The Georgics quotes

For flax and oats will burn the tender field, And sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield.

But sweet vicissitudes of rest and toil Make easy labour, and renew the soil.

Yet sprinkle sordid ashes all around, And load with fattening dung thy fallow ground. Thus change of seeds for meagre soils is best; And earth manured, not idle, though at rest.

And casting-nets were spread in shallow brooks, Drags in the deep, and baits were hung on hooks. Then saws were toothed, and sounding axes made; (For wedges first did yielding wood invade); And various arts in order did succeed, (

What cannot endless labour, urged by need?

)

Nor yet the ploughman, nor the labouring steer, Sustain alone the hazards of the year: But glutton geese, and the Strymonian crane, With foreign troops, invade the tender grain; And towering weeds malignant shadows yield; And spreading succory chokes the rising field.

The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees, Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease,

And wills that mortal men, inured to toil, Should exercise with pains, the grudging soil; Himself invented first the shining share, And whetted human industry by care; Himself did handicrafts and arts ordain, Nor suffered sloth to rust his active reign.

And towering weeds malignant shadows yield; And spreading succory chokes the rising field. The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees, Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease, And wills that mortal men, inured to toil, Should exercise with pains, the grudging soil;

Himself invented first the shining share, And whetted human industry by care;

Himself did handicrafts and arts ordain, Nor suffered sloth to rust his active reign. Ere this, no peasant vexed the peaceful ground, Which only turfs and greens for altars, found: No fences parted fields, nor marks nor bounds Distinguished acres of litigious grounds;

Yet is not the success for years assured, Though chosen is the seed, and fully cured, Unless the peasant, with his annual pain, Renews his choice, and culls the largest grain.

Thus all below, whether by Nature’s curse, Or Fate’s decree, degenerate still to worse.

So the boat’s brawny crew the current stem, And, slow advancing, struggle with the stream: But if they slack their hands, or cease to strive, Then down the flood with headlong haste they drive.

a glut of gathered rain The hollow ditches fills, and floats the plain; And sailors furl their dropping sheets amain.

Wet weather seldom hurts the most unwise; So plain the signs, such prophets are the skies.

The wary crane foresees it first, and sails Above the storm, and leaves the lowly vales; The cow looks up, and from afar can find The change of heaven, and snuffs it in the wind; The swallow skims the river’s watery face;

The unerring sun by certain signs declares, What the late e’en, or early morn prepares, And when the south projects a stormy day, And when the clearing north will puff the clouds away.

The sun reveals the secrets of the sky; And who dares give the source of light the lie?

The change of empires often he declares, Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars. He first the fate of Caesar did foretell, And pitied Rome, when Rome in Caesar fell; In iron clouds concealed the public light; And impious mortals feared eternal night.

Blood sprang from wells; wolves howled in towns by night. And boding victims did the priests affright. Such peals of thunder never poured from high, Nor forky lightnings flashed from such a sullen sky. Red meteors ran across the ethereal space;

Stars disappeared, and comets took their place.

For this, the Emathian plains once more were strewed With Roman bodies, and just heaven thought good To fatten twice those fields with Roman blood.

The peaceful peasant to the wars is pressed; The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest; The plain no pasture to the flock affords;

The crooked scythes are straightened into swords:

And there Euphrates her soft offspring arms, And here the Rhine rebellows with alarms; The neighb’ring cities range on sev’ral sides, Perfidious Mars long-plighted leagues divides, And o’er the wasted world in triumph rides.

The battening bastard shoots again and grows; And in short space the laden boughs arise, With happy fruit advancing to the skies.

The mother plant admires the leaves unknown Of alien trees, and apples not her own.

Of vegetable woods are various kinds, And the same species are of several minds. Lotes, willows, elms, have different forms allowed; So funeral cypress, rising like a shroud. Fat olive-trees of sundry sorts appear, Of sundry shapes their unctuous berries bear.

