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the georgics-第7部分
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Nor is the whiteness of their wool distained
With drugs Assyrian; nor clear olive's use
With cassia tainted; yet untroubled calm;
A life that knows no falsehood; rich enow
With various treasures; yet broad…acred ease;
Grottoes and living lakes; yet Tempes cool;
Lowing of kine; and sylvan slumbers soft;
They lack not; lawns and wild beasts' haunts are there;
A youth of labour patient; need…inured;
Worship; and reverend sires: with them from earth
Departing justice her last footprints left。
Me before all things may the Muses sweet;
Whose rites I bear with mighty passion pierced;
Receive; and show the paths and stars of heaven;
The sun's eclipses and the labouring moons;
From whence the earthquake; by what power the seas
Swell from their depths; and; every barrier burst;
Sink back upon themselves; why winter…suns
So haste to dip 'neath ocean; or what check
The lingering night retards。 But if to these
High realms of nature the cold curdling blood
About my heart bar access; then be fields
And stream…washed vales my solace; let me love
Rivers and woods; inglorious。 Oh for you
Plains; and Spercheius; and Taygete;
By Spartan maids o'er…revelled! Oh; for one;
Would set me in deep dells of Haemus cool;
And shield me with his boughs' o'ershadowing might!
Happy; who had the skill to understand
Nature's hid causes; and beneath his feet
All terrors cast; and death's relentless doom;
And the loud roar of greedy Acheron。
Blest too is he who knows the rural gods;
Pan; old Silvanus; and the sister…nymphs!
Him nor the rods of public power can bend;
Nor kingly purple; nor fierce feud that drives
Brother to turn on brother; nor descent
Of Dacian from the Danube's leagued flood;
Nor Rome's great State; nor kingdoms like to die;
Nor hath he grieved through pitying of the poor;
Nor envied him that hath。 What fruit the boughs;
And what the fields; of their own bounteous will
Have borne; he gathers; nor iron rule of laws;
Nor maddened Forum have his eyes beheld;
Nor archives of the people。 Others vex
The darksome gulfs of Ocean with their oars;
Or rush on steel: they press within the courts
And doors of princes; one with havoc falls
Upon a city and its hapless hearths;
From gems to drink; on Tyrian rugs to lie;
This hoards his wealth and broods o'er buried gold;
One at the rostra stares in blank amaze;
One gaping sits transported by the cheers;
The answering cheers of plebs and senate rolled
Along the benches: bathed in brothers' blood
Men revel; and; all delights of hearth and home
For exile changing; a new country seek
Beneath an alien sun。 The husbandman
With hooked ploughshare turns the soil; from hence
Springs his year's labour; hence; too; he sustains
Country and cottage homestead; and from hence
His herds of cattle and deserving steers。
No respite! still the year o'erflows with fruit;
Or young of kine; or Ceres' wheaten sheaf;
With crops the furrow loads; and bursts the barns。
Winter is come: in olive…mills they bruise
The Sicyonian berry; acorn…cheered
The swine troop homeward; woods their arbutes yield;
So; various fruit sheds Autumn; and high up
On sunny rocks the mellowing vintage bakes。
Meanwhile about his lips sweet children cling;
His chaste house keeps its purity; his kine
Drop milky udders; and on the lush green grass
Fat kids are striving; horn to butting horn。
Himself keeps holy days; stretched o'er the sward;
Where round the fire his comrades crown the bowl;
He pours libation; and thy name invokes;
Lenaeus; and for the herdsmen on an elm
Sets up a mark for the swift javelin; they
Strip their tough bodies for the rustic sport。
Such life of yore the ancient Sabines led;
Such Remus and his brother: Etruria thus;
Doubt not; to greatness grew; and Rome became
The fair world's fairest; and with circling wall
Clasped to her single breast the sevenfold hills。
Ay; ere the reign of Dicte's king; ere men;
Waxed godless; banqueted on slaughtered bulls;
Such life on earth did golden Saturn lead。
Nor ear of man had heard the war…trump's blast;
Nor clang of sword on stubborn anvil set。
But lo! a boundless space we have travelled o'er;
'Tis time our steaming horses to unyoke。
GEORGIC III
Thee too; great Pales; will I hymn; and thee;
Amphrysian shepherd; worthy to be sung;
You; woods and waves Lycaean。 All themes beside;
Which else had charmed the vacant mind with song;
Are now waxed common。 Of harsh Eurystheus who
The story knows not; or that praiseless king
Busiris; and his altars? or by whom
Hath not the tale been told of Hylas young;
Latonian Delos and Hippodame;
And Pelops for his ivory shoulder famed;
Keen charioteer? Needs must a path be tried;
