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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,



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