THE BUCOLICS.

ECLOGUE I.

TITYRUS.

M. You, Tityrus, as you lie under the covert of the spreading beech, are studying the woodland Muse on your slender reed, while we are leaving our country's borders and the fields of our love—we are exiles from our country, while you, Tityrus, at ease in the shade, are teaching the woods to resound the charms of Amaryllis.

T. O Melibœus, it is a god who has given us the peace you see-for a god he shall ever be to me; his altar shall often be wet with the blood of a tender lamb from our folds. He it is that has made my oxen free to wander at large, and myself to play at my pleasure on my rural pipe.

M. I do not grudge you, I. It is rather that I wonder, so great is the unsettledness in the whole country round. Look at me here! I am driving my goats feebly on before me; and here is one, Tityrus, which I can but just drag along. Why, it was here among these thick hazels only just now that she dropped twins, after hard labour-the last hope of my flockalas! on the bare flint. Ah! often and often, I mind, this mischief was foretold me, had I but had sense, by the lightning

striking the oak. However, do kindly tell me, Tityrus, who this god of yours is.

T. That city which they call Rome I thought, Melibœus, was like this of ours, where we shepherds are in the habit of weaning and driving our young lambs. It was so that I had observed puppies to be like dogs, and kids like their dams; so, in short, that I used to compare big things to little. But I found her carrying her head as high among all other cities as cypresses do among your bending hedgerow trees.

M. And what was the mighty reason of your visiting Rome?

T. Freedom, which cast an eye on me in my laziness, late as it was, after my beard was beginning to look grey as it fell under the barber's shears. However, it did cast an eye on me, and came, though it was long first, after Amaryllis got the hold she has of me, and Galatea took leave of me. For, to tell the truth, while I was under Galatea I never looked forward to freedom nor attended to my pelf; though I had many a sheep for sacrifice going out of my folds, and many a rich cream-cheese made for the thankless town, yet my hand used never to come home with a load of money in it.

M. Aye, Amaryllis, I used to wonder why you were calling on the gods so piteously-for whom it was that you were letting the apples hang on their trees. It was Tityrus that was away. Why, Tityrus, the pines, and the springs, and the vineyards here, used all to call for you as loudly as she did.

T. How could I help it? I had no other way of quitting slavery, and no other place where I could find gods so ready to help me. Here it was, Melibous, that I saw that youth for whom I make my altars smoke twelve days a year. Here it was that I got from him my first gracious answer to my suit, 'Go on, swains, feeding your oxen as before, and breeding your bulls,'