The Eclogues
By Virgil.
Translated by John Dryden.
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Pastoral I
Tityrus and Meliboeus
The occasion of the first Pastoral was this. When Augustus had settled himself in the Roman empire, that he might reward his veteran troops for their past service, he distributed among them all the lands that lay about Cremona and Mantua, turning out the right owners for having sided with his enemies. Virgil was a sufferer among the rest; who afterwards recovered his estate by Maecenas’s intercession, and, as an instance of his gratitude, composed the following Pastoral, where he sets out his own good fortune in the person of Tityrus, and the calamities of his Mantuan neighbours in the character of Meliboeus.
Meliboeus |
Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse,
|
Tityrus |
These blessings, friend, a deity bestowed:
|
Meliboeus |
I envy not your fortune, but admire,
|
Tityrus |
Fool that I was, I thought imperial Rome
|
Meliboeus |
What great occasion called you hence to Rome? |
Tityrus |
Freedom, which came at length, though slow to come.
|
Meliboeus |
We stood amazed to see your mistress mourn,
|
Tityrus |
What should I do?—While here I was enchained,
|
Meliboeus |
O fortunate old man! whose farm remains—
|
Tityrus |
The inhabitants of seas and skies shall change,
|
Meliboeus |
But we must beg our bread in climes unknown,
|
Tityrus |
This night, at least, with me forget your care;
|
Pastoral II
Alexis
The commentators can by no means agree on the person of Alexis, but are all of opinion that some beautiful youth is meant by him, to whom Virgil here makes love, in Corydon’s language and simplicity. His way of courtship is wholly pastoral: he complains of the boy’s coyness; recommends himself for his beauty and skill in piping; invites the youth into the country, where he promises him the diversions of the place, with a suitable present of nuts and apples. But when he finds nothing will prevail, he resolves to quit his troublesome amour, and betake himself again to his former business.
Young Corydon, the unhappy shepherd swain,
The fair Alexis loved, but loved in vain;
And underneath the beechen shade, alone,
Thus to the woods and mountains made his moan:
Is this, unkind Alexis, my reward?
And must I die unpitied, and unheard?
Now the green lizard in the grove is laid;
The sheep enjoy the coolness of the shade:
And Thestylis wild thyme and garlic beats,
For harvest hinds, o’erspent with toil and heats;
While in the scorching sun I trace in vain
Thy flying footsteps o’er the burning plain.
The creaking locusts with my voice conspire,
They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire.
How much more easy was it to sustain
Proud Amaryllis, and her haughty reign;
The scorns of young Menalcas, once my care,
Though he was black, and thou art heavenly fair!
Trust not too much to that enchanting face:
Beauty’s a charm; but soon the charm will pass.
White lilies lie neglected on the plain,
While dusky hyacinths for use remain.
My passion is thy scorn; nor wilt thou know
What wealth I have, what gifts I can bestow;
What stores my dairies and my folds contain—
A thousand lambs that wander on the plain,
New milk that, all the winter, never fails,
And, all the summer, overflows the pails.
Amphion sung not sweeter to his herd,
When summoned stones the Theban turrets reared.
Nor am I so deformed; for late I stood
Upon the margin of the briny flood:
The winds were still; and, if the glass be true,
With Daphnis I may vie, though judged by you.
O leave the noisy town: O come and see
Our country cots, and live content with me!
To wound the flying deer, and from their cotes
With me to drive a-field the browsing goats;
To pipe and sing, and in our country strain,
To copy, or perhaps contend with Pan.
Pan taught to join with wax unequal reeds;
Pan loves the shepherds, and their flocks he feeds.
Nor scorn the pipe: Amyntas, to be taught,
With all his kisses would my skill have bought.
Of seven smooth joints a mellow pipe I have,
Which with his dying breath Damoetas gave,
And said, “This, Corydon, I leave to thee;
For only thou deserv’st it after me.”
His eyes Amyntas durst not upward lift;
For much he grudged the praise, but more the gift.
Besides, two kids, that in the valley strayed,
I found by chance, and to my fold conveyed;
They drain two bagging udders every day;
And these shall be companions of thy play;
Both flecked with white, the true Arcadian strain,
Which Thestylis had often begged in vain:
And she shall have them, if again she sues,
Since you the giver and the gift refuse.
Come to my longing arms, my lovely care!
And take the presents which the nymphs prepare.
White lilies in full canisters they bring,
With all the glories of the purple spring.
