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• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Primus.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book I.
• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Secundus.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book II.
• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Tertius.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book III.
• P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber Quartus.
• The Georgics of Virgil. Book IV.

THE GEORGICS OF VIRGIL.

BOOK IV.

• Next will I tell of the air-borne honey, a gift from the skies.
• Unto this part too of my song, Maecenas, turn thine eyes.
• A world in miniature thine admiration claims:
• Its chiefs heroic-hearted, its people’s life, their aims,
• Their tribes, their wars—in order will I unfold to thee all.5
• Slight is the theme—not slight the glory, if but no wall
• Of hindrance by Gods be raised, if Apollo hearken my call.

• First, for thy bees a home of an aspect meet must thou find
• Access whereunto the winds win not—for against the wind
• Can they sail not home with their spoils—nor where kids, ever butting in play,10
• Nor sheep tread down the flowers, nor kine, o’er the meads as they stray,
• Brush away dew, and trample down the herbs as they spring.
• Banished be spangled lizards with backs scale-glistering
• From the full-fraught hives, all bee-eating birds through the woods that flit,
• And the swallow, with murder’s tale on her breast by her own hands writ;15
• For they spread on all sides havoc, they pounce on the bees in mid-air,
• And their beaks to their ruthless nestlings that delicate morsel bear.
• But limpid springs, and pools that mirror the green-cushioned moss
• Be there hard by, and a lawn with a thin stream fleeting across.
• O’er their porch let a huge wild olive or palm stretch shadowing arms,20
• That, when in the dear spring new kings lead forth first-born swarms,
• And their youth, from the combs unprisoned, are dancing to and fro,
• The near stream’s bank may woo them away from the sun’s hot glow,
• And its green hospitality full in their path that tree may bestow.
• Mid the water—or standing pool, or racing brooklet’s flow—25
• Branches of willow to span it, and island-stones do thou lay,
• That on many a bridge they may settle, and spread to the summer-sun’s ray
• Their wings, if the east-wind haply, as slowly they won their way,
• May have whelmed them in this their ocean, or splashed at the least with its spray.
• All round let casia green, and the thyme that afar doth fling30

• Its odours, and savory heavy of scent be blossoming
• In abundance, and clumps of the violet drink of the rippling spring.
• Let the hives—whether curving sheets of bark have been sewn to thy mind
• Together, or be they of pliant sprays of the osier twined—
• Have doorways narrow; for frozen solid by winter’s cold35
• Is the honey; by heat is it melted and spilt from the honeycomb-mould.
• By thy bees is either extreme alike to be feared; nor for naught
• Do they labour to smear thin rifts in their roofs with plaster wrought
• Of wax, and with pollen of flowers fill chinks and crevices:
• And for this same service they gather and store in their treasuries40
• Gum closer-cleaving than birdlime or pitch from Ida brought.
• Oft, too, do they tunnel them lairs underground, if report lieth not,
• And make them a warm home there, and their nests have been found deep-sunk
• In sandstone-clefts or the cavernous heart of an old tree-trunk.
• Thou help them—with smooth clay oversmeared do thou warmly cover45
• Their crannied sleeping-bowers, and straw leaves thinly thereover.
• Suffer no yew-tree nigh to their house, nor crab-shells red
• Burn there on a hearth, and a deep-mired marsh for their sake do thou dread,
• And the fetid odour of slime, or where ring from shocks of sound
• Arched rocks, where phantom voices from cliffs cry-smitten rebound.50

• For the rest, when winter in rout by the golden sun is driven
• ’Neath the earth, and by summer’s light unbarred are the gates of heaven,
• Straightway through woodland-glade and forest they wing their flight,
• They harvest the splendour of flowers; from the stream’s face, hovering light,
• They sip, and thereafter, with some strange rapture joyful-souled,
• Nestlings and nest they cherish, and then do they cunningly mould
• Fresh wax, and fashion the cleaving honey’s molten gold.
• This done, when, pouring forth from their crypts to the stars of the sky,
• Through the clear summer air thou beholdest their army floating on high,
• And the marvellous dusky cloud trailed down the wind afar,60
• Mark well—by fresh-flowing waters ever attracted they are,
• And by leaf-laden bowers: the scents that I bid thee spread thou for them,
• Even these—bruised balm and the honeywort’s lightly accounted stem.
• Let the tinkling of brass, let the clash of the Great Mother’s cymbals upleap.
• Down on the odorous resting-place of themselves will they sweep;
• Into the cradling hive’s depths after their wont will they creep.

