The Bucolics and Ecloges [English] | Page 4

snow-white milk abounding: yet for me?Roam on Sicilian hills a thousand lambs;?Summer or winter, still my milk-pails brim.?I sing as erst Amphion of Circe sang,?What time he went to call his cattle home?On Attic Aracynthus. Nor am I?So ill to look on: lately on the beach?I saw myself, when winds had stilled the sea,?And, if that mirror lie not, would not fear?Daphnis to challenge, though yourself were judge.?Ah! were you but content with me to dwell.?Some lowly cot in the rough fields our home,?Shoot down the stags, or with green osier-wand?Round up the straggling flock! There you with me?In silvan strains will learn to rival Pan.?Pan first with wax taught reed with reed to join;?For sheep alike and shepherd Pan hath care.?Nor with the reed's edge fear you to make rough?Your dainty lip; such arts as these to learn?What did Amyntas do?- what did he not??A pipe have I, of hemlock-stalks compact?In lessening lengths, Damoetas' dying-gift:?'Mine once,' quoth he, 'now yours, as heir to own.'?Foolish Amyntas heard and envied me.?Ay, and two fawns, I risked my neck to find?In a steep glen, with coats white-dappled still,?From a sheep's udders suckled twice a dayThese?still I keep for you; which Thestilis?Implores me oft to let her lead away;?And she shall have them, since my gifts you spurn.?Come hither, beauteous boy; for you the Nymphs?Bring baskets, see, with lilies brimmed; for you,?Plucking pale violets and poppy-heads,?Now the fair Naiad, of narcissus flower?And fragrant fennel, doth one posy twineWith?cassia then, and other scented herbs,?Blends them, and sets the tender hyacinth off?With yellow marigold. I too will pick?Quinces all silvered-o'er with hoary down,?Chestnuts, which Amaryllis wont to love,?And waxen plums withal: this fruit no less?Shall have its meed of honour; and I will pluck?You too, ye laurels, and you, ye myrtles, near,?For so your sweets ye mingle. Corydon,?You are a boor, nor heeds a whit your gifts?Alexis; no, nor would Iollas yield,?Should gifts decide the day. Alack! alack!?What misery have I brought upon my head!-?Loosed on the flowers Siroces to my bane,?And the wild boar upon my crystal springs!?Whom do you fly, infatuate? gods ere now,?And Dardan Paris, have made the woods their home.?Let Pallas keep the towers her hand hath built,?Us before all things let the woods delight.?The grim-eyed lioness pursues the wolf,?The wolf the she-goat, the she-goat herself?In wanton sport the flowering cytisus,?And Corydon Alexis, each led on?By their own longing. See, the ox comes home?With plough up-tilted, and the shadows grow?To twice their length with the departing sun,?Yet me love burns, for who can limit love??Ah! Corydon, Corydon, what hath crazed your wit??Your vine half-pruned hangs on the leafy elm;?Why haste you not to weave what need requires?Of pliant rush or osier? Scorned by this,?Elsewhere some new Alexis you will find."
ECLOGUE III
MENALCAS DAMOETAS PALAEMON
MENALCAS?Who owns the flock, Damoetas? Meliboeus?
DAMOETAS?Nay, they are Aegon's sheep, of late by him?Committed to my care.
MENALCAS
O every way?Unhappy sheep, unhappy flock! while he?Still courts Neaera, fearing lest her choice?Should fall on me, this hireling shepherd here?Wrings hourly twice their udders, from the flock?Filching the life-juice, from the lambs their milk.
DAMOETAS?Hold! not so ready with your jeers at men!?We know who once, and in what shrine with youThe?he-goats looked aside- the light nymphs laughed-
MENALCAS?Ay, then, I warrant, when they saw me slash?Micon's young vines and trees with spiteful hook.
DAMOETAS?Or here by these old beeches, when you broke?The bow and arrows of Damon; for you chafed?When first you saw them given to the boy,?Cross-grained Menalcas, ay, and had you not?Done him some mischief, would have chafed to death.
MENALCAS?With thieves so daring, what can masters do??Did I not see you, rogue, in ambush lie?For Damon's goat, while loud Lycisca barked??And when I cried, "Where is he off to now??Gather your flock together, Tityrus,"?You hid behind the sedges.
DAMOETAS
Well, was he?Whom I had conquered still to keep the goat.?Which in the piping-match my pipe had won!?You may not know it, but the goat was mine.
MENALCAS?You out-pipe him? when had you ever pipe?Wax-welded? in the cross-ways used you not?On grating straw some miserable tune?To mangle?
DAMOETAS
Well, then, shall we try our skill?Each against each in turn? Lest you be loth,?I pledge this heifer; every day she comes?Twice to the milking-pail, and feeds withal?Two young ones at her udder: say you now?What you will stake upon the match with me.
MENALCAS?Naught from the flock I'll venture, for at home?I have a father and a step-dame harsh,?And twice a day both reckon up the flock,?And one withal the kids. But I will stake,?Seeing you are so mad, what you yourself?Will own more priceless far- two beechen cups?By the divine art of Alcimedon?Wrought and embossed, whereon a limber vine,?Wreathed round them by the graver's facile tool,?Twines over clustering ivy-berries pale.?Two figures, one Conon, in the midst he set,?And one- how call you him, who with his wand?Marked out for