When once he's broken, feed him full and high;
Indulge his growth, and his gaunt sides supply.
Before his training, keep him poor and low;
For his stout stomach with his food will grow:
The pampered colt will discipline disdain,
Impatient of the lash, and restiff to the rein.
Would'st thou their courage and their strength
improve?
Too soon they must not feel the stings of love.
Whether the bull or courser be thy care,
Let him not leap the cow, nor mount the mare.
The youthful bull must wander in the wood
Behind the mountain, or beyond the flood,
Or in the stall at home his fodder find,
Far from the charms of that alluring kind.
With two fair eyes his mistress burns his breast:
He looks, and languishes, and leaves his rest,
Forsakes his food, and, pining for the lass,
Is joyless of the grove, and spurns the growing
The soft seducer, with enticing looks,
The bellowing rivals to the fight provokes.
A beauteous heifer in the wood is bred: The stooping warriors, aiming head to head, Engage their clashing horns: with dreadful sound The forest rattles, and the rocks rebound. They fence, they push, and, pushing, loudly roar : Their dewlaps and their sides are bathed in gore. Nor, when the war is over, is it peace; Nor will the vanquished bull his claim release; But, feeding in his breast his ancient fires, And cursing fate, from his proud foe retires. Driven from his native land to foreign grounds, He with a generous rage resents his wounds, His ignominious flight, the victor's boast, And, more than both, the loves, which unrevenged he lost.
Often he turns his eyes, and, with a groan,
Surveys the pleasing kingdoms, once his own:
And therefore to repair his strength he tries,
Hardening his limbs with painful exercise,
And rough upon the flinty rock he lies.
On prickly leaves and on sharp herbs he feeds,
Then to the prelude of a war proceeds.
His horns, yet sore, he tries against a tree,
And meditates his absent enemy.
He snuffs the wind; his heels the sand excite;
But, when he stands collected in his might,
He roars, and promises a more successful fight.
Then, to redeem his honour at a blow,
He moves his camp, to meet his careless foe.
Not more with madness, rolling from afar,
The spumy waves proclaim the watery war,
And mounting upwards, with a mighty roar,
March onwards, and insult the rocky shore.
They mate the middle region with their height,
And fall no less than with a mountain's weight;
The waters boil, and, belching, from below
Black sands, as from a forceful engine, throw.
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.
'Tis with this rage, the mother lion stung,
Scours o'er the plain, regardless of her young:
Demanding rites of love, she sternly stalks,
And hunts her lover in his lonely walks.
'Tis then the shapeless bear his den forsakes;
In woods and fields a wild destruction makes:
Boars whet their tusks; to battle tigers move,
Enraged with hunger, more enraged with love.
Then woe to him, that, in the desert land
Of Libya, travels o'er the burning sand!
The stallion snuffs the well-known scent afar,
And snorts and trembles for the distant mare;
Nor bits nor bridles can his rage restrain,
And rugged rocks are interposed in vain:
He makes his way o'er mountains, and contemns
Unruly torrents, and unforded streams.
The bristled boar, who feels the pleasing wound,
New grinds his arming tusks, and digs the ground.
The sleepy lecher shuts his little eyes;
About his churning chaps the frothy bubbles rise:
He rubs his sides against a tree; prepares
And hardens both his shoulders for the wars.
What did the youth, when Love's unerring dart
Transfixed his liver, and inflamed his heart?
Alone, by night, his watery way he took;
About him, and above, the billows broke;
The sluices of the sky were open spread,
And rolling thunder rattled o'er his head;
The raging tempest called him back in vain,
And every boding omen of the main:
Nor could his kindred, nor the kindly force
Of weeping parents, change his fatal course;
No, not the dying maid, who must deplore
His floating carcase on the Sestian shore.
I pass the wars that spotted lynxes make
With their fierce rivals for the female's sake,
The howling wolves', the mastiffs' amorous rage;
When even the fearful stag dares for his hind en-
But, far above the rest, the furious mare,
Barred from the male, is frantic with despair:
For, when her pouting vent declares her pain,
She tears the harness, and she rends the rein.
For this (when Venus gave them rage and power)
Their master's mangled members they devour,
Of love defrauded in their longing hour.
For love, they force through thickets of the wood,
They climb the steepy hills, and stem the flood.
When, at the spring's approach, their marrow
burns,
(For with the spring their genial warmth returns,) The mares to cliffs of rugged rocks repair,
And with wide nostrils snuff the western air:
When (wonderous to relate!) the parent wind,
Without the stallion, propagates the kind.
Then, fired with amorous rage, they take their flight
Through plains, and mount the hills' unequal height;
Nor to the north, nor to the rising sun,
Nor southward to the rainy regions, run,
But boring to the west, and hovering there,
With gaping mouths, they draw prolific air;
With which impregnate, from their groins they shed
A slimy juice, by false conception bred.
The shepherd knows it well, and calls by name
Hippomanes, to note the mother's flame.
This, gathered in the planetary hour,
With noxious weeds, and spelled with words of power,
Dire stepdames in the magic bowl infuse,
And mix, for deadly draughts, the poisonous juice.
But time is lost, which never will renew,
While we too far the pleasing path pursue,
Surveying nature with too nice a view.
Let this suffice for herds: our following care
Shall woolly flocks and shaggy goats declare.
Nor can I doubt what oil I must bestow,
To raise my subject from a ground so low;
And the mean matter, which my theme affords,
To embellish with magnificence of words.
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.
Now, sacred Pales, in a lofty strain
I sing the rural honours of thy reign.
First, with assiduous care from winter keep,
Well foddered in the stalls, thy tender sheep:
Then spread with straw the bedding of thy fold,
With fern beneath, to 'fend the bitter cold;
That free from gouts thou may'st preserve thy care,
And clear from scabs, produced by freezing air.
Next, let thy goats officiously be nursed,
And led to living streams, to quench their thirst.
Feed them with winter-browze; and, for their lair,
A cote, that opens to the south, prepare;
Where basking in the sun-shine they may lie,
And the short remnants of his heat enjoy.
This during winter's drisly reign be done,
Till the new Ram receives the exalted sun. *
For hairy goats of equal profit are
With woolly sheep, and ask an equal care.
'Tis true, the fleece, when drunk with Tyrian juice,
Is dearly sold; but not for needful use:
For the salacious goat increases more,
And twice as largely yields her milky store,
The still distended udders never fail,
But, when they seem exhausted, swell the pail.
Meantime the pastor shears their hoary beards,
And eases of their hair the loaden herds.
Their cam'lots, warm in tents, the soldier hold,
And shield the shivering mariner from cold.
On shrubs they browze, and, on the bleaky top Of rugged hills, the thorny bramble crop.
Astrologers tell us, that the sun receives his exaltation in the sign Aries: Virgil perfectly understood both astronomy and astrology.
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