酷兔英语

章节正文

Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake
The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds,

Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade,
Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye,

Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow,
And in the greenwood from a shaken oak

Seek solace for thine hunger.
Now to tell

The sturdy rustics' weapons, what they are,
Without which, neither can be sown nor reared

The fruits of harvest; first the bent plough's share
And heavy timber, and slow-lumbering wains

Of the Eleusinian mother, threshing-sleighs
And drags, and harrows with their crushing weight;

Then the cheap wicker-ware of Celeus old,
Hurdles of arbute, and thy mystic fan,

Iacchus; which, full tale, long ere the time
Thou must with heed lay by, if thee await

Not all unearned the country's crown divine.
While yet within the woods, the elm is tamed

And bowed with mighty force to form the stock,
And take the plough's curved shape, then nigh the root

A pole eight feet projecting, earth-boards twain,
And share-beam with its double back they fix.

For yoke is early hewn a linden light,
And a tall beech for handle, from behind

To turn the car at lowest: then o'er the hearth
The wood they hang till the smoke knows it well.

Many the precepts of the men of old
I can recount thee, so thou start not back,

And such slight cares to learn not weary thee.
And this among the first: thy threshing-floor

With ponderousroller must be levelled smooth,
And wrought by hand, and fixed with binding chalk,

Lest weeds arise, or dust a passage win
Splitting the surface, then a thousand plagues

Make sport of it: oft builds the tiny mouse
Her home, and plants her granary, underground,

Or burrow for their bed the purblind moles,
Or toad is found in hollows, and all the swarm

Of earth's unsightly creatures; or a huge
Corn-heap the weevil plunders, and the ant,

Fearful of coming age and penury.
Mark too, what time the walnut in the woods

With ample bloom shall clothe her, and bow down
Her odorous branches, if the fruit prevail,

Like store of grain will follow, and there shall come
A mighty winnowing-time with mighty heat;

But if the shade with wealth of leaves abound,
Vainly your threshing-floor will bruise the stalks

Rich but in chaff. Many myself have seen
Steep, as they sow, their pulse-seeds, drenching them

With nitre and black oil-lees, that the fruit
Might swell within the treacherous pods, and they

Make speed to boil at howso small a fire.
Yet, culled with caution, proved with patient toil,

These have I seen degenerate, did not man
Put forth his hand with power, and year by year

Choose out the largest. So, by fate impelled,
Speed all things to the worse, and backward borne

Glide from us; even as who with struggling oars
Up streamscarce pulls a shallop, if he chance

His arms to slacken, lo! with headlong force
The current sweeps him down the hurrying tide.

Us too behoves Arcturus' sign observe,
And the Kids' seasons and the shining Snake,

No less than those who o'er the windy main
Borne homeward tempt the Pontic, and the jaws

Of oyster-rife Abydos. When the Scales
Now poising fair the hours of sleep and day

Give half the world to sunshine, half to shade,
Then urge your bulls, my masters; sow the plain

Even to the verge of tameless winter's showers
With barley: then, too, time it is to hide

Your flax in earth, and poppy, Ceres' joy,
Aye, more than time to bend above the plough,

While earth, yet dry, forbids not, and the clouds
Are buoyant. With the spring comes bean-sowing;

Thee, too, Lucerne, the crumbling furrows then
Receive, and millet's annual care returns,

What time the white bull with his gilded horns
Opens the year, before whose threatening front,

Routed the dog-star sinks. But if it be
For wheaten harvest and the hardy spelt,

Thou tax the soil, to corn-ears wholly given,
Let Atlas' daughters hide them in the dawn,

The Cretan star, a crown of fire, depart,
Or e'er the furrow's claim of seed thou quit,

Or haste thee to entrust the whole year's hope
To earth that would not. Many have begun

Ere Maia's star be setting; these, I trow,
Their looked-for harvest fools with empty ears.

But if the vetch and common kidney-bean
Thou'rt fain to sow, nor scorn to make thy care

Pelusiac lentil, no uncertain sign
Bootes' fall will send thee; then begin,

Pursue thy sowing till half the frosts be done.
Therefore it is the golden sun, his course

Into fixed parts dividing, rules his way
Through the twelve constellations of the world.

