Georgics
- 1.71.101
And shower foul ashes o'er the exhausted fields.
- 1.71.102
Thus by rotation like repose is gained,
- 1.71.103
Nor earth meanwhile uneared and thankless left.
- 1.71.104
Oft, too, 'twill boot to fire the naked fields,
- 1.71.105
And the light stubble burn with crackling flames;
- 1.71.106
Whether that earth therefrom some hidden strength
- 1.71.107
And fattening food derives, or that the fire
- 1.71.108
Bakes every blemish out, and sweats away
- 1.71.109
Each useless humour, or that the heat unlocks
- 1.71.110
New passages and secret pores, whereby
- 1.71.111
Their life-juice to the tender blades may win;
- 1.71.112
Or that it hardens more and helps to bind
- 1.71.113
The gaping veins, lest penetrating showers,
- 1.71.114
Or fierce sun's ravening might, or searching blast
- 1.71.115
Of the keen north should sear them. Well, I wot,
- 1.71.116
He serves the fields who with his harrow breaks
- 1.71.117
The sluggish clods, and hurdles osier-twined
- 1.71.118
Hales o'er them; from the far Olympian height
- 1.71.119
Him golden Ceres not in vain regards;
- 1.71.120
And he, who having ploughed the fallow plain
- 1.71.121
And heaved its furrowy ridges, turns once more
- 1.71.122
Cross-wise his shattering share, with stroke on stroke
- 1.71.123
The earth assails, and makes the field his thrall.
- 1.71.124
Pray for wet summers and for winters fine,
- 1.71.125
Ye husbandmen; in winter's dust the crops
- 1.71.126
Exceedingly rejoice, the field hath joy;
- 1.71.127
No tilth makes Mysia lift her head so high,
- 1.71.128
Nor Gargarus his own harvests so admire.
- 1.71.129
Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed,
- 1.71.130
Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth
- 1.71.131
The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn
- 1.71.132
Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain;
- 1.71.133
And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades
- 1.71.134
Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed,
- 1.71.135
See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls,
- 1.71.136
Waking hoarse murmurs o'er the polished stones,
- 1.71.137
And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty fields?
- 1.71.138
Or why of him, who lest the heavy ears
- 1.71.139
O'erweigh the stalk, while yet in tender blade
- 1.71.140
Feeds down the crop's luxuriance, when its growth
- 1.71.141
First tops the furrows? Why of him who drains
- 1.71.142
The marsh-land's gathered ooze through soaking sand,
- 1.71.143
Chiefly what time in treacherous moons a stream
- 1.71.144
Goes out in spate, and with its coat of slime
- 1.71.145
Holds all the country, whence the hollow dykes
- 1.71.146
Sweat steaming vapour?
- 1.118.147
But no whit the more
- 1.118.148
For all expedients tried and travail borne
- 1.118.149
By man and beast in turning oft the soil,
- 1.118.150
Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes
- 1.118.151
And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm,
- 1.118.152
Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself
- 1.118.153
No easy road to husbandry assigned,
- 1.118.154
And first was he by human skill to rouse
- 1.118.155
The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men
- 1.118.156
With care on care, nor suffering realm of his
- 1.118.157
In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove
- 1.118.158
Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
- 1.118.159
To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line—
- 1.118.160
Even this was impious; for the common stock
- 1.118.161
They gathered, and the earth of her own will
- 1.118.162
All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
- 1.118.163
He to black serpents gave their venom-bane,
- 1.118.164
And bade the wolf go prowl, and ocean toss;
- 1.118.165
Shooed from the leaves their honey, put fire away,
- 1.118.166
And curbed the random rivers running wine,
- 1.118.167
That use by gradual dint of thought on thought
- 1.118.168
Might forge the various arts, with furrow's help
- 1.118.169
The corn-blade win, and strike out hidden fire
- 1.118.170
From the flint's heart. Then first the streams were ware
- 1.118.171
Of hollowed alder-hulls: the sailor then
- 1.118.172
Their names and numbers gave to star and star,
- 1.118.173
Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child
- 1.118.174
Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found
- 1.118.175
To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime,
- 1.118.176
And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.
- 1.118.177
Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream,
- 1.118.178
Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils
- 1.118.179
Along the main; then iron's unbending might,
- 1.118.180
And shrieking saw-blade,—for the men of old
- 1.118.181
With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;—
- 1.118.182
Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all,
- 1.118.183
Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push
- 1.118.184
In times of hardship. Ceres was the first
- 1.118.185
Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod,
- 1.118.186
When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear
- 1.118.187
Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food
- 1.118.188
Dodona gave no more. Soon, too, the corn
- 1.118.189
Gat sorrow's increase, that an evil blight
- 1.118.190
Ate up the stalks, and thistle reared his spines
- 1.118.191
An idler in the fields; the crops die down;
- 1.118.192
Upsprings instead a shaggy growth of burrs
- 1.118.193
And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim
- 1.118.194
Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway.
- 1.118.195
Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake
- 1.118.196
The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds,
- 1.118.197
Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade,
- 1.118.198
Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye,
- 1.118.199
Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow,
- 1.118.200
And in the greenwood from a shaken oak
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Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0690.phi002.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.