• But if they go forth to war—for jealousy ’twixt two kings
• Oft-times with turmoil vast her apple of discord flings—
• Thou shalt straightway discern from afar how their folk in their fury share,
• How their hearts are thrilling with war; for the strident clarion’s blare,70

• The voice of the War-god, cheereth the laggards on, and a cry
• Is heard like the shattering trumpet’s note shrilling wild and high.
• In hot haste then they muster: flicker and flash their wings;
• They make ready for action their arms, they whet on their beaks their stings:
• And around their lord by the royal pavilion the dense-thronged rout75
• Rallies: they challenge the foe with multitudinous shout.
• They but wait for a bright spring day, for an open battle-field fair,
• Then pour through their gates. They meet in the battle-shock: high in air
• Clangour awakes: in a huge orbed cloud are they mingled and massed,
• Wherefrom ever headlong they fall; never hail more thick and fast80
• Descends, nor the acorns down from the shaken oak-tree cast.
• Through the heart of the clashing squadrons on wings resplendent fleet
• Their kings, for the hearts of giants in those small bosoms beat.
• So sternly straining, unflinching they bide, till the crushing might
• Of the victor constrain his foes to turn their backs in flight.85
• These tempests of passion, yea, such conflicts Titanic as these,
• By a handful of dust cast o’er them are quelled and hushed to peace.

• But when thou hast from the battle recalled those chieftains twain,
• Whichsoever seemeth the worse, lest he prove but a waster and bane,
• Slay; in an undisputed court let the better reign.90
• That one will be all aglow with spots like spangles of gold—
• For two kinds are there: this is noble of mien to behold,
• And bright with red-glowing scales; that seems as the sluggard in rags
• To be clothed, and an overgrown paunch like a very plebeian he drags.
• As king is diverse from king, even so is the follower’s frame:95
• Ungainly and ragged are these; ’tis as though some wayfarer came
• Parched from the track’s deep dust, and spat its powder of clay
• From his dry lips: those gleam bright, and flash in resplendent array,
• Ablaze with gold, and their backs do symmetrical blots overstrew.
• Ay, this is the better brood; from these in the season due100
• Thou shalt strain sweet honey; nor yet is its sweetness all, so fine
• Is its limpid clearness, so well doth it mellow the roughness of wine.

• But when aimlessly fly the swarms, and sport through the sky at their will,
• Setting their combs at naught, and leaving their dwellings to chill,
• Their fickle spirits shalt thou restrain from their profitless play.105
• No hard task this, to restrain them; tear thou the pinions away
• From their kings: while they tarry, not one of the rest will dare to stray
• Through cloudland; to pluck up the marching-standard none will essay.
• Let gardens breathing with blossoms of saffron woo them to stay,
• And let him who against the thief and the bird stands sentinel110

• With willow-wood scythe, Priapus of Hellespont, ward them well.
• Let him whose heart is indeed in the work bring thyme and pines
• From the mountains, and plant them around their abodes in broad green lines.
• Let him chafe with labour his hand himself, himself in the ground
• Set fruit-bearing shoots, and sprinkle the grateful showers around.115

• Yea, I, were I not drawn near to the goal of my toils by now,
• And were striking sail, and were hasting to turn to the land my prow,
• Peradventure would sing by what careful tillage the garden grows
• To a thing of beauty, of Paestum where blooms twice yearly the rose,
• And how the endive rejoices in drinking the brook as it flows,120
• How the green banks joy in the parsley, how melons to full orbs swell
• As they wind through the grass; of the tardily blooming narcissus to tell
• Had I spared not; acanthus-sprays soft-curled like an infant’s hand
• Had I sung, and the ivy pale, and the myrtles that love the strand.
• For I call to mind how I saw a Corycian gardener old,125
• Where Galaesus the dark-flowing laveth the tilth-land’s rippling gold,
• ’Neath Oebalia’s high-built towers. Some roods of unclaimed soil
• Had he taken: too barren they were to be worth the ploughman’s toil,
• Too bare for the grazing of sheep, too stony for growing of vines;
• Yet garden-herbs had he sown mid its thickets in wide-set lines,130
• And silver lilies he planted and slim-stemmed poppies around,
• And, returning home in the gloaming, the wealth of kings he found
• In contentment of heart, and his board with unbought banquets heaped.
• First in the spring the rose, and in autumn the apple he reaped;
• And, while scowling winter was cleaving the rocks with his frost-wedge still,135
• And was setting his curb of ice on the onward-racing rill,
• He, he was already cropping the hyacinth silken-tressed,
• Was challenging laggard summer and loitering winds of the west.
• He first in the year had armies of breeding bees, for whom
• They swarmed multitudinous, harvested first from the down-pressed comb140
• The frothing honey: lindens and pines thick-growing had he.
• All blooms that in blossoming hours of the spring overmantled the tree,
• All these were ripened fruit in the autumn, there failed of them none.
• He too could transplant into ordered rows elm-trees full-grown
• And pears age-hardened, and sloes already in fruitage arrayed,145
• And planes of size to shelter a banqueting group ’neath their shade.
• But myself from all these themes do my narrow limits withhold:
• I must pass them by, and leave them by future bards to be told.