The daughters of the flood have searched the mead
For violets pale, and cropped the poppy’s head,
The short narcissus and fair daffodil,
Pansies to please the sight, and cassia sweet to smell:
And set soft hyacinths with iron-blue,
To shade marsh marigolds of shining hue;
Some bound in order, others loosely strewed,
To dress thy bower, and trim thy new abode.
Myself will search our planted grounds at home,
For downy peaches and the glossy plum:
And thrash the chestnuts in the neighbouring grove,
Such as my Amaryllis used to love.
The laurel and the myrtle sweets agree;
And both in nosegays shall be bound for thee.
Ah, Corydon! ah, poor unhappy swain!
Alexis will thy homely gifts disdain;
Nor, shouldst thou offer all thy little store,
Will rich Iolas yield, but offer more.
What have I done, to name that wealthy swain!
So powerful are his presents, mine so mean!
The boar amidst my crystal streams I bring:
And southern winds to blast my flowery spring.
Ah, cruel creature! whom dost thou despise?
The gods, to live in woods, have left the skies:
And godlike Paris, in the Idaean grove,
To Priam’s wealth preferred Oenone’s love.
In cities, which she built, let Pallas reign;
Towers are for gods, but forests for the swain.
The greedy lioness the wolf pursues,
The wolf the kid, the wanton kid the browse;
Alexis thou art chased by Corydon:
All follow several games, and each his own.
See, from afar the fields no longer smoke;
The sweating steers, unharnassed from the yoke,
Bring, as in triumph, back the crooked plough;
The shadows lengthen as the sun goes low;
Cool breezes now the raging heats remove;
Ah! cruel heaven, that made no cure for love!
I wish for balmy sleep, but wish in vain:
Love has no bounds in pleasure, or in pain.
What frenzy, shepherd, has thy soul possessed?
Thy vineyard lies half-pruned, and half-undressed.
Quench, Corydon, thy long-unanswered fire,
Mind what the common wants of life require:
On willow twigs employ thy weaving care;
And find an easier love, though not so fair.
Pastoral III
Palaemon
Menalcas. Damoetas. Palaemon
Damoetas and Menalcas, after some smart strokes of country raillery, resolve to try who has the most skill at a song; and accordingly make their neighbour Palaemon judge of their performances; who, after a full hearing of both parties, declares himself unfit for the decision of so weighty a controversy, and leaves the victory undetermined.
Menalcas |
Ho, swain! what shepherd owns those ragged sheep? |
Damoetas |
Aegon’s they are: he gave them me to keep. |
Menalcas |
Unhappy sheep of an unhappy swain!
|
Damoetas |
Good words, young catamite, at least to men.
|
Menalcas |
Yes, when I cropt the hedges of the leas,
|
Damoetas |
Or rather, when beneath yon ancient oak,
|
Menalcas |
What nonsense would the fool thy master prate,
|
Damoetas |
An honest man may freely take his own:
|
Menalcas |
Thou sing with him? thou booby! Never pipe
|
Damoetas |
To bring it to the trial, will you dare
|
Menalcas |
That should be seen, if I had one to make.
|
Damoetas |
And I have two, to match your pair, at home;
|
Menalcas |
No more delays, vain boaster, but begin!
|
Damoetas |
Rhymer, come on! and do the worst you can.
|
Palaemon |
Sing, then: the shade affords a proper place;
|
Damoetas |
From the great father of the gods above
|
Menalcas |
Me Phoebus loves; for he my muse inspires;
|
Damoetas |
My Phyllis me with pelted apples plies:
|
Menalcas |
But fair Amyntas comes unasked to me,
|
Damoetas |
To the dear mistress of my love-sick mind,
|
Menalcas |
Ten ruddy wildings in the wood I found,
|
Damoetas |
The lovely maid lay panting in my arms;
|
Menalcas |
Ah! what avails it me, my love’s delight,
|
Damoetas |
I keep my birthday: send my Phyllis home:
|
Menalcas |
With Phyllis I am more in grace than you:
|
Damoetas |
The nightly wolf is baneful to the fold,
|
Menalcas |
The kids with pleasure browse the bushy plain;
|
Damoetas |
Pollio my rural verse vouchsafes to read:
|
Menalcas |
My Pollio writes himself: a bull be bred,
|
Damoetas |
Who Pollio loves, and who his muse admires,
|
Menalcas |
Who hates not living Bavius, let him be
|
Damoetas |
Ye boys, who pluck the flowers, and spoil the spring,
|
Menalcas |
Graze not too near the banks, my jolly sheep:
|
Damoetas |
From rivers drive the kids, and sling your hook:
|
Menalcas |
To fold, my flock!—when milk is dried with heat,
|
Damoetas |
How lank my bulls from plenteous pasture come!
