The Georgics

Virgil

Virgil

The Georgics

GEORGIC I

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star

Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod

Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;

What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof

Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-

Such are my themes.

O universal lights

Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year

Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,

If by your bounty holpen earth once changed

Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,

And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,

The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns

To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns

And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.

And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first

Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,

Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom

Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,

The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,

Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,

Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love

Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear

And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,

Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;

And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;

And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,

Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,

Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse

The tender unsown increase, and from heaven

Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:

And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet

What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,

Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,

Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,

That so the mighty world may welcome thee

Lord of her increase, master of her times,

Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,

Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,

Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow

Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son

With all her waves for dower; or as a star

Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,

Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws

A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self

His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more

Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-

For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,

Nor may so dire a lust of sovereignty

E'er light upon thee, howso Greece admire

Elysium's fields, and Proserpine not heed

Her mother's voice entreating to return-

Vouchsafe a prosperous voyage, and smile on this

My bold endeavour, and pitying, even as I,

These poor way-wildered swains, at once begin,

Grow timely used unto the voice of prayer.

In early spring-tide, when the icy drip

Melts from the mountains hoar, and Zephyr's breath

Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then 'tis time;

Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox,

And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.

That land the craving farmer's prayer fulfils,

Which twice the sunshine, twice the frost has felt;

Ay, that's the land whose boundless harvest-crops

Burst, see! the barns.

But ere our metal cleave

An unknown surface, heed we to forelearn

The winds and varying temper of the sky,

The lineal tilth and habits of the spot,

What every region yields, and what denies.

Here blithelier springs the corn, and here the grape,

There earth is green with tender growth of trees

And grass unbidden. See how from Tmolus comes

The saffron's fragrance, ivory from Ind,

From Saba's weakling sons their frankincense,

Iron from the naked Chalybs, castor rank

From Pontus, from Epirus the prize-palms

O' the mares of Elis.

Such the eternal bond

And such the laws by Nature's hand imposed

On clime and clime, e'er since the primal dawn

When old Deucalion on the unpeopled earth

Cast stones, whence men, a flinty race, were reared.

Up then! if fat the soil, let sturdy bulls

Upturn it from the year's first opening months,

And let the clods lie bare till baked to dust

By the ripe suns of summer; but if the earth

Less fruitful just ere Ar