The Georgics. Virgil

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      Or fierce sun's ravening might, or searching blast

      Of the keen north should sear them. Well, I wot,

      He serves the fields who with his harrow breaks

      The sluggish clods, and hurdles osier-twined

      Hales o'er them; from the far Olympian height

      Him golden Ceres not in vain regards;

      And he, who having ploughed the fallow plain

      And heaved its furrowy ridges, turns once more

      Cross-wise his shattering share, with stroke on stroke

      The earth assails, and makes the field his thrall.

      Pray for wet summers and for winters fine,

      Ye husbandmen; in winter's dust the crops

      Exceedingly rejoice, the field hath joy;

      No tilth makes Mysia lift her head so high,

      Nor Gargarus his own harvests so admire.

      Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed,

      Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth

      The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn

      Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain;

      And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades

      Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed,

      See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls,

      Waking hoarse murmurs o'er the polished stones,

      And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty fields?

      Or why of him, who lest the heavy ears

      O'erweigh the stalk, while yet in tender blade

      Feeds down the crop's luxuriance, when its growth

      First tops the furrows? Why of him who drains

      The marsh-land's gathered ooze through soaking sand,

      Chiefly what time in treacherous moons a stream

      Goes out in spate, and with its coat of slime

      Holds all the country, whence the hollow dykes

      Sweat steaming vapour?

      But no whit the more

      For all expedients tried and travail borne

      By man and beast in turning oft the soil,

      Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes

      And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm,

      Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself

      No easy road to husbandry assigned,

      And first was he by human skill to rouse

      The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men

      With care on care, nor suffering realm of his

      In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove

      Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;

      To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line-

      Even this was impious; for the common stock

      They gathered, and the earth of her own will

      All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.

      He to black serpents gave their venom-bane,

      And bade the wolf go prowl, and ocean toss;

      Shook from the leaves their honey, put fire away,

      And curbed the random rivers running wine,

      That use by gradual dint of thought on thought

      Might forge the various arts, with furrow's help

      The corn-blade win, and strike out hidden fire

      From the flint's heart. Then first the streams were ware

      Of hollowed alder-hulls: the sailor then

      Their names and numbers gave to star and star,

      Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child

      Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found

      To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime,

      And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.

      Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream,

      Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils

      Along the main; then iron's unbending might,

      And shrieking saw-blade,– for the men of old

      With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;-

      Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all,

      Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push

      In times of hardship. Ceres was the first

      Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod,

      When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear

      Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food

      Dodona gave no more. Soon, too, the corn

      Gat sorrow's increase, that an evil blight

      Ate up the stalks, and thistle reared his spines

      An idler in the fields; the crops die down;

      Upsprings instead a shaggy growth of burrs

      And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim

      Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway.

      Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake

      The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds,

      Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade,

      Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye,

      Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow,

      And in the greenwood from a shaken oak

      Seek solace for thine hunger.

      Now to tell

      The sturdy rustics' weapons, what they are,

      Without which, neither can be sown nor reared

      The fruits of harvest; first the bent plough's share

      And heavy timber, and slow-lumbering wains

      Of the Eleusinian mother, threshing-sleighs

      And drags, and harrows with their crushing weight;

      Then the cheap wicker-ware of Celeus old,

      Hurdles of arbute, and thy mystic fan,

      Iacchus; which, full tale, long ere the time

      Thou must with heed lay by, if thee await

      Not all unearned the country's crown divine.

      While yet within the woods, the elm is tamed

      And bowed with mighty force to form the stock,

      And take the plough's curved shape, then nigh the root

      A pole eight feet projecting, earth-boards twain,

      And share-beam with its double back they fix.

      For yoke is early hewn a linden light,

      And a tall beech for handle, from behind

      To turn the car at lowest: then o'er the hearth

      The wood they hang till the smoke knows it well.

      Many the precepts of the men of old

      I can recount thee, so thou start not back,

      And such slight cares to learn not weary thee.

      And this among the first: thy threshing-floor

      With ponderous roller must be levelled smooth,

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