|
Menalcas |
My flocks are free from love, yet look so thin,
|
Damoetas |
Say, where the round of heaven, which all contains,
|
Menalcas |
Nay, tell me first, in what new region springs
|
Palaemon |
So nice a difference in your singing lies,
|
Pastoral IV
Pollio
The poet celebrates the birthday of Saloninus, the son of Pollio, born in the consulship of his father, after the taking of Salonae, a city in Dalmatia. Many of the verses are translated from one of the Sibyls, who prophesied of our Saviour’s birth.
Sicilian muse, begin a loftier strain!
Though lowly shrubs, and trees that shade the plain,
Delight not all; Sicilian muse, prepare
To make the vocal woods deserve a consul’s care.
The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finished course: Saturnian times
Roll round again; and mighty years, begun
From their first orb, in radiant circles run.
The base degenerate iron offspring ends:
A golden progeny from heaven descends.
O chaste Lucina! speed the mother’s pains;
And haste the glorious birth! thy own Apollo reigns!
The lovely boy, with his auspicious face,
Shall Pollio’s consulship and triumph grace:
Majestic months set out with him to their appointed race.
The father banished virtue shall restore;
And crimes shall threat the guilty world no more.
The son shall lead the life of gods, and be
By gods and heroes seen, and gods and heroes see.
The jarring nations he in peace shall bind,
And with paternal virtues rule mankind.
Unbidden earth shall wreathing ivy bring,
And fragrant herbs (the promises of spring),
As her first offerings to her infant king.
The goats with strutting dugs shall homeward speed,
And lowing herds secure from lions, feed.
His cradle shall with rising flowers be crowned:
The serpent’s brood shall die; the sacred ground
Shall weeds and poisonous plants refuse to bear;
Each common bush shall Syrian roses wear.
But when heroic verse his youth shall raise,
And form it to hereditary praise,
Unlaboured harvests shall the fields adorn,
And clustered grapes shall blush on every thorn;
The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep,
And through the matted grass the liquid cold shall creep.
Yet, of old fraud some footsteps shall remain:
The merchant still shall plough the deep for gain;
Great cities shall with walls be compassed round;
And sharpened shares shall vex the fruitful ground;
Another Tiphys shall new seas explore;
Another Argo land the chiefs upon the Iberian shore;
Another Helen other wars create,
And great Achilles urge the Trojan fate.
But when to ripened manhood he shall grow,
The greedy sailor shall the seas forego:
No keel shall cut the waves for foreign ware;
For every soil shall every product bear.
The labouring hind his oxen shall disjoin;
No plough shall hurt the glebe, no pruning hook the vine;
Nor wool shall in dissembled colours shine;
But the luxurious father of the fold,
With native purple or unborrowed gold,
Beneath his pompous fleece shall proudly sweat;
And under Tyrian robes the lamb shall bleat.
The Fates, when they this happy web have spun,
Shall bless the sacred clue, and bid it smoothly run.
Mature in years, to ready honours move,
O of celestial seed! O foster-son of Jove!
See, labouring Nature calls thee to sustain
The nodding frame of heaven, and earth, and main!
See to their base restored, earth, seas, and air;
And joyful ages, from behind, in crowding ranks appear.
To sing thy praise, would heaven my breath prolong,
Infusing spirits worthy such a song,
Not Thracian Orpheus should transcend my lays,
Nor Linus crowned with never-fading bays;
Though each his heavenly parent should inspire;
The muse instruct the voice, and Phoebus tune the lyre.
Should Pan contend in verse, and thou my theme,
Arcadian judges should their god condemn.
Begin, auspicious boy! to cast about
Thy infant eyes, and, with a smile, thy mother single out.
Thy mother well deserves that short delight,
The nauseous qualms of ten long months and travail to requite.
Then smile! the frowning infant’s doom is read,
No god shall crown the board, nor goddess bless the bed.
Pastoral V
Daphnis
Menalcas. Mopsus
Mopsus and Menalcas, two very expert shepherds at a song, begin one, by consent, to the memory of Daphnis, who is supposed by the best critics to represent Julius Caesar. Mopsus laments his death; Menalcas proclaims his divinity; the whole eclogue consisting of an elegy and an apotheosis.
