The Georgics

What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn
The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn;
The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine;
And how to raise on elms the teeming vine;
The birth and genius of the frugal bee,
I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee.

Ye deities! who fields and plains protect,
Who rule the seasons, and the year direct,
Bacchus and fostering Ceres, powers divine,
Who gave us corn for mast, for water, wine:
Ye Fawns, propitious to the rural swains,
Ye Nymphs that haunt the mountains and the plains,
Join in my work, and to my numbers bring
Your needful succour; for your gifts I sing.
And thou, whose trident struck the teeming earth,
And made a passage for the courser’s birth;
And thou, for whom the Cean shore sustains
Thy milky herds that graze the flowery plains;
And thou, the shepherds’ tutelary god,
Leave, for a while, O Pan! thy loved abode;
And, if Arcadian fleeces be thy care,
From fields and mountains to my song repair.
Inventor, Pallas, of the fattening oil,
Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman’s toil;
And thou, whose hands the shrowd-like cypress rear;
Come, all ye gods and goddesses, that wear
The rural honours, and increase the year;
You, who supply the ground with seeds of grain;
And you, who swell those seeds with kindly rain;
And chiefly thou, whose undetermined state
Is yet the business of the gods’ debate,
Whether in after-times to be declared
The patron of the world, and Rome’s peculiar guard,
Or o’er the fruits and seasons to preside,
And the round circuit of the year to guide—
Powerful of blessings, which thou strew’st around,
And with thy goddess-mother’s myrtle crowned.
Or wilt thou, Caesar, choose the watery reign,
To smooth the surges, and correct the main?
Then mariners, in storms, to thee shall pray;
E’en utmost Thulè shall thy power obey;
And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.
The watery virgins for thy bed shall strive,
And Tethys all her waves in dowry give.
Or wilt thou bless our summers with thy rays,
And, seated near the Balance, poise the days,
Where in the void of heaven, a space is free,
Betwixt the Scorpion and the Maid, for thee?
The Scorpion, ready to receive thy laws,
Yields half his region, and contracts his claws.
Whatever part of heaven thou shalt obtain,
(For let not hell presume of such a reign;
Nor let so dire a thirst of empire move
Thy mind, to leave thy kindred gods above;
Though Greece admires Elysium’s blest retreat,
Though Proserpine affects her silent seat,
And, importuned by Ceres to remove,
Prefers the fields below to those above),
But thou propitious, Caesar! guide my course,
And to my bold endeavours add thy force:
Pity the poet’s and the ploughman’s cares;
Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs,
And use thyself betimes to hear our prayers.

While yet the spring is young, while earth unbinds
Her frozen bosom to the western winds;
While mountain snows dissolve against the sun,
And streams yet new, from precipices run;
E’en in this early dawning of the year,
Produce the plough, and yoke the sturdy steer,
And goad him till he groans beneath his toil,
Till the bright share is buried in the soil.
That crop rewards the greedy peasant’s pains,
Which twice the sun, and twice the cold sustains,
And bursts the crowded barns with more than promised gains.
But, ere we stir the yet unbroken ground,
The various course of seasons must be found;
The weather, and the setting of the winds,
The culture suiting to the several kinds
Of seeds and plants, and what will thrive and rise,
And what the genius of the soil denies.
This ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres, suits:
That other loads the trees with happy fruits:
A fourth, with grass, unbidden, decks the ground.
Thus Tmolus is with yellow saffron crowned:
India black ebon and white ivory bears;
And soft Idumè weeps her od’rous tears.
Thus Pontus sends her beaver-stones from far;
And naked Spaniards temper steel for war:
Epirus, for the Elean chariot, breeds
(In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds.

This is the original contract; these the laws
Imposed by Nature, and by Nature’s cause,
On sundry places, when Deucalion hurled
His mother’s entrails on the desert world;
Whence men, a hard laborious kind, were born.
Then borrow part of winter for thy corn,
And early, with thy team, the glebe in furrows turn;
That, while the turf lies open, and unbound,
Succeeding suns may bake the mellow ground.
But, if the soil be barren, only scar
The surface, and but lightly print the share,
When cold Arcturus rises with the sun;
Lest wicked weeds the corn should overrun
In watery soils; or lest the barren sand
Should suck the moisture from the thirsty land.
Both these unhappy soils the swain forbears,
And keeps a sabbath of alternate years,
That the spent earth may gather heart again,
And, bettered by cessation, bear the grain.
At least where vetches, pulse, and tares, have stood,
And stalks of lupines grew (a stubborn wood),
The ensuing season, in return, may bear
The bearded product of the golden year:
For flax and oats will burn the tender field,
And sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield.
But sweet vicissitudes of rest and toil
Make easy labour, and renew the soil.
Yet sprinkle sordid ashes all around,
And load with fattening dung thy fallow ground.
Thus change of seeds for meagre soils is best;
And earth manured, not idle, though at rest.

Long practice has a sure improvement found,
With kindled fires to burn the barren ground,
When the light stubble, to the flames resigned,
Is driven along, and crackles in the wind.
Whether from hence the hollow womb of earth
Is warmed with secret strength for better birth;
Or, when the latent vice is cured by fire,
Redundant humours through the pores expire;
Or that the warmth distends the chinks, and makes
New breathings, whence new nourishment she takes;
Or that the heat the gaping ground constrains,
New knits the surface, and new strings the veins;
Lest soaking showers should pierce her secret seat,
Or freezing Boreas chill her genial heat,
Or scorching suns too violently beat.

Nor is the profit small the peasant makes,
Who smooths with harrows, or who pounds with rakes,
The crumbling clods; nor Ceres from on high
Regards his labours with a grudging eye;
Nor his, who ploughs across the furrowed grounds,
And on the back of earth inflicts new wounds;
For he, with frequent exercise, commands
The unwilling soil, and tames the stubborn lands.

Ye swains, invoke the powers who rule the sky,
For a moist summer, and a winter dry;
For winter drought rewards the peasant’s pain,
And broods indulgent on the buried grain.
Hence Mysia boasts her harvests, and the tops
Of Gargarus admire their happy crops.
When first the soil receives the fruitful seed
Make no delay, but cover it with speed:
So fenced from cold, the pliant furrows break,
Before the surly clod resists the rake;
And call the floods from high, to rush amain
With pregnant streams, to swell the teeming grain.
Then, when the fiery suns too fiercely play,
And shrivelled herbs on withering stems decay,
The wary ploughman, on the mountain’s brow,
Undams his watery stores—huge torrents flow,
And, rattling down the rocks, large moisture yield,
Tempering the thirsty fever of the field;
And, lest the stem, too feeble for the freight,
Should scarce sustain the head’s unwieldy weight,
Sends in his feeding flocks betimes, to invade
The rising bulk of the luxuriant blade,
Ere yet the aspiring offspring of the grain
O’ertops the ridges of the furrowed plain;
And drains the standing waters, when they yield
Too large a beverage to the drunken field:
But most in autumn, and the showery spring,
When dubious months uncertain weather bring;
When fountains open, when impetuous rain
Swells hasty brooks, and pours upon the plain;
When earth with slime and mud is covered o’er,
Or hollow places spew their watery store.