• Lo, now what nature on bees was by Jove himself conferred
• Will I tell, and what guerdon they won when they followed the sound that they heard

• Of the music Curetes made when the cymbals’ clash rang high,
• And in Dicte’s cavern they fed with their honey the King of the Sky.
• They only have children in common: all homes of their city are one:
• To the majesty of Law subjected their life-days run.
• A fatherland and a settled home they only know.155
• They bethink them of coming winter, they toil through the summer-glow,
• And all that they win for the general use lay by in store.
• Some watch for the nation’s subsistence, by covenant bound, evermore:
• In the field some labour; within the home’s seclusion some
• Lay down the narcissus’ tears and the tree-bark’s viscid gum160
• For their honeycombs’ first foundations, then hang therefrom in their place
• The close-clinging wax of the cells. Some rear the hope of the race
• To full growth: honey, of sweet things purest, do others store
• Till with liquid nectar the straining cells are brimming o’er.
• Some are there, to whom ’tis allotted to ward the gates of the town:165
• In turn do they watch for the rain and the heaven’s cloud-knit frown:
• They receive the harvesters’ burdens, they close in phalanx of war,
• And they chase that thriftless rabble, the drones, from their precincts afar.
• ’Tis a fever of toil; thyme-scented the odorous honey-drops are.
• ’Tis as when the Cyclopes in haste from ingots tough red-glowing170
• Forge thunderbolts: some are indrawing the blast and anon outblowing
• From the bellows of bull-hide: others are plunging the hissing brass
• In the tank. Even Etna groans ’neath the anvil’s ponderous mass.
• Mightily swing they alternately up for the rhythmical blow
• Their arms; in the grip of the pincers the metal they turn to and fro.175
• Even so—if by giants’ work we may set things small as these—
• The gain-getter’s passion inborn spurs on the Cecropian bees,
• Each in his office. Their city’s ward is in charge of the old:
• They must build its combs, and its mansions cunningly fashioned must mould.
• But the young stream wearily home late, late in the gloaming-tide—180
• Their thighs from the thyme full-fraught—from pasturing far and wide
• On arbute, on silvery willow, on casia, on saffron in hue
• Like the rose, on the linden rich, on the hyacinth’s dusky blue.
• Unto all cometh one repose from toil, one labour to all.
• At morn from the gates they pour—no laggards! When evenfall185
• From their pasturing beckons them, warns them to quit their fields at length,
• Then homeward they hie them; with food and with rest they requicken their strength.
• Low humming and murmuring mutter their borders and thresholds around.
• Soon, when they have hushed them to rest in their bowers, there is heard no sound
• Nightlong, and in well-earned peace are their bodies slumber-bound.

• Not far from their steadings they stray when rain is threatening,
• Nor, when winds from the east draw near, do they trust to the welkin their wing;
• But in safety the water they draw ’neath their city’s ramparts found,
• And essay short flights; and pebbles they oft take up from the ground,
• Even as sea-rocked boats take ballast when waves toss high:195
• And with these self-balanced through unsubstantial clouds they fly.

• Nay more, thou wilt marvel that bees of this strange custom approve,
• That they will not cohabit, nor languidly couched in the bed of love
• Unbend their vigour, and bring forth young with travail-throe;
• But their own mouths gather from leaves and from all sweet herbs that blow200
• Babes: dead kings thus do they still replace and burghers small,
• And are ever renewing the waxen realm and its palace-hall.
• Oft, too, against jagged rocks do they fray, as they wander wide,
• Their wings, and they yield up their life ere they cast their burden aside;
• So love they the flowers, in begetting the honey such is their pride.205
• Therefore, though each one life be but for a little span,—
• That brief existence never its seventh summer outran,—
• Yet immortal abideth the race, and through years on years on-rolled
• The fortune stands of the house, and grandsires of grandsires are told.

• Moreover, they honour the king: nor Egypt nor Lydia the vast,210
• Nor the tribes of the Parthians, nor Medes by Hydaspes that dwell have surpassed
• The homage they render. While lives their king, one heart, one will
• Have all; when they lose him, they break their fealty, spoil and spill
• Their hoarded honey; their netted combs into fragments fall.
• He is their work’s overseer, him reverence they, and all215
• Close round him with multitudinous clamour, a thronged array:
• On their shoulders they bear him, their bodies shield him in battle’s day;
• Yea, wounds and a glorious death for him do they court in the fray.