Menalcas |
Since on the downs our flocks together feed,
|
Mopsus |
Whether you please that sylvan scene to take,
|
Menalcas |
Your merit and your years command the choice:
|
Mopsus |
What will not that presuming shepherd dare,
|
Menalcas |
Begin you first; if either Alcon’s praise,
|
Mopsus |
Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat,
|
Menalcas |
Such as the shrub to the tall olive shows,
|
Mopsus |
No more, but sit and hear the promised lay:
|
Menalcas |
O heavenly poet! such thy verse appears,
|
Mopsus |
How is my soul with such a promise raised;
|
Menalcas |
Daphnis, the guest of heaven, with wondering eyes
|
Mopsus |
What present, worth thy verse, can Mopsus find?
|
Menalcas |
Receive you first this tuneful pipe, the same
|
Mopsus |
Accept from me this sheep-hook in exchange;
|
Pastoral VI
Silenus
Two young shepherds, Chromis and Mnasylus, having been often promised a song by Silenus, chance to catch him asleep in this Pastoral; where they bind him hand and foot, and then claim his promise. Silenus, finding they would be put off no longer, begins his song, in which he describes the formation of the universe, and the original of animals, according to the Epicurean philosophy; and then runs through the most surprising transformations which have happened in Nature since her birth. This Pastoral was designed as a compliment to Syron the Epicurean, who instructed Virgil and Varus in the principles of that philosophy. Silenus acts as tutor, Chromis and Mnasylus as the two pupils.
I first transferred to Rome Sicilian strains:
Nor blushed the Doric Muse to dwell on Mantuan plains.
But when I tried her tender voice, too young,
And fighting kings and bloody battles sung,
Apollo checked my pride, and bade me feed
My fattening flocks, nor dare beyond the reed.
Admonished thus, while every pen prepares
To write thy praises, Varus, and thy wars,
My pastoral muse her humble tribute brings;
And yet not wholly uninspired she sings;
For all who read, and, reading, not disdain
These rural poems, and their lowly strain,
The name of Varus oft inscribed shall see
In every grove, and every vocal tree;
And all the sylvan reign shall sing of thee:
Thy name, to Phoebus and the muses known,
Shall in the front of every page be shown;
For he who sings thy praise secures his own.
Proceed, my muse!—Two satyrs, on the ground,
Stretched at his ease, their sire Silenus found,
Dosed with his fumes, and heavy with his load,
They found him snoring in his dark abode,
And seized with youthful arms the drunken god.
His rosy wreath was dropt not long before,
Borne by the tide of wine, and floating on the floor.
His empty can, with ears half worn away,
Was hung on high, to boast the triumph of the day.
Invaded thus, for want of better bands,
His garland they unstring, and bind his hands:
For, by the fraudful god deluded long,
They now resolve to have their promised song.
Aegle came in, to make their party good,
The fairest Naïs of the neighbouring flood;
And, while he stares around with stupid eyes,
His brows with berries, and his temples, dyes.
He finds the fraud, and, with a smile, demands
On what design the boys had bound his hands.
“Loose me (he cried:) ’twas impudence to find
A sleeping god; ’tis sacrilege to bind.
To you the promised poem I will pay;
The nymph shall be rewarded in her way.”
He raised his voice; and soon a numerous throng
Of tripping satyrs crowded to the song;
And sylvan fauns, and savage beasts, advanced;
And nodding forests to the numbers danced.
Not by Haemonian hills the Thracian bard,
Nor awful Phoebus, was on Pindus heard
With deeper silence or with more regard.
He sung the secret seeds of nature’s frame;
How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame,
Fell through the mighty void, and, in their fall,
Were blindly gathered in this goodly ball.
The tender soil then, stiffening by degrees,
Shut from the bounded earth the bounding seas.
Then earth and ocean various forms disclose;
And a new sun to the new world arose;
And mists, condensed to clouds, obscure the sky;
And clouds, dissolved, the thirsty ground supply.
The rising trees the lofty mountains grace:
The lofty mountains feed the savage race,
Yet few, and strangers, in the unpeopled place.
From thence the birth of man the song pursued,
And how the world was lost, and how renewed:
The reign of Saturn, and the golden age;
Prometheus’ theft, and Jove’s avenging rage:
The cries of Argonauts for Hylas drowned,
With whose repeated name the shores resound;
Then mourns the madness of the Cretan queen:
Happy for her, if herds had never been.