Nor yet the ploughman, nor the labouring steer,
Sustain alone the hazards of the year:
But glutton geese, and the Strymonian crane,
With foreign troops, invade the tender grain;
And towering weeds malignant shadows yield;
And spreading succory chokes the rising field.
The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees,
Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease,
And wills that mortal men, inured to toil,
Should exercise with pains, the grudging soil;
Himself invented first the shining share,
And whetted human industry by care;
Himself did handicrafts and arts ordain,
Nor suffered sloth to rust his active reign.
Ere this, no peasant vexed the peaceful ground,
Which only turfs and greens for altars, found:
No fences parted fields, nor marks nor bounds
Distinguished acres of litigious grounds;
But all was common, and the fruitful earth
Was free to give her unexacted birth.
Jove added venom to the viper’s brood,
And swelled, with raging storms, the peaceful flood;
Commissioned hungry wolves to infest the fold,
And shook from oaken leaves the liquid gold;
Removed from humane reach the cheerful fire,
And from the rivers bade the wine retire;
That studious need might useful arts explore;
From furrowed fields to reap the foodful store,
And force the veins of clashing flints to expire
The lurking seeds of their celestial fire.
Then first on seas the hollowed alder swam;
Then sailors quartered heaven, and found a name
For every fixed and every wandering star—
The Pleiads, Hyads, and the Northern Car.
Then toils for beasts, and lime for birds, were found,
And deep-mouthed dogs did forest walks surround;
And casting-nets were spread in shallow brooks,
Drags in the deep, and baits were hung on hooks.
Then saws were toothed, and sounding axes made;
(For wedges first did yielding wood invade);
And various arts in order did succeed,
(What cannot endless labour, urged by need?)

First Ceres taught, the ground with grain to sow,
And armed with iron shares the crooked plough;
When now Dodonian oaks no more supplied
Their mast, and trees their forest-fruit denied.
Soon was his labour doubled to the swain,
And blasting mildews blackened all his grain;
Tough thistles choked the fields, and killed the corn,
And an unthrifty crop of weeds was born:
Then burs and brambles, an unbidden crew
Of graceless guests, the unhappy field subdue;
And oats unblest, and darnel domineers
And shoots its head above the shining ears;
So that, unless the land with daily care
Is exercised, and, with an iron war
Of rakes and harrows, the proud foes expelled,
And birds with clamours frighted from the field—
Unless the boughs are lopped that shade the plain,
And heaven invoked with vows for fruitful rain—
On others’ crops you may with envy look,
And shake for food the long-abandoned oak.

Nor must we pass untold what arms they wield,
Who labour tillage and the furrowed field;
Without whose aid the ground her corn denies,
And nothing can be sown, and nothing rise—
The crooked plough, the share, the towering height
Of wagons, and the cart’s unwieldy weight,
The sled, the tumbril, hurdles, and the flail,
The fan of Bacchus, with the flying sail—
These all must be prepared, if ploughmen hope
The promised blessing of a bounteous crop.
Young elms, with early force, in copses bow,
Fit for the figure of the crooked plough.
Of eight foot long a fastened beam prepare
On either side the head, produce an ear;
And sink a socket for the shining share.
Of beech the plough-tail, and the bending yoke,
Or softer linden hardened in the smoke.
I could be long in precepts, but I fear
So mean a subject might offend your ear.

Delve of convenient depth your thrashing-floor:
With tempered clay then fill and face it o’er;
And let the weighty roller run the round,
To smooth the surface of the unequal ground;
Lest, cracked with summer heats, the flooring flies,
Or sinks, and through the crannies weeds arise:
For sundry foes the rural realm surround:
The field-mouse builds her garner under ground
For gathered grain: the blind laborious mole
In winding mazes works her hidden hole:
In hollow caverns vermin make abode—
The hissing serpent, and the swelling toad:
The corn-devouring weasel here abides,
And the wise ant her wintry store provides.

Mark well the flowering almonds in the wood;
If odorous blooms the bearing branches load,
The glebe will answer to the sylvan reign;
Great heats will follow, and large crops of grain.
But, if a wood of leaves o’ershade the tree,
Such and so barren will thy harvest be:
In vain the hind shall vex the thrashing-floor;
For empty chaff and straw will be thy store.
Some steep their seed, and some in cauldrons boil,
With vigorous nitre and with lees of oil,
O’er gentle fires, the exuberant juice to drain,
And swell the flattering husks with fruitful grain.
Yet is not the success for years assured,
Though chosen is the seed, and fully cured,
Unless the peasant, with his annual pain,
Renews his choice, and culls the largest grain.
Thus all below, whether by Nature’s curse,
Or Fate’s decree, degenerate still to worse.
So the boat’s brawny crew the current stem,
And, slow advancing, struggle with the stream:
But if they slack their hands, or cease to strive,
Then down the flood with headlong haste they drive.

Nor must the ploughman less observe the skies,
When the Kids, Dragon, and Arcturus, rise,
Than sailors homeward bent, who cut their way
Through Helle’s stormy straits, and oyster-breeding sea.
But, when Astaea’s Balance hung on high,
Betwixt the nights and days divides the sky,
Then yoke your oxen, sow your winter-grain,
Till cold December comes with driving rain.
Linseed and fruitful poppy bury warm,
In a dry season, and prevent the storm.
Sow beans and clover in a rotten soil,
And millet rising from your annual toil,
When with his golden horns, in full career,
The Bull beats down the barriers of the year,
And Argo and the Dog forsake the northern sphere.

But, if your care to wheat alone extend,
Let Maia with her sisters first descend,
And the bright Gnossian diadem downward bend,
Before you trust in earth your future hope;
Or else expect a listless lazy crop.
Some swains have sown before; but most have found
A husky harvest from the grudging ground,
Vile vetches would you sow, or lentils lean?
The growth of Egypt, or the kidney-bean,
Begin when the slow Wagoner descends;
Nor cease your sowing till mid-winter ends.
For this, through twelve bright signs Apollo guides
The year, and earth in several climes divides.
Five girdles bind the skies: the torrid zone
Glows with the passing and repassing sun:
Far on the right and left, the extremes of heaven
To frosts and snows and bitter blasts are given;
Betwixt the midst and these, the gods assigned
Two habitable seats for human kind,
And, ’cross their limits, cut a sloping way,
Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway.
Two poles turn round the globe; one seen to rise
O’er Scythian hills, and one in Libyan skies;
The first sublime in heaven, the last is whirled
Below the regions of the nether world.

Around our pole the spiry Dragon glides,
And like a winding stream, the Bears divides—
The less and greater, who by Fates decree,
Abhor to dive beneath the northern sea.
There, as they say, perpetual night is found
In silence brooding on the unhappy ground:
Or, when Aurora leaves our northern sphere,
She lights the downward heaven, and rises there;
And, when on us she breathes the living light,
Red Vesper kindles there the tapers of the night.
From hence uncertain seasons we may know,
And when to reap the grain, and when to sow;
Or when to fell the furzes; when ’tis meet
To spread the flying canvas for the fleet.
Observe what stars arise or disappear;
And the four quarters of the rolling year.
But, when cold weather and continued rain
The labouring husband in his house restrain,
Let him forecast his work with timely care,
Which else is huddled, when the skies are fair:
Then let him mark the sheep, or whet the shining share,
Or hollow trees for boats, or number o’er
His sacks, or measure his increasing store,
Or sharpen stakes, or head the forks, or twine
The sallow twigs to tie the straggling vine;
Or wicker baskets weave, or air the corn,
Or grinded grain betwixt two marbles turn.
No laws, divine or human, can restrain
From necessary works the labouring swain.
E’en holidays and feasts permission yield
To float the meadows, or to fence the field,
To fire the brambles, snare the birds, and steep
In wholesome water-falls the woolly sheep.
And oft the drudging ass is driven with toil,
To neighbouring towns with apples and with oil;
Returning, late and laden, home with gain
Of bartered pitch, and hand-mills for the grain.

