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70 These strains, Muses divine, it will be enough. for your poet to have sung, while he sits idle and twines a basket of slender hibiscus. These ye shall make of highest worth in Gallus' eyes-Gallus, for whom my love grows hour by hour as fast as in the dawn of spring shoots up the green alder. Let us rise; the shade oft brings peril to singers. The juniper's shade brings peril; hurtful to the corn, too, is the shade. Get ye home, my full-fed goats-the Evening-star comes-get ye home!

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GEORGICON

LIBER I

MPR

5

QUID faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram vertere, Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere vites conveniat, quae cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, apibus quanta experientia parcis, hinc canere incipiam. vos, o clarissima mundi lumina, labentem caelo quae ducitis annum, Liber et alma Ceres, vestro si munere tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista, poculaque inventis Acheloia miscuit uvis ; et vos, agrestum praesentia numina, Fauni, (ferte simul Faunique pedem Dryadesque puellae !) munera vestra cano. tuque o, cui prima frementem fudit equum magno tellus percussa tridenti, Neptune; et cultor nemorum, cui pinguia Ceae ter centum nivei tondent dumeta iuvenci ; ipse, nemus linquens patrium saltusque Lycaei, Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maenala curae, adsis, o Tegeaee, favens, oleaeque Minerva

7 numine M2.

13 fundit P.

10

15

GEORGICS

BOOK I

WHAT makes the crops joyous, beneath what star, Maecenas, it is well to turn the soil, and wed vines to elms, what tending the kine need, what care the herd in breeding, what skill the thrifty beeshence shall I begin my song.1 O ye most radiant lights of the firmament, that guide through heaven the gliding year, O Liber and bounteous Ceres, if by your grace Earth changed Chaonia's acorn for the rich corn-ear, and blended draughts of Achelous with the new-found grapes, and ye, O Fauns the rustics' ever-present gods (come trip it, Fauns, and Dryad maids withal!), 'tis of your bounties I sing. And thou, O Neptune, for whom Earth, smitten by thy mighty trident, first sent forth the neighing steed; thou, too, O spirit of the groves,2 for whom thrice an hundred snowy steers crop Cea's rich thickets; thyself, too, O Pan, guardian of the sheep, leaving thy native woods and glades of Lycaeus, as thou lovest thine own Maenalus, come of thy grace, O Tegean

1 The subjects of the four books are here given, viz. tillage, planting, the rearing of cattle, and the keeping of bees, Then follows the invocation of the rural powers, beginning with the sun and moon, and closing with Caesar Augustus, who has yet to choose his divine sphere.

2 i.e. Aristaeus.

inventrix, uncique puer monstrator aratri,

25

et teneram ab radice ferens, Silvane, cupressum; 20 dique deaeque omnes, studium quibus arva tueri, quique novas alitis non ullo semine fruges, quique satis largum caelo demittitis imbrem ; tuque adeo, quem mox quae sint habitura deorum concilia, incertum est, urbisne invisere, Caesar, terrarumque velis curam et te maximus orbis auctorem frugum tempestatumque potentem accipiat, cingens materna tempora myrto, an deus immensi venias maris ac tua nautae numina sola colant, tibi serviat ultima Thule, teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis, anne novum tardis sidus te mensibus addas, qua locus Erigonen inter Chelasque sequentis panditur (ipse tibi iam bracchia contrahit ardens Scorpios et caeli iusta plus parte reliquit) : quidquid eris (nam te nec sperant Tartara regem nec tibi regnandi veniat tam dira cupido, quamvis Elysios miretur Graecia campos

nec repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem),

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35

da facilem cursum, atque audacibus adnue coeptis, 40 ignarosque viae mecum miseratus agrestis

ingredere et votis iam nunc adsuesce vocari.

AMPR

25 urbesne M: urbisne (v. A. Gellius, XIII. XXI. 4).
35 relinquit P.

36 sperent M2P2, Servius.

lord! Come thou, O Minerva, inventress of the olive ; thou, too, O youth,1 who didst disclose the crooked plough; and thou, O Silvanus, with a young uprooted cypress in thy hand; and ye, O gods and goddesses all, whose love guards our fields-both ye who nurse the young fruits, springing up unsown, and ye who on the seedlings send down from heaven plenteous rain! 24 Yea, and thou, O Caesar, whom we know not what company of the gods shall claim ere long; whether thou choose to watch over cities and care for our lands, that so the mighty world may receive thee as the giver of increase and lord of the seasons, wreathing thy brows with thy mother's myrtle; whether thou come as god of the boundless sea and sailors worship thy deity alone, while farthest Thule owns thy lordship and Tethys with the dower of all her waves buys thee to wed her daughter; or whether thou add thyself as a new star to the lingering months, where, between the Virgin 2 and the grasping Claws, a space is opening (lo! for thee even now the blazing Scorpion draws in his arms, and has left more than a due share of the heaven!)—whate'er thou art to be (for Tartarus hopes not for thee as king, and may such monstrous lust of empire ne'er seize thee, albeit Greece is enchanted by the Elysian fields, and Proserpine reclaimed cares not to follow her mother), do thou grant me a smooth course, give assent to my bold emprise, and pitying with me the rustics who know not their way, enter on thy worship, and learn even now to hearken to our prayers!

1 i.e. Triptolemus, son of Celeus of Eleusis, and favourite of Demeter.

2 One of the signs of the Zodiac, called in Greek Erigone. The "Claws" are the Scorpion. Libra was later introduced between Scorpios and Virgo.

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