VIRGIL'S FIRST ECLOGUE.

MELIBUS.

TITYRUS, thou in the shade of a spreading beech-tree reclining, Meditatest, with slender pipe, the Muse of the woodlands.

We our country's bounds and pleasant pastures relinquish,

We our country fly; thou, Tityrus, stretched in the shadow, Teachest the woods to resound with the name of the fair Amaryllis.

TITYRUS.

O Melibœus, a god for us this leisure created,

For he will be unto me a god forever; his altar

Oftentimes shall imbue a tender lamb from our sheepfolds.

He, my heifers to wander at large, and myself, as thou seest,

On my rustic reed to play what I will, hath permitted.

MELIBUS.

Truly I envy not, I marvel rather; on all sides

In all the fields is such trouble. Behold,

my goats I am driving, Heartsick, further away; this one scarce, Tityrus, lead I;

For having here yeaned twins just now among the dense hazels, Hope of the flock, ah me! on the naked flint she hath left them. Often this evil to me, if my mind had not been insensate, Oak-trees stricken by heaven predicted, as now I remember; Often the sinister crow from the hollow ilex predicted. Nevertheless, who this god may be, O Tityrus, tell me.

TITYRUS.

O Melibus, the city that they call
Rome, I imagined,
Foolish I to be like this of ours, where
often we shepherds

year, Melibus,

During twice six days ascends the smoke of our altars.

Here first gave he response to me solicit

ing favor:

"Feed as before your heifers, ye boys, and yoke up your bullocks."

MELIBUS.

Fortunate old man! So then thy fields will be left thee, And large enough for thee, though naked

stone and the marish

All thy pasture-lands with the dreggy rush may encompass. No unaccustomed food thy gravid ewes shall endanger,

Nor of the neighboring flock the dire contagion infect them. Fortunate old man! Here among familiar rivers,

And these sacred founts, shalt thou take the shadowy coolness.

On this side, a hedge along the neighboring cross-road,

Where Hyblæan bees ever feed on the flower of the willow, Often with gentle susurrus to fall asleep shall persuade thee. Yonder, beneath the high rock, the pruner shall sing to the breezes, Nor meanwhile shall thy heart's delight, the hoarse wood-pigeons, Nor the turtle-dove cease to mourn from

aerial elm-trees.

TITYRUS.

Therefore the agile stags shall sooner feed in the ether,

And the billows leave the fishes bare on the sea-shore,

Sooner, the border-lands of both overpassed, shall the exiled Parthian drink of the Soane, or the German drink of the Tigris, Than the face of him shall glide away from my bosom !

MELIBUS.

But we hence shall go, a part to the thirsty Africs,

Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan Oaxes,

And to the Britons from all the universe utterly sundered.

bounds of my country

And the roof of my lowly cottage covered with greensward

Seeing, with wonder behold, — my kingdoms, a handful of wheat-ears! Shall an impious soldier possess these lands newly cultured,

And these fields of corn a barbarian? Lo, whither discord

Us wretched people hath brought for whom our fields we have planted! Graft, Melibus, thy pear-trees now, put in order thy vineyards.

Go, Never again henceforth outstretched in my verdurous cavern

my goats, go hence, my flocks so happy aforetime.

Shall I behold you afar from the bushy precipice hanging.

Songs no more shall I sing; not with me, ye goats, as your shepherd, Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or blooming laburnum.

TITYRUS.

Nevertheless, this night together with me canst thou rest thee Here on the verdant leaves; for us there are mellowing apples, Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted

cream in abundance;

And the high roofs now of the villages

smoke in the distance,

And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the shadows.

OVID IN EXILE,

AT TOMIS, IN BESSARABIA, NEAR THE MOUTHS OF THE DANUBE.

TRISTIA, Book III., Elegy X. SHOULD any one there in Rome remember Övid the exile,

And, without me, my name still in the city survive;

Tell him that under stars which never set in the ocean

I am existing still, here in a barbarous land.

Fierce Sarmatians encompass me round, and the Bessi and Getæ ; Names how unworthy to be sung by a genius like mine!