The lucky days, in each revolving moon,
For labour choose; the fifth be sure to shun;
That gave the Furies and pale Pluto birth,
And armed, against the skies, the sons of earth.
With mountains piled on mountains, thrice they strove
To scale the steepy battlements of Jove;
And thrice his lightning and red thunder played,
And their demolished works in ruin laid.
The seventh is, next the tenth, the best to join
Young oxen to the yoke, and plant the vine.
Then, weavers, stretch your stays upon the weft:
The ninth is good for travel, bad for theft.
Some works in dead of night are better done,
Or when the morning dew prevents the sun.
Parched meads and stubble, mow by Phoebe’s light,
Which both require the coolness of the night;
For moisture then abounds, and pearly rains
Descend in silence to refresh the plains.
The wife and husband equally conspire
To work by night, and rake the winter fire:
He sharpens torches in the glimmering room;
She shoots the flying shuttle through the loom;
Or boils in kettles must of wine, and skims,
With leaves, the dregs that overflow the brims:
And till the watchful cock awakes the day,
She sings, to drive the tedious hours away.
But, in warm weather, when the skies are clear,
By daylight reap the product of the year;
And in the sun your golden grain display,
And thrash it out, and winnow it by day.
Plough naked, swain, and naked sow the land;
For lazy winter numbs the labouring hand.
In genial winter, swains enjoy their store,
Forget their hardships and recruit for more.
The farmer to full bowls invites his friends,
And, what he got with pains, with pleasure spends.
So sailors, when escaped from stormy seas,
First crown their vessels, then indulge their ease.
Yet that’s the proper time to thrash the wood
For mast of oak, your fathers’ homely food;
To gather laurel-berries, and the spoil
Of bloody myrtles, and to press your oil;
For stalking cranes to set the guileful snare;
To enclose the stags in toils, and hunt the hare;
With Balearic slings, or Gnossian bow,
To persecute from far the flying doe,
Then, when the fleecy skies new-clothe the wood,
And cakes of rustling ice come rolling down the flood.

Now sing we stormy stars, when autumn weighs
The year, and adds to nights, and shortens days,
And suns declining shine with feeble rays;
What cares must then attend the toiling swain;
Or when the lowering spring, with lavish rain,
Beats down the slender stem and bearded grain,
While yet the head is green, or lightly swelled
With milky moisture, overlooks the field.
E’en when the farmer, now secure of fear,
Sends in the swains to spoil the finished year,
E’en while the reaper fills his greedy hands,
And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands,
Oft have I seen a sudden storm arise,
From all the warring winds that sweep the skies:
The heavy harvest from the root is torn,
And whirled aloft the lighter stubble borne:
With such a force the flying rack is driven,
And such a winter wears the face of heaven:
And oft whole sheets descend of sluicy rain,
Sucked by the spongy clouds from off the main:
The lofty skies at once come pouring down,
The promised crop and golden labours drown.
The dikes are filled; and, with a roaring sound,
The rising rivers float the nether ground;
And rocks the bellowing voice of boiling seas rebound.
The father of the gods his glory shrouds,
Involved in tempests, and a night of clouds;
And from the middle darkness flashing out,
By fits he deals his fiery bolts about.
Earth feels the motions of her angry god,
Her entrails tremble, and her mountains nod,
And flying beasts in forests seek abode:
Deep horror seizes every human breast;
Their pride is humbled and their fear confessed,
While he from high his rolling thunder throws,
And fires the mountains with repeated blows:
The rocks are from their old foundation rent;
The winds redouble, and the rains augment:
The waves on heaps are dashed against the shore;
And now the woods, and now the billows roar.

In fear of this, observe the starry signs,
Where Saturn houses, and where Hermes joins.
But first to heaven thy due devotions pay,
And annual gifts on Ceres’ altars lay.
When winter’s rage abates, when cheerful hours
Awake the spring, and spring awakes the flowers,
On the green turf thy careless limbs display,
And celebrate the mighty Mother’s day;
For then the hills with pleasing shades are crowned,
And sleeps are sweeter on the silken ground:
With milder beams the sun securely shines;
Fat are the lambs, and luscious are the wines.
Let every swain adore her power divine,
And milk and honey mix with sparkling wine;
Let all the choir of clowns attend the show,
In long procession, shouting as they go;
Invoking her to bless their yearly stores,
Inviting plenty to their crowded floors.
Thus in the spring, and thus in summer’s heat,
Before the sickles touch the ripening wheat,
On Ceres call; and let the labouring hind
With oaken wreaths his hollow temples bind:
On Ceres let him call, and Ceres praise,
With uncouth dances, and with country lays.

And that by certain signs we may presage
Of heats and rains, and winds’ impetuous rage,
The sovereign of the heavens has set on high
The moon to mark the changes of the sky;
When southern blasts should cease, and when the swain
Should near their folds his feeding flocks restrain.
For, e’er the rising winds begin to roar,
The working seas advance to wash the shore;
Soft whispers run along the leafy woods,
And mountains whistle to the murmuring floods.
E’en then the doubtful billows scarce abstain
From the tossed vessel on the troubled main;
When crying cormorants forsake the sea,
And, stretching to the covert, wing their way;
When sportful coots run skimming o’er the strand,
When watchful herons leave their watery stand,
And, mounting upward with erected flight,
Gain on the skies, and soar above the sight.
And oft before tempestuous winds arise,
The seeming stars fall headlong from the skies,
And, shooting through the darkness, guild the night
With sweeping glories, and long trails of light;
And chaff with eddy winds is whirled around,
And dancing leaves are lifted from the ground;
And floating feathers on the waters play.

But when the wingèd thunder takes his way
From the cold north, and east and west engage,
And at their frontiers meet with equal rage,
The clouds are crushed; a glut of gathered rain
The hollow ditches fills, and floats the plain;
And sailors furl their dropping sheets amain.
Wet weather seldom hurts the most unwise;
So plain the signs, such prophets are the skies.
The wary crane foresees it first, and sails
Above the storm, and leaves the lowly vales;
The cow looks up, and from afar can find
The change of heaven, and snuffs it in the wind;
The swallow skims the river’s watery face;
The frogs renew the croaks of their loquacious race;
The careful ant her secret cell forsakes,
And drags her eggs along the narrow tracks:
At either horn the rainbow drinks the flood;
Huge flocks of rising rooks forsake their food,
And, crying, seek the shelter of the wood.
Besides, the several sorts of watery fowls,
That swim the seas, or haunt the standing pools,
The swans that sail along the silver flood,
And dive with stretching necks to search their food,
Then lave their backs with sprinkling dews in vain,
And stem the stream to meet the promised rain.
The crow with clamorous cries the shower demands,
And single stalks along the desert sands.
The nightly virgin, while her wheel she plies,
Foresees the storm impending in the skies,
When sparkling lamps their sputtering light advance,
And in the sockets oily bubbles dance.

Then, after showers, ’tis easy to descry
Returning suns, and a serener sky:
The stars shine smarter; and the moon adorns,
As with unborrowed beams, her sharpened horns.
The filmy gossamer now flits no more,
Nor Halcyons bask on the short sunny shore;
Their litter is not tossed by sows unclean;
But a blue droughty mist descends upon the plain;
And owls, that mark the setting sun, declare
A star-light evening, and a morning fair.
Towering aloft, avenging Nisus flies,
While, dared, below the guilty Scylla lies.
Wherever frighted Scylla flies away,
Swift Nisus follows and pursues his prey:
Where injured Nisus takes his airy course,
Thence trembling Scylla flies, and shuns his force:
This punishment pursues the unhappy maid,
And thus the purple hair is dearly paid.