• Some, taking for guide herein such multiplied token and sign,
• Have declared that on bees is bestowed some share in the soul divine,220
• Some draughts of the airs of heaven, for that God moves everywhere
• Through earth, the expanses of sea, and the limitless depths of air:
• From Him sheep, cattle, men, and all wild broods of the earth
• Drank in the ethereal draught of life in the hour of their birth:
• Yea, and to Him they return, for not unto Him do they die225
• At dissolution: there is no death; but they live, and they fly
• To the ranks of starland, and enter the high-reared halls of the sky.

• If thou wilt unseal their narrow abode, wilt rifle thence
• The treasure-hoards of their honey, with water besprinkle thee, cleanse
• Thy mouth therewith: be searching smoke thy forerunner and shield.230

• Twice yearly men gather their harvest, and take two seasons’ yield;
• First, when the Pleiad Taygete lifts o’er the earth at morn
• Her fair face, spurning the Ocean-stream with her heel as in scorn,
• And again, when fast from the rain-laden Fish doth the same star flee,
• And sinks down saddened from heaven mid waves of a wintry sea.235
• Their wrath then knows no bounds; molested thus, through their sting
• Venom they breathe; in thy veins their darts invisible cling,
• And they leave them there, even life unto vengeance surrendering.

• If thou fear for them winter’s rigour, wouldst spare the hope of the state,
• Bruised hearts and shattered fortunes if thou wilt compassionate,240
• Yet to smoke them with thyme and to shear off empty cells at the least
• Who scruples?—for oft hath the newt consumed in secret feast
• The combs, and the light-loathing cockroach’s crowded bowers are there,
• And the work-hating drone sits down in the toiler’s banquet to share;
• Or the hornet grim on the bees by his might overmatched hath warred:245
• Or the moths’ fell tribe swarm there; or she by Minerva abhorred,
• The spider, hath hung her nets loose-woven afront of their door
• Yet, the more their hoards have been drained, with energy so much the more
• On will they press to repair the wreck of a race brought low,
• Will refill cell-rows, and from flowers fresh-woven shall granaries grow.250

• But if, seeing life cometh laden with sore mischances to bees
• As to men, their frames shall droop and pine with woeful disease,—
• And this shalt thou straightway discern by no uncertain signs:
• When they sicken, their colour changeth, with leanness’s haggard lines
• Are their visages marred: the forms of friends that will see not again255
• Life’s light, from their homes they bear in mournful funeral-train:
• Or in clusters they hang at their portal with clinging feet entwined,
• Or loiter within behind closed doors, all hunger-pined
• Unto utter listlessness, and with cramping cold made numb.
• Then is a dull sound heard, a low continuous hum,260
• As when the bleak South moans through shivering forest-trees,
• As when with recoiling surges snarl the troubled seas,
• As when ravening flames are raging in close-shut furnaces.
• Forthwith, I counsel thee, burn there odorous incense-gum,
• And through channels of reed pour honey in, and cry to them “Come,265
• O weary souls, to the food that ye know!”—in encouragement call.
• ’Twill be good to mingle therewith the savour of bruised oak-gall
• And rose-leaves dried, or, boiled o’er a slow fire, must of wine
• Till it thickens to syrup, or raisin-pulp of the Psithian vine;
• And thyme therewithal, and strong-smelling centaury see thou combine.270

• There is also a flower in the meads, our yeomen have named its name
• Starwort, and easily found by them that seek is the same;
• For a forest of dense-growing stalks it uprears from its turfy bed.
• Golden its flower is, the leaves that around it abundantly spread
• Are aglow with a dusky violet shot through with a crimson sheen.275
• The altars of Gods are oft festooned with its gold and green.
• In the mouth is its savour bitter; in close-cropped meads doth the hind
• Cull it, and where the curving streams of Mella wind.
• The roots of this in the Wine-god’s odorous nectar seethe,
• And in piled maunds lay at their doors, a food from which health shall breathe.280

