The husband of my goats had chanced to stray:
To find the vagrant out I take my way.

Which Daphnis seeing, cries, Dismiss your fear,
Your kids and goats are all in safety here;
And, if no other care require your stay,
Come, and with us unbend the toils of day
In this cool shade; at hand your heifers feed,
And of themselves will to the watering speed;
Here fringed with reeds slow Mincius winds along,
And round yon oak the bees soft-murmuring throng.
What could I do? for I was left alone,

My Phyllis and Alcippe both wer

Ye nymphs of Helicon, my sole desire our 300 O warm my breast with all my Codrus fire. If none can equal Codrus' heavenly lays, For next to Phoebus he deserves the praise,

No more I ply the tuneful art divine, sa se at A My silent pipe shall hang on yonder pine.

Thyrsis.a

A

T

Arcadian swains, an ivy wreath bestow,
With early honours crown your poet's brows
Codrus shall chafe, if you my songs commend,
.
Till burning spite his tortured entrails rend;
Or amulets, to bind my temples, frame,
Lest his invidious praises blast my fame.

! woll or 88 gitanot womeY
wored Corydon. 3 d 1930s baA

A stag's tall horns, and stain'd with savage gore
visage of a
of a tusky boar,

This

Tristlein goddess of the chase, a sad lo ast

Young Mycon offers for thy former grace of

If like success his future labours crown,
Thine, goddess, then shall be a nobler boon;
In polish'd marble thou shalt shine complete,
And purple sandals shall adorn thy feet,

Thyrsis.

To thee, Priapus,* each returning year, This bowl of milk, these hallow'd cakes we bear; Thy care, our garden, is but meanly stored, And mean oblations all we can afford. But if our flocks a numerous offspring yield, And our decaying fold again be fill'd, Though now in marble thou obscurely shine, For thee a golden statue we design.

Corydon.

O Galatea, whiter than the swan,
Loveliest of all thy sisters of the main,
Sweeter than Hybla, more than lilies fair;
If aught of Corydon employ thy care,
When shades of night involve the silent sky,
And slumbering in their stalls the oxen lie,
Come to my longing arms, and let me prove
Th' immortal sweets of Galatea's love.

Thyrsis.

As the vile sea-weed scatter'd by the storm,
As he whose face Sardinian herbs deform,+
As burs and brambles that disgrace the plain,
So nauseous, so detested be thy swain;
If when thine absence I am doom'd to bear
The day appears not longer than a year.
Go home, my flocks, ye lengthen out the day;
For shame, ye tardy flocks, for shame, away!

Corydon.

Ye mossy fountains, warbling as ye flow! And softer than the slumbers ye bestow,

This deity presided over gardens,

+ It was the property of this poisonous herb to distort the features of those who had eaten of it in such a manner, that they seemed to expire in an agony of laughter.

N

Ye grassy banks! ye trees with verdure crown'd,
Whose leaves a glimmering shade diffuse around!
Grant to my weary flocks a cool retreat,

And screen them from the summer's raging heat;
For now the year in brightest glory shines,
Now 'reddening clusters deck the bending vines.

Thyrsis.

Here's wood for fuel; here the fire displays
To all around its animating blaze;

Black with continual smoke our posts appear;
Nor dread we more the rigour of the year,
Than the fell wolf the fearful lambkins dreads,
When he the helpless fold by night invades;
Or swelling torrents, headlong as they roll,
The weak resistance of the shatter'd mole.

Corydon.

Now yellow harvests wave on every field, Now bending boughs the hoary chesnut yield, Now loaded trees resign their annual store, And on the ground the mellow fruitage pour; Jocund, the face of Nature smiles, and gay; But if the fair Alexis were away,

Inclement drought the hardening soil would drain, And streams no longer murmur o'er the plain.

Thyrsis.

A languid hue the thirsty fields assume, Parch'd to the root the flowers resign their bloom, The faded vines refuse their hills to shade, Their leafy verdure wither'd and decay'd: But if my Phyllis on these plains appear, Again the groves their gayest green shall wear. Again the clouds their copious moisture lend, And in the genial rain shall Jove descend.

Corydon.

Alcides' brows the poplar-leaves surround, Apollo's beamy locks with bays are crown'd, The myrtle, lovely queen of smiles, is thine, And jolly Bacchus loves the curling vine;

But while my Phyllis loves the hazel-spray,
To hazel yield the myrtle and the bay.

Thyrsis.

The fir, the hills; the ash adorns the woods;
The pine, the gardens; and the poplar, floods.
If thou, my Lycidas, wilt deign to come,
And cheer thy shepherd's solitary home,
The ash so fair in woods, and garden-pine,
Will own their beauty far excell'd by thine.
Melibœus.

So sung the swains, but Thyrsis strove in vain ;
Thus far I bear in minds th' alternate strain.
Young Corydon acquired unrivall'd fame,
And still we pay a deference to his name.

REHEARSE we, Pollio, the enchanting strains
Alternate sung by two contending swains.
Charm'd by their songs, the hungry heifers stood
In deep amaze, unmindful of their food;
The listening lynxes laid their rage aside,
The streams were silent, and forgot to glide.

O thou, where'er thou lead'st thy conquering host,
Or by Timavus,+ or th' Illyrian coast!

When shall my Muse, transported with the theme,
In strains sublime my Pollio's deeds proclaim;
And celebrate thy lays by all admir'd,

Such as of old Sophocles' Muse inspired?
To thee, the patron of my rural songs,
To thee my first, my latest lay belongs.

In this eighth pastoral no particular scene is described. The poet rehearses the songs of two contending swains, Damon and Alphesibus. The former adopts the soliloquy of a despairing lover: the latter chooses for his subject the inagic rites of an enchantress forsaken by her lover, and recalling him by the power of her spells.. A river in Italy,

Then let this humble ivy-wreath enclose, gataka
'Twined with triumphal bays, thy godlike brows.
What time the chill sky brightens with the dawn.
When cattle love to crop the dewy lawn,
Thus Damon to the woodlands wild complain'd,
As 'gainst an olive's lofty trunk he lean'd.

Damon.

Lead on the genial day, O star of morn!
While wretched I, all hopeless and forlorn,
With my last breath my fatal woes deplore,
And call the gods by whom false Nisa swore;
Though they, regardless of a lover's pain,
Heard her repeated vows, and heard in vain.
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Blest Mænalus! that hears the pastoral song,
Still languishing its tuneful groves along!
That hears th' Arcadian god's celestial lay,
Who taught the idly-rustling reeds to play!
That hears the singing pines! that hears the
swain

Of love's soft chains melodiously complain!
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain,

Mopsus the willing Nisa now enjoys→ What may not lovers hope from such a choice! Now mares and griffins shall their hate resign, And the succeeding age shall see them join In friendship's tie; now mutual love shall bring, The dog and doe to share the friendly spring, t Scatter thy nuts, O Mopsus, and prepare The nuptial torch to light the wedded fair. Lo, Hesper hastens to the western main! And thine the night of bliss-thine, happy swain! Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain. Exult, O Nisa, in thy happy state! Supremely blest in such a worthy mate; While you my beard detest, and bushy brow, And think the gods forget the world below;

H

This intercalary line (as it is called by the commentators), which seems to be intended as a chorus or burden to the song, is here made the last of a triplet, that it may be as independent of the context and the verse in the translation as it is in the ori ginal.-Mænalus was a mountain of Arcadia.