Besides—an offspring of undaunted hearts— The Decii, Marii, great Camillus, came From hence, and greater Scipio’s double name, And mighty Caesar, whose victorious arms To farthest Asia carry fierce alarms, Avert unwarlike Indians from his Rome, Triumph abroad, secure our peace at home.

Hail, sweet Saturnian soil! of fruitful grain Great parent, greater of illustrious men!

For thee my tuneful accents will I raise, And treat of arts disclosed in ancient days, Once more unlocked for thee the sacred spring, And old Ascraean verse in Roman cities sing.

besides thy daily pain To break the clods, and make the surface plain, To unload the branches, or the leaves to thin, That suck the vital moisture of the vine.

Thus in a circle runs the peasant’s pain, And the year rolls within itself again.

E’en in the lowest months, when storms have shed From vines the hairy honours of their head, Not then the drudging hind his labour ends, But to the coming year his care extends. E’en then the naked vine he persecutes;

Now balance, with these gifts, the fumy joys Of wine, attended with eternal noise, Wine urged to lawless lust the Centaurs’ train; Through wine they quarrelled, and through wine were slain.

Oh happy, if he knew his happy state, The swain, who, free from business and debate,

Receives his easy food from nature’s hand, And just returns of cultivated land! No palace, with a lofty gate, he wants, To admit the tides of early visitants, With eager eyes devouring, as they pass, The breathing figures of Corinthian brass.

Wild beasts of nature in his woods abound; And youth, of labour patient, plow the ground, Inured to hardship, and to homely fare. Nor venerable age is wanting there, In great examples to the youthful train; Nor are the gods adored with rites profane.

From hence Astraea took her flight; and here The prints of her departing steps appear.

Ye sacred muses! with whose beauty fired, My soul is ravished, and my brain inspired— Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear— Would you your poet’s first petition hear;

This wretch in earth entombs his golden ore, Hovering and brooding on his buried store. Some patriot fools to popular praise aspire By public speeches, which worse fools admire, While, from both benches, with redoubled sounds, The applause of lords and commoners abounds.

Some, through ambition, or through thirst of gold, Have slain their brothers, or their country sold,

And leaving their sweet homes, in exile run To lands that lye beneath another sun.

This wretch in earth entombs his golden ore, Hovering and brooding on his buried store.

Some patriot fools to popular praise aspire By public speeches, which worse fools admire,

While, from both benches, with redoubled sounds, The applause of lords and commoners abounds. Some, through ambition, or through thirst of gold, Have slain their brothers, or their country sold, And leaving their sweet homes, in exile run To lands that lye beneath another sun.

Now, while their youth is filled with kindly fire, Submit thy females to the lusty sire: Watch the quick motions of the frisking tail; Then serve their fury with the rushing male, Indulging pleasure, lest the breed should fail.

In youth alone unhappy mortals live; But ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive: Discoloured sickness, anxious labours, come, And age, and death’s inexorable doom.

Yearly thy herds in vigour will impair. Recruit and mend them with thy yearly care: Still propagate; for still they fall away: ’Tis prudence to prevent the entire decay.

On his right shoulder his thick mane reclined, Ruffles at speed, and dances in the wind. His horny hoofs are jetted black and round; His chine is double; starting, with a bound He turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.

Fire from his eyes, clouds from his nostrils, flow: He bears his rider headlong on the foe.

Such was the steed in Grecian poets famed, Proud Cyllarus, by Spartan Pollux tamed: Such coursers bore to fight the god of Thrace; And such, Achilles, was thy warlike race.

And now alow, and now aloft, they fly, As borne through air, and seem to touch the sky. No stop, no stay: but clouds of sand arise, Spurned and cast backward on the followers’ eyes. The hindmost blows the foam upon the first:

Such is the love of praise, an honourable thirst.

