But when the western winds, with vital power, Before the sun while Hesperus appears; - THE LYBIAN PASTURES AND FLOCKS; LYBIAN PRAIRIES AND NOMADES; THE ROMAN SOLDIER. Why should my muse enlarge on Lybian swains; His house and household gods; his trade of war; And pitch their sudden camp before the foe. THE SCYTHIAN, THRACIAN, CRIMEAN, AND DANUBIAN SHEPHERDS; SNOW. Not so the Scythian shepherd tends his fold; Early they stall their flocks and herds; for there The sun from far peeps with a sickly face; Or in the ruddy ocean seeks his bed. Of snow congealed; whole herds are buried there HUNTING THE DEER IN THE SNOW. The dextrous 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 THE TROGLODYTES IN WINTER; THEIR UNDERGROUND LIFE; Such are the cold Riphæan race; and such HOW TO SECURE CLEAN, WHITE FLEECES. PAN AND DIANA. HOW TO FEED FOR MILK; MILKING. If milk be thy design, with plenteous hand These raise their thirst, and to the taste restore THE CARE OF DOGS; WATCH-DOGS; DOGS OF CHASE. HOW TO EXPEL SNAKES, ETC.-KILLING A SNAKE. With smoke of burning cedar scent thy walls; And fume with stinking galbanum thy stalls: With that rank odor from thy dwelling-place [race. To drive the viper's brood, and all the venomed 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 labor 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, th' unfolded foe retires. He drags his tail, and for his head provides; And in some secret cranny slowly glides; [sides. But leaves exposed to blows his back and battered THE CALABRIAN SNAKE; SHEDDING HIS SKIN. 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; He fills his maw with fish, or with loquacious frogs. But when in muddy pools the water sinks, And the chapped earth is furrowed o'er with chinks, He leaves the fens, and leaps upon the ground, And, hissing, rolls his glaring eyes around. With thirst inflamed, impatient of the heats, He rages in the fields, and wide destruction threats. O, let not sleep my closing eyes invade In open plains, or in the secret shade, When he, renewed in all the speckled pride SICKNESSES OF SHEEP AND THE REMEDIES. THE SCAB. The causes and the signs shall next be told, Of every sickness that infects the fold. A scabby tetter on their pelts will stick, When the raw rain has pierced them to the quick; Or searching frosts have eaten through the skin; Or burning icicles are lodged within; Or when the fleece is shorn, if sweat remains Unwashed, and soaks into their empty veins ; When their defenceless limbs the brambles tear, Shorn of their wool, and naked from the shear. Good shepherds after shearing drench their sheep, And their flock's father (forced from high to leap) Swims down the stream, and plunges in the deep. They oint their naked limbs with mothered oil; Or from the founts where living sulphurs boil, They mix a medicine to foment their limbs ; With scum that on the molten silver swims. Fat pitch, and black bitumen, add to these, Besides, the waxen labor of the bees; And hellebore, and squills deep rooted in the seas. Receipts abound; but, searching all thy store, The best is still at hand, to lance the sore, And cut the head; for, till the core be found, The secret vice is fed, and gathers ground; While making fruitless moan the shepherd stands, And, when the lancing knife requires his hands, Vain help, with idle prayers, from heaven demands. FEVERS, MURRAIN, ETC. Deep in their bones when fevers fix their seat, And rack their limbs, and lick the vital heat; The ready cure to cool the raging pain, Is underneath the foot to breathe a vein. This remedy the Scythian shepherds found: The inhabitants of Thracia's hilly ground, The Gelons use it, when for drink and food They mix their curdled milk with horses' blood. But when thou seest a single sheep remain In shades aloof, or couched upon the plain; Or listlessly to crop the tender grass; Or late to lag behind, with truant pace; Revenge the crime, and take the traitor's head, Ere in the faultless flock the dire contagion spread. On winter seas we fewer storms behold, Than foul diseases that infect the fold. Nor do those ills on single bodies prey; But oftener bring the nation to decay, And sweep the present stock and future hope away. AN EPIDEMIC DISEASE AMONG CATTLE, ETC., IN SWITZERLAND, DESCRIBED. A dire example of this truth appears : When, after such a length of rolling years, We see the naked Alps, and thin remains Here, from the vicious air and sickly skies, The victor horse, forgetful of his food, The palm renounces, and abhors the flood. He paws the ground, and on his hanging ears A doubtful sweat in clammy drops appears: Parched is his hide, and rugged are his hairs. Such are the symptoms of the young disease; But in time's process, when his pains increase, He rolls his mournful eyes, he deeply groans With patient sobbing, and with manly moans. He heaves for breath; which from his lungs supplied, And fetched from far, distends his laboring side. To his rough palate his dry tongue succeeds; And ropy gore he from his nostrils bleeds. A drench of wine has with success been used, And through a horn the generous juice infused : Which timely taken oped his closing jaws ; But, if too late, the patient's death did cause. For the too-vigorous dose too fiercely wrought; And added fury to the strength it brought. Recruited into rage, he grinds his teeth In his own flesh, and feeds approaching death. Ye gods, to better fate good men dispose, And turn that impious error on our foes! THE EFFECTS OF THE EPIDEMIC ON THE STEER. The steer, who to the yoke was bred to bow, His bulk too weighty for his thighs is grown; A SCARCITY OF OXEN OCCASIONED BY THE EPIDEMIC; ITS "T was then that buffaloes, ill-paired, were seen Besides, to change their pasture 't is in vain ; Aspiring to the skies, encroaching