By which I too may lift me from the dust;
And float triumphant through the mouths of men。
Yea; I shall be the first; so life endure;
To lead the Muses with me; as I pass
To mine own country from the Aonian height;
I; Mantua; first will bring thee back the palms
Of Idumaea; and raise a marble shrine
On thy green plain fast by the water…side;
Where Mincius winds more vast in lazy coils;
And rims his margent with the tender reed。
Amid my shrine shall Caesar's godhead dwell。
To him will I; as victor; bravely dight
In Tyrian purple; drive along the bank
A hundred four…horse cars。 All Greece for me;
Leaving Alpheus and Molorchus' grove;
On foot shall strive; or with the raw…hide glove;
Whilst I; my head with stripped green olive crowned;
Will offer gifts。 Even 'tis present joy
To lead the high processions to the fane;
And view the victims felled; or how the scene
Sunders with shifted face; and Britain's sons
Inwoven thereon with those proud curtains rise。
Of gold and massive ivory on the doors
I'll trace the battle of the Gangarides;
And our Quirinus' conquering arms; and there
Surging with war; and hugely flowing; the Nile;
And columns heaped on high with naval brass。
And Asia's vanquished cities I will add;
And quelled Niphates; and the Parthian foe;
Who trusts in flight and backward…volleying darts;
And trophies torn with twice triumphant hand
From empires twain on ocean's either shore。
And breathing forms of Parian marble there
Shall stand; the offspring of Assaracus;
And great names of the Jove…descended folk;
And father Tros; and Troy's first founder; lord
Of Cynthus。 And accursed Envy there
Shall dread the Furies; and thy ruthless flood;
Cocytus; and Ixion's twisted snakes;
And that vast wheel and ever…baffling stone。
Meanwhile the Dryad…haunted woods and lawns
Unsullied seek we; 'tis thy hard behest;
Maecenas。 Without thee no lofty task
My mind essays。 Up! break the sluggish bonds
Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls;
Steed…taming Epidaurus; and thy hounds;
Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves
With peal on peal reverberate the roar。
Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long
The fiery fights of Caesar; speed his name
Through ages; countless as to Caesar's self
From the first birth…dawn of Tithonus old。
If eager for the prized Olympian palm
One breed the horse; or bullock strong to plough;
Be his prime care a shapely dam to choose。
Of kine grim…faced is goodliest; with coarse head
And burly neck; whose hanging dewlaps reach
From chin to knee; of boundless length her flank;
Large every way she is; large…footed even;
With incurved horns and shaggy ears beneath。
Nor let mislike me one with spots of white
Conspicuous; or that spurns the yoke; whose horn
At times hath vice in't: liker bull…faced she;
And tall…limbed wholly; and with tip of tail
Brushing her footsteps as she walks along。
The age for Hymen's rites; Lucina's pangs;
Ere ten years ended; after four begins;
Their residue of days nor apt to teem;
Nor strong for ploughing。 Meantime; while youth's delight
Survives within them; loose the males: be first
To speed thy herds of cattle to their loves;
Breed stock with stock; and keep the race supplied。
Ah! life's best hours are ever first to fly
From hapless mortals; in their place succeed
Disease and dolorous eld; till travail sore
And death unpitying sweep them from the scene。
Still will be some; whose form thou fain wouldst change;
Renew them still; with yearly choice of young
Preventing losses; lest too late thou rue。
Nor steeds crave less selection; but on those
Thou think'st to rear; the promise of their line;
From earliest youth thy chiefest pains bestow。
See from the first yon high…bred colt afield;
His lofty step; his limbs' elastic tread:
Dauntless he leads the herd; still first to try
The threatening flood; or brave the unknown bridge;
By no vain noise affrighted; lofty…necked;
With clean…cut head; short belly; and stout back;
His sprightly breast exuberant with brawn。
Chestnut and grey are good; the worst…hued white
And sorrel。 Then lo! if arms are clashed afar;
Bide still he cannot: ears stiffen and limbs quake;
His nostrils snort and roll out wreaths of fire。
Dense is his mane; that when uplifted falls
On his right shoulder; betwixt either loin
The spine runs double; his earth…dinting hoof
Rings with the ponderous beat of solid horn。
Even such a horse was Cyllarus; reined and tamed
By Pollux of Amyclae; such the pair
In Grecian song renowned; those steeds of Mars;
And famed Achilles' team: in such…like form
Great Saturn's self with mane flung loose on neck
Sped at his wife's approach; and flying filled
The heights of Pelion with his piercing neigh。
Even him; whe
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