by Virgil
If they but knew! They’re steeped in luck, country people,
being far removed from grinds of war, where earth that’s just
showers them with all that they could ever ask for.
So what if he hasn’t a mansion with gates designed to impress
and callers traipsing in and out all morning long.
460
So what if there’s no rabble gawking at the entrance with its gaudy tortoiseshell veneer,
and tapestries with gold filigree, and bronzes plundered on a march to Corinth.
So what if their wool’s merely bleached and not stained with Assyrian dyes,
and the olive oil they use hasn’t been diluted with that tint of cinnamon—
no, what they have is the quiet life—carefree and no deceit—
and wealth untold—their ease among cornucopiae,
with grottoes, pools of running water and valleys cool even in warm weather,
the sounds of cattle and sweet snoozes in the shade.
There are glades and greenwoods, lairs of game,
young men wed to meagre fare but born and built for work.
470
Here, too, is reverence for god and holy fathers, and it was here
that Justice left her final footprints as she was taking leave of earth.
And as for me, my most ardent wish is that sweet Poetry,
whose devotee I am, smitten as I’ve been with such commitment,
would open up to me the courses of the stars in heaven,
the myriad eclipses of the sun and phases of the moon,
whence come earthquakes, which are the reason deep seas surge
to burst their bounds before receding peacefully,
480
and are the why winter suns dash to dip themselves into the ocean
and are what causes long nights to last and linger.
But if I am not the one to sound the ways of the world
because my heart’s lack of feeling stands in the way,
then let me be satisfied with rural beauty, streams bustling through the glens;
let me love woods and running water—though I’ll have failed. Oh, for the open countryside
along the Spercheus, or the mountains of Taygetus,* its horde of Spartan maidens
ripe for the picking! Oh, for the one who’d lay me down to rest
in cool valleys of the Haemus range and mind me in the shade of mighty branches!
That man* has all the luck who can understand what makes the world
490
tick, who has crushed underfoot his fears about
what’s laid out in store for him and stilled the roar of Hell’s esurient river.
Indeed he’s blessed, who’s comfortable with country gods—
Pan and old Sylvanus,* and the sorority of nymphs.
High public office doesn’t turn his head, nor regal pomp,
nor civil strife when friends and allies are at odds,
nor the Dacian league descending from the Danube,
nor even all concerns and cares of Rome, or any one provisional domain.
For those with wants he feels a sorrow, not envy for the ones with none.
The fruit on trees, all the country offers for the taking,
he’ll gather. To cruel codes of law, or madding market places,
or the public record office—he simply gives no thought.
500
Others rush in rowboats into uncharted waters, and race to take up arms,
they work their way into the inner courts and chambers of the king.
This man aspires to the sack of Rome itself, all its poor hearths and homes,
just so he might imbibe from cups inlaid with gems and sleep beneath the coverings of an emperor.
That man stockpiles a fortune while he broods on buried treasure.
This man looks on with open mouth at speakers in the forum, while that one is struck dumb
by the applause that punctuates the talk of senators and even common people,
and ripples all the way along the benches, while others still spill
their brothers’ blood
510
and ne’er a care. They strike out from the home place and forge a life in exile,
searching for warm welcome in a fatherland* beneath a foreign sun.
A countryman cleaves earth with his crooked plough. Such is the labour
of his life. So he sustains his native land and those who follow
in his footsteps; so he supports a team of oxen and keeps cattle in good order.
All go and no let up—so that the seasons teem with fruit,
fields fill up with bullocks, and big arms of barley stand in stooks.
They’ve overflowed the furrows, they’ll burst the barns.
Come winter, and the best of olives run spilling from the mills,
the pigs come back aglow on feeds of acorns, the arbutus tree
520
refreshes its pale foliage—and in such ways the autumn serves its bounty,
while up on open ground the vintage basks on boulders and ripens in the sun’s caress.
And all the while dear sons await each show of his affection,
his home remains a model of propriety, with milkers plunging
their four quarters, and kids delighting in lush pastures
and locking horns in playful jousts.
The countryman observes his holidays by taking ease out in the fields
with friends around a fire, garlands adorning goblets
from which they’ll drink to you, Bacchus, as he arranges contests and competitions
for the hired help, hurling javelins at a target marked out on an elm,
530
and sturdy hands undress themselves for wrestling bouts.
That was the life, and those the ways the Sabines cultivated in the days of old,
they, and Remus and his brother, so there could be no doubt
that Tuscany would go from strength to strength* and Rome become
gem of the world, embracing seven hills inside a single wall.
In days before a Cretan king held sway, times
when sacrilegious races fed on sacrificial oxen,
that was the life enjoyed on earth by splendid Saturn,*
when they were yet to hear the flare of battle trumpets
and the battering out of swords upon an anvil.
But we have covered vast tracts of matter and, besides,
540
it’s high time that we released the sweating horses from their halters.
BOOK THREE
You too, Pales, great goddess of the folds, and you, Apollo, who tended flocks,
and all of you, woods and waters of Arcadia, we’ll mind for ever in our songs.
They’re tired themes that might have once engaged the lazy intellect
in Poetry—who hasn’t heard of Eurystheus (who heaped hardships onto Hercules)
or of the altars established by Busiris which none could love?