• If one’s whole stock shall have suddenly perished, nor any seed
• Remaineth, wherefrom the life of a new generation may breed,
• It is time to unfold the device of the Master of all bee-lore,
• The Arcadian, in what wise oft ere now from the putrid gore
• Of a slain steer bees have been gendered. A legend of days of yore285
• Will I trace far back to its primal birth as I tell it o’er.
• For where by Canopus the favoured race of Pellaean blood
• Dwell, by the lake-like overflow of the great Nile-flood,
• And in painted shallops around and above their farm-lands ride
• Where the marches of quivered Persia lie close on their eastern side,290
• And where into branches seven the rushing waters divide
• Of the river that sweepeth down from the swarthy Indians’ land,
• And fertilizeth Egypt the green with its black slime-sand,
• On this never-failing device doth the whole tract’s safety stand.
• First choose they a narrow space, and for this end straitened yet more:295
• With the tiling-stones of a low-pitched ceiling they roof it o’er:
• With narrowing walls they cramp that chamber; in these they place
• Four windows of slanting light, to the heaven’s four winds that face.
• A young steer two years old, whose brow is with curved horns crowned,
• Already is chosen; his nostrils and mouth are closely bound[300
• From breathing, despite his furious struggles: by blows is he slain
• So that pounded and mashed is his flesh, though unbroken the hide must remains.
• So stretched on the earth in his prison they leave him: beneath him they lay
• Fragments of boughs, and thyme, and the fresh-plucked casia-spray.
• This do they when first the west-winds drive the waves to the shore,305
• Before the meadows are flushing with flower-colours, before
• The twittering swallow is hanging her nest ’neath the rafter-beam.
• Meanwhile in the softened bones those humours heat, and steam
• And ferment; and lo, living creatures of aspect weird to behold—
• Footless at first, but wings loud-buzzing soon they unfold—310

• Swarm out: through impalpable air ever faster and faster they leap,
• Until, like rain from the summer-clouds falling in cataract-sweep,
• All burst forth, swift as the arrow that bounds from the pulsing string,
• Fleet as the Parthian riders battleward hurrying.

• What God, O Muses, was he who forged for us this device?315
• Whence did such new adventure of man’s experience rise?
• Aristaeus the shepherd, fleeing from Tempe’s Peneian dells,
• When his bees by disease and famine were lost, as the legend tells,
• By the sacred head where Peneius had birth stood mournfully,
• And there on his mother he cried with a great and bitter cry:320
• “O mother, who hauntest the swirling deeps of the flood, mother mine,
• Cyrene, why didst thou bear me, a child of the high Gods’ line,—
• If indeed, as thou sayest, my sire is Thymbraean Apollo,—to be
• But Fortune’s fool? Oh whither is banished thy love for me?
• Ah why didst thou bid me hope to ascend at the last to the sky?325
• Lo now, of this the crown of my days of mortality,—
• Which my skilful wardship of corn-land and cattle had scarcely achieved
• With all mine endeavour,—though thou art my mother, am I bereaved!
• Ah come, and my fruitful plantations disroot with thine own hand;
• Lay to my stalls fell flame, and blast my corn-clothed land;330
• My seedlings burn, on my vines swing up the pitiless bill,
• If such deep loathing of my renown thine heart doth fill!”

• Far down in her bower ’neath the flood was heard that woeful sound
• By his mother. Combing Milesian fleeces her Nymphs sat round,
• Fleeces with deep rich hues of the sea’s own emerald dyed.335
• For Phyllodoce, Drymo, Ligeia, and Xantho were there at her side:
• Over their snowy necks did the shining tresses fall.
• Cymodoce, Spio, Nesaia were there, Thalia withal;
• Cydippe, Lycorias golden-haired, a maiden one;
• Of the other Lucina’s travail of late had been undergone:340
• Clio, her sister Beroe; daughters of Ocean were these,
• Vestured in fawnskins, gleaming with golden braveries;
• Ephyre, Opis, and Deïopeia of Asian race,
• And swift Arethusa, whose arrows at last had rest from the chase.
• Amidst them was Clymene singing of Vulcan’s heart-ache vain,345
• And the wiles and the stolen delights of Mars, and rang through the strain
• The roll of the countless loves of the Gods since Chaos’ reign.
• As, entranced by the song, from their spindles the fleecy coils they unrolled,
• Thrilled through the mother’s ears the wail of the sorrowful-souled
• Aristaeus; and all on their hyaline thrones sat terror-amazed.350

• But before her sisters her golden head Arethusa upraised
• Above the face of the waters, and shoreward afar she gazed,
• And she cried far down: “Not causelessly scared by such woeful moan,
• Cyrene my sister, art thou. Thy best-belovèd, thy son,
• Aristaeus, mournfully stands by Father Peneius’ stream;355
• And he weepeth, and nameth thy name, and calleth thee cruel to him?”

