And meditates his absent enemy.
He snuffs the wind; his heels the sand excite;
But, when he stands collected in his might,
He roars, and promises a more successful fight.
Then, to redeem his honour at a blow,
He moves his camp, to meet his careless foe.
Not with more madness, rolling from afar,
The spumy waves proclaim the watery war,
And mounting upwards, with a mighty roar,
March onwards, and insult the rocky shore.
They mate the middle region with their height,
And fall no less than with a mountain’s weight;
The waters boil, and, belching, from below
Black sands, as from a forceful engine, throw.
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;
In woods and fields, a wild destruction makes:
Boars whet their tusks; to battle tigers move,
Enraged with hunger, more enraged with love.
Then woe to him, that, in the desert land
Of Libya, travels o’er the burning sand!
The stallion snuffs the well-known scent afar,
And snorts and trembles for the distant mare;
Nor bits nor bridles can his rage restrain,
And rugged rocks are interposed in vain:
He makes his way o’er mountains, and contemns
Unruly torrents, and unforded streams.
The bristled boar, who feels the pleasing wound,
New grinds his arming tusks, and digs the ground.
The sleepy lecher shuts his little eyes;
About his churning chaps the frothy bubbles rise:
He rubs his sides against a tree; prepares
And hardens both his shoulders for the wars.
What did the youth, when Love’s unerring dart
Transfixed his liver, and inflamed his heart?
Alone, by night, his watery way he took;
About him, and above, the billows broke;
The sluices of the sky were open spread,
And rolling thunder rattled o’er his head;
The raging tempest called him back in vain,
And every boding omen of the main:
Nor could his kindred, nor the kindly force
Of weeping parents, change his fatal course;
No, not the dying maid, who must deplore
His floating carcase on the Sestian shore.
I pass the wars that spotted lynxes make
With their fierce rivals for the females’ sake,
The howling wolves’, the mastiffs’ amorous rage;
When e’en the fearful stag dares for his hind engage.
But, far above the rest, the furious mare,
Barred from the male, is frantic with despair:
For, when her pouting vent declares her pain,
She tears the harness, and she rends the rein.
For this (when Venus gave them rage and power)
Their master’s mangled members they devour,
Of love defrauded in their longing hour.
For love, they force through thickets of the wood,
They climb the steepy hills, and stem the flood.
When, at the spring’s approach, their marrow burns,
(For with the spring their genial warmth returns),
The mares to cliffs of rugged rocks repair,
And with wide nostrils snuff the western air:
When (wondrous to relate!) the parent wind,
Without the stallion, propagates the kind,
Then, fired with amorous rage, they take their flight
Through plains, and mount the hills’ unequal height;
Nor to the north, nor to the rising sun,
Nor southward to the rainy regions, run,
But boring to the west, and hovering there,
With gaping mouths, they draw prolific air;
With which impregnate, from their groins they shed,
A slimy juice, by false conception bred.
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;
And the mean matter, which my theme affords,
To embellish with magnificence of words.
But the commanding muse my chariot guides,
Which o’er the dubious cliff securely rides;
And pleased I am, no beaten road to take,
But first the way to new discoveries make.
Now, sacred Pales! in a lofty strain
I sing the rural honours of thy reign.
First, with assiduous care from winter keep,
Well foddered in the stalls, thy tender sheep:
Then spread with straw the bedding of thy fold,
With fern beneath, to ’fend the bitter cold;
That free from gouts thou mayest preserve thy care,
And clear from scabs, produced by freezing air.
Next let thy goats officiously be nursed,
And led to living streams, to quench their thirst.
Feed them with winter-browse; and, for their lair,
A cote, that opens to the south, prepare;
Where basking in the sunshine they may lie,
And the short remnants of his heat enjoy.
This during winter’s drizzly reign be done,
Till the new Ram receives the exalted sun.
For hairy goats of equal profit are
With woolly sheep, and ask an equal care.
’Tis true, the fleece, when drunk with Tyrian juice,
Is dearly sold; but not for needful use:
For the salacious goat increases more,
And twice as largely yields her milky store.
The still-distended udders never fail,
But, when they seem exhausted, swell the pail.
Meantime the pastor shears their hoary beards,
And eases of their hair the laden herds.
Their camelots, warm in tents, the soldier hold,
And shield the shivering mariner from cold.
On shrubs they browse, and, on the bleaky top
Of rugged hills, the thorny bramble crop.
Attended with their bleating kids, they come
At night, unasked, and mindful of their home;
And scarce their swelling bags the threshold overcome.
So much the more thy diligence bestow
In depth of winter, to defend the snow,
By how much less the tender helpless kind,
For their own ills, can fit provision find.
Then minister the browse with bounteous hand,
And open let thy stacks all winter stand.
But, when the western winds with vital power
Call forth the tender grass and budding flower,
Then, at the last, produce in open air
Both flocks, and send them to their summer fare.
Before the sun while Hesperus appears,
First let them sip from herbs the pearly tears
Of morning dews, and after break their fast
On greensward ground—a cool and grateful taste.
But, when the day’s
