The fair Alexis loved, but loved in vain;
And underneath the beechen shade, alone,
Thus to the woods and mountains made his moan:--
Is this, unkind Alexis, my reward?
And must I die unpitied, and unheard?
Now the green lizard in the grove is laid,
The sheep enjoy the coolness of the shade,
And Thestylis wild thyme and garlic beats
For harvest hinds, o'erspent with toil and heats;
While in the scorching sun I trace in vain
Thy flying footsteps o'er the burning plain.
The creaking locusts with my voice conspire,
They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire.
How much more easy was it to sustain
Proud Amaryllis, and her haughty reign,
The scorns of young Menalcas, once my care,
Though he was black, and thou art heavenly fair.
Trust not too much to that enchanting face;
Beauty's a charm, but soon the charm will pass.
White lilies lie neglected on the plain,
While dusky hyacinths for use remain.
My passion is thy scorn; nor wilt thou know
What wealth I have, what gifts I can bestow;
What stores my dairies and my folds contain--
A thousand lambs, that wander on the plain;
New milk, that all the winter never fails,
And all the summer overflows the pails.
Amphion sung not sweeter to his herd,
When summoned stones the Theban turrets reared.
Nor am I so deformed; for late I stood
Upon the margin of the briny flood:
The winds were still; and, if the glass be true,
With Daphnis I may vie, though judged by you.
O leave the noisy town! O come and see
Our country cots, and live content with me!
To wound the flying deer, and from their cotes
With me to drive a-field the browzing goats;
To pipe and sing, and, in our country strain,
To copy, or perhaps contend with Pan.
Pan taught to join with wax unequal reeds;
Pan loves the shepherds, and their flocks he feeds.
Nor scorn the pipe: Amyntas, to be taught,
With all his kisses would my skill have bought.
Of seven smooth joints a mellow pipe I have,
Which with his dying breath Damoetas gave,
And said,--"This, Corydon, I leave to thee;
For only thou deserv'st it after me."
His eyes Amyntas durst not upward lift;
For much he grudged the praise, but more the gift.
Besides, two kids, that in the valley strayed,
I found by chance, and to my fold conveyed:
They drain two bagging udders every day;
And these shall be companions of thy play;
Both fleck'd with white, the true Arcadian strain,
Which Thestylis had often begged in vain:
And she shall have them, if again she sues,
Since you the giver and the gift refuse.
Come to my longing arms, my lovely care!
And take the presents which the nymphs prepare.
White lilies in full canisters they bring,
With all the glories of the purple spring.
The daughters of the flood have searched the mead
For violets pale, and cropp'd the poppy's head,
The short narcissus[296] and fair daffodil,
Pancies to please the sight, and cassia sweet to smell;
And set soft hyacinths with iron blue,
To shade marsh marigolds of shining hue;
Some bound in order, others loosely strowed,
To dress thy bower, and trim thy new abode.
Myself will search our planted grounds at home,
For downy peaches and the glossy plum;
And thrash the chesnuts in the neighbouring grove,
Such as my Amaryllis used to love.
The laurel and the myrtle sweets agree,
And both in nosegays shall be bound for thee.
Ah, Corydon! ah, poor unhappy swain!
Alexis will thy homely gifts disdain:
Nor, should'st thou offer all thy little store,
Will rich Iolas yield, but offer more.
What have I done, to name that wealthy swain?
So powerful are his presents, mine so mean!
The boar, amidst my crystal streams, I bring;
And southern winds to blast my flowery spring.
Ah, cruel creature! whom dost thou despise?
The gods, to live in woods, have left the skies;
And godlike Paris, in the Idæan grove,
To Priam's wealth preferred OEnone's love.
In cities, which she built, let Pallas reign;
Towers are for gods, but forests for the swain.
The greedy lioness the wolf pursues,
The wolf the kid, the wanton kid the browze;
Alexis, thou art chased by Corydon:
All follow several games, and each his own.
