Georgics

Once when in gloom she flies the watery Fish,

And dips from heaven into the wintry wave.

Unbounded then their wrath; if hurt, they breathe

Venom into their bite, cleave to the veins

And let the sting lie buried, and leave their lives

Behind them in the wound. But if you dread

Too rigorous a winter, and would fain

Temper the coming time, and their bruised hearts

And broken estate to pity move thy soul,

Yet who would fear to fumigate with thyme,

Or cut the empty wax away? for oft

Into their comb the newt has gnawed unseen,

And the light-loathing beetles crammed their bed,

And he that sits at others' board to feast,

The do-naught drone; or 'gainst the unequal foe

Swoops the fierce hornet, or the moth's fell tribe;

Or spider, victim of Minerva's spite,

Athwart the doorway hangs her swaying net.

The more impoverished they, the keenlier all

To mend the fallen fortunes of their race

Will nerve them, fill the cells up, tier on tier,

And weave their granaries from the rifled flowers.

Now, seeing that life doth even to bee-folk bring

Our human chances, if in dire disease

Their bodies' strength should languish—which anon

By no uncertain tokens may be told—

Forthwith the sick change hue; grim leanness mars

Their visage; then from out the cells they bear

Forms reft of light, and lead the mournful pomp;

Or foot to foot about the porch they hang,

Or within closed doors loiter, listless all

From famine, and benumbed with shrivelling cold.

Then is a deep note heard, a long-drawn hum,

As when the chill South through the forests sighs,

As when the troubled ocean hoarsely booms

With back-swung billow, as ravening tide of fire

Surges, shut fast within the furnace-walls.

Then do I bid burn scented galbanum,

And, honey-streams through reeden troughs instilled,

Challenge and cheer their flagging appetite

To taste the well-known food; and it shall boot

To mix therewith the savour bruised from gall,

And rose-leaves dried, or must to thickness boiled

By a fierce fire, or juice of raisin-grapes

From Psithian vine, and with its bitter smell

Centaury, and the famed Cecropian thyme.

There is a meadow-flower by country folk

Hight star-wort; 'tis a plant not far to seek;

For from one sod an ample growth it rears,

Itself all golden, but girt with plenteous leaves,

Where glory of purple shines through violet gloom.

With chaplets woven hereof full oft are decked

Heaven's altars: harsh its taste upon the tongue;

Shepherds in vales smooth-shorn of nibbling flocks

By Mella's winding waters gather it.

The roots of this, well seethed in fragrant wine,

Set in brimmed baskets at their doors for food.

But if one's whole stock fail him at a stroke,

Nor hath he whence to breed the race anew,

'Tis time the wondrous secret to disclose

Taught by the swain of Arcady, even how

The blood of slaughtered bullocks oft has borne

Bees from corruption. I will trace me back

To its prime source the story's tangled thread,

And thence unravel. For where thy happy folk,

Canopus, city of Pellaean fame,

Dwell by the Nile's lagoon-like overflow,

And high o'er furrows they have called their own

Skim in their painted wherries; where, hard by,

The quivered Persian presses, and that flood

Which from the swart-skinned Aethiop bears him down,

Swift-parted into sevenfold branching mouths

With black mud fattens and makes Aegypt green,

That whole domain its welfare's hope secure

Rests on this art alone. And first is chosen

A strait recess, cramped closer to this end,

Which next with narrow roof of tiles atop

'Twixt prisoning walls they pinch, and add hereto

From the four winds four slanting window-slits.

Then seek they from the herd a steer, whose horns

With two years' growth are curling, and stop fast,

Plunge madly as he may, the panting mouth

And nostrils twain, and done with blows to death,

Batter his flesh to pulp i' the hide yet whole,

And shut the doors, and leave him there to lie.

But 'neath his ribs they scatter broken boughs,

With thyme and fresh-pulled cassias: this is done

When first the west winds bid the waters flow,

Ere flush the meadows with new tints, and ere

The twittering swallow buildeth from the beams.

Meanwhile the juice within his softened bones

Heats and ferments, and things of wondrous birth,

Footless at first, anon with feet and wings,

Swarm there and buzz, a marvel to behold;

And more and more the fleeting breeze they take,

Till, like a shower that pours from summer-clouds,

Forth burst they, or like shafts from quivering string

When Parthia's flying hosts provoke the fray.

Say what was he, what God, that fashioned forth

This art for us, O Muses? of man's skill