per noctem resonare lupis ululantibus urbes. 490 nec fuit indignum superis, bis sanguine nostro Emathiam et latos Haemi pinguescere campos. 495 500 invidet atque hominum queritur curare triumphos; quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas: tot bella per orbem, tam multae scelerum facies; non ullus aratro 505 510 513 addunt in spatia M2y2: addunt spatio M1: addunt in spatio y1: addunt spatia R: addunt se in spatia c. wells, or lofty cities to echo all the night with the howl of wolves. Never from a cloudless sky fell more lightnings; never so oft blazed fearful comets. Therefore once more Philippi saw Roman armies clash in the shock of brother 1 weapons, and the Powers above thought it not unseemly that Emathia and the broad plains of Haemus should twice batten on our blood. Yea, and a time shall come when in those lands, as the farmer toils at the soil with crooked plough, he shall find javelins eaten up with rusty mould, or with his heavy hoes shall strike on empty helms, and marvel at the giant bones in the upturned graves. 498 Gods of my country, Heroes of the land, thou Romulus, and thou Vesta, our mother, that guardest Tuscan Tiber and the Palatine of Rome, at least stay not this young prince from aiding a world uptorn! Enough has our life-blood long atoned for Laomedon's perjury at Troy; enough have Heaven's courts long grudged thee, O Caesar, to us, murmuring that thou payest heed to earthly triumphs! For here are right and wrong inverted; so many wars overrun the world, so many are the shapes of sin; the plough meets not its honour due; our lands, robbed of the tillers, lie waste, and the crooked pruning-hooks are forged into stiff swords. Here Euphrates, there Germany, awakes war; neighbour cities break the leagues that bound them and draw the sword; throughout the world rages the god of unholy strife: even as when from the barriers the chariots stream forth, round after round they speed, and the driver, tugging vainly at the reins, is borne along, and the car heeds not the curb! 1 i.e. both armies were armed alike. LIBER II HACTENUS arvorum cultus et sidera caeli : nunc te, Bacche, canam, nec non silvestria tecum Principio arboribus varia est natura creandis. namque aliae nullis hominum cogentibus ipsae sponte sua veniunt camposque et flumina late curva tenent, ut molle siler lentaeque genistae, populus et glauca canentia fronde salicta; M 5 10 pars autem posito surgunt de semine, ut altae castaneae, nemorumque Iovi quae maxima frondet 15 aesculus, atque habitae Grais oracula quercus. pullulat ab radice aliis densissima silva, ut cerasis ulmisque; etiam Parnasia laurus parva sub ingenti matris se subicit umbra. hos natura modos primum dedit, his genus omne 20 silvarum fruticumque viret nemorumque sacrorum. Sunt alii, quos ipse via sibi repperit usus. hic plantas tenero abscindens de corpore matrum 19 subigit M. 22 alie quos M1; aliae quas M2: alii quos abc. BOOK II THUS far the tillage of the fields and the stars of heaven: now thee, Bacchus, will I sing, and with thee the forest saplings, and the offspring of the slow-growing olive. Hither, O Lenaean sire! Here all is full of thy bounties; for thee blossoms the field teeming with the harvest of the vine, and the vintage foams in the brimming vats. Come hither, O Lenaean sire, strip off thy buskins and with me plunge thy naked legs in the new must. 9 Firstly, Nature has ways manifold for rearing trees. For some, under no man's constraint, spring up of their own free will, and far and wide claim the plains and winding rivers; such as the limber osier and lithe broom, the poplar, and the pale willow-beds with silvery leafage. But some spring from fallen seed, as tall chestnuts, and the broad-leaved tree,1 mightiest of the woodland, that spreads its shade for Jove, and the oaks, deemed by the Greeks oracular. With others → a dense undergrowth sprouts from the parent root, as with cherries and elms; the laurel of Parnassus, too, springs up, a tiny plant, beneath its mother's mighty shade. These are the modes Nature first ordained; these give verdure to every kind of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred groves. 22 Others there are which Experience has in her course discovered for herself. One man tears away 1 The aesculus of Virgil is an oak, the latifolia variety of the quercus robur. deposuit sulcis, hic stirpes obruit arvo quadrifidasque sudes et acuto robore vallos; silvarumque aliae pressos propaginis arcus exspectant et viva sua plantaria terra ; 25 nil radicis egent aliae summumque putator haud dubitat terrae referens mandare cacumen. quin et caudicibus sectis (mirabile dictu) 30 truditur e sicco radix oleagina ligno. et saepe alterius ramos impune videmus vertere in alterius, mutatamque insita mala ferre pirum et prunis lapidosa rubescere corna. Quare agite o proprios generatim discite cultus, 35 agricolae, fructusque feros mollite colendo, neu segnes iaceant terrae. iuvat Ismara Baccho conserere atque olea magnum vestire Taburnum. tuque ades inceptumque una decurre laborem, o decus, o famae merito pars maxima nostrae, Maecenas, pelagoque volans da vela patenti. non ego cuncta meis amplecti versibus opto, non mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum, ferrea vox. ades et primi lege litoris oram ; in manibus terrae: non hic te carmine ficto atque per ambages et longa exorsa tenebo. 40 45 Sponte sua quae se tollunt in luminis oras, infecunda quidem, sed laeta et fortia surgunt; quippe solo natura subest. tamen haec quoque, si quis 47 auras M2 1 Here, as in decurre (1. 39), and in 1. 44, the poet invites his patron to join him in a voyage on a broad sea, promising, however, that he will merely skirt the shore. Thus he |