Book I: Agriculture And Weather

BkI:1-42 The Invocation

I’ll begin to sing of what keeps the wheat fields happy,

under what stars to plough the earth, and fasten vines to elms,

what care the oxen need, what tending cattle require,

Maecenas, and how much skill’s required for the thrifty bees.

O you brightest lights of the universe

that lead the passing year through the skies,

Bacchus and kindly Ceres, since by your gifts

fat wheat ears replaced Chaonian acorns,

and mixed Achelous’s water with newly-discovered wine,

and you, Fauns, the farmer’s local gods,

(come dance, together, Fauns and Dryad girls!)

your gifts I sing. And you, O Neptune, for whom

earth at the blow of your mighty trident first produced

whinnying horses: and you Aristaeus, planter of the groves,

for whom three hundred snowy cattle graze Cea’s rich thickets:

you, O Tegean Pan, if you care for your own Maenalus,

leaving your native Lycaean woods and glades, guardian

of the flocks, favour us: and Minerva bringer of the olive:

and you Triptolemus, boy who revealed the curving plough,

and Silvanus carrying a tender cypress by the roots:

and all you gods and goddesses, whose care guards our fields,

you who nurture the fresh fruits of the unsown earth,

and you who send plentiful showers down for the crops:

and you too, Caesar, who, in time, will live among a company

of the gods, which one’s unknown, whether you choose

to watch over cities and lands, and the vast world

accepts you as bringer of fruits, and lord of the seasons,

crowning your brows with your mother Venus’s myrtle,

or whether you come as god of the vast sea, and sailors

worship your powers, while furthest Thule serves you,

and Tethys with all her waves wins you as son-in-law,

or whether you add yourself to the slow months as a Sign,

where a space opens between Virgo and the grasping claws,

(Even now fiery Scorpio draws in his pincers for you,

and leaves you more than your fair share of heaven):

whatever you’ll be (since Tartarus has no hope of you as ruler,

and may such fatal desire for power never touch you,

though Greece might marvel at the Elysian fields,

and Proserpine, re-won, might not care to follow her mother),

grant me a fair course, and agree to my bold beginning,

pitying the country folk, with me, who are ignorant of the way:

prepare to start your duties, and even now, hear our prayer.

BkI:43-70 Spring Ploughing

In the early Spring, when icy waters flow from snowy hills,

and the crumbling soil loosens in a westerly breeze,

then I’d first have my oxen groaning over the driven plough,

and the blade gleaming, polished by the furrow.

The field that’s twice felt sun, and twice felt frost,

answers to the eager farmer’s prayer:

from it boundless harvest bursts the barns.

But before our iron ploughshare slices the untried levels,

let’s first know the winds, and the varying mood of the sky,

and note our native fields, and the qualities of the place,

and what each region grows and what it rejects.

Here, wheat, there, vines, flourish more happily:

trees elsewhere, and grasses, shoot up unasked for.

See how Tmolus sends us saffron fragrance,

India, ivory, the gentle Sabeans, their incense,

while the naked Chalybes send iron, Pontus rank

beaver-oil, Epirus the glories of her mares from Elis.

Nature has necessarily imposed these rules, eternal laws,

on certain places, since ancient times, when Deucalion

hurled stones out into the empty world,

from which a tough race of men was born.

Come: and let your strong oxen turn the earth’s rich soil,

right away, in the first months of the year,

and let the clods lie for dusty summer to bake them in full sun:

but if the earth has not been fertile it’s enough to lift it

in shallow furrows, beneath Arcturus: in the first case

so that the weeds don’t harm the rich crops, in the other,

so what little moisture there is doesn’t leave the barren sand.

BkI:71-99 Treatment of the Land

Likewise alternate years let your cut fields lie fallow,

and the idle ground harden with neglect:

or sow yellow corn, under another star, where you

first harvested beans rich in their quivering pods,

or a crop of slender vetch, and the fragile stalks

and rattling stems of bitter lupin. For example

a harvest of flax exhausts the ground, oats exhaust it,

and poppies exhaust it, filled with Lethean sleep:

but by rotation, the labour prospers: don’t be ashamed

to saturate the arid soil with rich dung,

and scatter charred ashes over the weary fields.

So with changes of crop the land can rest,

and then the untilled earth is not ungrateful.