See, from afar, the fields no longer smoke;
The sweating steers, unharnessed from the yoke,
Bring, as in triumph, back the crooked plough;
The shadows lengthen as the sun goes low;
Cool breezes now the raging heats remove:
Ah, cruel heaven, that made no cure for love!
I wish for balmy sleep, but wish in vain;
Love has no bounds in pleasure, or in pain.
What frenzy, shepherd, has thy soul possessed?
Thy vineyard lies half pruned, and half undressed.
Quench, Corydon, thy long unanswered fire!
Mind what the common wants of life require;
On willow twigs employ thy weaving care,
And find an easier love, though not so fair.
FOOTNOTES:
[296] That is, of short continuance.
PASTORAL III.
OR,
_PALÆMON_.
MENALCAS, DAMOETAS, PALÆMON.
ARGUMENT.
_Damoetas and Menalcas, after some smart strokes of country
raillery, resolve to try who has the most skill at song;
and accordingly make their neighbour, Palæmon, judge of
their performances; who, after a full hearing of both
parties, declares himself unfit for the decision of so
weighty a controversy, and leaves the victory undetermined._
MENALCAS.
Ho, swain! what shepherd owns those ragged sheep?
DAMOETAS.
Ægon's they are: he gave them me to keep.
MENALCAS.
Unhappy sheep, of an unhappy swain! }
While he Neæra courts, but courts in vain, }
And fears that I the damsel shall obtain. }
Thou, varlet, dost thy master's gains devour;
Thou milk'st his ewes, and often twice an hour;
Of grass and fodder thou defraud'st the dams,
And of their mothers' dugs the starving lambs.
DAMOETAS.
Good words, young catamite, at least to men.
We know who did your business, how, and when;
And in what chapel too you played your prize, }
And what the goats observed with leering eyes: }
The nymphs were kind, and laughed; and there your safety lies. }
MENALCAS.
Yes, when I cropt the hedges of the leys,
Cut Micon's tender vines, and stole the stays!
DAMOETAS.
Or rather, when, beneath yon ancient oak,
The bow of Daphnis, and the shafts, you broke,
When the fair boy received the gift of right;
And, but for mischief, you had died for spite.
MENALCAS.
What nonsense would the fool, thy master, prate,
When thou, his knave, canst talk at such a rate!
Did I not see you, rascal, did I not,
When you lay snug to snap young Damon's goat?
His mongrel barked; I ran to his relief,
And cried,--"There, there he goes! stop, stop the thief!"
Discovered, and defeated of your prey,
You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away.
DAMOETAS.
An honest man may freely take his own:
The goat was mine, by singing fairly won.
A solemn match was made; he lost the prize. }
Ask Damon, ask, if he the debt denies. }
I think he dares not; if he does, he lies. }
MENALCAS.
Thou sing with him? thou booby!--Never pipe
Was so profaned to touch that blubbered lip.
Dunce at the best! in streets but scarce allowed
To tickle, on thy straw, the stupid crowd.
DAMOETAS.
To bring it to the trial, will you dare
Our pipes, our skill, our voices, to compare?
My brinded heifer to the stake I lay;
Two thriving calves she suckles twice a day,
And twice besides her beestings never fail
To store the dairy with a brimming pail.
Now back your singing with an equal stake.
MENALCAS.
That should be seen, if I had one to make.
You know too well, I feed my father's flock;
What can I wager from the common stock?
A stepdame too I have, a cursed she,
Who rules my hen-peck'd sire, and orders me.
Both number twice a day the milky dams;
And once she takes the tale of all the lambs.
But, since you will be mad, and since you may
Suspect my courage, if I should not lay,
The pawn I proffer shall be full as good:
Two bowls I have, well turned, of beechen wood;
Both by divine Alcimedon were made;
To neither of them yet the lip is laid.
The lids are ivy; grapes in clusters lurk
Beneath the carving of the curious work.
Two figures on the sides embossed appear-- }
Conon, and what's his name who made the sphere, }
And shewed the seasons of the sliding year, }
Instructed in his trade the labouring swain,
And when to reap, and when to sow the grain?
DAMOETAS.