Ister defends us :

He, as he flows, repels inroads of war with his waves.

foot; and the billows, Solid made by the frost, hoof-beats of horses indent.

hideous aspect,

When all the earth becomes white with a marble-like frost ;

And when Boreas is loosed, and the snow hurled under Arcturus,

Then these nations, in sooth, shudder and shiver with cold.

Deep lies the snow, and neither the sun nor the rain can dissolve it; Boreas hardens it still, makes it forever remain.

Hence, ere the first has melted away, another succeeds it,

And two years it is wont, in many places, to lie.

And so great is the power of the Northwind awakened, it levels Lofty towers with the ground, roofs uplifted bears off.

Wrapped in skins, and with trousers sewed, they contend with the weather, And their faces alone of the whole body are seen.

ing beneath them,

The Sarmatian steers drag their barbarian carts.

Scarcely shall I be believed; yet when naught is gained by a falsehood, Absolute credence then should to a witness be given.

I have beheld the vast Black Sea of ice all compacted,

And a slippery crust pressing its motionless tides.

'T is not enough to have seen, I have trodden this indurate ocean; Dry shod passed my foot over its uppermost wave.

If thou hadst had of old such a sea as this is, Leander !

Then thy death had not been charged as a crime to the Strait.

Nor can the curvéd dolphins uplift themselves from the water;

All their struggles to rise merciless winter prevents;

pendent icicles tinkle,

And their whitened beards shine with the gathering frost.

Wines consolidate stand, preserving the form of the vessels;

No more draughts of wine, - pieces presented they drink.

Why should I tell you how all the rivers are frozen and solid,

And from out of the lake frangible water is dug?

wings in commotion,

In the blockaded gulf never a wave

will there be;

And the ships will stand hemmed in by the frost, as in marble,

Nor will the oar have power through the stiff waters to cleave. Fast-bound in the ice have I seen the fishes adhering,

Yet notwithstanding this some of them still were alive.

Hence, if the savage strength of omnipotent Boreas freezes

Whether the salt-sea wave, whether the refluent stream,

Straightway, the Ister made level by arid blasts of the North-wind, Comes the barbaric foe borne on his swift-footed steed;

Some as captives are driven along, their hands bound behind them, Looking backward in vain toward their Lares and lands.

Others, transfixed with barbéd arrows, in agony perish,

For the swift arrow-heads all have in poison been dipped.

What they cannot carry or lead away they demolish,

And the hostile flames burn up the innocent cots.

Even when there is peace, the fear of war is impending;

None, with the ploughshare pressed, furrows the soil any more.

Either this region sees, or fears a foe that it sees not,

And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect.

No sweet grape lies hidden here in the shade of its vine-leaves,

No fermenting must fills and o'erflows the deep vats.

Apples the region denies; nor would

Acontius have found here Aught upon which to write words for his mistress to read.

TRISTIA, Book III., Elegy XII.

Now the zephyrs diminish the cold, and the year being ended,

Winter Mæotian seems longer than ever before;

And the Ram that bore unsafely the burden of Helle,

Now makes the hours of the day equal with those of the night.

Now the boys and the laughing girls the violet gather,

Which the fields bring forth, nobody sowing the seed.

Now the meadows are blooming with flowers of various colors,

And with untaught throats carol the garrulous birds.

Now the swallow, to shun the crime of her merciless mother,

Under the rafters builds cradles and dear little homes ;

And the blade that lay hid, covered up in the furrows of Ceres,

Now from the tepid ground raises its delicate head.

Where there is ever a vine, the bud shoots forth from the tendrils, But from the Getic shore distant afar is the vine !

Where there is ever a tree, on the tree the branches are swelling,

But from the Getic land distant afar is the tree!

Now it is holiday there in Rome, and to

games in due order

Give place the windy wars of the vociferous bar.

Now they are riding the horses; with light arms now they are playing, Now with the ball, and now round rolls the swift-flying hoop :

Now, when the young athlete with flowing oil is anointed,

He in the Virgin's Fount bathes, overwearied, his limbs.