• At her words the heart of the mother was thrilled with unwonted dread:
• “O lead him, lead him to me! The thresholds of Gods may he tread!”
• She cried. Then bade she the deep floods cleave asunder wide
• For a path to her young son’s feet; and lo, upon either side360
• Overbowed like a mountain-cliff the wave encompassing stood,
• And received ’neath its mighty arch, and ushered him in ’neath the flood.
• And now, in amaze at the realm of waters, his mother’s abode,
• At the pools cavern-pent, at the whispering river-groves, onward he strode.
• At the mighty march of the waters he gazed in wondering awe.365
• All rivers beneath the vast earth onward-gliding he saw
• To their several lands disparted: Phasis and Lycus were there,
• And the well-head whence deep Enipeus bursts to the upper air,
• And Hypanis crashing through crags, and Caïcus through Mysia that flows:
• There Father Tiber had birth, thence Anio’s swift rush rose,370
• And he, with the horns on his bull-brows overlaid with gold,
• Eridanus: none other stream through teeming tilth-lands rolled
• Into the violet sea with wilder sweep doth pour.
• When he came to the chamber with hanging lava raftered o’er,
• And the cause of the helpless tears of her son Cyrene knew,375
• For the washing of hands clear fountain-streams in order due
• Her sisters bear to him, napkins of pile close-shorn bring they:
• Some heap for the feast the board, and the brimming cups they array,
• And with incense of Araby they cause the altars to blaze.
• Then spake his mother: “A chalice of wine Maeonian upraise,380
• Let us pour a libation to Ocean.” Therewith she also prays
• Unto Ocean the father of all, to the Sisterhood of the Sea,
• In whose keeping forests a hundred and rivers a hundred be.
• Thrice down upon Vesta’s hearth the nectar clear did she dash,
• Thrice to the roof’s top-ridge did the flame updarting flash.385
• Then spake she, and strengthened his heart with the omen, and bade be of cheer:
• “In the Sea-god’s gulf Carpathian dwelleth a certain seer,
• Proteus the sea-azure-hued, who measures the far-stretching main
• With dolphins and twy-hoofed horses yoked to his swift sea-wain.
• Even now he revisits Pallene the land of his birth, and the shore390

• Of Emathia. Him we Maids of the Sea with worship adore,
• Yea, that doth Nereus the Ancient; for all things are known to the Seer,
• Things that are now, that have been, things swiftly drawing near:
• For so hath Neptune ordained, whose monster ocean-kine
• And seals misshapen he pastures beneath the swirling brine.395
• He first must be seized, must be bound, my son, till to thee he make known
• The cause of the curse on thy bees, and a prosperous issue have shown.
• For, except enforced, will he give no counsels, nor ever by prayer
• Shalt thou bend him: with violence stern must thou seize him, and fetter him there.
• On thy bonds will his wiles be broken at last, will to emptiness fleet.400
• Lo, I myself, when the sun hath enkindled the noontide heat,
• Will guide thee, when herbs are athirst, when shade to the flock is sweet,
• To the place of his hiding, whither the Ancient is wont to retreat
• Wave-wearied: thou lightly mayst steal on him stretched asleep on the sands.
• But when in thy grip thou hast seized him, hast lapped him in compassing bands,405
• Then shapes ever-shifting shall baffle thee, fierce things’ forms shall repel.
• To a bristly boar will he suddenly turn, to a tigress fell,
• To a scale-clad serpent, a lioness tawny-necked anon,
• Or crackling and roaring in flames be at point from thy bonds to have gone,
• Or dissolved to impalpable water between thy fingers shall pour.410
• But, still as he turneth himself into shape after shape evermore,
• Ever tighter and tighter, my son, those close-clinging bonds do thou strain
• Till he change for the last time of all his shape, and appear again
• As at first thou didst see him, when dropped on his eyes the slumber-rain.”

• So speaking, she bade the limpid scent of ambrosia flow415
• Overstreaming the form of her son from head to foot, and lo,
• Its ravishing perfume breathed through his smooth-sleeked hair; each limb
• With sinewy vigour was thrilled. A cavern vast and dim
• Yawns in the tide-tunnelled cliff, whither many a wave, by the wind
• Thither herded, through rock-clefts far-withdrawn is parted and thinned.420
• There mariners storm-overtaken safe anchorage found of old.
• Within hides Proteus, a huge rock-barrier before him rolled.
• Here did the Sea-nymph ambush her son withdrawn from the light:
• Herself stood far aloof in a cloud-haze veiled from sight.
• The flashings of Sirius by this, as he blazed in the sky, ’gan parch425
• The Indians with thirst, and the sun had climbed unto heaven’s mid-arch:
• Scorched was the grass; with sun-chapped lips lay the deep-channelled streams
• Glowing with heat, while slowly baked their mud in his beams.
• Then, seeking his cavern-haunt, rose up from the billowy blue
• Proteus, around him the folk of the vast sea, wet with its dew,430