And I have two, to match your pair, at home;
The wood the same; from the same hand they come,
(The kimbo handles seem with bear's foot carved,)
And never yet to table have been served;
Where Orpheus on his lyre laments his love,
With beasts encompassed, and a dancing grove.
But these, nor all the proffers you can make,
Are worth the heifer which I set to stake.
MENALCAS.
No more delays, vain boaster, but begin!
I prophesy before-hand, I shall win.
Palæmon shall be judge how ill you rhyme:
I'll teach you how to brag another time.
DAMOETAS.
Rhymer, come on! and do the worst you can;
I fear not you, nor yet a better man.
With silence, neighbour, and attention, wait;
For 'tis a business of a high debate.
PALÆMON.
Sing then; the shade affords a proper place,
The trees are clothed with leaves, the fields with grass,
The blossoms blow, the birds on bushes sing,
And Nature has accomplished all the spring.
The challenge to Damoetas shall belong;
Menalcas shall sustain his under-song;
Each in his turn your tuneful numbers bring,
By turns the tuneful Muses love to sing.
DAMOETAS.
From the great father of the gods above
My Muse begins; for all is full of Jove:
To Jove the care of heaven and earth belongs;
My flocks he blesses, and he loves my songs.
MENALCAS.
Me Phoebus loves; for he my Muse inspires,
And in her songs the warmth he gave requires.
For him, the god of shepherds and their sheep,[297]
My blushing hyacinths and my bays I keep.
DAMOETAS.
My Phyllis me with pelted apples plies; }
Then tripping to the woods the wanton hies, }
And wishes to be seen before she flies. }
MENALCAS.
But fair Amyntas comes unasked to me, }
And offers love, and sits upon my knee. }
Not Delia to my dogs is known so well as he. }
DAMOETAS.
To the dear mistress of my love-sick mind,
Her swain a pretty present has designed:
I saw two stock-doves billing, and ere long
Will take the nest, and hers shall be the young.
MENALCAS.
Ten ruddy wildings in the wood I found,
And stood on tip-toes, reaching from the ground:
I sent Amyntas all my present store;
And will, to-morrow, send as many more.
The lovely maid lay panting in my arms,
And all she said and did was full of charms.
Winds! on your wings to heaven her accents bear;
Such words as heaven alone is fit to hear.
MENALCAS.
Ah! what avails it me, my love's delight,
To call you mine, when absent from my sight?
I hold the nets, while you pursue the prey,
And must not share the dangers of the day.
DAMOETAS.
I keep my birth-day; send my Phyllis home;
At shearing-time, Iolas, you may come.
MENALCAS.
With Phyllis I am more in grace than you; }
Her sorrow did my parting steps pursue: }
"Adieu, my dear!" she said, "a long adieu!" }
DAMOETAS.
The nightly wolf is baneful to the fold,
Storms to the wheat, to buds the bitter cold;
But, from my frowning fair, more ills I find,
Than from the wolves, and storms, and winter-wind.
MENALCAS.
The kids with pleasure browze the bushy plain;
The showers are grateful to the swelling grain;
To teeming ewes the sallow's tender tree;
But, more than all the world, my love to me.
DAMOETAS.
Pollio my rural verse vouchsafes to read:
A heifer, Muses, for your patron breed.
MENALCAS.
My Pollio writes himself:--a bull be bred,
With spurning heels, and with a butting head.
DAMOETAS.
Who Pollio loves, and who his Muse admires,
Let Pollio's fortune crown his full desires.
Let myrrh instead of thorn his fences fill,
And showers of honey from his oaks distil.
MENALCAS.
Who hates not living Bavius, let him be
(Dead Mævius!) damn'd to love thy works and thee!
The same ill taste of sense would serve to join
Dog-foxes in the yoke, and shear the swine.
DAMOETAS.
Ye boys, who pluck the flowers, and spoil the spring,
Beware the secret snake that shoots a sting.
MENALCAS.
Graze not too near the banks, my jolly sheep;
The ground is false, the running streams are deep:
See, they have caught the father of the flock,
Who dries his fleece upon the neighbouring rock.