Then, thrice the ravens rend the liquid air,
And croaking notes proclaim the settled fair.
Then, round their airy palaces they fly,
To greet the sun; and seized with secret joy,
When storms are overblown, with food repair
To their forsaken nests and callow care.
Not that I think their breasts with heavenly souls
Inspired, as man, who destiny controls:
But, with the changeful temper of the skies,
As rams condense, and sunshine rarefies,
So turn the species in their altered minds,
Composed by calms, and discomposed by winds.
From hence proceeds the birds’ harmonious voice;
From hence the cows exult, and frisking lambs rejoice.

Observe the daily circle of the sun,
And the short year of each revolving moon:
By them thou shalt foresee the following day,
Nor shall a starry night thy hopes betray.
When first the moon appears, if then she shrouds
Her silver crescent tipped with sable clouds,
Conclude she bodes a tempest on the main,
And brews for fields impetuous floods of rain.
Or, if her face with fiery flushing glow,
Expect the rattling winds aloft to blow.
But, four nights old (for that’s the surest sign),
With sharpened horns if glorious then she shine,
Next day, nor only that, but all the moon,
Till her revolving race be wholly run,
Are void of tempests, both by land and sea;
And sailors in the port their promised vow shall pay.

Above the rest, the sun, who never lies,
Foretells the change of weather in the skies:
For, if he rise unwilling to his race,
Clouds on his brows, and spots upon his face:
Or if through mists he shoots his sullen beams,
Frugal of light, in loose and straggling streams;
Suspect a drizzling day, with southern rain,
Fatal to fruits, and flocks, and promised grain.
Or if Aurora, with half-opened eyes,
And a pale sickly cheek, salute the skies;
How shall the vine, with tender leaves, defend
Her teeming clusters, when the storms descend,
When ridgy roofs and tiles can scarce avail
To bar the ruin of the rattling hail?

But, more than all, the setting sun survey,
When down the steep of heaven he drives the day:
For oft we find him finishing his race,
With various colours erring on his face.
If fiery red his glowing globe descends,
High winds and furious tempests he portends:
But, if his cheeks are swoln with livid blue,
He bodes wet weather by his watery hue:
If dusky spots are varied on his brow,
And, streaked with red, a troubled colour show;
That sullen mixture shall at once declare
Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war.
What desperate madman then would venture o’er
The frith, or haul his cables from the shore?
But, if with purple rays he brings the light,
And a pure heaven resigns to quiet night,
No rising winds, or falling storms are nigh;
But northern breezes through the forest fly,
And drive the rack, and purge the ruffled sky.
The unerring sun by certain signs declares,
What the late e’en, or early morn prepares,
And when the south projects a stormy day,
And when the clearing north will puff the clouds away.

The sun reveals the secrets of the sky;
And who dares give the source of light the lie?
The change of empires often he declares,
Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars.
He first the fate of Caesar did foretell,
And pitied Rome, when Rome in Caesar fell;
In iron clouds concealed the public light;
And impious mortals feared eternal night.

Nor was the fact foretold by him alone:
Nature her self stood forth, and seconded the sun.
Earth, air, and seas, with prodigies were signed;
And birds obscene, and howling dogs, divined.
What rocks did Aetna’s bellowing mouth expire
From her torn entrails! and what floods of fire!
What clanks were heard, in German skies afar.
Of arms, and armies, rushing to the war!
Dire earthquakes rent the solid Alps below,
And from their summits shook the eternal snow;
Pale spectres in the close of night were seen,
And voices heard, of more than mortal men,
In silent groves: dumb sheep and oxen spoke;
And streams ran backward, and their beds forsook;
The yawning earth disclosed the abyss of hell:
The weeping statues did the wars foretell;
And holy sweat from brazen idols fell.
Then, rising in his might, the king of floods
Rushed through the forests, tore the lofty woods,
And, rolling onward, with a sweepy sway,
Bore houses, herds, and labouring hinds away.
Blood sprang from wells; wolves howled in towns by night.
And boding victims did the priests affright.
Such peals of thunder never poured from high,
Nor forky lightnings flashed from such a sullen sky.
Red meteors ran across the ethereal space;
Stars disappeared, and comets took their place.
For this, the Emathian plains once more were strewed
With Roman bodies, and just heaven thought good
To fatten twice those fields with Roman blood.
Then, after length of time, the labouring swains
Who turn the turfs of those unhappy plains,
Shall rusty piles from the ploughed furrows take,
And over empty helmets pass the rake—
Amazed at antique titles on the stones,
And mighty relics of gigantic bones.

Ye home-born deities, of mortal birth!
Thou father Romulus, and mother Earth,
Goddess unmoved! whose guardian arms extend
O’er Tuscan Tiber’s course, and Roman towers defend;
With youthful Caesar your joint powers engage,
Nor hinder him to save the sinking age.
O! let the blood, already spilt, atone
For the past crimes of cursed Laomedon!
Heaven wants thee there; and long the gods, we know,
Have grudged thee, Caesar, to the world below,
Where fraud and rapine right and wrong confound,
Where impious arms from every part resound,
And monstrous crimes in every shape are crowned.
The peaceful peasant to the wars is pressed;
The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest;
The plain no pasture to the flock affords;
The crooked scythes are straightened into swords:
And there Euphrates her soft offspring arms,
And here the Rhine rebellows with alarms;
The neighb’ring cities range on sev’ral sides,
Perfidious Mars long-plighted leagues divides,
And o’er the wasted world in triumph rides.
So four fierce coursers, starting to the race,
Scour through the plain, and lengthen every pace;
Nor reins, nor curbs, nor threatening cries, they fear,
But force along the trembling charioteer.

Thus far of tillage, and of heavenly signs:
Now sing, my muse, the growth of generous vines.
The shady groves, the woodland progeny,
And the slow product of Minerva’s tree.

Great father Bacchus! to my song repair;
For clustering grapes are thy peculiar care:
For thee, large bunches load the bending vine;
And the last blessings of the year are thine.
To thee his joys the jolly Autumn owes,
When the fermenting juice the vat o’erflows.
Come, strip with me, my god! come drench all o’er
Thy limbs in must of wine, and drink at every pore.

Some trees their birth to bounteous Nature owe;
For some, without the pains of planting, grow.
With osiers thus the banks of brooks abound,
Sprung from the watery genius of the ground.
From the same principles gray willows come,
Herculean poplar, and the tender broom.
But some, from seeds enclosed in earth, arise;
For thus the mastful chestnut mates the skies.
Hence rise the branching beech and vocal oak,
Where Jove of old oraculously spoke.
Some from the root a rising wood disclose:
Thus elms, and thus the salvage cherry grows:
Thus the green bays, that binds the poet’s brows,
Shoots, and is sheltered by the mother’s boughs.

These ways of planting, Nature did ordain
For trees and shrubs, and all the sylvan reign.
Others there are, by late experience found:
Some cut the shoots, and plant in furrowed ground;
Some cover rooted stalks in deeper mould;
Some, cloven stakes; and (wondrous to behold!)
Their sharpened ends in earth their footing place;
And the dry poles produce a living race.
Some bow their vines, which buried in the plain,
Their tops in distant arches rise again.
Others no root require; the labourer cuts
Young slips, and in the soil securely puts.
E’en stumps of olives, bared of leaves, and dead,
Revive, and oft redeem their withered head.
’Tis usual now an inmate graff to see
With insolence invade a foreign tree:
Thus pears and quinces from the crab-tree come,
And thus the ruddy cornel bears the plum.

Then let the learnèd gardener mark with care
The kinds of stocks, and what those kinds will bear;
Explore the nature of each several tree,
And, known, improve with artful industry:
And let no spot of idle earth be found,
But cultivate the genius of the ground:
For open Ismarus will Bacchus please;
Taburnus loves the shade of olive-trees.