Five zones the heavens contain; whereof is one
Aye red with flashing sunlight, fervent aye

From fire; on either side to left and right
Are traced the utmost twain, stiff with blue ice,

And black with scowling storm-clouds, and betwixt
These and the midmost, other twain there lie,

By the Gods' grace to heart-sick mortals given,
And a path cleft between them, where might wheel

On sloping plane the system of the Signs.
And as toward Scythia and Rhipaean heights

The world mounts upward, likewise sinks it down
Toward Libya and the south, this pole of ours

Still towering high, that other, 'neath their feet,
By dark Styx frowned on, and the abysmal shades.

Here glides the huge Snake forth with sinuous coils
'Twixt the two Bears and round them river-wise-

The Bears that fear 'neath Ocean's brim to dip.
There either, say they, reigns the eternal hush

Of night that knows no seasons, her black pall
Thick-mantling fold on fold; or thitherward

From us returning Dawn brings back the day;
And when the first breath of his panting steeds

On us the Orient flings, that hour with them
Red Vesper 'gins to trim his his 'lated fires.

Hence under doubtful skies forebode we can
The coming tempests, hence both harvest-day

And seed-time, when to smite the treacherous main
With driving oars, when launch the fair-rigged fleet,

Or in ripe hour to fell the forest-pine.
Hence, too, not idly do we watch the stars-

Their rising and their setting-and the year,
Four varying seasons to one law conformed.

If chilly showers e'er shut the farmer's door,
Much that had soon with sunshine cried for haste,

He may forestall; the ploughman" target="_blank" title="n.庄稼汉 =plowman">ploughman batters keen
His blunted share's hard tooth, scoops from a tree

His troughs, or on the cattle stamps a brand,
Or numbers on the corn-heaps; some make sharp

The stakes and two-pronged forks, and willow-bands
Amerian for the bending vine prepare.

Now let the pliant basket plaited be
Of bramble-twigs; now set your corn to parch

Before the fire; now bruise it with the stone.
Nay even on holy days some tasks to ply

Is right and lawful: this no ban forbids,
To turn the runnel's course, fence corn-fields in,

Make springes for the birds, burn up the briars,
And plunge in wholesomestream the bleating flock.

Oft too with oil or apples plenty-cheap
The creeping ass's ribs his driver packs,

And home from town returning brings instead
A dented mill-stone or black lump of pitch.

The moon herself in various rank assigns
The days for labour lucky: fly the fifth;

Then sprang pale Orcus and the Eumenides;
Earth then in awful labour brought to light

Coeus, Iapetus, and Typhoeus fell,
And those sworn brethren banded to break down

The gates of heaven; thrice, sooth to say, they strove
Ossa on Pelion's top to heave and heap,

Aye, and on Ossa to up-roll amain
Leafy Olympus; thrice with thunderbolt

Their mountain-stair the Sire asunder smote.
Seventh after tenth is lucky both to set

The vine in earth, and take and tame the steer,
And fix the leashes to the warp; the ninth

To runagates is kinder, cross to thieves.
Many the tasks that lightlier lend themselves

In chilly night, or when the sun is young,
And Dawn bedews the world. By night 'tis best

To reap light stubble, and parched fields by night;
For nights the suppling moisture never fails.

And one will sit the long late watches out
By winter fire-light, shaping with keen blade

The torches to a point; his wife the while,
Her tedious labour soothing with a song,

Speeds the shrill comb along the warp, or else
With Vulcan's aid boils the sweet must-juice down,

And skims with leaves the quivering cauldron's wave.
But ruddy Ceres in mid heat is mown,

And in mid heat the parched ears are bruised
Upon the floor; to plough strip, strip to sow;

Winter's the lazy time for husbandmen.
In the cold season farmers wont to taste

The increase of their toil, and yield themselves
To mutualinterchange of festal cheer.

Boon winter bids them, and unbinds their cares,
As laden keels, when now the port they touch,

And happy sailors crown the sterns with flowers.
Nathless then also time it is to strip

Acorns from oaks, and berries from the bay,
Olives, and bleeding myrtles, then to set

Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag,
And hunt the long-eared hares, then pierce the doe

With whirl of hempen-thonged Balearic sling,
While snow lies deep, and streams are drifting ice.

What need to tell of autumn's storms and stars,
And wherefore men must watch, when now the day

Grows shorter, and more soft the summer's heat?
When Spring the rain-bringer comes rushing down,

Or when the beards of harvest on the plain


文章标签:翻译  译文  翻译文  

章节正文