Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

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 shore

  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 assigned,

  Or fate a larger prescience, but that when

  The storm and shifting moisture of the air

  Have changed their courses, and the sky-god now,

  Wet with the south-wind, thickens what was rare,

  And what was gross releases, then, too, change

  Their spirits’ fleeting phases, and their breasts

  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 ashore

  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, muffled 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 Tithonus’ 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 shore. 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 lustral 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 godless 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,

  Eridanus, 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 gods 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.

  Gods of my country, heroes of the soil,

  And R
omulus, 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 godless 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 brimming 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 Parnassus. 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-god, 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 shore

  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 space 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 clusters, 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.

  But the rough arbutus with walnut-fruit

  Is grafted; so have barren planes ere now

  Stout apples borne, with chestnut-flower the beech,

  The mountain-ash with pear-bloom whitened o’er,

  And swine crunched acorns ‘neath the boughs of elms.

  Nor is the method of inserting eyes

  And grafting one: for where the buds push forth

  Amidst the bark, and burst the membranes thin,

  Even on the knot a narrow rift is made,

  Wherein from some strange tree a germ they pen,

  And to the moist rind bid it cleave and grow.

  Or, otherwise, in knotless trunks is hewn

  A breach, and deep into the solid grain

  A path with wedges cloven; then fruitful slips

  Are set herein, and- no long time- behold!

  To heaven upshot with teeming boughs, the tree

  Strange leaves admires and fruitage not its own.

  Nor of one kind alone are sturdy elms,

  Willow and lotus, nor the cypress-trees

  Of Ida; nor of self-same fashion spring

  Fat olives, orchades, and radii

  And bitter-berried pausians, no, nor yet

  Apples and the forests of Alcinous;

  Nor from like cuttings are Crustumian pears

  And Syrian, and the heavy hand-fillers.

  Not the same vintage from our trees hangs down,

  Which Lesbos from Methymna’s tendril plucks.

  Vines T
hasian are there, Mareotids white,

  These apt for richer soils, for lighter those:

  Psithian for raisin-wine more useful, thin

  Lageos, that one day will try the feet

  And tie the tongue: purples and early-ripes,

  And how, O Rhaetian, shall I hymn thy praise?

  Yet cope not therefore with Falernian bins.

  Vines Aminaean too, best-bodied wine,

  To which the Tmolian bows him, ay, and king

  Phanaeus too, and, lesser of that name,

  Argitis, wherewith not a grape can vie

  For gush of wine-juice or for length of years.

  Nor thee must I pass over, vine of Rhodes,

  Welcomed by gods and at the second board,

  Nor thee, Bumastus, with plump clusters swollen.

  But lo! how many kinds, and what their names,

  There is no telling, nor doth it boot to tell;

  Who lists to know it, he too would list to learn

  How many sand-grains are by Zephyr tossed

  On Libya’s plain, or wot, when Eurus falls

  With fury on the ships, how many waves

  Come rolling shoreward from the Ionian sea.

  Not that all soils can all things bear alike.

  Willows by water-courses have their birth,

  Alders in miry fens; on rocky heights

  The barren mountain-ashes; on the shore

  Myrtles throng gayest; Bacchus, lastly, loves

  The bare hillside, and yews the north wind’s chill.

  Mark too the earth by outland tillers tamed,

  And Eastern homes of Arabs, and tattooed

  Geloni; to all trees their native lands

  Allotted are; no clime but India bears

  Black ebony; the branch of frankincense

  Is Saba’s sons’ alone; why tell to thee

  Of balsams oozing from the perfumed wood,

  Or berries of acanthus ever green?

  Of Aethiop forests hoar with downy wool,

  Or how the Seres comb from off the leaves

  Their silky fleece? Of groves which India bears,

  Ocean’s near neighbour, earth’s remotest nook,

  Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the air

  Above their tree-tops? yet no laggards they,

  When girded with the quiver! Media yields

  The bitter juices and slow-lingering taste

  Of the blest citron-fruit, than which no aid

  Comes timelier, when fierce step-dames drug the cup

  With simples mixed and spells of baneful power,

  To drive the deadly poison from the limbs.

  Large the tree’s self in semblance like a bay,

  And, showered it not a different scent abroad,

  A bay it had been; for no wind of heaven

  Its foliage falls; the flower, none faster, clings;

  With it the Medes for sweetness lave the lips,