ECLOGUE I

M ELIBoeUS T ITYRUS .

M.

Stretched in the shadow of the broad beech, thou
Rehearsest, Tityrus, on the slender pipe
Thy woodland music. We our fatherland
Are leaving, we must shun the fields we love:
While, Tityrus, thou, at ease amid the shade,
Bidd'st answering woods call Amaryllis " fair." T.
O Melibaeus! 'Tis a god that made
For me this holiday: for god I'll aye
Account him; many a young lamb from my fold
Shall stain his altar. Thanks to him, my kine
Range, as thou seest them: thanks to him, I play
What songs I list upon my shepherd's pipe. M.
For me, I grudge thee not; I marvel much:
So sore a trouble is in all the land
Lo! feeble I am driving hence my goats —
Nay dragging , Tityrus, one, and that with pain
For, yeaning here amidst the hazel-stems,
She left her twin kids — on the naked flint
She left them; and I lost my promised flock.
This evil, I remember, oftentimes,
(Had not my wits been wandering,) oaks foretold
By heaven's hand smitten: oft the wicked crow
Croaked the same message from the rifted holm
— Yet tell me, Tityrus, of this " God" of thine. T.
The city men call Rome my folly deemed
Was e'en like this of ours, where week by week
We shepherds journey with our weanling flocks.
So whelp to dog, so kid (I knew) to dam
Was likest: and I judged great things by small
But o'er all cities this so lifts her head,
As doth o'er osiers lithe the cypress tree. M.
What made thee then so keen to look on Rome? T.
Freedom: who marked, at last, my helpless state:
Now that a whiter beard than that of yore
Fell from my razor: still she marked, and came
(All late) to help me — now that all my thought
Is Amaryllis, Galatea gone.
While Galatea's, I despaired, I own,
Of freedom, and of thrift. Though from my farm
Full many a victim stept, though rich the cheese
Pressed for yon thankless city: still my hand
Returned not, heavy with brass pieces, home. M.
I wondered, Amaryllis, whence that woe,
And those appeals to heav'n; for whom the peach
Hung undisturbed upon the parent tree.
Tityrus was gone! Why, Tityrus, pine and rill,
And all these copses, cried to thee, " Come home! " T.
What could I do? I could not step from out
My bonds; nor meet, save there, with Pow'rs so kind
There, Melibaeus, I beheld that youth
For whom each year twelve days my altars smoke.
Thus answered he my yet unanswered prayer;
" Feed still, my lads, your kine, and yoke your bulls " M.
Happy old man! Thy lands are yet thine own!
Lands broad enough for thee, although bare stones
And marsh choke every field with reedy mud
Strange pastures shall not vex thy teeming ewes,
Nor neighbouring flocks shed o'er them rank disease
Happy old man! Here, by familiar streams
And holy springs, thou'lt catch the leafy cool
Here, as of old, yon hedge, thy boundary line,
Its willow-buds a feast for Hybla's bees,
Shall with soft whisperings woo thee to thy sleep.
Here, 'neath the tall cliff, shall the vintager
Sing carols to the winds: while all the time
Thy pets, the stockdoves, and the turtles make
Incessantly their moan from airy elms. T.
Aye, and for this shall slim stags graze in air,
And ocean cast on shore the shrinking fish;
For this, each realm by either wandered o'er,
Parthians shall Arar drink, or Tigris Gauls;
Ere from this memory shall fade that face! M.
And we the while must thirst on Libya's sands,
O'er Scythia roam, and where the Cretan stems
The swift Oaxes; or, with Britons, live
Shut out from all the world. Shall I e'er see,
In far-off years, my fatherland? the turf
That roofs my meagre hut? see, wondering last.
Those few scant cornblades that are realms to me?
What! must rude soldiers hold these fallows trim?
That corn barbarians? See what comes of strife,
Poor people — where we sowed, what hands shall reap!
Now, Melibaeus, pr'ythee graft thy pears,
And range thy vines! Nay on, my she-goats, on,
Once happy flock! For never more must I,
Outstretched in some green hollow, watch you hang
From tufted crags, far up: no carols more
I'll sing: nor, shepherded by me, shall ye
Crop the tart willow and the clover-bloom T.
Yet here, this one night, thou may'st rest with me,
Thy bed green branches. Chestnuts soft have I
And mealy apples, and our fill of cheese.
Already, see, the far-off chimneys smoke,
And deeper grow the shadows of the hills.