It’s often been beneficial to fire the stubble fields,

and burn the dry stalks in the crackling flames,

whether the earth gains hidden strength and rich food

from it, or every poison is baked out of it by the fire,

and useless moistures sweated from it,

or the heat frees more cracks and hidden pores,

by which strength reaches the fresh shoots, or whether

it hardens the soil more and narrows the open veins,

so the fine rain, or the fiercer power of the blazing sun,

or the north wind’s penetrating cold can’t harm it.

He who breaks the dull clods with a hoe, and drags a harrow

of willow over them, does the fields great good, and

golden Ceres does not view him idly from high Olympus.

And he too who reverses his plough and cuts across the ridges

that he first raised, when he furrowed the levels,

who constantly works the ground, and orders the fields.

BkI:100-117 Irrigation

Farmers, pray for moist summers and mild winters:

the crops are glad, the fields are glad of winter dryness:

Then Mysia boasts no finer cultivation,

and even Gargarus marvels at its own harvests.

Need I mention him who, having sown the seed,

follows closely, and flattens the heaps of barren sand,

then diverts the stream and its accompanying brooks to his crops,

and see, when the scorched land burns, the grasses withering,

he draws water, in channels, from the brow of the hill.

Or him who grazes his luxuriant crop in the tender shoot,

as soon as the new corn’s level with the furrow,

lest the stalks bend down with over-heavy ears.

Or him who soaks out a marsh’s gathered water with thirsty sand,

especially in changeable seasons when rivers overflow

and cover everything far and wide with a coat of mud,

so the hollow ditches exude steamy vapours?

BkI:118-159 The Beginnings of Agriculture

Though men and oxen, labouring skilfully, have

turned the land, the wretched geese still cause harm,

and the Strymonian cranes, and the bitter fibred chicory,

and the shade of trees. The great Father himself willed it,

that the ways of farming should not be easy, and first

stirred the fields with skill, rousing men’s minds to care,

not letting his regions drowse in heavy lethargy.

Before Jupiter’s time no farmers worked the land:

it was wrong to even mark the fields or divide them

with boundaries: men foraged in common, and the earth

herself gave everything more freely, unasked.

He added the deadly venom to shadowy snakes,

made the wolves predators, and stirred the seas,

shook honey from the trees, concealed fire,

and curbed the wine that ran everywhere in streams,

so that thoughtful practice might develop various skills,

little by little, and search out shoots of grain in the furrows,

and strike hidden fire from veins of flint.

Then, rivers knew the hollowed alder-boat:

then, sailors told and named the constellations,

the Pleiades, the Hyades, and Lycaon’s gleaming Bears:

then men learned to snare game in nets, deceive

with birdlime, and surround great glades with dogs:

Now one strikes into a broad river, seeking the depths,

while another drags his dripping net through the sea:

then came rigid iron and the melodious saw-blade

(since the first men split the fissile wood with wedges),

then came the various arts. Hard labour conquered all,

and poverty’s oppression in harsh times.

Ceres first taught men to plough the earth with iron,

when the oaks and strawberry-trees of the sacred grove

failed, and Dodona denied them food.

Soon the crops began to suffer and the stalks

were badly blighted, and useless thistles flourish in the fields:

the harvest is lost and a savage growth springs up,

goose-grass and star-thistles, and, amongst the bright corn,

wretched darnel and barren oats proliferate.

So that unless you continually attack weeds with your hoe,

and scare the birds with noise, and cut back the shade

from the dark soil with your knife, and call up rain

with prayers, alas, you’ll view others’ vast hayricks in vain,

and stave off hunger in the woods, shaking the oak-branches.

BkI:160-175 Tools and Tasks

I must tell of the sturdy countryman’s weapons,

without which the crops could not be sown or grown:

first the ploughshare, and the curved plough’s heavy frame,

the slow lumbering wagons of Demeter, the Eleusinian mother,

threshing sledges, drags, and cruelly weighted hoes:

and the ordinary wicker-ware of Celeus, besides,

hurdles of arbutus wood, and Iacchus’s sacred winnowing fans.

You’ll store away all these, you’ve remembered to provide long before,

if the noble glory of the divine countryside is to remain yours.

At the start an elm, in the woods, bent by brute force, is trained

to become a plough-beam, taking the form of the curving stock.

A pole eight feet in length is fitted to the stock,

two earth-boards, and a double-backed share-beam.

A light lime-tree is felled beforehand for the yoke, and a tall beech

for the plough handle, to turn the frame below, from behind,

and smoke from the hearth seasons the hanging wood.