Who hasn’t told the tale of Hylas (and his boy’s loss at sea), of Latona from the isle of Delos,
of Hippodamia and Pelops, that outstanding rider, his shoulder reconstructed out of ivory.*
What I need is to find a way I too can rise in triumph
from the earth and live on in the mouths of men.* I’ll be the first, the very first, if I’m let live long enough,
10
to bring back to my own place from the heights of Helicon* the prize of the Muses—
I’ll be the first to bring back to you, Mantua, the palms of Idumaea,*
and I’ll erect a marble temple in a grassy meadow by the waters
of the wide Mincius whose ambling course flows this way and that,
its sides tossing their fringe of wavy rushes.
At its centre I’ll place Caesar,* master of the shrine,
and in his honour—the day being mine—resplendent in my purple robes,
/>
I’ll drive five score of teams-of-four up and down along the bank.
Because of me, all Greece will leave the Alpheus and the cypress groves of Molorchus*
to compete in running races and bruising bouts of boxing,
20
while I, presiding, my brow wreathed in a chaplet of clipped olive leaves,
administer the offerings. Already I can see how pleased I’ll be
to front that rich procession and observe the sacrificial slaughter of young stock;
or, when the stage is set, to see it turn and open on a change of scene
as ornate curtains rise to reveal embroidered Britons in the backdrop.
On its doors I will have carved in gold and solid ivory
images of battle, of the Ganges, and the all-conquering regiments of Romulus,
and, yes, the mighty Nile in the full flood of war,
and columns springing up and decorated with bronze prows of battleships.
And I’ll add in the Asian cities we’ve defeated and Niphates’ heights we’ve overcome,
30
and the deceiving Parthian who feigns to turn his thought to flight
and—imagine—fires arrows backwards, and that pair of trophies snatched
from different enemies, those races twice defeated at two far edges of the ocean.*
Then I’ll set up, cut in stone from Paros, statues standing in relief so true to life
they seem to breathe, the scions of Assaracus,* famous race of Jupiter,
the founding father Tros, and he who set up Troy, Apollo;
Jealousy, from which no good could ever come, will quake and quiver before Cocytus,
that grim river, and Ixion tied to a rotating wheel with writhing snakes for ropes,
and the rock that bested everyone.*
Meanwhile we’ll trace the Dryads’ woods and virgin glades,
40
no little task that you’ve laid out for me, Maecenas,
for without encouragement from you, what could I amount to? Come on! Help me
shake off this lassitude. Mount Cithaeron is raucous with the roars of hunters,
Taygetus with the loud looing of hounds and Epidaurus,* home place of horse-handlers,
and, among the trees, the echoes ring, and what they’re urging is Yes, yes.
That time’s not far away when I’ll have girt myself to sing of Caesar’s hard-fought battles
and guarantee he’ll live, in name and fame, down all the years
that separate the first emergence of Tithonus* from his own appearance.
Whether it’s in hope of taking gold at the Olympics a man keeps a string of horses,
or to have them fit to pull the plough he keeps strong bullocks,
50
he must, above all else, take in the make-up of the mare and mother cow;
cattle choice for breeding have a ferocious look, unsightly head
and thickset neck, and dewlap dangling all the way from jowl to heel,
their flanks as long as long can be, everything outsize,
down to their hooves; they’ve a shaggy heap of ears beneath horns
that are curved inward. And I don’t mind markings like the stains of milk
and cattle that from time to time resist the yoke
and ruffle their heads with a look that’s more the look of a bull
and, when they shuffle here or there, sweep away their tracks with one swish of their tails.
The years appropriate to have them covered by the bull and left to calve
60
begin after they’re four and end before they’re ten.
Their other years, they’re neither fit to breed nor hale enough to haul the plough,
so, while they have youth to burn, turn loose the bulls to run with them;
don’t hesitate to have them know the ways of love
and so produce your own replacements, one after the one before.
Poor creatures that we are, the best days of our lives
are first to fly; along come sickness, sorrows and the sores
of age; and what sweeps us away only a mortal tide.
Let there never be a time you wouldn’t introduce changes to improve your stock,
70
nor times you wouldn’t go so far as to supplant them; rather than regret
your losses later, anticipate them, and each year take your chances on new blood.
Horses, too, must be subjected to a course of similar selection.
On whatever ones you plan to keep for breeding
bestow particular attention from the start.
See at once how well-bred members of the herd as foals in fields
step lighter than the others and yet land their feet so daintily.
And one, the first and foremost, will lead the way to brave a river
and the hazards of an unfamiliar bridge.
And he won’t tremble at a hollow din. His is a long tapered neck
and graceful head, his body firm, back broad,
80
and shoulders showing off their muscle. Roans and chestnuts
are to be preferred, duns and greys to be avoided.
And there’s more—at the clang of distant armour
he can’t stand still, he’s all ears, flanks aquiver,
as he struggles to contain his fiery breath in flaring nostrils.
His mane is thick and settles on his right side when it’s shaken.
That horse is in such fine fettle his spine lies in a hollow between both sets of loins.
His hooves resound as they eat up the ground and spit it out again.
Such was Cyllarus, the horse that Pollux brought on to the rein,*
as was that pair of horses tackled by the war god, Mars,
90
to a double-tree, and the team of great Achilles—all these
Greek poets put on record. Nimble Saturn, at his wife’s arrival,*
threw a horse’s mane across his neck and, as he fled,
set Mount Pelion shaking with a stallion’s snort.
Your chosen one, weakened with a fill of illness or the weight of years—
keep him shut up at home, suppressing any sympathy for the dishonour