DAMOETAS.
From rivers drive the kids, and sling your hook;
Anon I'll wash them in the shallow brook.
MENALCAS.
To fold, my flock!--when milk is dried with heat,
In vain the milkmaid tugs an empty teat.
DAMOETAS.
How lank my bulls from plenteous pasture come!
But love, that drains the herd, destroys the groom.
MENALCAS.
My flocks are free from love, yet look so thin,
Their bones are barely covered with their skin.
What magic has bewitched the woolly dams,
And what ill eyes beheld the tender lambs?
DAMOETAS.
Say, where the round of heaven, which all contains, }
To three short ells on earth our sight restrains: }
Tell that, and rise a Phoebus for thy pains. }
MENALCAS.
Nay, tell me first, in what new region springs
A flower, that bears inscribed the names of kings;
And thou shalt gain a present as divine
As Phoebus' self; for Phyllis shall be thine.
PALÆMON.
So nice a difference in your singing lies,
That both have won, or both deserved the prize.
Rest equal happy both; and all who prove
The bitter sweets, and pleasing pains, of love.
Now dam the ditches, and the floods restrain;
Their moisture has already drenched the plain.
FOOTNOTES:
[297] Phoebus, not Pan, is here called the god of shepherds. The poet
alludes to the same story which he touches in the beginning of the
Second Georgic, where he calls Phoebus the Amphrysian shepherd, because
he fed the sheep and oxen of Admetus, with whom he was in love, on the
hill Amphrysus.
PASTORAL IV.
OR,
_POLLIO_.
ARGUMENT.
_The Poet celebrates the birth-day of Saloninus, the son of
Pollio, born in the consulship of his father, after the
taking of Salonæ, a city in Dalmatia. Many of the verses
are translated from one of the Sibyls, who prophesied of
our Saviour's birth._
Sicilian Muse, begin a loftier strain!
Though lowly shrubs, and trees that shade the plain,
Delight not all; Sicilian Muse, prepare
To make the vocal woods deserve a consul's care.
The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finished course: Saturnian times
Roll round again; and mighty years, begun
From their first orb, in radiant circles run.
The base degenerate iron offspring ends;
A golden progeny from heaven descends.
O chaste Lucina! speed the mother's pains;
And haste the glorious birth! thy own Apollo reigns!
The lovely boy, with his auspicious face, }
Shall Pollio's consulship and triumph grace; }
Majestic months set out with him to their appointed race. }
The father banished virtue shall restore,
And crimes shall threat the guilty world no more.
The son shall lead the life of gods, and be
By gods and heroes seen, and gods and heroes see.
The jarring nations he in peace shall bind,
And with paternal virtues rule mankind.
Unbidden earth shall wreathing ivy bring, }
And fragrant herbs, (the promises of spring,) }
As her first offerings to her infant king. }
The goats with strutting dugs shall homeward speed,
And lowing herds secure from lions feed.
His cradle shall with rising flowers be crowned:
The serpent's brood shall die; the sacred ground
Shall weeds and poisonous plants refuse to bear;
Each common bush shall Syrian roses wear.
But when heroic verse his youth shall raise,
And form it to hereditary praise,
Unlaboured harvests shall the fields adorn,
And clustered grapes shall blush on every thorn;
The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep;
And through the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep.
Yet, of old fraud some footsteps shall remain;
The merchant still shall plough the deep for gain,
Great cities shall with walls be compassed round,
And sharpened shares shall vex the fruitful ground;
Another Tiphys shall new seas explore;
Another Argo land the chiefs upon the Iberian shore;
Another Helen other wars create,
And great Achilles urge the Trojan fate.
But when to ripened manhood he shall grow,
The greedy sailor shall the seas forego;
No keel shall cut the waves for foreign ware,
For every soil shall every product bear.
The labouring hind his oxen shall disjoin; }
No plough shall hurt the glebe, no pruning-hook the vine; }
Nor wool shall in dissembled colours shine; }
But the luxurious father of the fold,
With native purple, and unborrowed gold,
Beneath his pompous fleece shall proudly sweat;
And under Tyrian robes the lamb shall bleat.