The virtues of the several soils I sing.—
Maecenas, now thy needful succour bring!
O thou! the better part of my renown,
Inspire thy poet, and thy poem crown:
Embark with me, while I new tracts explore,
With flying sails and breezes from the shore:
Not that my song, in such a scanty space,
So large a subject fully can embrace—
Not though I were supplied with iron lungs,
A hundred mouths, filled with as many tongues:
But steer my vessel with a steady hand,
And coast along the shore in sight of land.
Nor will I tire thy patience with a train
Of preface, or what ancient poets feign.

The trees, which of themselves advance in air,
Are barren kinds, but strongly built and fair,
Because the vigour of the native earth
Maintains the plant, and makes a manly birth.
Yet these, receiving graffs of other kind,
Or thence transplanted, change their salvage mind,
Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature’s part,
Obey the rules and discipline of art.
The same do trees, that, sprung from barren roots,
In open fields transplanted bear their fruits.
For, where they grow, the native energy
Turns all into the substance of the tree,
Starves and destroys the fruit, is only made
For brawny bulk, and for a barren shade.
The plant that shoots from seed, a sullen tree,
At leisure grows, for late posterity;
The generous flavour lost, the fruits decay,
And savage grapes are made the birds’ ignoble prey.

Much labour is required in trees, to tame
Their wild disorder, and in ranks reclaim.
Well must the ground be digged, and better dressed,
New soil to make, and meliorate the rest.
Old stakes of olive trees in plants revive;
By the same method Paphian myrtles live;
But nobler vines by propagation thrive.
From roots hard hazels, and, from scions, rise
Tall ash, and taller oak that mates the skies;
Palm, poplar, fir, descending from the steep
Of hills, to try the dangers of the deep.
The thin-leaved arbute, hazle-graffs receives;
And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves
Thus mastful beech the bristly chestnut bears,
And the wild ash is white with blooming pears,
And greedy swine, from grafted elms are fed
With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred.

But various are the ways to change the state
Of plants, to bud, to graff, to inoculate.
For, where the tender rinds of trees disclose
Their shooting gems, a swelling knot there grows:
Just in that space a narrow slit we make,
Then other buds from bearing trees we take;
Inserted thus, the wounded rind we close,
In whose moist womb the admitted infant grows.
But when the smoother bole from knots is free,
We make a deep incision in the tree,
And in the solid wood the slip enclose;
The battening bastard shoots again and grows;
And in short space the laden boughs arise,
With happy fruit advancing to the skies.
The mother plant admires the leaves unknown
Of alien trees, and apples not her own.

Of vegetable woods are various kinds,
And the same species are of several minds.
Lotes, willows, elms, have different forms allowed;
So funeral cypress, rising like a shroud.
Fat olive-trees of sundry sorts appear,
Of sundry shapes their unctuous berries bear.
Radii long olives, Orchites round produce,
And bitter Pausia, pounded for the juice.
Alcinous’ orchard various apples bears:
Unlike are bergamots and pounder pears.
Nor our Italian vines produce the shape,
Or taste, or flavour, of the Lesbian grape.
The Thasian vines in richer soils abound;
The Mareotic grow in barren ground.
The Psythian grape we dry: Lagean juice
Will stammering tongues and staggering feet produce
Rath ripe are some, and some of later kind;
Of golden some, and some of purple rind.
How shall I praise the Rhaetian grape divine,
Which yet contends not with Falernian wine?
The Aminean many a consulship survives,
And longer than the Lydian vintage lives,
Or high Phanaeus, king of Chian growth:
But, for large quantities and lasting, both,
The less Argitis bears the prize away.
The Rhodian, sacred to the solemn day,
In second services is poured to Jove,
And best accepted by the gods above.
Nor must Bumastus his old honours lose,
In length and largeness like the dugs of cows.
I pass the rest, whose every race, and name,
And kinds, are less material to my theme;
Which who would learn, as soon may tell the sands,
Driven by the western wind on Libyan lands,
Or number, when the blustering Eurus roars,
The billows beating on Ionian shores.

Nor every plant on every soil will grow:
The sallow loves the watery ground, and low;
The marshes, alders: Nature seems to ordain
The rocky cliff for the wild ash’s reign;
The baleful yew to northern blasts assigns,
To shores the myrtles, and to mounts the vines.

Regard the extremest cultivated coast,
From hot Arabia to the Scythian frost:
All sort of trees their several countries know;
Black ebon only will in India grow,
And odorous frankincense on the Sabaean bough.
Balm slowly trickles through the bleeding veins
Of happy shrubs in Idumaean plains.
The green Egyptian thorn, for med’cine good,
With Aethiops’ hoary trees and woolly wood,
Let others tell; and how the Seres spin
Their fleecy forests in a slender twine;
With mighty trunks of trees on Indian shores,
Whose height above the feathered arrow soars,
Shot from the toughest bow, and by the brawn
Of expert archers, with vast vigour drawn.
Sharp-tasted citrons, Median climes produce,
(Bitter the rind, but generous is the juice),
A cordial fruit, a present antidote
Against the direful stepdame’s deadly draught,
Who, mixing wicked weeds with words impure,
The fate of envied orphans would procure.
Large is the plant, and like a laurel grows,
And, did it not a different scent disclose,
A laurel were: the fragrant flowers contemn
The stormy winds, tenacious of their stem.
With this, the Medes to labouring age bequeath
New lungs, and cure the sourness of the breath.

But neither Median woods, (a plenteous land),
Fair Ganges, Hermus rolling golden sand,
Nor Bactria, nor the richer Indian fields,
Nor all the gummy stores Arabia yields,
Nor any foreign earth of greater name,
Can with sweet Italy contend in fame.
No bulls, whose nostrils breathe a living flame,
Have turned our turf; no teeth of serpents here
Were sown, an armèd host and iron crop to bear.
But fruitful vines, and the fat olive’s freight,
And harvests heavy with their fruitful weight,
Adorn our fields; and on the cheerful green
The grazing flocks and lowing herds are seen.
The warrior horse, here bred, is taught to train:
There flows Clitumnus through the flowery plain,
Whose waves, for triumphs after prosperous war,
The victim ox and snowy sheep prepare.
Perpetual spring our happy climate sees:
Twice breed the cattle, and twice bear the trees;
And summer suns recede by slow degrees.

Our land is from the rage of tigers freed,
Nor nourishes the lion’s angry seed;
Nor poisonous aconite is here produced,
Or grows unknown, or is, when known, refused;
Nor in so vast a length our serpents glide,
Or raised on such a spiry volume ride.

Next add our cities of illustrious name,
Their costly labour, and stupendous frame;
Our forts on steepy hills, that far below
See wanton streams in winding valleys flow;
Our twofold seas, that washing either side,
A rich recruit of foreign stores provide;
Our spacious lakes; thee, Larius, first; and next
Benacus, with tempestuous billows vexed.
Or shall I praise thy ports, or mention make
Of the vast mound that binds the Lucrine lake?
Or the disdainful sea, that, shut from thence,
Roars round the structure, and invades the fence,
There, where secure the Julian waters glide,
Or where Avernus’ jaws admit the Tyrrhene tide?
Our quarries, deep in earth, were famed of old
For veins of silver, and for ore of gold.
The inhabitants themselves their country grace;
Hence rose the Marsian and Sabellian race,
Strong-limbed and stout, and to the wars inclined,
And hard Ligurians a laborious kind,
And Volscians armed with iron-headed darts.
Besides—an offspring of undaunted hearts—
The Decii, Marii, great Camillus, came
From hence, and greater Scipio’s double name,
And mighty Caesar, whose victorious arms
To farthest Asia carry fierce alarms,
Avert unwarlike Indians from his Rome,
Triumph abroad, secure our peace at home.