• Gambolling leapt, and were flinging afar the briny spray.
• Soon, scattered along the shore, the seal-herd slumbering lay.
• Himself—like a sheepfold’s warder amidst of the hills on a day,
• When the evening star bringeth homeward the calves from the pasture away,
• And keen grows the hunger of wolves hearing bleating of lambs in the fold,
• On a rock in their midst sat down, and their number he told and retold.
• Aristaeus, now that he saw so near the goal of his quest,
• Scarce suffered the Ancient to lay his weary limbs to rest,
• Ere he rushed with a shout on him: ere he could rise, round his limbs had he thrown
• His manacles. Proteus forgat not the craft so wholly his own,440
• But in change after change all marvellous creatures of earth did he seem;
• He was fire, was a hideous brute, was a swiftly-fleeting stream.
• But when no illusion availed him the net of the hunter to break,
• To his own true shape he returned, and at last with a man’s voice spake:
• “Now who, most presumptuous of youths, hath bidden thee trespass thus445
• On these our abodes?” he said. “What seekest thou here of us?”
• “Thou knowest, O Proteus, thou knowest: evasion can baffle not thee;
• Cease then to essay evasion. Gods’ counsels have guided me
• To come, for my stricken fortunes to seek thine oracles here.”
• No more he said: then in stormily vehement mood the Seer450
• Rolled on him sea-green eyes that blazed as with impotent hate,
• And grimly gnashing his teeth unlocked the lips of fate:
• “No mean power is it whose anger smites thee with these stern strokes.
• Heavy offence dost thou expiate. Orpheus the hapless invokes
• This vengeance—not half thy deserts!—and if Fate withstand not his will,455
• His wrath for the wife that was snatched from his arms shall be hard on thee still.
• She, fleeing in blind haste over the river from thy pursuit—
• Doomed girl!—saw not in the rank-grown grass afront of her foot
• The monster water-snake that haunted the banks of the stream.
• But the band of her age-mates the Dryads filled with scream on scream460
• All mountain-peaks: then wept crag-towers that on Rhodope stand,
• All heights Pangaean, and Rhesus’ domain, the War-god’s land,
• The Getans and Hebrus, and Oreithyia the Maid of the Strand.
• To lull with the hollow lyre love’s anguish Orpheus tried,
• And thee alone on the lonely beach, thee, darling bride,465
• Thee in the dayspring he sang, sang thee in the eventide.
• Yea, and through Taenarus’ gorge, the abysmal portal of Dis,
• Through the grove of the horror of darkness, the shrouded mysteries,
• He passed: to the Shadow-land, to the King of Terrors, he came,
• To the hearts that know not relenting, whom no man’s prayers can tame.470

• But thrilled by his song rose up from Erebus’ depths of night
• Bodiless shades, and phantoms of folk bereft of the light,
• Multitudinous they as the birds that under the leaf-screens hide
• From the hills down-driven by evening or rains of the winter-tide;
• Came matrons and husbands, and mighty-hearted heroes’ shades475
• Who had lived their span of life; came lads and unwedded maids;
• Came youths, on the death-pyre laid before their parents’ eyes.
• The pitchy ooze, the loathly sedge of Cocytus lies
• About them; the sluggish wave of the Fen of Horror is sleeping
• Round the fettered ones held by the ninefold coils of Styx in keeping.480
• Yea, the halls and the innermost Hell of Death by his song spell-bound
• Were still, and the Furies whose hair is with livid snakes enwound.
• Cerberus bayed not; his triple jaws were agape, as rung
• The harp, and Ixion’s wheel on the wind all moveless hung.

• And now, retracing his steps, had he won of all risks clear,485
• And regiven Eurydice now to the upper air drew near
• As she followed behind,—that one condition had Proserpine made,—
• When a sudden frenzy of doubt the unwary lover betrayed.
• Forgiven it well might have been, if forgiveness to Hades were known.
• He stopped: upon daylight’s verge was Eurydice, almost his own!490
• Forgetting, and heart-overmastered he looked back! Ah, in that hour
• As water spilt was his toil, and the bond of the pitiless Power
• Cancelled. Thrice was a thunder-crash heard from Avernus’ fen!
• ‘What, oh, what utter madness hath ruined,’ she cried to him then,
• ‘Both me the all-hapless and thee, O Orpheus? Back am I called495
• By the ruthless Fates, and with slumber my swimming eyes are palled.
• Farewell now! Compassed with limitless night am I swept away
• As I stretch to thee strengthless hands—ah, thine never more for aye!’

