While you my flock and rural pipe disdain,
And treat with bitter scorn a faithful swain,
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.

When first I saw you by your mother's side, To where our apples grew I was your guide; Twelve summers since my birth had roll'd around, - A And I could reach the branches from the ground. How did I gaze !-how perish!-ah how vain The fond bewitching hopes that sooth'd my pain? Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.

Too well I know thee, Love. From Scythian snows, Or Lybia's burning sands the mischief rose. Rocks adamantine nursed this foreign bane, This fell invader of the peaceful plaín. Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.'

Love taught the mother's murdering hand to kill, Her children's blood love bade the mother spill. Was love the cruel cause? Or did the deed From fierce unfeeling cruelty proceed?

Both fill'd her brutal bosom with their bane;

Both urged the deed, while Nature shrunk in vain.
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.

Now let the fearful lamb the wolf devour;
Let alders blossom with Narcissus' flower;
From barren shrubs let radiant amber flow;
Let rugged oaks with golden fruitage glow;
Let shrieking owls with swans melodious vie ;
Let Tityrus the Thracian numbers try,
Outrival Orpheus in the sylvan reign,
And emulate Arion on the main.

Begin, my pipe, the sweet Manalian strain.

Let land no more the swelling waves divide; Earth, be thou whelm'd beneath the boundless tide! Headlong from yonder promontory's brow

I plunge into the rolling deep below.

2

Farewell, ye woods! farewell, thou flowery plain! Hear the last lay of a despairing swain:

And cease, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain. bað

This seems to be Virgil's meaning. The translator did not choose to preserve the conceit on the words puer and mater in his version; as this (in his opinion) would have rendered the passage obscure and unpleasing to an English reader. 1

Here Damon ceased. And now, ye tuneful Nine, Alphesibous' magic verse subjoin,

To his reponsive song your aid we call ;
Our power extends not equally to all.

Alphesibæus.

Bring living waters from the silver stream,
With vervain and fat incense feed the flame:
With this soft wreath the sacred altars bind,
To move my cruel Daphnis to be kind,
And with my phrenzy to inflame his soul;
Charms are but wanting to complete the whole..
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.

By powerful charms what prodigies are done! Charms draw pale Cynthia from her silver throne; Charms burst the bloated snake, and Circe's* guests By mighty magic charms were changed to beasts. Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms, ei O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms,

Three woollen wreaths, and each of triple dye,or Three times about thy image I apply,

Then thrice I bear it round the sacred shrine;
Uneven numbers please the powers divine,
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
Haste, let three colours with three knots be join'd,
And say, 'Thy fetters, Venus, thus I bind.'
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.,
As this soft clay is harden'd by the flame,
And as this wax is soften'd by the same,
My love, that harden'd Daphnis to disdain,
Shall soften his relenting heart again.
Scatter the salted corn, and place the bays,
And with fat brimstone light the sacred blaze.
Daphnis my burning passion slights with scorn, ¡¡
And Daphnis in this blazing bay I burn.

Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms, Į

See Hom. Odyss. lib. x.

As when, to find her love, an heifer roams Through trackless groves, and solitary glooms; Sick with desire, abandon'd to her woes,

By some lone stream her languid limbs she throws;
There in deep anguish wastes the tedious night,
Nor thoughts of home her late return invite;
Thus may he love, and thus indulge his pain,
While I enhance his torments with disdain.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arm's,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
These robes beneath the threshold here I leave,
These pledges of his love, O Earth, receive.
Ye dear memorials of our mutual fire,
Of you my faithless Daphnis I require.

Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
These deadly poisons, and these magic weeds,
Selected from the store which Pontus breeds,
Sage Moeris gave me; oft I saw him prove
Their sovereign power; by these along the grove
A prowling wolf the dread magician roams;
Now gliding ghosts from the profoundest tombs
Inspired he calls; the rooted corn he wings,
And to strange fields the flying harvest brings.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.