The Fates, when they this happy web have spun,
Shall bless the sacred clue, and bid it smoothly run.
Mature in years, to ready honours move,
O of celestial seed! O foster-son of Jove!
See, labouring Nature calls thee to sustain
The nodding frame of heaven, and earth, and main!
See to their base restored, earth, seas, and air;
And joyful ages, from behind, in crowding ranks appear.
To sing thy praise, would heaven my breath prolong,
Infusing spirits worthy such a song,
Not Thracian Orpheus should transcend my lays,
Nor Linus crowned with never-fading bays;
Though each his heavenly parent should inspire;
The Muse instruct the voice, and Phoebus tune the lyre.
Should Pan contend in verse, and thou my theme,
Arcadian judges should their god condemn.
Begin, auspicious boy! to cast about
Thy infant eyes, and, with a smile, thy mother single out.[298]
Thy mother well deserves that short delight,
The nauseous qualms of ten long months and travail to requite.
Then smile! the frowning infant's doom is read;
No god shall crown the board, nor goddess bless the bed.
FOOTNOTES:
[298] In Latin thus,
_Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem_, &c.
I have translated the passage to this sense--that the infant, smiling
on his mother, singles her out from the rest of the company about
him. Erythræus, Bembus, and Joseph Scaliger, are of this opinion. Yet
they and I may be mistaken; for, immediately after, we find these
words, _cui non risere parentes_, which imply another sense, as if
the parents smiled on the new-born infant; and that the babe on whom
they vouchsafed not to smile, was born to ill fortune: for they tell a
story, that, when Vulcan, the only son of Jupiter and Juno, came into
the world, he was so hard-favoured, that both his parents frowned on
him, and Jupiter threw him out of heaven: he fell on the island Lemnos,
and was lame ever afterwards. The last line of the Pastoral seems to
justify this sense:
_Nec Deus hunc mensâ, Dea nec dignata cubili est._
For, though he married Venus, yet his mother Juno was not present at
the nuptials to bless them; as appears by his wife's incontinence. They
say also, that he was banished from the banquets of the gods. If so,
that punishment could be of no long continuance; for Homer makes him
present at their feasts, and composing a quarrel betwixt his parents,
with a bowl of nectar. The matter is of no great consequence; and
therefore I adhere to my translation, for these two reasons: first,
Virgil has his following line,
_Matri longa decem tulerunt fastidia menses_,
as if the infant's smiling on his mother was a reward to her for
bearing him ten months in her body, four weeks longer than the usual
time. Secondly, Catullus is cited by Joseph Scaliger, as favouring this
opinion, in his Epithalamium of Manlius Torquatus:
_Torquatus, volo, parvolus,
Matris e gremio suæ
Porrigens teneras manus,
Dulce rideat ad patrem_, &c.
What if I should steer betwixt the two extremes, and conclude, that the
infant, who was to be happy, must not only smile on his parents, but
also they on him? For Scaliger notes, that the infants who smiled not
at their birth, were observed to be #agelastoi#, or sullen, (as I have
translated it,) during all their life; and Servius, and almost all the
modern commentators, affirm, that no child was thought fortunate, on
whom his parents smiled not at his birth. I observe, farther, that the
ancients thought the infant, who came into the world at the end of the
tenth month, was born to some extraordinary fortune, good or bad. Such
was the birth of the late prince of Condé's father, of whom his mother
was not brought to bed, till almost eleven months were expired after
his father's death; yet the college of physicians at Paris concluded
he was lawfully begotten. My ingenious friend, Anthony Henley, Esq.
desired me to make a note on this passage of Virgil; adding, (what I
had not read,) that the Jews have been so superstitious, as to observe
not only the first look or action of an infant, but also the first word
which the parent, or any of the assistants, spoke after the birth; and
from thence they gave a name to the child, alluding to it.
PASTORAL V.
OR,
_DAPHNIS_.
ARGUMENT.
