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    The Georgics
    The Georgics
    The Georgics
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    The Georgics

    By Virgil

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Author

    Virgil

    Publius Vergilius Maro – or Virgil – was born near Mantua in 70 BC and was brought up there, although he attended schools in Cremona and Rome. Virgil’s rural upbringing and his affinity with the countryside are evident in his earliest work, the Eclogues, a collection of ten pastoral poems. As an adult Virgil lived mostly in Naples, although he spent time in Rome and belonged to the circle of influential poets that included Horace. He also had connections to leading men within the senatorial class and to the Emperor Augustus himself. Following the Eclogues, Virgil wrote the Georgics, a didactic poem, and thereafter began his longest and most ambitious work, the Aeneid. He died in Brindisi in 19 BC.

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      Book preview

      The Georgics - Virgil

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Georgics, by Virgil

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Georgics

      Author: Virgil

      Release Date: March 10, 2008 [EBook #232]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GEORGICS ***

      29 BC

      THE GEORGICS

      by Virgil

      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 Arcturus rise

      With shallower trench uptilt it- 'twill suffice;

      There, lest weeds choke the crop's luxuriance, here,

      Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand.

      Then thou shalt suffer in alternate years

      The new-reaped fields to rest, and on the plain

      A crust of sloth to harden; or, when stars

      Are changed in heaven, there sow the golden grain

      Where erst, luxuriant with its quivering pod,

      Pulse, or the slender vetch-crop, thou hast cleared,

      And lupin sour, whose brittle stalks arise,

      A hurtling forest. For the plain is parched

      By flax-crop, parched by oats, by poppies parched

      In Lethe-slumber drenched. Nathless by change

      The travailing earth is lightened, but stint not

      With refuse rich to soak the thirsty soil,

      And shower foul ashes o'er the exhausted fields.

      Thus by rotation like repose is gained,

      Nor earth meanwhile uneared and thankless left.

      Oft, too, 'twill boot to fire the naked fields,

      And the light stubble burn with crackling flames;

      Whether that earth therefrom some hidden strength

      And fattening food derives, or that the fire

      Bakes every blemish out, and sweats away

      Each useless humour, or that the heat unlocks

      New passages and secret pores, whereby

      Their life-juice to the tender blades may win;

      Or that it hardens more and helps to bind

      The gaping veins, lest penetrating showers,

      Or fierce sun's ravening might, or searching blast

      Of the keen north should sear them. Well, I wot,

      He serves the fields who with his harrow breaks

      The sluggish clods, and hurdles osier-twined

      Hales o'er them; from the far Olympian height

      Him golden Ceres not in vain regards;

      And he, who having ploughed the fallow plain

      And heaved its furrowy ridges, turns once more

      Cross-wise his shattering share, with stroke on stroke

      The earth assails, and makes the field his thrall.

      Pray for wet summers and for winters fine,

      Ye husbandmen; in winter's dust the crops

      Exceedingly rejoice, the field hath joy;

      No tilth makes Mysia lift her head so high,

      Nor Gargarus his own harvests so admire.

      Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed,

      Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth

      The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn

      Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain;

      And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades

      Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed,

      See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls,

      Waking hoarse murmurs o'er the polished stones,

      And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty fields?

      Or why of him, who lest the heavy ears

      O'erweigh the stalk, while yet in tender blade

      Feeds down the crop's luxuriance, when its growth

      First tops the furrows? Why of him who drains

      The marsh-land's gathered ooze through soaking sand,

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