Georgics

Drop milky udders, and on the lush green grass

Fat kids are striving, horn to butting horn.

Himself keeps holy days; stretched o'er the sward,

Where round the fire his comrades crown the bowl,

He pours libation, and thy name invokes,

Lenaeus, and for the herdsmen on an elm

Sets up a mark for the swift javelin; they

Strip their tough bodies for the rustic sport.

Such life of yore the ancient Sabines led,

Such Remus and his brother: Etruria thus,

Doubt not, to greatness grew, and Rome became

The fair world's fairest, and with circling wall

Clasped to her single breast the sevenfold hills.

Ay, ere the reign of Dicte's king, ere men,

Waxed godless, banqueted on slaughtered bulls,

Such life on earth did golden Saturn lead.

Nor ear of man had heard the war-trump's blast,

Nor clang of sword on stubborn anvil set.

But lo! a boundless space we have travelled o'er;

'Tis time our steaming horses to unyoke.

Thee too, great Pales, will I hymn, and thee,

Amphrysian shepherd, worthy to be sung,

You, woods and waves Lycaean. All themes beside,

Which else had charmed the vacant mind with song,

Are now waxed common. Of harsh Eurystheus who

The story knows not, or that praiseless king

Busiris, and his altars? or by whom

Hath not the tale been told of Hylas young,

Latonian Delos and Hippodame,

And Pelops for his ivory shoulder famed,

Keen charioteer? Needs must a path be tried,

By which I too may lift me from the dust,

And float triumphant through the mouths of men.

Yea, I shall be the first, so life endure,

To lead the Muses with me, as I pass

To mine own country from the Aonian height;

I, Mantua, first will bring thee back the palms

Of Idumaea, and raise a marble shrine

On thy green plain fast by the water-side,

Where Mincius winds more vast in lazy coils,

And rims his margent with the tender reed.

Amid my shrine shall Caesar's godhead dwell.

To him will I, as victor, bravely dight

In Tyrian purple, drive along the bank

A hundred four-horse cars. All Greece for me,

Leaving Alpheus and Molorchus' grove,

On foot shall strive, or with the raw-hide glove;

Whilst I, my head with stripped green olive crowned,

Will offer gifts. Even 'tis present joy

To lead the high processions to the fane,

And view the victims felled; or how the scene

Sunders with shifted face, and Britain's sons

Inwoven thereon with those proud curtains rise.

Of gold and massive ivory on the doors

I'll trace the battle of the Gangarides,

And our Quirinus' conquering arms, and there

Surging with war, and hugely flowing, the Nile,

And columns heaped on high with naval brass.

And Asia's vanquished cities I will add,

And quelled Niphates, and the Parthian foe,

Who trusts in flight and backward-volleying darts,

And trophies torn with twice triumphant hand

From empires twain on ocean's either shore.

And breathing forms of Parian marble there

Shall stand, the offspring of Assaracus,

And great names of the Jove-descended folk,

And father Tros, and Troy's first founder, lord

Of Cynthus. And accursed Envy there

Shall dread the Furies, and thy ruthless flood,

Cocytus, and Ixion's twisted snakes,

And that vast wheel and ever-baffling stone.

Meanwhile the Dryad-haunted woods and lawns

Unsullied seek we; 'tis thy hard behest,

Maecenas. Without thee no lofty task

My mind essays. Up! break the sluggish bonds

Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls,

Steed-taming Epidaurus, and thy hounds,

Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves

With peal on peal reverberate the roar.

Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long

The fiery fights of Caesar, speed his name

Through ages, countless as to Caesar's self

From the first birth-dawn of Tithonus old.

If eager for the prized Olympian palm

One breed the horse, or bullock strong to plough,

Be his prime care a shapely dam to choose.

Of kine grim-faced is goodliest, with coarse head

And burly neck, whose hanging dewlaps reach

From chin to knee; of boundless length her flank;

Large every way she is, large-footed even,

With incurved horns and shaggy ears beneath.

Nor let mislike me one with spots of white

Conspicuous, or that spurns the yoke, whose horn

At times hath vice in't: liker bull-faced she,

And tall-limbed wholly, and with tip of tail

Brushing her footsteps as she walks along.

The age for Hymen's rites, Lucina's pangs,

Ere ten years ended, after four begins;

Their residue of days nor apt to teem,

Nor strong for ploughing. Meantime, while youth's delight