The Bucolics and Ecloges [English] | Page 4

the brake,
Still track your footprints
'neath the broiling sun.
Better have borne the petulant proud disdain

Of Amaryllis, or Menalcas wooed,
Albeit he was so dark, and you
so fair!

Trust not too much to colour, beauteous boy;
White privets
fall, dark hyacinths are culled.
You scorn me, Alexis, who or what I

am
Care not to ask- how rich in flocks, or how
In snow-white milk
abounding: yet for me
Roam on Sicilian hills a thousand lambs;

Summer or winter, still my milk-pails brim.
I sing as erst Amphion of
Circe sang,
What time he went to call his cattle home
On Attic
Aracynthus. Nor am I
So ill to look on: lately on the beach
I saw
myself, when winds had stilled the sea,
And, if that mirror lie not,
would not fear
Daphnis to challenge, though yourself were judge.

Ah! were you but content with me to dwell.
Some lowly cot in the
rough fields our home,
Shoot down the stags, or with green
osier-wand
Round up the straggling flock! There you with me
In
silvan strains will learn to rival Pan.
Pan first with wax taught reed
with reed to join;
For sheep alike and shepherd Pan hath care.
Nor
with the reed's edge fear you to make rough
Your dainty lip; such arts
as these to learn
What did Amyntas do?- what did he not?
A pipe
have I, of hemlock-stalks compact
In lessening lengths, Damoetas'
dying-gift:
'Mine once,' quoth he, 'now yours, as heir to own.'

Foolish Amyntas heard and envied me.
Ay, and two fawns, I risked
my neck to find
In a steep glen, with coats white-dappled still,

From a sheep's udders suckled twice a dayThese
still I keep for you;
which Thestilis
Implores me oft to let her lead away;
And she shall
have them, since my gifts you spurn.
Come hither, beauteous boy; for
you the Nymphs
Bring baskets, see, with lilies brimmed; for you,

Plucking pale violets and poppy-heads,
Now the fair Naiad, of
narcissus flower
And fragrant fennel, doth one posy twineWith

cassia then, and other scented herbs,
Blends them, and sets the tender
hyacinth off
With yellow marigold. I too will pick
Quinces all
silvered-o'er with hoary down,

Chestnuts, which Amaryllis wont to
love,
And waxen plums withal: this fruit no less
Shall have its meed
of honour; and I will pluck
You too, ye laurels, and you, ye myrtles,
near,
For so your sweets ye mingle. Corydon,
You are a boor, nor
heeds a whit your gifts
Alexis; no, nor would Iollas yield,
Should
gifts decide the day. Alack! alack!
What misery have I brought upon
my head!-
Loosed on the flowers Siroces to my bane,
And the wild

boar upon my crystal springs!
Whom do you fly, infatuate? gods ere
now,
And Dardan Paris, have made the woods their home.
Let
Pallas keep the towers her hand hath built,
Us before all things let the
woods delight.
The grim-eyed lioness pursues the wolf,
The wolf
the she-goat, the she-goat herself
In wanton sport the flowering
cytisus,
And Corydon Alexis, each led on
By their own longing.
See, the ox comes home
With plough up-tilted, and the shadows grow

To twice their length with the departing sun,
Yet me love burns,
for who can limit love?
Ah! Corydon, Corydon, what hath crazed
your wit?
Your vine half-pruned hangs on the leafy elm;
Why haste
you not to weave what need requires
Of pliant rush or osier? Scorned
by this,
Elsewhere some new Alexis you will find."
ECLOGUE III
MENALCAS DAMOETAS PALAEMON
MENALCAS
Who owns the flock, Damoetas? Meliboeus?
DAMOETAS
Nay, they are Aegon's sheep, of late by him

Committed to my care.
MENALCAS
O every way
Unhappy sheep, unhappy flock! while he
Still courts
Neaera, fearing lest her choice
Should fall on me, this hireling
shepherd here
Wrings hourly twice their udders, from the flock

Filching the life-juice, from the lambs their milk.
DAMOETAS
Hold! not so ready with your jeers at men!
We know
who once, and in what shrine with youThe
he-goats looked aside- the
light nymphs laughed-
MENALCAS
Ay, then, I warrant, when they saw me slash
Micon's
young vines and trees with spiteful hook.

DAMOETAS
Or here by these old beeches, when you broke
The
bow and arrows of Damon; for you chafed
When first you saw them
given to the boy,
Cross-grained Menalcas, ay, and had you not

Done him some mischief, would have chafed to death.
MENALCAS
With thieves so daring, what can masters do?
Did I
not see you, rogue, in ambush lie
For Damon's goat, while loud
Lycisca barked?
And when I cried, "Where is he off to now?
Gather
your flock together, Tityrus,"
You hid behind the sedges.
DAMOETAS
Well, was he
Whom I had conquered still to keep the goat.
Which
in the piping-match my pipe had won!
You may not know it, but the
goat was mine.
MENALCAS
You out-pipe him? when had you ever pipe

Wax-welded? in the cross-ways used you not
On grating straw some
miserable tune
To mangle?
DAMOETAS
Well, then, shall we try our skill
Each against each in turn? Lest you
be loth,
I pledge this heifer; every day she comes
Twice to the
milking-pail, and feeds withal
Two young ones at her udder: say you
now
What you will stake upon the match with me.
MENALCAS
Naught from the flock I'll venture, for at home
I have
a father and a step-dame harsh,
And twice