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; and those at home
Lay deep foundations for the laboured comb,
With dew, narcissus leaves, and clammy gum.
To pitch the waxen flooring some contrive;
Some nurse the future nation of the hive:
Sweet honey some condense; some purge the grout;
The rest, in cells apart, the liquid nectar shut:
All, with united force, combine to drive
The lazy drones from the laborious hive:
With envy stung, they view each other’s deeds:
With diligence the fragrant work proceeds.
As when the Cyclops, at the almighty nod,
New thunder hasten for their angry god,
Subdued in fire the stubborn metal lies;
One brawny smith the puffing bellows plies,
And draws and blows reciprocating air:
Others to quench the hissing mass prepare:
With lifted arms they order every blow,
And chime their sounding hammers in a row:
With laboured anvils Aetna groans below.
Strongly they strike; huge flakes of flames expire;
With tongs they turn the steel, and vex it in the fire.
If little things with great we may compare,
Such are the bees, and such their busy care:
Studious of honey each in his degree,
The youthful swain, the grave experienced bee—
That in the field; this, in affairs of state
Employed at home, abides within the gate,
To fortify the combs, to build the wall,
To prop the ruins, lest the fabric fall:
But, late at night, with weary pinions come
The labrouring youth, and heavy laden, home.
Plains, meads, and orchards, all the day he plies;
The gleans of yellow thyme distend his thighs:
He spoils the saffron flowers; he sips the blues
Of violets, wilding blooms, and willow dews.
Their toil is common, common is their sleep;
They shake their wings when morn begins to peep;
Rush through the city gates without delay;
Nor ends their work, but with declining day.
Then, having spent the last remains of light,
They give their bodies due repose at night,
When hollow murmurs of their evening bells
Dismiss the sleepy swains, and toll them to their cells.
When once in beds their weary limbs they steep,
No buzzing sounds disturb their golden sleep.
’Tis sacred silence all. Nor dare they stray,
When rain is promised, or a stormy day;
But near the city walls their watering take,
Nor forage far, but short excursions make.
And as when empty barks on billows float,
With sandy ballast sailors trim the boat;
So bees bear gravel-stones, whose poising weight
Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight.
But (what’s more strange) their modest appetites,
Averse from Venus, fly the nuptial rites.
No lust enervates their heroic mind,
Nor wastes their strength on wanton womankind;
But in their mouths reside their genial powers:
They gather children from the leaves and flowers.
Thus make they kings to fill the regal seat
And thus their little citizens create,
And waxen cities build, and palaces of state.
And oft on rocks their tender wings they tear,
And sink beneath the burdens which they bear:
Such rage of honey in their bosom beats;
And such a zeal they have for flowery sweets.
Thus though the race of life they quickly run,
Which in the space of seven short years is done,
The immortal line in sure succession reigns:
The fortune of the family remains;
And grandsires’ grandsons the long list contains.
Besides, not Egypt, India, Media, more
With servile awe their idol king adore:
While he survives, in concord and content
The commons live, by no divisions rent;
But the great monarch’s death dissolves the government.
All goes to ruin; they themselves contrive
To rob the honey, and subvert the hive.
The king presides, his subjects’ toil surveys;
The servile rout their careful Caesar praise:
Him they extol; they worship him alone;
They crowd his levees, and support his throne:
They raise him on their shoulders with a shout;
And, when their sovereign’s quarrel calls them out,
His foes to mortal combat they defy,
And think it honour at his feet to die.
Induced by such examples, some have taught
That bees have portions of ethereal thought—
Endued with particles of heavenly fires;
For God the whole created mass inspires.
Through heaven, and earth, and ocean’s depth, he throws
His influence round, and kindles as he goes.
Hence flocks, and herds, and men, and beasts, and fowls
With breath are quickened, and attract their souls;
Hence take the forms his prescience did ordain,
And into him at length resolve again.
No room is left for death: they mount the sky,
And to their own congenial planets fly.
Now, when thou hast decreed to seize their stores,
And by prerogative to break their doors,
With sprinkled water first the city choke,
And then pursue the citizens with smoke.
Two honey harvests fall in every year:
First, when the pleasing Pleiades appear,
And, springing upward, spurn the briny seas:
Again, when their affrighted choir surveys
The watery Scorpion mend his pace behind,
With a black train of storms and winter wind,
They plunge into the deep, and safe protection find.
Prone to revenge, the bees, a wrathful race,
When once provoked, assault the aggressor’s face,
And through the purple veins a passage find;
There fix their stings, and leave their souls behind.
But, if a pinching winter thou foresee,
And wouldst preserve thy famished family;
With fragrant thyme the city fumigate,
And break the waxen walls to save the state.
For lurking lizards often lodge, by stealth,
Within the suburbs, and purloin their wealth;
And worms, that shun the light, a dark retreat
Have found in combs, and undermined the seat;
Or lazy drones, without their share of pain,
In winter-quarters, free, devour the gain;
Or wasps infest the camp with loud alarms,
And mix in battle with unequal arms;
Or secret moths are there in silence fed;
Or spiders in the vault their snary webs have spread.
The more oppressed by foes, or famine-pined,
The more increase thy care to save the sinking kind:
With greens and flowers recruit their empty hives,
And seek fresh forage to sustain their lives.
But, since they share with man one common fate,
In health and sickness, and in turns of state—
Observe the symptoms. When they fall away,
And languish with insensible decay,
They change their hue; with haggard eyes they stare:
Lean are their looks, and shagged is their hair:
And crowds of dead, that never must return
To their loved hives, in decent pomp are borne:
Their friends attend the hearse; the next relations mourn.
The sick, for air, before the portal gasp,
Their feeble legs within each other
