We our country's bounds and pleasant pastures relinquish, We our country fly; thou, Tityrus, stretched in the shadow, Teachest the woods to resound with the name of the fair Amaryllis.
TITYRUS.
O Meliboeus, a god for us this leisure created, For he will be unto me a god forever; his altar Oftentimes shall imbue a tender lamb from our sheepfolds.
He, my heifers to wander at large, and myself, as thou seest, On my rustic reed to play what I will, hath permitted.
MELIBOEUS.
Truly I envy not, I marvel rather; on all sides In all the fields is such trouble.Behold, my goats I am driving, Heartsick, further away; this one scarce, Tityrus, lead I;For having here yeaned twins just now among the dense hazels, Hope of the flock, ah me! on the naked flint she hath left them.
Often this evil to me, if my mind had not been insensate, Oak-trees stricken by heaven predicted, as now I remember;Often the sinister crow from the hollow ilex predicted, Nevertheless, who this god may be, O Tityrus, tell me.
TITYRUS.
O Meliboeus, the city that they call Rome, I imagined, Foolish I! to be like this of ours, where often we shepherds Wonted are to drive down of our ewes the delicate offspring.
Thus whelps like unto dogs had I known, and kids to their mothers, Thus to compare great things with small had I been accustomed.
But this among other cities its head as far hath exalted As the cypresses do among the lissome viburnums.
MELIBOEUS.
And what so great occasion of seeing Rome hath possessed thee?
TITYRUS.
Liberty, which, though late, looked upon me in my inertness, After the time when my beard fell whiter front me in shaving,--Yet she looked upon me, and came to me after a long while, Since Amaryllis possesses and Galatea hath left me.
For I will even confess that while Galatea possessed me Neither care of my flock nor hope of liberty was there.
Though from my wattled folds there went forth many a victim, And the unctuous cheese was pressed for the city ungrateful, Never did my right hand return home heavy with money.
MELIBOEUS.
I have wondered why sad thou invokedst the gods, Amaryllis, And for whom thou didst suffer the apples to hang on the branches!
Tityrus hence was absent! Thee, Tityrus, even the pine-trees, Thee, the very fountains, the very copses were calling.
TITYRUS.
What could I do? No power had I to escape from my bondage, Nor had I power elsewhere to recognize gods so propitious.
Here I beheld that youth, to whom each year, Meliboeus, During twice six days ascends the smoke of our altars.
Here first gave he response to me soliciting favor:
"Feed as before your heifers, ye boys, and yoke up your bullocks."MELIBOEUS.
Fortunate old man! So then thy fields will be left thee, And large enough for thee, though naked stone and the marish All thy pasture-lands with the dreggy rush may encompass.
No unaccustomed food thy gravid ewes shall endanger, Nor of the neighboring flock the dire contagion inject them.
Fortunate old man! Here among familiar rivers, And these sacred founts, shalt thou take the shadowy coolness.
On this side, a hedge along the neighboring cross-road, Where Hyblaean bees ever feed on the flower of the willow, Often with gentle susurrus to fall asleep shall persuade thee.
Yonder, beneath the high rock, the pruner shall sing to the breezes, Nor meanwhile shalt thy heart's delight, the hoarse wood-pigeons, Nor the turtle-dove cease to mourn from aerial elm-trees.
TITYRUS.
Therefore the agile stags shall sooner feed in the ether, And the billows leave the fishes bare on the sea-shore.
Sooner, the border-lands of both overpassed, shall the exiled Parthian drink of the Soane, or the German drink of the Tigris, Than the face of him shall glide away from my bosom!
MELIBOEUS.
But we hence shall go, a part to the thirsty Afries, Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan Oaxes, And to the Britons from all the universe utterly sundered.
Ah, shall I ever, a long time hence, the bounds of my country And the roof of my lowly cottage covered with greensward Seeing, with wonder behold,--my kingdoms, a handful of wheat-ears!
Shall an impious soldier possess these lands newly cultured, And these fields of corn a barbarian? Lo, whither dicord Us wretched people hath brought! for whom our fields we have planted!
Graft, Meliboeus, thy pear-trees now, put in order thy vine-yards.
Go, my goats, go hence, my flocks so happy aforetime.
Never again henceforth outstretched in my verdurous cavern Shall I behold you afar from the bushy precipice hanging.
Songs no more shall I sing; not with me, ye goats, as your shepherd, Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or blooming laburnum.
TITYRUS.
Nevertheless, this night together with me canst thou rest thee Here on the verdant leaves; for us there are mellowing apples, Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in abundance;And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the distance, And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the shadows.
OVID IN EXILE
AT TOMIS, IN BESSARABIA, NEAR THE MOUTHS OF THE DANUBE.
TRISTIA, Book III., Elegy X.
Should any one there in Rome remember Ovid the exile, And, without me, my name still in the city survive;Tell him that under stars which never set in the ocean I am existing still, here in a barbarous land.
Fierce Sarmatians encompass me round, and the Bessi and Getae;Names how unworthy to be sung by a genius like mine!
Yet when the air is warm, intervening Ister defends us:
He, as he flows, repels inroads of war with his waves.
But when the dismal winter reveals its hideous aspect, When all the earth becomes white with a marble-like frost;And when Boreas is loosed, and the snow hurled under Arcturus, Then these nations, in sooth, shudder and shiver with cold.
Deep lies the snow, and neither the sun nor the rain can dissolve it;Boreas hardens it still, makes it forever remain.
Hence, ere the first ha-s melted away, another succeeds it, And two years it is wont, in many places, to lie.