This pastoral contains the songs of Damon and Alphesibæus. 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 hungry herd their needful food refuse- muse. Great Pollio! thou, for whom thy Rome prepares The ready triumph of thy finish'd wars, Scarce from the world the shades of night withdrew, Scarce were the flocks refresh'd with morning dew, When Damon, stretch'd beneath an olive shade,' "Star of the morning, why dost thou delay? strain. "The pines of Mænalus, the vocal grove, Are ever full of verse and full of love: They hear the hinds, they hear their god complain, Who suffer'd not the reeds to rise in vain. Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian 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 as suage, 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 Mænalian strain. "O Nisa' justly to thy choice condemn'd! Whom hast thou taken, whom hast thou contemn'd? For him, thou hast refus'd my browzing herd, Scorn'd my thick eye-brows, 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 Mænalian strain. "I view'd 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 ; "I know thee, love! in deserts thou wert And at the dugs of savage tigers fed; [bred, Alien of birth, usurper of the plains! "Relentless love the cruel mother led, Inhuman she, but more inhuman thou: "Old doting Nature, change thy course anew; pursue. And let the trembling lamb the wolf And hooting owls contend with swans in skill; And challenge fam'd Arion on the floods. Or, oh, let Nature cease, and Chaos reign! From yon high cliff I plunge into the main : Now take your turns, ye Muses, to rehearse verse. "Knit with three knots the fillets: knit them Then say, These knots to love I consecrate.' "As fire this figure hardens, made of clay, This laurel is his fate.'-Restore, my charms, "As when the raging heifer, through the grove, Stung with desire, pursues her wand'ring love; "These garments once were his, and left to me, The pledges of his promis'd loyalty, As these were his, so mine is he.-My charms, (The noblest and the best of all the baneful kind) "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 He howls, a wolf among the hungry train; charms, My ling'ring Daphnis to my longing arms. And Circe chang'd with charms Ulysses' friends. And in the winding cavern splits the snake. Verse fires the frozen veins.-Restore, my charms, My ling'ring Daphnis to my longing arms. "Around his waxen image first I wind Old Moris brought me from the Pontic strand, And oft the mighty necromancer boasts, And from the roots to tear the standing corn, My ling'ring Daphnis to my longing arms. "Bear out these ashes: cast them in the "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 heav'n! may lovers what they wish believe? [ceive? Or dream their wishes, and those dreams deNo more! my Daphnis comes! no more, my charms! [arms." He comes, he runs, he leaps, to my desiring PASTORAL IX. LYCIDAS AND MERIS. ARGUMENT. 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 this hard usage; and the persons introduced are the bailiff of Virgil, Mœris, and his friend Lyoidas. LYCIDAS. Ho, Moris! whither on thy way so fast? This leads to town. MORIS. O Lycidas! at last The time is come, I never thought to see, (Strange revolutions for my farm and me!) When the grim captain in a surly tone Cries out, "Pack up, ye rascals, and be gone." Kick'd out, we set the best face on't we could, And these two kids, t' appease his angry mood, I bear, of which the Furies give him good! LYCIDAS. Your country friends were told another taleThat from the sloping mountain to the vale, And dodder'd oak, and all the banks along, Menalcas sav'd his fortune with a song. MORIS. Such was the news, indeed; but songs and rhymes Prevail as much in these hard iron times, LYCIDAS. Now heaven defend! could barbarous rage induce [Muse? The brutal son of Mars t' insult the sacred Who then should sing the nymphs? or who re hearse The waters gliding in a smoother verse? MERIS. Or what unfinish'd he to Varus read"Thy name, O Varus, (if the kinder pow'rs Preserve our plains, and shield the Mantuan tow'rs, Obnoxious by Cremona's neighbouring crime) The wings of swans and stronger-pinion'd rhyme, Shall raise aloft, and soaring bear above- LYCIDAS. Sing on, sing on: for I can ne'er be cloy'd. So MORIS 'Tis what I have been conning in my mind; Nor are thy verses of a vulgar kind. "Come, Galatea! come! the seas forsake? What pleasures can the tides with their hoarse murmurs make? See, on the shore inhabits purple spring; Where nightingales their love-sick ditty sing: See, meads with purling streams, with flow'rs the ground, The grottoes cool with shady poplars crown'd, And creeping vines on arbours weav'd around. Come then, and leave the waves' tumultuous roar; Let the wild surges vainly beat the shore." LYCIDAS. Or that sweet song I heard with such delight; The same you sung alone one starry night. The tune I still retain, but not the words. MERIS. "Why, Daphnis, dost thou search in old records, To know the seasons when the stars arise? The rest I have forgot, for cares and time LYCIDAS. Thy faint excuses but inflame me more: As if thy tuneful song they did attend : Here, where the lab'rer's hands have form'd a bow'r Of wreathing trees, in singing waste an hour. MERIS. Cease to request me; let us mind our way: PASTORAL X. OR, GALLUS. ARGUMENT. Gallus, a great patron of Virgil, and an excellent poet, was very deeply in love with one Cytheris, 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, What lawns or woods withheld you from his aid, Ye nymphs, when Gallus was to love betray'd, Mænalian pines the godlike swain bemoan, stone. The sheep suround their shepherd, as he lies. Yet more amaz'd, thy own Apollo came. 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 heav'n's inclemency." Silvanus came: his brows a country crown Of fennel, and of nodding lilies, drown. Great Pan arriv'd; and we beheld him too, His cheeks and temples of vermilion hue. "Why, Gallus, this immod'rate grief?" he cried. "Think'st thou that love with tears is satisfied? The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews, The bees with flow'ry shrubs, the goats with browse." Unmov'd, and with dejected eyes, he mourn'd: He paus'd, and then these broken words re turn'd: "'Tis past; and pity gives me no relief: To pen the sheep, and press the swelling vine. Beneath the sallows and the shady vine, And soft Amyntas sung away my care. As you are beauteous, were you half so true, you. Now I to fighting fields am sent afar, snow, Ye frosts and snows, her tender body spare! There will I sing, forsaken and alone : The rocks and hollow caves shall echo to my moan. The rind of ev'ry plant her name shall know; race; Nor cold shall hinder me, with horns and hounds As if with sports my suff'rings I should ease, Love alters not for us his hard decrees, Or Italy's indulgent heav'n forego, And in mid-winter tread Sithonian snow; On Meroe's burning plains the Libyan sheep. From juniper unwholsome dews distil, kill. Away, my goats, away! for you have brows'd your fill. GEORGIC I. ARGUMENT. GEORGICS. The poet, in the beginning of this book, propounds the general design of each Georgic: and, after a solemn invocation of all the gods who are any way related to his subject, he addresses himself in particular to Augustus, whom he compliments with divinity; and after strikes into his business. He shows the different kinds of tillage proper to different soils, traces out the orignal of agriculture, gives a catalogue of the husbandman's tools, specifies the employments peculiar to each season, describes the changes of the weather, with the signs in heaven and earth that forebode them; instances many of the prodigies that happened near the time of Julius Cæsar's death; and shuts up all with a supplication to the gods for the safety of Augustus, and the preservation of Rome. 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; Ye deities! who fields and plains protect, 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; |