What fury, wretched woman, seized thy breast?
The maids of Argos (though with rage possessed,
Their imitated lowings filled the grove)
Yet shunned the guilt of this preposterous love,
Nor sought the youthful husband of the herd,
Though labouring yokes on their own necks they feared,
And felt for budding horns on their smooth foreheads reared.
Ah, wretched queen! you range the pathless wood,
While on a flowery bank he chews the cud,
Or sleeps in shades, or through the forest roves,
And roars with anguish for his absent loves.
“Ye nymphs, with toils his forest-walk surround,
And trace his wandering footsteps on the ground.
But ah! perhaps my passion he disdains,
And courts the milky mothers of the plains.
We search the ungrateful fugitive abroad,
While they at home sustain their happy load.”
He sung the lover’s fraud; the longing maid,
With golden fruit, like all the sex, betrayed;
The sisters mourning for their brother’s loss;
Their bodies hid in bark, and furred with moss:
How each a rising alder now appears,
And o’er the Po distils her gummy tears:
Then sung, how Gallus, by a muse’s hand,
Was led and welcomed to the sacred strand;
The senate rising to salute their guest;
And Linus thus their gratitude expressed:
“Receive this present, by the muses made,
The pipe on which the Ascraean pastor played;
With which of old he charmed the savage train,
And called the mountain ashes to the plain.
Sing thou, on this, thy Phoebus; and the wood
Where once his fane of Parian marble stood:
On this his ancient oracles rehearse;
And with new numbers grace the god of verse.”
Why should I sing the double Scylla’s fate?
The first by love transformed, the last by hate—
A beauteous maid above; but magic arts
With barking dogs deformed her nether parts:
What vengeance on the passing fleet she poured,
The master frighted and the mates devoured.
Then ravished Philomel the song exprest;
The crime revealed; the sisters’ cruel feast;
And how in fields the lapwing Tereus reigns,
The warbling nightingale in woods complains;
While Procne makes on chimney-tops her moan;
And hovers o’er the palace once her own.
Whatever songs besides the Delphian god
Had taught the laurels, and the Spartan flood,
Silenus sung: the vales his voice rebound,
And carry to the skies the sacred sound.
And now the setting sun had warned the swain
To call his counted cattle from the plain;
Yet still the unwearied sire pursues the tuneful strain,
Till, unperceived, the heavens with stars were hung,
And sudden night surprised the yet unfinished song.
Pastoral VII
Meliboeus
Meliboeus. Corydon. Thyrsis
Meliboeus here gives us the relation of a sharp poetical contest between Thyrsis and Corydon, at which he himself and Daphnis were present; who both declared for Corydon.
Meliboeus |
Beneath a holm, repaired two jolly swains
|
Corydon |
Ye muses, ever fair, and ever young,
|
Thyrsis |
Arcadian swains, your youthful poet crown
|
Corydon |
These branches of a stag, this tusky boar
|
Thyrsis |
This bowl of milk, these cakes (our country fare),
|
Corydon |
Fair Galatea, with thy silver feet,
|
Thyrsis |
May I become as abject in thy sight,
|
Corydon |
Ye mossy springs, inviting easy sleep,
|
Thyrsis |
With heapy fires our cheerful hearth is crowned;
|
Corydon |
Our woods with juniper and chesnuts crowned,
|
Thyrsis |
Parched are the plains, and frying is the field,
|
Corydon |
The poplar is by great Alcides worn;
|
Thyrsis |
The towering ash is fairest in the woods,
|
Meliboeus |
The rhymes I did to memory commend,
|
Pastoral VIII
Pharmaceutria
This Pastoral contains the songs of Damon and Alphesiboeus. The first of them bewails the loss of his mistress, and repines at the success of his rival Mopsus. The other repeats the charms of some enchantress, who endeavoured by her spells and magic to make Daphnis in love with her.
The mournful muse of two despairing swains,
The love rejected, and the lover’s pains;
To which the savage Lynxes listening stood;
The rivers stood on heaps, and stopped the running flood;
The hungry herd their needful food refuse—
Of two despairing swains, I sing the mournful muse.
Great Pollio! thou, for whom thy Rome prepares
The ready triumph of thy finished wars,
Whether Timavus or the Illyrian coast,
Whatever land or sea thy presence boast:
Is there an hour in fate reserved for me,
To sing thy deeds in numbers worthy thee?
