His ancient royalties behind him lie.
So with all heed his strength he practiseth,
And nightlong makes the hard bare stones his bed,
And feeds on prickly leaf and
pointed rush,
And proves himself, and butting at a tree
Learns to fling wrath into his horns, with blows
Provokes the air, and scattering clouds of sand
Makes prelude of the battle; afterward,
With strength repaired and gathered might breaks camp,
And hurls him
headlong on the unthinking foe:
As in mid ocean when a wave far of
Begins to
whiten, mustering from the main
Its rounded breast, and,
onward rolled to land
Falls with
prodigious roar among the rocks,
Huge as a very mountain: but the depths
Upseethe in swirling eddies, and disgorge
The murky sand-lees from their
sunken bed.
Nay, every race on earth of men, and beasts,
And ocean-folk, and flocks, and painted birds,
Rush to the raging fire: love sways them all.
Never than then more
fiercely" target="_blank" title="ad.凶猛地,残忍地">
fiercely o'er the plain
Prowls
heedless of her whelps the lioness:
Nor
monstrous bears such wide-spread havoc-doom
Deal through the forests; then the boar is
fierce,
Most
deadly then the tigress: then, alack!
Ill roaming is it on Libya's
lonely plains.
Mark you what shivering thrills the horse's frame,
If but a waft the
well-known gust conveys?
Nor curb can check them then, nor lash severe,
Nor rocks and caverned crags, nor barrier-floods,
That rend and whirl and wash the hills away.
Then speeds amain the great Sabellian boar,
His tushes whets, with forefoot tears the ground,
Rubs 'gainst a tree his flanks, and to and fro
Hardens each wallowing shoulder to the wound.
What of the youth, when love's
relentless might
Stirs the
fierce fire within his veins? Behold!
In blindest
midnight how he swims the gulf
Convulsed with bursting storm-clouds! Over him
Heaven's huge gate thunders; the rock-shattered main
Utters a
warning cry; nor parents' tears
Can
backward call him, nor the maid he loves,
Too soon to die on his
untimely pyre.
What of the spotted ounce to Bacchus dear,
Or
warlike wolf-kin or the breed of dogs?
Why tell how timorous stags the battle join?
O'er all
conspicuous is the rage of mares,
By Venus' self inspired of old, what time
The Potnian four with rending jaws devoured
The limbs of Glaucus. Love-constrained they roam
Past Gargarus, past the loud Ascanian flood;
They climb the mountains, and the torrents swim;
And when their eager
marrow first conceives
The fire, in Spring-tide
chiefly, for with Spring
Warmth doth their frames revisit, then they stand
All facing
westward on the rocky
heights,
And of the gentle breezes take their fill;
And oft unmated, marvellous to tell,
But of the wind impregnate, far and wide
O'er craggy
height and lowly vale they scud,
Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's,
But
westward and north-west, or
whence up-springs
Black Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.
Hence from their groin slow drips a
poisonous juice,
By shepherds truly named hippomanes,
Hippomanes, fell stepdames oft have culled,
And mixed with herbs and spells of baneful bode.
Fast flies
meanwhile the irreparable hour,
As point to point our charmed round we trace.
Enough of herds. This second task remains,
The wool-clad flocks and
shaggy goats to treat.
Here lies a labour; hence for glory look,
Brave husbandmen. Nor
doubtfully know
How hard it is for words to
triumph here,
And shed their lustre on a theme so slight:
But I am caught by ravishing desire
Above the lone Parnassian steep; I love
To walk the
heights, from
whence no earlier track
Slopes
gentlydownward to Castalia's spring.
Now, awful Pales, strike a louder tone.
First, for the sheep soft pencotes I decree
To
browse in, till green summer's swift return;
And that the hard earth under them with straw
And handfuls of the fern be littered deep,
Lest chill of ice such tender cattle harm
With scab and loathly foot-rot. Passing thence
I bid the goats with arbute-leaves be stored,
And served with fresh spring-water, and their pens
Turned
southward from the blast, to face the suns
Of winter, when Aquarius' icy beam
Now sinks in showers upon the
parting year.
These too no lightlier our
protection claim,
Nor prove of poorer service, howsoe'er
Milesian fleeces dipped in Tyrian reds
Repay the barterer; these with offspring teem
More numerous; these yield plenteous store of milk:
The more each dry-wrung udder froths the pail,
More
copious soon the teat-pressed torrents flow.
