And the sun’s sultry heat their thirst renews;
When creaking grasshoppers on shrubs complain,
Then lead them to their watering-troughs again.
In summer’s heat, some bending valley find,
Closed from the sun, but open to the wind;
Or seek some ancient oak, whose arms extend
In ample breadth, thy cattle to defend,
Or solitary grove, or gloomy glade,
To shield them with its venerable shade.
Once more to watering lead; and feed again
When the low sun is sinking to the main,
When rising Cynthia sheds her silver dews,
And the cool evening-breeze the meads renews,
When linnets fill the woods with tuneful sound,
And hollow shores the halcyon’s voice rebound.
Why should my muse enlarge on Libyan swains,
Their scattered cottages, and ample plains,
Where oft the flocks without a leader stray,
Or through continued deserts take their way,
And, feeding, add the length of night to day?
Whole months they wander, grazing as they go;
Nor folds nor hospitable harbour know:
Such an extent of plains, so vast a space
Of wilds unknown, and of untasted grass,
Allures their eyes: the shepherd last appears,
And with him all his patrimony bears,
His house, and household gods, his trade of war,
His bow and quiver, and his trusty cur.
Thus, under heavy arms, the youth of Rome
Their long laborious marches overcome,
Cheerly their tedious travels undergo,
And pitch their sudden camp before the foe.
Not so the Scythian shepherd tends his fold,
Nor he who bears in Thrace the bitter cold,
Nor he who treads the bleak Maeotian strand,
Or where proud Ister rolls his yellow sand.
Early they stall their flocks and herds; for there
No grass the fields, no leaves the forests, wear:
The frozen earth lies buried there, below
A hilly heap, seven cubits deep in snow;
And all the west allies of stormy Boreas blow.
The sun from far peeps with a sickly face,
Too weak, the clouds and mighty fogs to chase,
When up the skies he shoots his rosy head,
Or in the ruddy ocean seeks his bed.
Swift rivers are with sudden ice constrained:
And studded wheels are on its back sustained;
An hostry now for wagons, which before
Tall ships of burden on its bosom bore.
The brazen cauldrons with the frost are flawed;
The garment, stiff with ice, at hearths is thawed;
With axes first they cleave the wine; and thence,
By weight, the solid portions they dispense.
From locks uncombed, and from the frozen beard,
Long icicles depend, and crackling sounds are heard.
Meantime perpetual sleet, and driving snow,
Obscure the skies, and hang on herds below.
The starving cattle perish in their stalls;
Huge oxen stand enclosed in wintry walls
Of snow congealed; whole herds are buried there
Of mighty stags, and scarce their horns appear.
The dexterous huntsman wounds not these afar
With shafts or darts, or makes a distant war
With dogs, or pitches toils to stop their flight,
But close engages in unequal fight;
And, while they strive in vain to make their way
Through hills of snow, and pitifully bray,
Assaults with dint of sword, or pointed spears,
And homeward, on his back, the joyful burden bears.
The men to subterranean caves retire,
Secure from cold, and crowd the cheerful fire;
With trunks of elms and oaks the hearth they load,
Nor tempt the inclemency of heaven abroad.
Their jovial nights in frolics and in play
They pass, to drive the tedious hours away,
And their cold stomachs with crowned goblets cheer
Of windy cider, and of barmy beer.
Such are the cold Rhipaean race, and such
The savage Scythian, and unwarlike Dutch,
Where skins of beasts the rude barbarians wear,
The spoils of foxes, and the furry bear.
Is wool thy care? let not thy cattle go
Where bushes are, where burs and thistles grow;
Nor in too rank a pasture let them feed;
Then of the purest white select thy breed.
E’en though a snowy ram thou shalt behold,
Prefer him not in haste for husband to thy fold:
But search his mouth; and if a swarthy tongue
Is underneath his humid palate hung,
Reject him, lest he darken all the flock,
And substitute another from thy stock.
’Twas thus, with fleeces milky-white (if we
May trust report), Pan, god of Arcady,
Did bribe thee, Cynthia; nor didst thou disdain,
When called in woody shades, to cure a lover’s pain.
If milk be thy design, with plenteous hand
Bring clover-grass; and from the marshy land
Salt herbage for the foddering rack provide,
To fill their bags, and swell the milky tide.
These raise their thirst, and to the taste restore
The savour of the salt, on which they fed before.
Some, when the kids their dams too deeply drain,
With gags and muzzles their soft mouths restrain.
Their morning milk the peasants press at night;
Their evening meal, before the rising light,
To market bear; or sparingly they steep
With seasoning salt, and stored for winter keep.
Nor, last, forget thy faithful dogs; but feed
With fattening whey the mastiff’s generous breed,
And Spartan race, who, for the fold’s relief,
Will prosecute with cries the nightly thief,
Repulse the prowling wolf, and hold at bay
The mountain robbers rushing to the prey.
With cries of hounds, thou mayst pursue the fear
Of flying hares, and chase the fallow deer,
Rouse from their desert dens the bristled rage
Of boars, and beamy stags in toils engage.
With smoke of burning cedar scent thy walls,
And fume with stinking galbanum thy stalls,
With that rank odour, from thy dwelling-place
To drive the viper’s brood, and all the venomed race:
For often, under stalls unmoved, they lie,
Obscure in shades, and shunning heaven’s broad eye:
And snakes, familiar, to the hearth succeed,
Disclose their eggs, and near the chimney breed—
Whether to roofy houses they repair,
Or sun themselves abroad in open air,
In all abodes, of pestilential kind
To sheep and oxen, and the painful hind.
Take, shepherd, take a plant of stubborn oak,
And labour him with many a sturdy stroke,
Or with hard stones demolish from afar
His haughty crest, the seat of all the war;
Invade his hissing throat, and winding spires;
Till, stretched in length, the unfolded foe retires.
He drags his tail, and for his head provides,
And in some secret cranny slowly glides;
But leaves exposed to blows his back and battered sides.
In fair Calabria’s woods a snake is bred,
With curling crest, and with advancing head:
Waving he rolls, and makes a winding track;
His belly spotted, burnished is his back.
While springs are broken, while the southern air
And dropping heavens the moistened earth repair,
He lives on standing lakes and trembling bogs,
And fills his maw with fish, or with loquacious frogs:
But when,