_Mopsus and Menalcas, two very expert shepherds at a song,
begin one by consent to the memory of Daphnis, who is
supposed by the best critics to represent Julius Cæsar.
Mopsus laments his death; Menalcas proclaims his divinity;
the whole eclogue consisting of an elegy and an apotheosis._
MENALCAS.
Since on the downs our flocks together feed,
And since my voice can match your tuneful reed,
Why sit we not beneath the grateful shade,
Which hazles, intermixed with elms, have made?
MOPSUS.
Whether you please that sylvan scene to take,
Where whistling winds uncertain shadows make;
Or will you to the cooler cave succeed,
Whose mouth the curling vines have overspread?
MENALCAS.
Your merit and your years command the choice;
Amyntas only rivals you in voice.
MOPSUS.
What will not that presuming shepherd dare,
Who thinks his voice with Phoebus may compare?
MENALCAS.
Begin you first; if either Alcon's praise,
Or dying Phyllis, have inspired your lays;
If her you mourn, or Codrus you commend,
Begin, and Tityrus your flock shall tend.
MOPSUS.
Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat,
Which on the beeches bark I lately writ?
I writ, and sung betwixt. Now bring the swain,
Whose voice you boast, and let him try the strain.
MENALCAS.
Such as the shrub to the tall olive shows,
Or the pale swallow to the blushing rose;
Such is his voice, if I can judge aright,
Compared to thine, in sweetness and in height.
MOPSUS.
No more, but sit and hear the promised lay;
The gloomy grotto makes a doubtful day.
The nymphs about the breathless body wait
Of Daphnis, and lament his cruel fate.
The trees and floods were witness to their tears;
At length the rumour reached his mother's ears.
The wretched parent, with a pious haste,
Came running, and his lifeless limbs embraced.
She sighed, she sobbed; and, furious with despair, }
She rent her garments, and she tore her hair, }
Accusing all the gods, and every star. }
The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink
Of running waters brought their herds to drink.
The thirsty cattle, of themselves, abstained
From water, and their grassy fare disdained.
The death of Daphnis woods and hills deplore; }
They cast the sound to Libya's desert shore; }
The Libyan lions hear, and hearing roar. }
Fierce tigers Daphnis taught the yoke to bear,
And first with curling ivy dressed the spear.
Daphnis did rites to Bacchus first ordain,
And holy revels for his reeling train.
As vines the trees, as grapes the vines adorn,
As bulls the herds, and fields the yellow corn;
So bright a splendour, so divine a grace,
The glorious Daphnis cast on his illustrious race.
When envious Fate the godlike Daphnis took,
Our guardian gods the fields and plains forsook;
Pales no longer swelled the teeming grain,
Nor Phoebus fed his oxen on the plain;
No fruitful crop the sickly fields return,
But oats and darnel choke the rising corn;
And where the vales with violets once were crowned,
Now knotty burrs and thorns disgrace the ground.
Come, shepherds, come, and strow with leaves the plain;
Such funeral rites your Daphnis did ordain.
With cypress-boughs the crystal fountains hide,
And softly let the running waters glide.
A lasting monument to Daphnis raise,
With this inscription to record his praise:--
"Daphnis, the fields' delight, the shepherds' love,
Renowned on earth, and deified above;
Whose flock excelled the fairest on the plains,
But less than he himself surpassed the swains."
MENALCAS.
O heavenly poet! such thy verse appears,
So sweet, so charming to my ravished ears,
As to the weary swain, with cares opprest,
Beneath the sylvan shade, refreshing rest;
As to the feverish traveller, when first
He finds a crystal stream to quench his thirst.
In singing, as in piping, you excel;
And scarce your master could perform so well.
O fortunate young man! at least your lays
Are next to his, and claim the second praise.
Such as they are, my rural songs I join,
To raise our Daphnis to the powers divine;
For Daphnis was so good, to love whate'er was mine.
MOPSUS.
How is my soul with such a promise raised!
For both the boy was worthy to be praised,
And Stimicon has often made me long
To hear, like him, so soft, so sweet a song.
MENALCAS.