Hail, sweet Saturnian soil! of fruitful grain
Great parent, greater of illustrious men!
For thee my tuneful accents will I raise,
And treat of arts disclosed in ancient days,
Once more unlocked for thee the sacred spring,
And old Ascraean verse in Roman cities sing.

The nature of their several soils now see,
Their strength, their colour, their fertility:
And first for heath, and barren hilly ground,
Where meagre clay and flinty stones abound,
Where the poor soil all succour seems to want—
Yet this suffices the Palladian plant.
Undoubted signs of such a soil are found;
For here wild olive-shoots o’erspread the ground,
And heaps of berries strew the fields around.
But, where the soil, with fattening moisture filled,
Is clothed with grass, and fruitful to be tilled,
Such as in cheerful vales we view from high,
Which dripping rocks with rolling streams supply,
And feed with ooze; where rising hillocks run
In length, and open to the southern sun;
Where fern succeeds, ungrateful to the plough—
That gentle ground to generous grapes allow.
Strong stocks of vines it will in time produce,
And overflow the vats with friendly juice,
Such as our priests in golden goblets pour
To gods, the givers of the cheerful hour,
Then when the bloated Tuscan blows his horn,
And reeking entrails are in chargers borne.

If herds or fleecy flocks be more thy care,
Or goats that graze the field, and burn it bare,
Then seek Tarentum’s lawns, and farthest coast,
Or such a field as hapless Mantua lost,
Where silver swans sail down the watery road,
And graze the floating herbage of the flood.
There crystal streams perpetual tenor keep,
Nor food nor springs are wanting to thy sheep;
For what the day devours, the nightly dew
Shall to the morn in pearly drops renew.
Fat crumbling earth is fitter for the plough,
Putrid and loose above, and black below;
For ploughing is an imitative toil,
Resembling nature in an easy soil.
No land for seed like this; no fields afford
So large an income to the village lord:
No toiling teams from harvest-labour come
So late at night, so heavy-laden home.
The like of forest land is understood,
From whence the surly ploughman grubs the wood,
Which had for length of ages idle stood.
Then birds forsake the ruins of their seat,
And, flying from their nests, their callow young forget.
The course lean gravel, on the mountain-sides,
Scarce dewy beverage for the bees provides;
Nor chalk, nor crumbling stones, the food of snakes,
That work in hollow earth their winding tracks.
The soil exhaling clouds of subtle dews,
Imbibing moisture which with ease she spews,
Which rusts not iron, and whose mould is clean,
Well clothed with cheerful grass, and ever green,
Is good for olives, and aspiring vines,
Embracing husband elms in amorous twines;
Is fit for feeding cattle, fit to sow,
And equal to the pasture and the plough.
Such is the soil of fat Campanian fields;
Such large increase the land that joins Vesuvius yields;
And such a country could Acerrae boast,
Till Clanius overflowed the unhappy coast.

I teach thee next the differing soils to know,
The light for vines, the heavier for the plough.
Choose first a place for such a purpose fit:
There dig the solid earth, and sink a pit;
Next fill the hole with its own earth again,
And trample with thy feet, and tread it in:
Then, if it rise not to the former height
Of superfice, conclude that soil is light,
A proper ground for pasturage and vines.
But, if the sullen earth, so pressed, repines
Within its native mansion to retire,
And stays without, a heap of heavy mire,
’Tis good for arable, a glebe that asks
Tough teams of oxen, and laborious tasks.

Salt earth and bitter are not fit to sow.
Nor will be tamed or mended with the plough.
Sweet grapes degenerate there; and fruits declined
From their first flavorous taste, renounce their kind.
This truth by sure experiment is tried;
For first an osier colander provide
Of twigs thick wrought (such, toiling peasants twine,
When through strait passages they strain their wine:)
In this close vessel place that earth accursed,
But filled brimful with wholesome water first;
Then run it through; the drops will rope around,
And, by the bitter taste, disclose the ground.
The fatter earth by handling we may find,
With ease distinguished from the meagre kind:
Poor soil will crumble into dust; the rich
Will to the fingers cleave like clammy pitch:
Moist earth produces corn and grass, but both
Too rank and too luxuriant in their growth.
Let not my land so large a promise boast,
Lest the lank ears in length of stem be lost.
The heavier earth is by her weight betray’d,
The lighter in the poising hand is weigh’d:
’Tis easy to distinguish by the sight
The colour of the soil, and black from white.
But the cold ground is difficult to know,
Yet this the plants that prosper there, will show;
Black ivy, pitch trees, and the baleful yeugh.

These rules considered well, with early care
The vineyard destined for thy vines prepare:
But long before the planting, dig the ground,
With furrows deep that cast a rising mound.
The clods, exposed to winter winds, will bake;
For putrid earth will best in vineyards take;
And hoary frosts, after the painful toil
Of delving hinds, will rot the mellow soil.

Some peasants, not to omit the nicest care,
Of the same soil their nursery prepare,
With that of their plantation; lest the tree,
Translated, should not with the soil agree.
Beside, to plant it as it was, they mark
The heaven’s four quarters on the tender bark,
And to the north or south, restore the side,
Which at their birth did heat or cold abide:
So strong is custom; such effects can use
In tender souls of pliant plants produce.

Choose next a province for thy vineyard’s reign
On hills above, or in the lowly plain.
If fertile fields or valleys be thy choice,
Plant thick; for bounteous Bacchus will rejoice
In close plantations there; but, if the vine
On rising ground be placed, or hills supine,
Extend thy loose battalions largely wide,
Opening thy ranks and files on either side,
But marshalled all in order as they stand;
And let no soldier straggle from his band.
As legions in the field their front display,
To try the fortune of some doubtful day,
And move to meet their foes with sober pace,
Strict to their figure, though in wider space.
Before the battle joins, while from afar
The field yet glitters with the pomp of war,
And equal Mars, like an impartial lord,
Leaves all to fortune, and the dint of sword:
So let thy vines in intervals be set,
But not their rural discipline forget;
Indulge their width, and add a roomy space,
That their extremest lines may scarce embrace:
Nor this alone to indulge a vain delight,
And make a pleasing prospect for the sight,
But for the ground itself; this only way
Can equal vigour to the plants convey,
Which, crowded, want the room, their branches to display.

How deep they must be planted, wouldst thou know?
In shallow furrows vines securely grow.
Not so the rest of plants; for Jove’s own tree,
That holds the woods in awful sovereignty,
Requires a depth of lodging in the ground,
And, next the lower skies, a bed profound:
High as his topmost boughs to heaven ascend,
So low his roots to hell’s dominion tend.
Therefore, nor winds, nor winter’s rage o’erthrows
His bulky body, but unmoved he grows;
For length of ages lasts his happy reign,
And lives of mortal man contend in vain.
Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,
Stretching his brawny arms, and leafy hands:
His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.

The hurtful hazel in thy vineyard shun;
Nor plant it to receive the setting sun;
Nor break the topmost branches from the tree;
Nor prune, with blunted knife, the progeny.
Root up wild olives from thy labour’d lands:
For sparkling fire, from hinds’ unwary hands,
Is often scattered o’er their unctuous rinds,
And after spread abroad by raging winds:
For first the smouldering flame the trunk receives;
Ascending thence, it crackles in the leaves;
At length victorious to the top aspires,
Involving all the wood with smoky fires;
But most, when driven by winds, the flaming storm
Of the long files destroys the beauteous form.
In ashes then the unhappy vineyard lies;
Nor will the blasted plants from ruin rise;
Nor will the withered stock be green again;
But the wild olive shoots, and shades the ungrateful plain.
Be not seduced with wisdom’s empty shows,
To stir the peaceful ground when Boreas blows.
When winter frosts constrain the field with cold,
The fainty root can take no steady hold.
But when the golden spring reveals the year,
And the white bird returns, whom serpents fear,
That season deem the best to plant thy vines:
Next that, is when autumnal warmth declines,
Ere heat is quite decayed, or cold begun,
Or Capricorn admits the winter sun.

