air winnowing still.

Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat Thrice, four times, o'er repeated, and full oft On their high cradles, by some hidden joy Gladdened beyond their wont, in bustling throngs Among the leaves they riot; so sweet it is, When showers are spent, their own loved nests again And tender brood to visit. Not, I deem, That heaven some native wit to these a.s.signed, Or fate a larger prescience, but that when The storm and shifting moisture of the air Have changed their courses, and the sky-G.o.d now, Wet with the south-wind, thickens what was rare, And what was gross releases, then, too, change Their spirits' fleeting phases, and their b.r.e.a.s.t.s Feel other motions now, than when the wind Was driving up the cloud-rack. Hence proceeds That blending of the feathered choirs afield, The cattle's exultation, and the rooks'

Deep-throated triumph.

But if the headlong sun And moons in order following thou regard, Ne'er will to-morrow's hour deceive thee, ne'er Wilt thou be caught by guile of cloudless night.

When first the moon recalls her rallying fires, If dark the air clipped by her crescent dim, For folks afield and on the open sea A mighty rain is brewing; but if her face With maiden blush she mantle, 'twill be wind, For wind turns Phoebe still to ruddier gold.

But if at her fourth rising, for 'tis that Gives surest counsel, clear she ride thro' heaven With horns unblunted, then shall that whole day, And to the month's end those that spring from it, Rainless and windless be, while safe ash.o.r.e Shall sailors pay their vows to Panope, Glaucus, and Melicertes, Ino's child.

The sun too, both at rising, and when soon He dives beneath the waves, shall yield thee signs; For signs, none trustier, travel with the sun, Both those which in their course with dawn he brings, And those at star-rise. When his springing orb With spots he pranketh, m.u.f.fled in a cloud, And shrinks mid-circle, then of showers beware; For then the South comes driving from the deep, To trees and crops and cattle bringing bane.

Or when at day-break through dark clouds his rays Burst and are scattered, or when rising pale Aurora quits t.i.thonus' saffron bed, But sorry shelter then, alack I will yield Vine-leaf to ripening grapes; so thick a hail In spiky showers spins rattling on the roof.

And this yet more 'twill boot thee bear in mind, When now, his course upon Olympus run, He draws to his decline: for oft we see Upon the sun's own face strange colours stray; Dark tells of rain, of east winds fiery-red; If spots with ruddy fire begin to mix, Then all the heavens convulsed in wrath thou'lt see- Storm-clouds and wind together. Me that night Let no man bid fare forth upon the deep, Nor rend the rope from sh.o.r.e. But if, when both He brings again and hides the day's return, Clear-orbed he shineth, idly wilt thou dread The storm-clouds, and beneath the l.u.s.tral North See the woods waving. What late eve in fine Bears in her bosom, whence the wind that brings Fair-weather-clouds, or what the rain South Is meditating, tokens of all these The sun will give thee. Who dare charge the sun With leasing? He it is who warneth oft Of hidden broils at hand and treachery, And secret swelling of the waves of war.

He too it was, when Caesar's light was quenched, For Rome had pity, when his bright head he veiled In iron-hued darkness, till a G.o.dless age Trembled for night eternal; at that time Howbeit earth also, and the ocean-plains, And dogs obscene, and birds of evil bode Gave tokens. Yea, how often have we seen Etna, her furnace-walls asunder riven, In billowy floods boil o'er the Cyclops' fields, And roll down globes of fire and molten rocks!

A clash of arms through all the heaven was heard By Germany; strange heavings shook the Alps.

Yea, and by many through the breathless groves A voice was heard with power, and wondrous-pale Phantoms were seen upon the dusk of night, And cattle spake, portentous! streams stand still, And the earth yawns asunder, ivory weeps For sorrow in the shrines, and bronzes sweat.

Up-twirling forests with his eddying tide, Madly he bears them down, that lord of floods, Erida.n.u.s, till through all the plain are swept Beasts and their stalls together. At that time In gloomy entrails ceased not to appear Dark-threatening fibres, springs to trickle blood, And high-built cities night-long to resound With the wolves' howling. Never more than then From skies all cloudless fell the thunderbolts, Nor blazed so oft the comet's fire of bale.

Therefore a second time Philippi saw The Roman hosts with kindred weapons rush To battle, nor did the high G.o.ds deem it hard That twice Emathia and the wide champaign Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood.

Ay, and the time will come when there anigh, Heaving the earth up with his curved plough, Some swain will light on javelins by foul rust Corroded, or with ponderous harrow strike On empty helmets, while he gapes to see Bones as of giants from the trench untombed.