In numbers like to thine, could I rehearse
Thy lofty tragic scenes, thy laboured verse;
The world another Sophocles in thee,
Another Homer should behold in me.
Amidst thy laurels let this ivy twine:
Thine was my earliest muse; my latest shall be thine.
Scarce from our upper world the shades withdrew,
Scarce were the flocks refreshed with morning dew,
When Damon, stretched beneath an olive shade,
And wildly staring upwards, thus inveighed
Against the conscious gods, and cursed the cruel maid:
“Star of the morning, why dost thou delay?
Come, Lucifer, drive on the lagging day,
While I my Nisa’s perjured faith deplore—
Witness, ye powers, by whom she falsely swore!
The gods, alas! are witnesses in vain:
Yet shall my dying breath to heaven complain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.
“The pines of Maenalus, the vocal grove,
Are ever full of verse, and full of love;
They hear the hinds, they hear their god complain,
Who suffered not the reeds to rise in vain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.
“Mopsus triumphs: he weds the willing fair!
When such is Nisa’s choice, what lover can despair?
Now griffons join with mares; another age
Shall see the hound and hind their thirst assuage,
Promiscuous at the spring. Prepare the lights,
O Mopsus! and perform the bridal rites.
Scatter thy nuts among the scrambling boys:
Thine is the night, and thine the nuptial joys.
For thee the sun declines: O happy swain!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.
“O, Nisa! justly to thy choice condemned!
Whom hast thou taken, whom hast thou contemned?
For him thou hast refused my browsing herd,
Scorned my thick eyebrows, and my shaggy beard.
Unhappy Damon sighs and sings in vain,
While Nisa thinks no god regards a lover’s pain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.
“I viewed thee first (how fatal was the view!)
And led thee where the ruddy wildings grew,
High on the planted hedge, and wet with morning dew.
Then scarce the bending branches I could win;
The callow down began to clothe my chin.
I saw; I perished; yet indulged my pain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.
“I know thee, Love! in deserts thou wert bred,
And at the dugs of savage tigers fed;
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strains.
“Relentless Love the cruel mother led
The blood of her unhappy babes to shed:
Love lent the sword; the mother struck the blow;
Inhuman she; but more inhuman thou:
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strains.
“Old doting nature change thy course anew;
And let the trembling lamb the wolf pursue:
Let oaks now glitter with Hesperian fruit,
And purple daffodils from alder shoot;
Fat amber let the tamarisk distill,
And hooting owls contend with swans in skill;
Hoarse Tityrus strive with Orpheus in the woods,
And challenge famed Arion on the floods.
Or, oh! let nature cease, and chaos reign!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.
“Let earth be sea; and let the whelming tide
The lifeless limbs of luckless Damon hide:
Farewell, ye secret woods, and shady groves,
Haunts of my youth, and conscious of my loves!
From yon high cliff I plunge into the main:
Take the last present of thy dying swain:
And cease, my silent flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.”
Now take your turns, ye muses, to rehearse
His friend’s complaints, and mighty magic verse.
“Bring running water: bind those altars round
With fillets, and with vervain strew the ground:
Make fat with frankincense the sacred fires,
To reinflame my Daphnis with desires.
’Tis done; we want but verse. Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.
“Pale Phoebe, drawn by verse, from heaven descends;
And Circe changed with charms Ulysses’ friends.
Verse breaks the ground, and penetrates the brake,
And in the winding cavern splits the snake.
Verse fires the frozen veins. Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.
“Around his waxen image first I wind
Three woolen fillets, of three colours joined;
Thrice bind about his thrice-devoted head,
Which round the sacred altar thrice is led.
Unequal numbers please the gods. My charms,
Restore my Daphnis to my longing arms.
“Knit with three knots the fillets: knit them strait:
And say, ‘These knots to love I consecrate!’
Haste, Amaryllis, haste! Restore, my charms,
My lovely Daphnis to my longing arms.
“As fire this figure hardens, made of clay,
And this of wax with fire consumes away;
Such let the soul of cruel Daphnis be—
Hard to the rest of women, soft to me.
Crumble the sacred mole of salt and corn:
Next in the fire the bays with brimstone burn
And, while it crackles in the sulphur, say,
‘This I for Daphnis burn; thus Daphnis burn away!
This laurel is his fate.’ Restore, my charms,
My lovely Daphnis to my longing arms.