The spring adorns the woods, renews the leaves;
The womb of earth the genial seed receives:
For then almighty Jove descends, and pours
Into his buxom bride his fruitful showers;
And, mixing his large limbs with hers, he feeds
Her births with kindly juice, and fosters teeming seeds.
Then joyous birds frequent the lonely grove,
And beasts, by nature stung, renew their love.
Then fields the blades of buried corn disclose;
And while the balmy western spirit blows,
Earth to the breath her bosom dares expose.
With kindly moisture then the plants abound;
The grass securely springs above the ground;
The tender twig shoots upward to the skies,
And on the faith of the new sun relies.
The swerving vines on the tall elms prevail;
Unhurt by southern showers, or northern hail,
They spread their gems, the genial warmth to share,
And boldly trust their buds in open air.

In this soft season (let me dare to sing),
The world was hatched by heaven’s imperial king—
In prime of all the year, and holidays of spring.
Then did the new creation first appear;
No other was the tenor of the year,
When laughing heaven did the great birth attend;
And eastern winds their wintry breath suspend:
Then sheep first saw the sun in open fields;
And savage beasts were sent to stock the wilds;
And golden stars flew up to light the skies;
And man’s relentless race from stony quarries rise.
Nor could the tender new creation bear
The excessive heats or coldness of the year,
But, chilled by winter, or by summer fired,
The middle temper of the spring required,
When warmth and moisture did at once abound,
And heaven’s indulgence brooded on the ground.

For what remains, in depth of earth secure
Thy covered plants, and dung with hot manure;
And shells and gravel in the ground enclose;
For through their hollow chinks the water flows,
Which, thus imbibed, returns in misty dews,
And, steaming up, the rising plant renews.
Some husbandmen, of late, have found the way,
A hilly heap of stones above to lay,
And press the plants with shards of potters’ clay.
This fence against immoderate rain they found,
Or when the dog-star cleaves the thirsty ground.

Be mindful, when thou hast entombed the shoot;
With store of earth around to feed the root;
With iron teeth of rakes and prongs, to move
The crusted earth, and loosen it above.
Then exercise thy sturdy steers to plough
Betwixt thy vines, and teach thy feeble row
To mount on reeds, and wands, and, upward led,
On ashen poles to raise their forky head.
On these new crutches let them learn to walk,
Till, swerving upwards with a stronger stalk,
They brave the winds, and, clinging to their guide,
On tops of elms at length triumphant ride.
But, in their tender nonage, while they spread
Their springing leafs, and lift their infant head,
And upward while they shoot in open air,
Indulge their childhood, and the nurseling spare;
Nor exercise thy rage on new-born life;
But let thy hand supply the pruning-knife,
And crop luxuriant stragglers, nor be loth
To strip the branches of their leafy growth.
But, when the rooted vines, with steady hold,
Can clasp their elms, then husbandman, be bold
To lop the disobedient boughs, that strayed
Beyond their ranks; let crooked steel invade
The lawless troops, which discipline disclaim,
And their superfluous growth with rigour tame.

Next, fenced with hedges and deep ditches round,
Exclude the encroaching cattle from thy ground,
While yet the tender gems but just appear,
Unable to sustain the uncertain year,
Whose leaves are not alone foul winter’s prey,
But oft by summer suns are scorched away;
And, worse than both, become the unworthy browse
Of buffaloes, salt goats, and hungry cows.
For not December’s frost, that burns the boughs,
Nor dog-days’ parching heat, that splits the rocks,
Are half so harmful as the greedy flocks,
Their venomed bite, and scars indented on the stocks.
For this, the malefactor goat was laid
On Bacchus’ altar, and his forfeit paid.

At Athens thus old comedy began,
When round the streets the reeling actors ran,
In country villages, and crossing ways,
Contending for the prizes of their plays;
And, glad with Bacchus, on the grassy soil,
Leaped o’er the skins of goats besmeared with oil.
Thus Roman youth, derived from ruined Troy,
In rude Saturnian rhymes express their joy;
With taunts, and laughter loud, their audience please,
Deformed with vizards, cut from barks of trees:
In jolly hymns they praise the god of wine,
Whose earthen images adorn the pine,
And there are hung on high, in honour of the vine.
A madness so devout the vineyards fills;
In hollow valleys and on rising hills,
On whate’er side he turns his honest face,
And dances in the wind, those fields are in his grace.
To Bacchus therefore let us tune our lays,
And in our mother-tongue resound his praise.
Thin cakes in chargers, and a guilty goat,
Dragged by the horns, be to his altars brought;
Whose offered entrails shall his crime reproach,
And drip their fatness from the hazel broach.

To dress thy vines, new labour is required;
Nor must the painful husbandman be tired:
For thrice, at least, in compass of the year,
Thy vineyard must employ the sturdy steer
To turn the glebe; besides thy daily pain
To break the clods, and make the surface plain,
To unload the branches, or the leaves to thin,
That suck the vital moisture of the vine.
Thus in a circle runs the peasant’s pain,
And the year rolls within itself again.
E’en in the lowest months, when storms have shed
From vines the hairy honours of their head,
Not then the drudging hind his labour ends,
But to the coming year his care extends.
E’en then the naked vine he persecutes;
His pruning-knife at once reforms and cuts.
Be first to dig the ground; be first to burn
The branches lopt; and first the props return
Into thy house, that bore the burdened vines;
But last to reap the vintage of thy wines.

Twice in the year luxuriant leaves o’ershade
The encumbered vine; rough brambles twice invade.
Hard labour both! Commend the large excess
Of spacious vineyards; cultivate the less.
Besides, in woods the shrubs of prickly thorn,
Sallows and reeds, on banks of rivers born,
Remain to cut; for vineyards, useful found
To stay thy vines, and fence thy fruitful ground.
Nor when thy tender trees at length are bound;
When peaceful vines from pruning-hooks are free,
When husbands have surveyed the last degree,
And utmost files of plants, and ordered every tree;
E’en when they sing at ease in full content,
Insulting o’er the toils they underwent;
Yet still they find a future task remain,
To turn the soil, and break the clods again;
And, after all, their joys are insincere,
While falling rains on ripening grapes they fear.
Quite opposite to these are olives found:
No dressing they require, and dread no wound,
Nor rakes nor harrows need; but, fixed below,
Rejoice in open air, and unconcern’dly grow.
The soil itself due nourishment supplies:
Plough but the furrows, and the fruits arise,
Content with small endeavours, till they spring.
Soft peace they figure, and sweet plenty bring:
Then olives plant, and hymns to Pallas sing.

Thus apple-trees, whose trunks are strong to bear
Their spreading boughs, exert themselves in air,
Want no supply, but stand secure alone,
Not trusting foreign forces, but their own,
Till with the ruddy freight the bending branches groan.

