Georgics

Or in the daylight hours, at night they press;

What darkling or at sunset, this ere morn

They bear away in baskets—for to town

The shepherd hies him—or with dash of salt

Just sprinkle, and lay by for winter use.

Nor be thy dogs last cared for; but alike

Swift Spartan hounds and fierce Molossian feed

On fattening whey. Never, with these to watch,

Dread nightly thief afold and ravening wolves,

Or Spanish desperadoes in the rear.

And oft the shy wild asses thou wilt chase,

With hounds, too, hunt the hare, with hounds the doe;

Oft from his woodland wallowing-den uprouse

The boar, and scare him with their baying, and drive,

And o'er the mountains urge into the toils

Some antlered monster to their chiming cry.

Learn also scented cedar-wood to burn

Within the stalls, and snakes of noxious smell

With fumes of galbanum to drive away.

Oft under long-neglected cribs, or lurks

A viper ill to handle, that hath fled

The light in terror, or some snake, that wont

'Neath shade and sheltering roof to creep, and shower

Its bane among the cattle, hugs the ground,

Fell scourge of kine. Shepherd, seize stakes, seize stones!

And as he rears defiance, and puffs out

A hissing throat, down with him! see how low

That cowering crest is vailed in flight, the while,

His midmost coils and final sweep of tail

Relaxing, the last fold drags lingering spires.

Then that vile worm that in Calabrian glades

Uprears his breast, and wreathes a scaly back,

His length of belly pied with mighty spots—

While from their founts gush any streams, while yet

With showers of Spring and rainy south-winds earth

Is moistened, lo! he haunts the pools, and here

Housed in the banks, with fish and chattering frogs

Crams the black void of his insatiate maw.

Soon as the fens are parched, and earth with heat

Is gaping, forth he darts into the dry,

Rolls eyes of fire and rages through the fields,

Furious from thirst and by the drought dismayed.

Me list not then beneath the open heaven

To snatch soft slumber, nor on forest-ridge

Lie stretched along the grass, when, slipped his slough,

To glittering youth transformed he winds his spires,

And eggs or younglings leaving in his lair,

Towers sunward, lightening with three-forked tongue.

Of sickness, too, the causes and the signs

I'll teach thee. Loathly scab assails the sheep,

When chilly showers have probed them to the quick,

And winter stark with hoar-frost, or when sweat

Unpurged cleaves to them after shearing done,

And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is

Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams,

While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell,

The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide.

Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er

With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum

And native sulphur and Idaean pitch,

Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith

Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black.

Yet ne'er doth kindlier fortune crown his toil,

Than if with blade of iron a man dare lance

The ulcer's mouth ope: for the taint is fed

And quickened by confinement; while the swain

His hand of healing from the wound withholds,

Or sits for happier signs imploring heaven.

Aye, and when inward to the bleater's bones

The pain hath sunk and rages, and their limbs

By thirsty fever are consumed, 'tis good

To draw the enkindled heat therefrom, and pierce

Within the hoof-clefts a blood-bounding vein.

Of tribes Bisaltic such the wonted use,

And keen Gelonian, when to Rhodope

He flies, or Getic desert, and quaffs milk

With horse-blood curdled. Seest one far afield

Oft to the shade's mild covert win, or pull

The grass tops listlessly, or hindmost lag,

Or, browsing, cast her down amid the plain,

At night retire belated and alone;

With quick knife check the mischief, ere it creep

With dire contagion through the unwary herd.

Less thick and fast the whirlwind scours the main

With tempest in its wake, than swarm the plagues

Of cattle; nor seize they single lives alone,

But sudden clear whole feeding grounds, the flock

With all its promise, and extirpate the breed.

Well would he trow it who, so long after, still

High Alps and Noric hill-forts should behold,

And Iapydian Timavus' fields,

Ay, still behold the shepherds' realms a waste,

And far and wide the lawns untenanted.

Here from distempered heavens erewhile arose

A piteous season, with the full fierce heat

Of autumn glowed, and cattle-kindreds all

And all wild creatures to destruction gave,

Tainted the pools, the fodder charged with bane.

Nor simple was the way of death, but when

Hot thirst through every vein impelled had drawn