The Bucolics and Ecloges [English] | Page 3

Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy

Reclining, on the slender oat rehearse
Your silvan ditties: I from my

sweet fields,
And home's familiar bounds, even now depart.
Exiled
from home am I; while, Tityrus, you
Sit careless in the shade, and, at
your call,
"Fair Amaryllis" bid the woods resound.
TITYRUS
O Meliboeus, 'twas a god vouchsafed
This ease to us,
for him a god will I
Deem ever, and from my folds a tender lamb

Oft with its life-blood shall his altar stain.
His gift it is that, as your
eyes may see,
My kine may roam at large, and I myself
Play on my
shepherd's pipe what songs I will.
MELIBOEUS
I grudge you not the boon, but marvel more,
Such
wide confusion fills the country-side.
See, sick at heart I drive my
she-goats on,
And this one, O my Tityrus, scarce can lead:
For 'mid
the hazel-thicket here but now
She dropped her new-yeaned twins on
the bare flint,
Hope of the flock- an ill, I mind me well,
Which
many a time, but for my blinded sense,
The thunder-stricken oak
foretold, oft too
From hollow trunk the raven's ominous cry.
But
who this god of yours? Come, Tityrus, tell.
TITYRUS
The city, Meliboeus, they call Rome,
I, simpleton,
deemed like this town of ours,
Whereto we shepherds oft are wont to
drive
The younglings of the flock: so too I knew
Whelps to
resemble dogs, and kids their dams,
Comparing small with great; but
this as far
Above all other cities rears her head
As cypress above
pliant osier towers.
MELIBOEUS
And what so potent cause took you to Rome?
TITYRUS
Freedom, which, though belated, cast at length
Her eyes
upon the sluggard, when my beard
'Gan whiter fall beneath the
barber's bladeCast
eyes, I say, and, though long tarrying, came,

Now when, from Galatea's yoke released,
I serve but Amaryllis: for I
will own,

While Galatea reigned over me, I had
No hope of
freedom, and no thought to save.
Though many a victim from my

folds went forth,
Or rich cheese pressed for the unthankful town,

Never with laden hands returned I home.
MELIBOEUS
I used to wonder, Amaryllis, why
You cried to
heaven so sadly, and for whom
You left the apples hanging on the
trees;
'Twas Tityrus was away. Why, Tityrus,
The very pines, the
very water-springs,
The very vineyards, cried aloud for you.
TITYRUS
What could I do? how else from bonds be freed,
Or
otherwhere find gods so nigh to aid?
There, Meliboeus, I saw that
youth to whom
Yearly for twice six days my altars smoke.
There
instant answer gave he to my suit,
"Feed, as before, your kine, boys,
rear your bulls."
MELIBOEUS
So in old age, you happy man, your fields
Will still
be yours, and ample for your need!
Though, with bare stones
o'erspread, the pastures all
Be choked with rushy mire, your ewes
with young
By no strange fodder will be tried, nor hurt
Through
taint contagious of a neighbouring flock.
Happy old man, who 'mid
familiar streams
And hallowed springs, will court the cooling shade!

Here, as of old, your neighbour's bordering hedge,
That feasts with
willow-flower the Hybla bees,
Shall oft with gentle murmur lull to
sleep,
While the leaf-dresser beneath some tall rock
Uplifts his song,
nor cease their cooings hoarse
The wood-pigeons that are your heart's
delight,
Nor doves their moaning in the elm-tree top.
TITYRUS
Sooner shall light stags, therefore, feed in air,
The seas
their fish leave naked on the strand,
Germans and Parthians shift their
natural bounds,
And these the Arar, those the Tigris drink,
Than
from my heart his face and memory fade.
MELIBOEUS
But we far hence, to burning Libya some,
Some to
the Scythian steppes, or thy swift flood,
Cretan Oaxes, now must
wend our way,

Or Britain, from the whole world sundered far.
Ah!

shall I ever in aftertime behold
My native bounds- see many a harvest
hence
With ravished eyes the lowly turf-roofed cot
Where I was
king? These fallows, trimmed so fair,
Some brutal soldier will
possess these fields
An alien master. Ah! to what a pass
Has civil
discord brought our hapless folk!
For such as these, then, were our
furrows sown!
Now, Meliboeus, graft your pears, now set
Your
vines in order! Go, once happy flock,
My she-goats, go. Never again
shall I,
Stretched in green cave, behold you from afar
Hang from
the bushy rock; my songs are sung;
Never again will you, with me to
tend,
On clover-flower, or bitter willows, browse.
TITYRUS
Yet here, this night, you might repose with me,
On
green leaves pillowed: apples ripe have I,
Soft chestnuts, and of
curdled milk enow.
And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar,

And from the hills the shadows lengthening fall!
ECLOGUE II
ALEXIS
The shepherd Corydon with love was fired
For fair Alexis, his own
master's joy:
No room for hope had he, yet, none the less,
The
thick-leaved shadowy-soaring beech-tree grove
Still would he haunt,
and there alone, as thus,
To woods and hills pour forth his artless
strains.
"Cruel Alexis, heed you naught my songs?
Have you no
pity? you'll drive me to my death.
Now even the cattle court the
cooling shade
And the green lizard hides him in the thorn:
Now for
tired mowers, with the fierce heat spent,
Pounds Thestilis her mess of
savoury herbs,
Wild thyme and garlic. I, with none beside,
Save
hoarse cicalas shrilling through