on the light. Till, warned by frequent ills, the way they found gore, Or touch the web; but if the vest they wear, BOOK IV. ARGUMENT. Virgil has taken care to raise the subject of each Georgic. In the first he has only dead matter on which to work. In the second he just steps on the world of life, and describes that degree of it which is to be found in vegetables. In the third he advances to animals. And in the last singles out the bee, which may be reckoned the most sagacious of animals, for his subject. In this Georgic he shows us what station is most proper for the bees, and when they begin to gather honey: how to call them home when they swarm; and how to part them when they are engaged in battle. From hence he takes occasion to discover their different kinds; and, after an excursion, relates their prudent and politic administration of affairs, and the several diseases that often rage in their hives, with the proper symptoms and remedies of each disease. In the last place, he lays down a method of repairing their kind, supposing their whole breed lost, and gives at large the history of its invention. THE SUBJECT-BEES. The gifts of heaven my following song pursues, Aerial honey, and ambrosial dews. Mæcenas, read this other part, that sings Embattled squadrons and adventurous kings; A mighty pomp, though made of little things. Their arms, their arts, their manners, I disclose, And how they war, and whence the people rose : Slight is the subject, but the praise not small, If heaven assist, and Phoebus hear my call. THE BEST LOCATION FOR BEES; AWAY FROM COWS, GOATS, LIZARDS, BIRDS, AS THE TITMOUSE, WOODPECKER, SWALLOW NEAR A BROOK. First, for thy bees a quiet station find, And lodge them under covert of the wind: For winds, when homeward they return, will drive The loaded carriers from their evening hive. Far from the cows and goats, insulting crew, That trample down the flowers, and brush the dew: The painted lizard, and the birds of prey, RESTING PLACES NEEDED ON THE WATER; SWEET HERBS ; THYME, SAVORY, ROSEMARY. Then o'er the running stream, or standing lake, A passage for thy weary people make; With osier floats the standing water strew; Of massy stones make bridges, if it flow: That basking in the sun thy bees may lie, And resting there their flaggy pinions dry; When late returning home, the laden host By raging winds is wrecked upon the coast. Wild thyme and savory set around their cell; Sweet to the taste, and fragrant to the smell; Set rows of rosemary with flowering stem, And let thy purple violets drink the stream. HOW TO MAKE A BEEHIVE. Whether thou build the palace of thy bees WILD BEES' NESTS; VARIOUS CAUTIONS. But plaster thou the chinky hives with clay, nose. Nor near the steaming stench of muddy ground; Nor hollow rocks that render back the sound, And doubled images of voice rebound. HABITS OF BEES IN SPRING; THEIR YOUNG. For what remains, when golden suns appear, And under earth have driven the winter year: The wingéd nation wanders through the skies, And o'er the plains and shady forest flies; Then stooping on the meads and leafy bowers, They skim the floods, and sip the purple flowers. Exalted hence, and drunk with secret joy, Their young succession all their cares employ : They breed, they brood, instruct and educate, And make provision for the future state; They work their waxen lodgings in their hives, And labor honey to sustain their lives. But if intestine broils alarm the hive,- And murmuring sounds proclaim the civil war. Full in the midst the haughty monarchs ride; BEES GOING FORTH TO WAR; THE BATTLE; HOW QUIEted. Thus, in the season of unclouded Spring, To war they follow their undaunted king: Crowd through their gates, and in the fields of light The shocking squadrons meet in mortal fight: Headlong they fall from high, and wounded wound, And heaps of slaughtered soldiers bite the ground. Hard hailstones lie not thicker on the plain; Nor shaken oaks such showers of acorns rain. With gorgeous wings, the marks of sovereign sway, HOW TO KNOW THE TRUE KING AND BEST RACE. With ease distinguished is the regal race; One monarch wears an honest open face; Shaped to his size, and godlike to behold, His royal body shines with specks of gold, And ruddy scales; for empire he designed, Is better born, and of a nobler kind. That other looks like nature in disgrace, Gaunt are his sides, and sullen is his face : And like their grisly prince appears his gloomy race: Grim, ghastly, rugged, like a thirsty train That long have travelled through a desert plain, And spit from their dry chaps the gathered dust The better brood, unlike the bastard crew, [again. Are marked with royal streaks of shining hue; Glittering and ardent, though in body less : From these at 'pointed seasons hope to press Huge, heavy honeycombs, of golden juice, Not only sweet, but pure, and fit for use: To allay the strength and hardness of the wine, And with old Bacchus new metheglin join. HOW TO RECALL BEES FROM IDLING. But when the swarms are eager of their play, And loathe their empty hives, and idly stray, Restrain the wanton fugitives, and take A timely care to bring the truants back. The task is easy, but to clip the wings Of their high-flying, arbitrary kings: At their command the people swarm away; Confine the tyrant, and the slaves will stay. Sweet gardens, full of saffron flowers, invite The wandering gluttons, and retard their flight. Besides, the god obscene, who frights away With his lath sword the thieves and birds of prey, With his own hand, the guardian of the bees, For slips of pines may search the mountain trees; And with wild thyme and savory plant the plain, Till his hard, horny fingers ache with pain; And deck with fruitful trees the fields around, And with refreshing waters drench the ground. |