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 household 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 yieldA 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 laded boughs their fruits in autumn bear;
'Tis then the vine her liquid harvest yields,
Baked in the sun-shine 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
crown'd.
He calls on Bacchus, and propounds the prize;
The groom his fellow-groom at buts 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.
This book begins with the invocation of some rural deities, and compliment to Augustus; after which Virgil directs himself to Mæcenas, and enters on his subject. He lays down rules for the breeding and management of horses, oxen, sheep, goats, and dogs; and interweaves several pleasant descriptions of a chariot-race, of the battle of the bulls, of the force of love, and of the Scythian winter. In the latter part of the book, he relates the diseases incident to cattle; and ends with the description of a fatal murrain that formerly raged among the Alps.
THY fields, propitious Pales, I rehearse;
And sing thy pastures in no vulgar verse,
Amphrysian shepherd! the Lycæan woods,
Arcadia's flowery plains, and pleasing floods.
All other themes, that careless minds invite,
Are worn with use, unworthy me to write.
Busiris' altars, and the dire decrees
Of hard Eurystheus, every reader sees :
Hylas the boy, Latona's erring isle,
And Pelops' ivory shoulder, and his toil
For fair Hippodame, with all the rest
Of Grecian tales, by poets are expressed.
New ways I must attempt, my grovelling name
To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.
I, first of Romans, shall in triumph come
From conquered Greece, and bring her trophies home,
With foreign spoils adorn my native place,
And with Idume's palms my Mantua grace.
Of Parian stone a temple will I raise,
Where the slow Mincius through the valley strays,
Where cooling streams invite the flocks to drink,
And reeds defend the winding water's brink.
Full in the midst shall mighty Cæsar stand,
Hold the chief honours, and the dome command.
Then I, conspicuous in my Tyrian gown,
(Submitting to his godhead my renown,)
A hundred coursers from the goal will drive:
The rival chariots in the race shall strive.
All Greece shall flock from far, my games to see;
The whorlbat, and the rapid race, shall be
Reserved for Cæsar, and ordained by me.
Myself, with olive crowned, the gifts will bear.
Even now methinks the public shouts I hear;
The passing pageants, and the pomps appear.
I to the temple will conduct the crew,
The sacrifice and sacrificers view,
From thence return, attended with my train,
Where the proud theatres disclose the scene,
Which interwoven Britons seem to raise,
And shew the triumph which their shame displays.
High o'er the gate, in elephant and gold,
The crowd shall Cæsar's Indian war behold:
The Nile shall flow beneath; and, on the side,
His shattered ships on brazen pillars ride.
Next him Niphates,* with inverted urn,
* It has been objected to me, that I understood not this passage of Virgil, because I call Niphates a river, which is a mountain in Armenia. But the river arising from the same mountain is also
And dropping sedge, shall his Armenia mourn;
And Asian cities in our triumph borne.
With backward bows the Parthians shall be there,
And, spurring from the fight, confess their fear.
A double wreath shall crown our Cæsar's brows-
Two differing trophies, from two different foes.
Europe with Afric in his fame shall join;
But neither shore his conquest † shall confine.
The Parian marble there shall seem to move
In breathing statues, not unworthy Jove,
Resembling heroes, whose etherial root
Is Jove himself, and Cæsar is the fruit.
Tros and his race the sculptor shall employ;
And he--the god who built the walls of Troy.
Envy herself at last, grown pale and dumb,
(By Cæsar combated and overcome,)
Shall give her hands, and fear the curling snakes
Of lashing Furies, and the burning lakes;
The pains of famished Tantalus shall feel,
And Sisyphus, that labours up the hill
The rolling rock in vain; and curst Ixion's wheel.
Meantime we must pursue the sylvan lands,
(The abode of nymphs,) untouched by former hands:
For such, Mæcenas, are thy hard commands.
Without thee, nothing lofty can I sing.
Come then, and, with thyself, thy genius bring,
With which inspired, I brook no dull delay :
Citharon loudly calls me to my way;
Thy hounds, Tayg'tus, open, and pursue their prey.
called Niphates; and, having spoken of Nile before, I might reasonably think that Virgil rather meant to couple two rivers, than a river and a mountain. DRYDEN.
* Dr Carey reads dropping; but there is no authority, and seemingly no necessity, for the change.
+ Dr Carey reads conquests, in the plural; but the word, in the singular, implies more emphatically a career of victory.
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