“As when the raging heifer, through the grove,
Stung with desire, pursues her wandering love;
Faint at the last, she seeks the weedy pools,
To quench her thirst, and on the rushes rolls,
Careless of night, unmindful to return;
Such fruitless fires perfidious Daphnis burn,
While I so scorn his love! Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.
“These garments once were his, and left to me,
The pledges of his promised loyalty,
Which underneath my threshold I bestow.
These pawns, O sacred earth! to me my Daphnis owe.
As these were his, so mine is he. My charms,
Restore their lingering lord to my deluded arms.
“These poisonous plants, for magic use designed
(The noblest and the best of all the baneful kind),
Old Moeris brought me from the Pontic strand,
And culled the mischief of a bounteous land.
Smeared with these powerful juices, on the plain
He howls a wolf among the hungry train;
And oft the mighty necromancer boasts,
With these to call from tombs the stalking ghosts,
And from the roots to tear the standing corn,
Which, whirled aloft, to distant fields is borne:
Such is the strength of spells. Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.
“Bear out these ashes; cast them in the brook;
Cast backwards o’er your head; nor turn your look:
Since neither gods nor godlike verse can move,
Break out, ye smothered fires, and kindle smothered love.
Exert your utmost power, my lingering charms;
And force my Daphnis to my longing arms.
“See, while my last endeavours I delay,
The waking ashes rise, and round our altars play!
Run to the threshold, Amaryllis—hark!
Our Hylax opens, and begins to bark.
Good heaven! may lovers what they wish believe?
Or dream their wishes, and those dreams deceive?
No more! my Daphnis comes! no more, my charms!
He comes, he runs, he leaps to my desiring arms.”
Pastoral IX
Lycidas and Moeris
When Virgil, by the favour of Augustus, had recovered his patrimony near Mantua, and went in hope to take possession, he was in danger to be slain by Arius the centurion, to whom those lands were assigned by the emperor, in reward of his service against Brutus and Cassius. This Pastoral therefore is filled with complaints of his hard usage; and the persons introduced are the bailiff of Virgil, Moeris, and his friend Lycidas.
Lycidas |
Ho, Moeris! whither on thy way so fast?
|
Moeris |
O Lycidas! at last
|
Lycidas |
Your country friends were told another tale—
|
Moeris |
Such was the news, indeed; but songs and rhymes
|
Lycidas |
Now heaven defend! could barbarous rage induce
|
Moeris |
Or what unfinished he to Varus read—
|
Lycidas |
Sing on, sing on: for I can ne’er be cloyed.
|
Moeris |
’Tis what I have been conning in my mind;
|
Lycidas |
Or that sweet song I heard with such delight;
|
Moeris |
“Why, Daphnis, dost thou search in old records,
|
Lycidas |
Thy faint excuses but inflame me more:
|
Moeris |
Cease to request me; let us mind our way:
|
Pastoral X
Gallus
Gallus, a great patron of Virgil, and an excellent poet, was very deeply in love with one Citheris, whom he calls Lycoris, and who had forsaken him for the company of a soldier. The poet therefore supposes his friend Gallus retired, in his height of melancholy, into the solitudes of Arcadia (the celebrated scene of pastorals), where he represents him in a very languishing condition, with all the rural deities about him, pitying his hard usage, and condoling his misfortune.
Thy sacred succour, Arethusa, bring,
To crown my labour (’tis the last I sing),
Which proud Lycoris may with pity view:
The muse is mournful, though the numbers few.
Refuse me not a verse, to grief and Gallus due.
So may thy silver streams beneath the tide,
Unmixed with briny seas, securely glide.
Sing then my Gallus, and his hopeless vows;
Sing while my cattle crop the tender browse.
The vocal grove shall answer to the sound,
And echo, from the vales, the tuneful voice rebound.
What lawns or woods withheld you from his aid,
Ye nymphs, when Gallus was to love betrayed,
To love, unpitied by the cruel maid?
Not steepy Pindus could retard your course,
Nor cleft Parnassus, nor the Aonian source:
Nothing that owns the muses, could suspend
Your aid to Gallus:—Gallus is their friend.
For him the lofty laurel stands in tears,
And hung with humid pearls the lowly shrub appears.
Maenalian pines the godlike swain bemoan,
When spread beneath a rock, he sighed alone;
And cold Lycaeus wept from every dropping stone.