Bold Erichthonius was the first who joined Four horses for the rapid race designed, And o’er the dusty wheels presiding sat: The Lapithae, to chariots, add the state Of bits and bridles;

Thus every creature, and of every kind, The secret joys of sweet coition find. Not only man’s imperial race, but they That wing the liquid air, or swim the sea, Or haunt the desert, rush into the flame:

For Love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

’Tis with this rage, the mother-lion stung, Scours o’er the plain, regardless of her young: Demanding rites of love, she sternly stalks, And hunts her lover in his lonely walks. ’Tis then the shapeless bear his den forsakes;

The shepherd knows it well, and calls by name Hippomanes, to note the mother’s flame. This, gathered in the planetary hour, With noxious weeds, and spelled with words of power, Dire stepdames in the magic bowl infuse, And mix, for deadly draughts, the poisonous juice.

But time is lost, which never will renew, While we too far the pleasing path pursue,

Surveying nature with too nice a view. Let this suffice for herds; our following care Shall woolly flocks and shaggy goats declare. Nor can I doubt what toil I must bestow, To raise my subject from a ground so low;

Revenge the crime, and take the traitor’s head, Ere in the faultless flock the dire contagion spread.

On winter seas we fewer storms behold, Than foul diseases that infect the fold.

Nor do those ills on single bodies prey, But oftener bring the nation to decay, And sweep the present stock and future hope away.

Besides, to change their pasture ’tis in vain, Or trust to physic; physic is their bane.

The learnèd leeches in despair depart, And shake their heads, desponding of their art.

Tisiphone, let loose from under ground, Majestically pale, now treads the round, Before her drives diseases and affright, And every moment rises to the sight, Aspiring to the skies, encroaching on the light.

The gifts of Heaven my following song pursues, Aërial honey, and ambrosial dews. Maecenas, read this other part, that sings Embattled squadrons and adventurous kings—

A mighty pomp, though made of little things.

Their arms, their arts, their manners, I disclose, And how they war, and whence the people rose. Slight is the subject, but the praise not small, If Heaven assist, and Phoebus hear my call.

The task is easy—but to clip the wings Of their high-flying arbitrary kings. At their command, the people swarm away:

Confine the tyrant, and the slaves will stay.

Sweet gardens, full of saffron flowers, invite The wandering gluttons, and retard their flight— Besides the god obscene, who frights away, With his lath sword, the thieves and birds of prey, With his own hand, the guardian of the bees, For slips of pines may …

Sometimes white lilies did their leaves afford, With wholesome poppy-flowers, to mend his homely board; For, late returning home, he supped at ease, And wisely deemed the wealth of monarchs less:

The little of his own, because his own, did please.

To quit his care, he gathered, first of all In spring the roses, apples in the fall;

Of all the race of animals, alone The bees have common cities of their own, And common sons; beneath one law they live, And with one common stock their traffic drive.

Each has a certain home, a several stall: All is the state’s; the state provides for all.

Mindful of coming cold, they share the pain, And hoard, for winter’s use, the summer’s gain. Some o’er the public magazines preside; And some are sent new forage to provide: These drudge in fields abroad;

This said, with nectar she her son anoints, Infusing vigour through his mortal joints; Down from his head the liquid odours ran:

He breathed of heaven, and looked above a man.

Within a mountain’s hollow womb there lies A large recess, concealed from human eyes, Where heaps of billows, driven by wind and tide, In form of war, their watery ranks divide, And there, like sentries set, without the mouth abide;

A fault, which easy pardon might receive, Were lovers judges, or could hell forgive: For near the confines of ethereal light, And longing for the glimmering of a sight, The unwary lover cast his eyes behind, Forgetful of the law, nor master of his mind.

Straight all his hopes exhaled in empty smoke; And his long toils were forfeit for a look.

Three flashes of blue lightning gave the sign Of covenants broke; three peals of thunder join. Then thus the bride; “What fury seized on thee, Unhappy man! to lose thy self and me?