Thus trees of nature, and each common bush,
Uncultivated thrive, and with red berries blush.
Vile shrubs are shorn for browse; the towering height
Of unctuous trees are torches for the night.
And shall we doubt (indulging easy sloth),
To sow, to set, and to reform their growth?
To leave the lofty plants—the lowly kind
Are for the shepherd or the sheep designed.
E’en humble broom and osiers have their use,
And shade for sleep, and food for flocks, produce;
Hedges for corn, and honey for the bees,
Besides the pleasing prospect of the trees.
How goodly looks Cytorus, ever green
With boxen groves! with what delight are seen
Narycian woods of pitch, whose gloomy shade
Seems for retreat of heavenly muses made;
But much more pleasing are those fields to see,
That need not ploughs, nor human industry.
E’en cold Caucasean rocks with trees are spread,
And wear green forests on their hilly head.
Though bending from the blast of eastern storms,
Though shent their leaves, and shattered are their arms,
Yet heaven their various plants for use designs—
For houses, cedars—and, for shipping, pines—
Cypress provides for spokes and wheels of wains,
And all for keels of ships, that scour the watery plains.
Willows in twigs are fruitful, elms in leaves;
The war, from stubborn myrtle, shafts receives—
From cornels, javelins; and the tougher yew
Receives the bending figure of a bow.
Nor box, nor limes, without their use are made,
Smooth-grained, and proper for the turner’s trade
Which curious hands may carve, and steel with ease invade.
Light alder stems the Po’s impetuous tide,
And bees in hollow oaks their honey hide.
Now balance, with these gifts, the fumy joys
Of wine, attended with eternal noise,
Wine urged to lawless lust the Centaurs’ train;
Through wine they quarrelled, and through wine were slain.

Oh happy, if he knew his happy state,
The swain, who, free from business and debate,
Receives his easy food from nature’s hand,
And just returns of cultivated land!
No palace, with a lofty gate, he wants,
To admit the tides of early visitants,
With eager eyes devouring, as they pass,
The breathing figures of Corinthian brass.
No statues threaten, from high pedestals;
No Persian arras hides his homely walls,
With antic vests, which, through their shady fold,
Betray the streaks of ill-dissembled gold:
He boasts no wool, whose native white is dyed
With purple poison of Assyrian pride;
No costly drugs of Araby defile,
With foreign scents, the sweetness of his oil:
But easy quiet, a secure retreat,
A harmless life that knows not how to cheat,
With home-bred plenty, the rich owner bless,
And rural pleasures crown his happiness.
Unvexed with quarrels, undisturbed with noise,
The country king his peaceful realm enjoys—
Cool grots, and living lakes, the flowery pride
Of meads, and streams that through the valley glide,
And shady groves that easy sleep invite,
And after toilsome days, a sweet repose at night.
Wild beasts of nature in his woods abound;
And youth, of labour patient, plow the ground,
Inured to hardship, and to homely fare.
Nor venerable age is wanting there,
In great examples to the youthful train;
Nor are the gods adored with rites profane.
From hence Astraea took her flight; and here
The prints of her departing steps appear.

Ye sacred muses! with whose beauty fired,
My soul is ravished, and my brain inspired—
Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear—
Would you your poet’s first petition hear;
Give me the ways of wandering stars to know,
The depths of heaven above, and earth below:
Teach me the various labours of the moon,
And whence proceed the eclipses of the sun;
Why flowing tides prevail upon the main,
And in what dark recess they shrink again;
What shakes the solid earth; what cause delays
The summer nights, and shortens winter days.
But, if my heavy blood restrain the flight
Of my free soul, aspiring to the height
Of nature, and unclouded fields of light—
My next desire is, void of care and strife,
To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life—
A country cottage near a crystal flood,
A winding valley, and a lofty wood.
Some god conduct me to the sacred shades,
Where Bacchanals are sung by Spartan maids,
Or lift me high to Haemus’ hilly crown,
Or in the plains of Tempè lay me down,
Or lead me to some solitary place,
And cover my retreat from human race.

Happy the man, who, studying nature’s laws,
Through known effects can trace the secret cause—
His mind possessing in a quiet state,
Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate!
And happy too is he, who decks the bowers
Of sylvans, and adores the rural powers—
Whose mind, unmoved, the bribes of courts can see,
Their glittering baits, and purple slavery—
Nor hopes the people’s praise, nor fears their frown,
Nor, when contending kindred tear the crown,
Will set up one, or pull another down.

Without concern he hears, but hears from far,
Of tumults, and descents, and distant war;
Nor with a superstitious fear is awed,
For what befalls at home, or what abroad.
Nor his own peace disturbs with pity for the poor.
Nor envies he the rich their happy store,
He feeds on fruits, which, of their own accord,
The willing ground and laden trees afford.
From his loved home no lucre him can draw;
The senate’s mad decrees he never saw;
Nor heard, at bawling bars, corrupted law.
Some to the seas, and some to camps, resort,
And some with impudence invade the court:
In foreign countries, others seek renown;
With wars and taxes, others waste their own,
And houses burn, and houshold gods deface,
To drink in bowls which glittering gems enchase,
To loll on couches, rich with citron steds,
And lay their guilty limbs in Tyrian beds.
This wretch in earth entombs his golden ore,
Hovering and brooding on his buried store.
Some patriot fools to popular praise aspire
By public speeches, which worse fools admire,
While, from both benches, with redoubled sounds,
The applause of lords and commoners abounds.
Some, through ambition, or through thirst of gold,
Have slain their brothers, or their country sold,
And leaving their sweet homes, in exile run
To lands that lye beneath another sun.

The peasant, innocent of all these ills,
With crooked ploughs the fertile fallows tills,
And the round year with daily labour fills.
From hence the country markets are supplied:
Enough remains for houshold charge beside,
His wife and tender children to sustain,
And gratefully to feed his dumb deserving train.
Nor cease his labours till the yellow field
A full return of bearded harvest yield—
A crop so plenteous, as the land to load,
O’ercome the crowded barns, and lodge on ricks abroad.

Thus every several season is employed,
Some spent in toil, and some in ease enjoyed.
The yeaning ewes prevent the springing year;
The laden boughs their fruits in autumn bear:
’Tis then the vine her liquid harvest yields,
Baked in the sunshine of ascending fields.
The winter comes; and then the falling mast
For greedy swine provides a full repast:
Then olives, ground in mills, their fatness boast,
And winter fruits are mellowed by the frost.
His cares are eased with intervals of bliss;
His little children, climbing for a kiss,
Welcome their father’s late return at night;
His faithful bed is crowned with chaste delight.
His kine with swelling udders ready stand,
And, lowing for the pail, invite the milker’s hand.
His wanton kids, with budding horns prepared,
Fight harmless battles in his homely yard:
Himself, in rustic pomp, on holidays,
To rural powers a just oblation pays,
And on the green his careless limbs displays.
The hearth is in the midst; the herdsmen, round
The cheerful fire, provoke his health in goblets crowned.
He calls on Bacchus, and propounds the prize;
The groom his fellow-groom at butts defies,
And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes;
Or, stript for wrestling, smears his limbs with oil,
And watches, with a trip his foe to foil.

Such was the life the frugal Sabines led;
So Remus and his brother-god were bred,
From whom the austere Etrurian virtue rose;
And this rude life our homely fathers chose.
Old Rome from such a race derived her birth,
(The seat of empire and the conquered earth),
Which now on seven high hills triumphant reigns,
And in that compass all the world contains.
Ere Saturn’s rebel son usurped the skies,
When beasts were only slain for sacrifice,
While peaceful Crete enjoyed her ancient lord,
Ere sounding hammers forged the inhuman sword,
Ere hollow drums were beat, before the breath
Of brazen trumpets rung the peals of death,
The good old god his hunger did assuage
With roots and herbs, and gave the golden age.

But, over-laboured with so long a course,
’Tis time to set at ease the smoking horse.