The sheep surround their shepherd, as he lies:
Blush not, sweet poet, nor the name despise:
Along the streams, his flock Adonis fed;
And yet the queen of beauty blest his bed.
The swains and tardy neat-herds came, and last
Menalcas, wet with beating winter mast.
Wondering, they asked from whence arose thy flame.
Yet more amazed, thy own Apollo came.
Flushed were his cheeks, and glowing were his eyes:
“Is she thy care? is she thy care? (he cries)
Thy false Lycoris flies thy love and thee,
And for thy rival, tempts the raging sea,
The forms of horrid war, and heaven’s inclemency.”
Silvanus came: his brows a country crown
Of fennel, and of nodding lilies, drown.
Great Pan arrived; and we beheld him too,
His cheeks and temples of vermilion hue.
“Why, Gallus, this immoderate grief? (he cried)
Think’st thou that love with tears is satisfied?
The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews,
The bees with flowery shrubs, the goats with browse.”
Unmoved, and with dejected eyes, he mourned:
He paused, and then these broken words returned:
“ ’Tis past; and pity gives me no relief:
But you, Arcadian swains, shall sing my grief,
And on your hills my last complaints renew:
So sad a song is only worthy you.
How light would lie the turf upon my breast,
If you my sufferings in your songs exprest!
Ah! that your birth and business had been mine—
To pen the sheep, and press the swelling vine!
Had Phyllis or Amyntas caused my pain,
Or any nymph or shepherd on the plain,
(Though Phyllis brown, though black, Amyntas were,
Are violets not sweet, because not fair?)
Beneath the sallows and the shady vine,
My loves had mixed their pliant limbs with mine:
Phyllis with myrtle wreaths had crowned my hair,
And soft Amyntas sung away my care.
Come, see what pleasures in our plains abound;
The woods, the fountains and the flowery ground.
As you are beauteous, were you half so true,
Here could I live, and love, and die, with only you.
Now I to fighting fields am sent afar,
And strive in winter camps with toils of war;
While you (alas, that I should find it so!)
To shun my sight, your native soil forgo,
And climb the frozen Alps, and tread the eternal snow.
Ye frosts and snows, her tender body spare!
Those are not limbs for icicles to tear.
For me, the wilds and deserts are my choice;
The muses, once my care; my once harmonious voice.
There will I sing, forsaken and alone:
The rocks and hollow caves shall echo to my moan.
The rind of every plant her name shall know;
And as the rind extends, the love shall grow.
Then on Arcadian mountains will I chase
(Mixed with the woodland nymphs) the savage race;
Nor cold shall hinder me, with horns and hounds
To thrid the thickets, or to leap the mounds.
And now methinks o’er steepy rocks I go,
And rush through sounding woods, and bend the Parthian bow;
As if with sports my sufferings I could ease,
Or by my pains the god of love appease.
My frenzy changes: I delight no more
On mountain-tops to chase the tusky boar:
No game but hopeless love my thoughts pursue:
Once more, ye nymphs, and songs, and sounding woods, adieu!
Love alters not for us his hard decrees,
Not though beneath the Thracian clime we freeze,
Or Italy’s indulgent heaven forgo,
And in mid-winter tread Sithonian snow;
Or, when the barks of elms are scorched, we keep
On Meroë’s burning plains the Libyan sheep.
In hell, and earth, and seas, and heaven above,
Love conquers all; and we must yield to Love.
My muses, here your sacred raptures end:
The verse was what I owed my suffering friend.
This while I sung, my sorrows I deceived,
And bending osiers into baskets weaved.
The song, because inspired by you, shall shine;
And Gallus will approve, because ’tis mine—
Gallus, for whom my holy flames renew,
Each hour, and every moment rise in view;
As alders, in the spring, their boles extend,
And heave so fiercely, that the bark they rend.
Now let us rise; for hoarseness oft invades
The singer’s voice, who sings beneath the shades.
From juniper unwholesome dews distill,
That blast the sooty corn, the withering herbage kill:
Away, my goats, away! for you have browsed your fill.
Colophon
The Eclogues
was completed around 38 BC by
Virgil.
It was translated from Latin in 1697 by
John Dryden.
This ebook was transcribed and produced for
Standard Ebooks
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Emma Sweeney,
and is based on digital scans from the
HathiTrust Digital Library.
The cover page is adapted from
Mercure, Argus et Io,
a painting completed in 1665 by
Adriaen van de Velde.
The cover and title pages feature the
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The first edition of this ebook was released on
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