ECLOGUE VI. SILENUS. OUR Muse Thalia first stooped to the Sicilian strain, nor blushed to inhabit the woods. When I sung of kings and wars, Apollo plucked my ear, and admonished me. Tityrus, it behoves a shepherd to feed his fat sheep, and sing an humbler lay. Now I will exercise my rustic muse on a slender pipe, for thou wilt have more than enow, O Varus, to tell thy praises, and to celebrate thy dreadful wars. I do not sing uncommanded; yet if any one reads these verses; if any one who is in love, reads them, our Tamarisks, O Varus, the whole grove shall celebrate thee; nor is there any page more pleasing to Apollo, than that which has prefixed to it the name of Varus. Ye Muses, proceed. Chromis and Mnasylus saw Silenus stretched at length asleep in a cave, his veins distended with yesterday's wine, as usual. His chaplet, just fallen off his head, lay at a distance, and the heavy flaggon hung by its worn handle. Rushing upon him, they bind him in chains, made out of his own garlands; for often the old fellow had deceived them with the hope of a song. Ægle made herself a companion to the youths, and chears up their hesitating fears. Ægle, the most beautiful of the Naiads, just as he was opening his eyes, paints both his forehead and temples with bloodred mulberries. He, laughing at the deceit, says, to what G purpose is this binding? release me, boys; it is enough that I have been seen in this state. Hearken, and you shall have the verses you desire; as for her, she shall have another reward. He begins. Then might you see the fauns and wild beasts dance to his measure, and the stubborn oaks bend their heads neither does mount Parnassus so much delight in Apollo, nor Rhodope and Ismarus so much admire Orpheus. : He sung how the germinating principle of the earth, the air, and the sea, and pure fire, were at once mixed up in the vast void and how entirely out of these first principles was consolidated the tender convex surface of the world. How the earth was consolidated, by pressing out the water into the sea, and, by degrees, assumed its mundane form. And now the inhabitants of the earth were astonished at the sun, when it began to shine, and at descending showers from clouds on high, formed from vapours dissipated from below : and when first the woods began to rise, and scattered animals to wander over unknown mountains. Then he relates the stones thrown by Pyrrhus, the reign of Saturn, the vultures of mount Caucasus, and the theft of Prometheus. To these he adds, at what fountain the mariners cried out for their lost Hylas, and how all the shore resounded Hylas, Hylas; and comforts Pasiphae in her love for a snowwhite bull: happy, if herds had never been. Ah, unhappy maid, what madness has seized thee! The daughters of Proetus filled the plains with false lowings; yet not one of them followed such shameful embraces of cattle, though she might have feared to have been yoked to the plough, and often felt for horns on her smooth forehead. Ah, unhappy maid, now thou wanderest in the mountains; he sustains his snowy side on the soft hyacinth, ruminating the pale cud under the shady holm oak; or follows some mate in the great Herd. O ye Nymphs, ye Dictean Nymphs, surround, now surround the glades of the forests, if perchance the wandering footsteps of the bull may meet our eyes; perhaps some cows may lead him to the Gortynia stables, or he may be captivated with green grass, or be following the herds. Then he sings of the maid who admires the apples of Hesperides; then he surrounds the sisters of Phaëton, with the moss of bitter bark, and raises the stately alders from the ground. Then he sings how one of the Muses led Gallus straying on the streams of Parnassus, into the Aonian mountains, and how the whole choir of Phoebus rose up to do him honour; and how the shepherd Linus, whose tresses were ornamented with flowers and bitter parsley, addressed him thus in divine poesy. The Muses give to thee these reeds, accept them; formerly they belonged to the old Ascraean, with which he used, by his singing, to bring down the stubborn Sorbus from the mountains. With these reeds, by thee, the origin of the Grynean forest shall be declared, that there may be no grove in which Apollo may glory more. Why should I say how he recited the story of Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, whose fair loins, according to report, were begirt with barking monsters, which harassed the ships of Ulysses, and alas! in the deep gulph, tore to pieces the affrighted mariners? or how he related the metamorphose of Tereus; what a banquet, what presents Philomela prepared for him, with what haste he sought the deserts, and with what wings unhappy, he flew. before, and round about his own house?: He sung all that the happy Eurotas heard, and commanded his bay-trees to learn, when Apollo sung of old: the vallies echoed his songs to the stars, until Vesper ordered the shepherds to number their sheep, and drive them to their folds, and returned reluctantly to Olympus. ECLOGUE VII. MELIBOEUS, CORYDON, THYRSIS. By chance, when Daphnis was sitting under the whispering holm-oak, Corydon and Thyrsis were driving their flocks together: Thyrsis, his sheep, and Corydon, his goats with their udders distended with milk. Both, in the flower of their age, both Arcadians, both equal in singing, and ready to contend. Hither my goat, the father of the flock, had wandered, whilst I was defending the tender myrtles from the cold; and I beheld Daphnis, who, as soon as he saw me opposite to him, said, O Meliboeus, come hither quickly, thy goat and kids are safe, and if thou canst stay, rest under the shade; thy bullocks will come through the meadows here to drink; here the verdant Mincius has its banks protected by the slender reed, and swarms of bees murmur from the sacred oak. What could I do? I had neither Alcippe nor Phyllis, at home, who could shut up the weaned lambs; and it was a great contest, Corydon against Thyrsis However I postponed my serious business for their pastime. Therefore both began to contend, each against the other, in alternate verses: the Muses wished them to recite alternately. Corydon began these, and Thyrsis answered them in his turn. CORYDON. Ye Libethrian Nymphs, my delight, either inspire me with the genius to make verses equal to my Codrus, who is second only to Apollo; or if we cannot all do all things, here my shrill pipe shall hang on the sacred pine. THYRSIS. O Arcadian shepherds, decorate with ivy some rising poet, that the heart of Codrus may be rent with envy; and bind his head with Baccar, that no evil tongue may hurt the future poet by exaggerated praise. CORYDON. O Diana, little Mycon shall offer up to thee, the bristly head of a wild boar, and the branched horns of a long-lived stag, and if I should constantly have such success in hunting, I will make a whole-length statue of thee, in polished marble, thy legs bound with scarlet buskins. THYRSIS. O Priapus, it is enough for thee to expect a bowl of milk, and these cakes, annually: thou art the protecter of a poor man's garden. Now, we will make thy statue of marble; but hereafter it shall be of gold, if thou takest care that my flock conceives, and brings forth well. CORYDON. O Galatea, daughter of Nereus, more sweet to me than the thyme of hybla; more fair than swans; more beautiful than white ivy; as soon as the fed cattle return to their stalls, if thou hast any regard for thy Corydon, come. |