7

These ashes from the altar take with speed, And treading backwards cast them o'er your head Into the running stream, nor turn your eye. Yet this last spell, though hopeless, let me try. But nought can move the unrelenting swain, And spells, and magic verse, and gods are vain. Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms, Oh bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms. Lo, while I linger, with spontaneous fire The ashes redden, and the flames aspire! May this new prodigy auspicious prove! What fearful hopes my beating bosom move! Hark! does not Hylax bark?-ye powers supreme, Can it be real, or do lovers dream?

A

He comes, my Daphnis comes! forbear my charms; My love, my Daphnis flies to bless my longing arms,

POPASTORAL IX. two

97LY CIDAS, MERTS.

3vol to bus 307

udoy Lycidas.

Go you to town, my friend? this beaten way

Aht the fatal day, bal

The unexpected day, at last is come,

When a rude alien drives us from our home.
Hence, hence, ye clowns, th' usurper thus commands,
To me you must resign your ancient lands.

Thus helpless and forlorn we yield to fate;
And our rapacious lord to mitigate

This brace of kids a present I design,
Which load with curses, O ye powers divine!

11...

"Twas said, Menalcas with his tuneful strains Had saved the grounds of all the neighbouring swains, From where the hill, that terminates the vale, In easy risings first begins to swell; Far as the blasted beech that mates the sky, And the clear stream that gently murmurs by.

This and the first eclogue seems to have been written on thie same occasion. The time is a still evening. The landscape is described at the 97th line of this translation. On one side of the highway is an artificial arbour, where Lycidas invites Maris to rest a little from the fatigue of his journey: and at a considerable distance appears a sepulchre by the way-side, where the ancient sepulchres were commonly erected.

The critics with one voice seem to condemn this eclogue as un worthy of its author; I know not for what good reason. The many beautiful lines scattered through it would, one might think, be no weak recommendation. But it is by no means to be reckoned a loose collection of incoherent fragments; its principal parts are all strictly connected, and refer to a certain end, and its allusions and images are wholly suited to pastoral life. Its subject, though uncommon, is not improper; for what is more natural, than that two shepherds, when occasionally mentioning the good qualities of their absent friend, particularly his poetical talents, should repeat such fragments of his songs as they re

collected!

Maris.

Such was the voice of fame; but music's charms,
Amid the dreadful clang of warlike arms,
Avail no more than the Chaonian dove,
When down the sky descends the bird of Jove.
And had not the prophetic raven spoke
His dire presages from the hollow oak,
And often warn'd me to avoid debate,
And with a patient mind submit to fate,
Ne'er had thy Moeris seen this fatal hour,
And that melodious swain had been no more.

wot of noy ob

,9/11 -e, ieel to 7h bet59qxemʊ 9AI Lycidas. 9hirts 191W

What horrid breast such impious thoughts could o

breed!

What barbarous hand could make Menalcas bleed!A
Could every tender Muse in him destroy,
And from the shepherds ravish all their joy! dɔW
Board aidT
For who but he the lovely nymphs could sing,
Or paint the valleys with the purple spring?
Who shade the fountains from the glare of day ?ewT
Who but Menalcas could compose the lay,borse beн
Which, as we journey'd to my love's abode,
I softly sung to cheer the lonely road?
'Tityrus, while I am absent, feed the flock,*
And, having fed, conduct them to the brook
(The way is short, and I shall soon return),
But shun the he-goat with the butting horn... *

Moris.

Or who could finish the imperfect lays Sung by Menalcas to his Varus' praise?

'If fortune yet shall spare the Mantuan swains, And save from plundering hands our peaceful plains,

1

These lines, which Virgil has translated literally from Theocritus, may be supposed to be a fragment of the poem mentioned in the preceding verses; or, what is more likely, to be spoken: by Lycidas to his servant; something similar to which may be seen Past. 5, v. 20, of this translation. The original is here re markably explicit, even to a degree of affectation, This the translator has endeavoured to imitate.