• So cried she, and lo, from his sight, as smoke with impalpable air
• Blent, far-fleeting she sped; nor, albeit he clutched in despair500
• At the shadows, albeit he yearned to pour out his soul in pleading,
• Did he see her thereafter. Orcus’ ferryman heard unheeding
• His prayer to cross that barrier-fen of Lethe’s flow.
• What should he do? Twice robbed of his wife, whitherward should he go?
• What tears could prevail with the Shades, what cry touch Hades’ King?505
• Ah, she in the Stygian barge even now swam shivering!

• Month after month, for seven whole months, as telleth the tale,
• ’Neath a cloud-capt rock by Strymon’s lonely stream did he wail,
• And deep in the ice-cold caverns unfolded all his pain,
• Taming the tigresses, making the oak-trees follow his strain:510

• As under a poplar’s shade doth the nightingale mourn and mourn,
• Bemoaning her nestlings lost, which a ruthless churl hath torn
• From the nest where his eye had marked them yet unfledged; but she
• Weeps nightlong. Crouched on a bough, her woeful melody
• Still she renews, and all through the land is her sad plaint heard.515
• No waking of love, no dream of a bridal, his spirit stirred.
• Alone through the norland ice, over Tanais veiled with snow,
• Over fields aye wedded to frosts Rhipaean, he roamed to and fro
• Bewailing the cancelled boon of Dis, and Eurydice torn
• From his arms, till the women Ciconian, who held love’s tribute for scorn520
• Of themselves, mid their rites and the revels of Bacchus through darkness that reeled
• Tore him in pieces, and strewed with his young limbs many a field.
• Yet then, even then, when his head, from the neck’s white marble shorn,
• On the swirling mid-stream rolled down Oeagrian Hebrus was borne,
• The masterless voice ever shrieked ‘Eurydice!’ Cold in death525
• The tongue crieth ‘Woe for Eurydice, woe!’ with fleeting breath:
• All down the stream each echoing bank ‘Eurydice!’ saith.”
• Thus Proteus; and lo, mid the deep with one swift bound had he sprung,
• And where he had vanished was foam on an eddy that swirled and swung.

• But Cyrene vanished not: straightway she spake to her trembling son:530
• “Son, bid thy sorrow and care from thine heart disburdened be gone.
• Herein is the one sole cause of thy plague. The Forest-maids,
• With whom she wont to glide in the dance ’neath wildwood shades,
• On thy bees sent this sore havoc. Bring gifts, and for pardon pray
• To the Wood-nymphs humbly, for easy to be entreated are they.535
• They will grant to thy prayers forgiveness, their wrath will they then forbear.
• But first will I tell thee in order the fashion of this thy prayer:—
• Four bulls, the choice of the herd, of peerless form, choose thou,
• Which on green Lycaeus’ heights for thy need are pasturing now;
• Choose also heifers as many, whose necks no yoke ever bore;540
• And for these by the Wood-nymphs’ high-built shrines rear altars four.
• There cause thou to stream the hallowed blood from the throats of the kine,
• And the victims’ carcases leave in the grove that embowers the shrine.
• When the Dawn, at her ninth uprising thereafter, to earth shall return,
• For death-dues to Orpheus, poppies, the flowers of oblivion, burn,545
• And a black ewe slay; and then to the grove returning again,
• Eurydice worship, appeased at last, with a young calf slain.”

• He tarried not: straightway he set him to do as his mother bade.
• He came to the shrine; the altars, as counselled of her, he arrayed;
• Choice bulls, of form unrivalled, thither he led down four,550

• • And heifers as many withal, whose necks no yoke ever bore.
  • When the ninth uprising of Dawn thereafter in splendour burned,
  • The death-dues to Orpheus he paid, and again to the grove returned.
  • But here do they look on a portent sudden and strange to be told—
  • Through the putrefied flesh of the kine, even all that the hides enfold,555
  • Bees buzzing come, from the rifted ribs like steam-clouds rolled,
  • Clouds trailing on measureless clouds! They swarm to the tree-top now,
  • And a cluster huge hangs down from every bending bough.
• • Such strains of the tillage of fields, of the rearing of beasts, I sang,
  • And of trees, while mighty Caesar’s thunder of battle rang560
  • By Euphrates the deep, and laws by the conqueror’s right he gave
  • Unto willing nations—yea, and his path unto Heaven did he pave.
  • Through those great days was I cradled on pleasant Parthenope’s knees,
  • I Virgil, embowered in the strenuous toils of inglorious peace,
  • Who have chanted the Shepherds’ Songs, who with youth’s presumption have sung,
  • Tityrus, thee ’neath the covert by broad beech-boughs overhung.