The Georgics

But when you hold him in the grasp of hands and fetters, then will manifold forms baffle you, and figures of wild beasts. For of a sudden he will become a bristly boar, a deadly tiger, a scaly serpent, or a lioness with tawny neck; or he will give forth the fierce roar of flame, and thus slip from his fetters, or he will melt into fleeting water and be gone.

And now farewell! Involved in shades of night,

For ever I am ravished from thy sight.

In vain I reach my feeble hands to join

In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine!

And lay down their lives in the wound.

She weeps all night long, ... filling the region round with sad laments.

For God, they say, pervades all things, earth and sea's expanse and heaven's depth.

The immortal line in sure succession reigns,

The fortune of the family remains,

And grandsires' grandsires the long list contains.

But as for me—first above all, may the sweet Muses whose holy emblems, under the spell of a mighty love, I bear, take me to themselves, and show me heaven's pathways, the stars, the sun's many lapses, the moon's many labours; whence come tremblings of the earth, the force to make deep seas swell and burst their barriers, then sink back upon themselves; why winter suns hasten so fast to dip in Ocean, or what delays clog the lingering nights.

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.

Let my delight be the country, and the running streams amid the dells—may I love the waters and the woods, though fame be lost.

And snorting rolls beneath his nostrils the gathered fire.

A mighty pomp, though made of little things.

Floating towards the starry sky through the clear summer air.

Without thee, nothing lofty can I sing.

Slight is the subject, but the praise not small.

Their little bodies lodge a mighty soul.

These storms of passion, these conflicts so fierce, by the tossing of a little dust are quelled and laid to rest.

Yet theirs is repose without care, and a life that knows no fraud, but is rich in treasures manifold.

All, with united force, combine to drive

The lazy drones from the laborious hive.

But the commanding Muse my chariot guides,

Which o'er the dubious cliff securely rides;

And pleased I am, no beaten road to take,

But first the way to new discoveries make.

So deep is their love of flowers and their glory in begetting honey.

But time meanwhile is flying, flying beyond recall.

In youth alone, unhappy mortals live;

But, ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive:

Discoloured sickness, anxious labour, come,

And age, and death's inexorable doom.

(a) Him fasces of the people or purple of kings sway not, not maddening discord among treacherous brethren, nor the Dacians swarming down from the leagued Danube, not the Roman State, or realms destined to decay. OR (b) He is not moved by honours that the people confer, or the purple of empire, or civil feuds, that make brothers swerve from brothers’ duty; or the Dacian coming down from the Hister, his sworn ally; no, nor by the great Roman State and the death-throes of subject kingdoms.

But, over-laboured with so long a course,

'Tis time to set at ease the smoking horse.

Thus every creature, and of every kind,

The secret joys of sweet coition find.

Not only man's imperial race, but they

That wing the liquid air, or swim the sea,

Or haunt the desert, rush into the flame:

For love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise from earth and fly victorious on the lips of men.

A great fire, unless you feed it, spends its rage in vain.

If we may compare small things with great.

In their drunken jollity.

Whence men, a hard laborious kind, were born.

Vice thrives and lives by concealment.

But meanwhile it is flying, irretrievable time is flying.

Toil conquered the world, unrelenting toil, and want that pinches when life is hard.

So strong is habit in tender years.

Who dare say the Sun is false?

Practice and thought might gradually forge many an art.

How lucky, if they know their happiness,

Are farmers, more than lucky, they for whom,

Far from the clash of arms, the earth herself,

Most fair in dealing, freely lavishes

An easy livelihood.

O farmers, pray that your summers be wet and your winters clear.

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.

In youth alone, unhappy mortals live;

But, ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive:

Discolored sickness, anxious labor, come,

And age, and death's inexorable doom.

Bacchus loves open hills.

There is no place for death.

Thus by law of fate all things speed towards the worst, and slipping away fall back.

Look with favor upon a bold beginning.

[They] change their savage mind,

Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature's part,

Obey the rules and discipline of art.

Love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

In those days I, Virgil, was nursed of sweet Parthenope, and rejoiced in the arts of inglorious ease.

Here is eternal spring, and summer in months not her own.

Let my delight be the country, and the running streams amid the dells—may I love the waters and the woods, though I be unknown to fame.

Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things.

In primis venerare Deos.

Salve, magna parens.

Nec mora, nec requies.