Ay, and on Cinyps' bank the he-goats too
Their beards and grizzled chins and bristling hair
Let clip for camp-use, or as rugs to wrap
Seafaring wretches. But they
browse the woods
And summits of Lycaeus, and rough briers,
And brakes that love the
highland: of themselves
Right heedfully the she-goats
homeward troop
Before their kids, and with plump udders clogged
Scarce cross the
threshold. Wherefore rather ye,
The less they crave man's
vigilance, be fain
From ice to fend them and from snowy winds;
Bring food and feast them with their branchy fare,
Nor lock your hay-loft all the winter long.
But when glad summer at the west wind's call
Sends either flock to
pasture in the glades,
Soon as the day-star shineth, hie we then
To the cool meadows, while the dawn is young,
The grass yet hoary, and to browsing herds
The dew tastes sweetest on the tender sward.
When heaven's fourth hour draws on the thickening drought,
And
shrill cicalas
pierce the brake with song,
Then at the well-springs bid them, or deep pools,
From troughs of holm-oak quaff the
running wave:
But at day's hottest seek a
shadowy vale,
Where some vast ancient-timbered oak of Jove
Spreads his huge branches, or where huddling black
Ilex on ilex cowers in awful shade.
Then once more give them water sparingly,
And feed once more, till
sunset, when cool eve
Allays the air, and dewy moonbeams slake
The forest glades, with halcyon's song the shore,
And every
thicket with the goldfinch rings.
Of Libya's shepherds why the tale pursue?
Why sing their
pastures and the scattered huts
They house in? Oft their cattle day and night
Graze the whole month together, and go forth
Into far deserts where no shelter is,
So flat the plain and
boundless. All his goods
The Afric swain bears with him, house and home,
Arms, Cretan
quiver, and Amyclaean dog;
As some keen Roman in his country's arms
Plies the swift march beneath a cruel load;
Soon with tents pitched and at his post he stands,
Ere looked for by the foe. Not thus the tribes
Of Scythia by the far Maeotic wave,
Where turbid Ister whirls his yellow sands,
And Rhodope stretched out beneath the pole
Comes trending
backward. There the herds they keep
Close-pent in byres, nor any grass is seen
Upon the plain, nor leaves upon the tree:
But with snow-ridges and deep frost afar
Heaped seven ells high the earth lies featureless:
Still winter? still the north wind's icy breath!
Nay, never sun disparts the shadows pale,
Or as he rides the steep of heaven, or dips
In ocean's fiery bath his plunging car.
Quick ice-crusts curdle on the
running stream,
And iron-hooped wheels the water's back now bears,
To broad wains opened, as erewhile to ships;
Brass vessels oft
asunder burst, and clothes
Stiffen upon the wearers; juicy wines
They
cleave with axes; to one
frozen mass
Whole pools are turned; and on their untrimmed beards
Stiff clings the jagged icicle. Meanwhile
All heaven no less is filled with falling snow;
The cattle
perish: oxen's
mighty frames
Stand island-like amid the frost, and stags
In huddling herds, by that strange weight benumbed,
Scarce top the surface with their antler-points.
These with no hounds they hunt, nor net with toils,
Nor scare with
terror of the
crimson plume;
But, as in vain they breast the opposing block,
Butcher them, knife in hand, and so dispatch
Loud-bellowing, and with glad shouts hale them home.
Themselves in deep-dug caverns underground
Dwell free and
careless; to their hearths they heave
Oak-logs and elm-trees whole, and fire them there,
There play the night out, and in
festive glee
With barm and service sour the wine-cup mock.
So 'neath the seven-starred Hyperborean wain
The folk live tameless, buffeted with blasts
Of Eurus from Rhipaean hills, and wrap
Their bodies in the tawny fells of beasts.
If wool delight thee, first, be far removed
All prickly boskage, burrs and caltrops; shun
Luxuriant
pastures; at the outset choose
White flocks with downy fleeces. For the ram,
How white soe'er himself, be but the tongue
'Neath his moist palate black,
reject him, lest
He sully with dark spots his offspring's fleece,
And seek some other o'er the teeming plain.
Even with such snowy bribe of wool, if ear
May trust the tale, Pan, God of Arcady,
Snared and beguiled thee, Luna,
calling thee
To the deep woods; nor thou didst spurn his call.
But who for milk hath
longing, must himself
Carry lucerne and lotus-leaves enow
With salt herbs to the cote,
whence more they love
The streams, more stretch their udders, and give back
A subtle taste of saltness in the milk.
Many there be who from their mothers keep
The new-born kids, and
straightway bind their mouths
With iron-tipped muzzles. What they milk at dawn,