G.o.ds of my country, heroes of the soil, And Romulus, and Mother Vesta, thou Who Tuscan Tiber and Rome's Palatine Preservest, this new champion at the least Our fallen generation to repair Forbid not. To the full and long ago Our blood thy Trojan perjuries hath paid, Laomedon. Long since the courts of heaven Begrudge us thee, our Caesar, and complain That thou regard'st the triumphs of mankind, Here where the wrong is right, the right is wrong, Where wars abound so many, and myriad-faced Is crime; where no meet honour hath the plough; The fields, their husbandmen led far away, Rot in neglect, and curved pruning-hooks Into the sword's stiff blade are fused and forged.

Euphrates here, here Germany new strife Is stirring; neighbouring cities are in arms, The laws that bound them snapped; and G.o.dless war Rages through all the universe; as when The four-horse chariots from the barriers poured Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now Grasping the reins, the driver by his team Is onward borne, nor heeds the car his curb.

GEORGIC II

Thus far the tilth of fields and stars of heaven; Now will I sing thee, Bacchus, and, with thee, The forest's young plantations and the fruit Of slow-maturing olive. Hither haste, O Father of the wine-press; all things here Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee With viny autumn laden blooms the field, And foams the vintage high with br.i.m.m.i.n.g vats; Hither, O Father of the wine-press, come, And stripped of buskin stain thy bared limbs In the new must with me.

First, nature's law For generating trees is manifold; For some of their own force spontaneous spring, No hand of man compelling, and possess The plains and river-windings far and wide, As pliant osier and the bending broom, Poplar, and willows in wan companies With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be From chance-dropped seed that rear them, as the tall Chestnuts, and, mightiest of the branching wood, Jove's Aesculus, and oaks, oracular Deemed by the Greeks of old. With some sprouts forth A forest of dense suckers from the root, As elms and cherries; so, too, a pigmy plant, Beneath its mother's mighty shade upshoots The bay-tree of Parna.s.sus. Such the modes Nature imparted first; hence all the race Of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred groves Springs into verdure.

Other means there are, Which use by method for itself acquired.

One, sliving suckers from the tender frame Of the tree-mother, plants them in the trench; One buries the bare stumps within his field, Truncheons cleft four-wise, or sharp-pointed stakes; Some forest-trees the layer's bent arch await, And slips yet quick within the parent-soil; No root need others, nor doth the pruner's hand Shrink to restore the topmost shoot to earth That gave it being. Nay, marvellous to tell, Lopped of its limbs, the olive, a mere stock, Still thrusts its root out from the sapless wood, And oft the branches of one kind we see Change to another's with no loss to rue, Pear-tree transformed the ingrafted apple yield, And stony cornels on the plum-tree blush.

Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs According to their kinds, ye husbandmen, And tame with culture the wild fruits, lest earth Lie idle. O blithe to make all Ismarus One forest of the wine-G.o.d, and to clothe With olives huge Tabernus! And be thou At hand, and with me ply the voyage of toil I am bound on, O my glory, O thou that art Justly the chiefest portion of my fame, Maecenas, and on this wide ocean launched Spread sail like wings to waft thee. Not that I With my poor verse would comprehend the whole, Nay, though a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths Were mine, a voice of iron; be thou at hand, Skirt but the nearer coast-line; see the sh.o.r.e Is in our grasp; not now with feigned song Through winding bouts and tedious preludings Shall I detain thee.

Those that lift their head Into the realms of light spontaneously, Fruitless indeed, but blithe and strenuous spring, Since Nature lurks within the soil. And yet Even these, should one engraft them, or transplant To well-drilled trenches, will anon put of Their woodland temper, and, by frequent tilth, To whatso craft thou summon them, make speed To follow. So likewise will the barren shaft That from the stock-root issueth, if it be Set out with clear s.p.a.ce amid open fields: Now the tree-mother's towering leaves and boughs Darken, despoil of increase as it grows, And blast it in the bearing. Lastly, that Which from shed seed ariseth, upward wins But slowly, yielding promise of its shade To late-born generations; apples wane Forgetful of their former juice, the grape Bears sorry cl.u.s.ters, for the birds a prey.

Soothly on all must toil be spent, and all Trained to the trench and at great cost subdued.

But reared from truncheons olives answer best, As vines from layers, and from the solid wood The Paphian myrtles; while from suckers spring Both hardy hazels and huge ash, the tree That rims with shade the brows of Hercules, And acorns dear to the Chaonian sire: So springs the towering palm too, and the fir Destined to spy the dangers of the deep.