BkI:176-203 Ancient Maxims

I can repeat many ancient maxims to you,

unless you reject them, and dislike learning lesser things.

Especially that the threshing floor should be levelled

with a heavy roller: brushed by hand: and firmed with tenacious clay,

lest weeds spring up there, or it splits, crumbling to dust,

and various blights mock you: often the little mouse

sets up house under the soil, and builds its granaries,

or moles with sightless eyes dig out chambers,

and toads may be found in cavities, and all the many pests

of the earth, and weevils infest vast heaps of grain,

and ants fearful of a destitute old-age.

Consider also, when the almond in the woods covers herself

deeply in blossom, and dips her fragrant branches:

if the young nuts are plentiful, a like wheat-harvest will follow,

and a great threshing will come with great heat:

but if the cloud’s heavy in the fullness of growth,

your threshing-floor will thrash stalks rich in chaff.

For my part I’ve seen many a sower treat his seeds,

soaking them first in nitrate, and black lees of olive-oil,

so the deceptive husks might bear larger grains

which will quickly boil soft, however low the fire.

I’ve seen choice seed, proven with much labour,

degenerate, still, if the largest were not picked out

each year, by human hand. So all things are fated

to slide towards the worst, and revert by slipping back:

just as if one who can hardly drive his boat with oars

against the stream, should slacken his arms,

and the channel sweep it away downstream.

BkI:204-258 Star-Lore

The star of Arcturus, and the days of the Kids, and bright Draco

the Serpent, are as much ours as theirs, who sailing homewards

over stormy seas, dare Pontus, and the jaws of oyster-rich Abydos.

When Libra makes the hours of daytime and sleep equal,

and divides the world between light and shadow,

then work your oxen, men, sow barley in your fields

right to the edge of formidable winter’s rains:

then it’s time too to sow your crops of flax, in the soil,

and Ceres’s poppy, and readily bend to the plough,

while the dry ground will let you, and the clouds are high.

Sow beans in Spring: then the crumbling furrows receive you,

clover, and millet, you come to our annual attention,

when snow-white Taurus with golden horns opens

the year, and Sirius sets, overcome by opposing stars.

But if you work the ground for harvests of wheat

and hardy spelt, and you aim at grain alone,

first let the Pleiades, Atlas’s daughters, set for you in the dawn,

and let the Cretan stars of the burning Crown, Corona Borealis,

vanish, before you commit the seeds required to the furrows,

or rush to entrust a year’s hopes to the unwilling soil.

Many have started to do so, before Maia’s setting,

but the hoped-for crop has deluded them, the husks empty.

Yet it’s true that if you sow vetch, or the humble kidney bean,

and don’t ignore cultivation of Egypt’s lentils,

Boötes setting will send no malign signals:

begin, and carry on sowing into the thick of the frosts.

For this purpose the golden sun commands his ecliptic,

split into fixed segments, through twelve heavenly constellations.

Five zones comprise the Earth: of which one

is always bright with the glittering sun, and always burned by his flames:

round this at the sky’s ends, two stretch to left and right,

layered with ice and darkened by storms:

between these and the central zone, two more have been given

to weak humanity, by the grace of the gods, and a track passes

between them, on which the oblique procession of Signs can revolve.

Just as the world rises steeply north, towards Scythia

and the Riphaean cliffs, it sinks down to Libya in the south.

One pole is always high above us: while the other,

under our feet, sees black Styx and the infernal Shades.

Here mighty Draco glides in winding coils,

around and between the two Bears, like a river,

the Bears that fear to dip beneath the ocean.

There, they say, either the dead of night keeps silence,

and the shadows of night’s mask grow ever thicker:

or Dawn, leaving us, brings back their day,

and when the rising sun, with panting horses, first breathes on us,

there burning Vesper lights his evening fire.

From all this we can foretell the seasons, through unsettled skies:

from this, the days for harvesting, and time for sowing,

and when it’s right to set oars to the treacherous sea,

when to launch the armed fleet, or fell

the mature pine-tree in the forest.

We don’t observe the Signs in vain, as they rise and set,

nor the year divided into its four varied seasons.

BkI:259-310 Appropriate Times for Tasks

Whenever freezing rain keeps the farmer indoors,

he can ready much that would soon have to be hurried,

in clearer weather: the farmer forges a hard blade

for the blunted ploughshare, carves out troughs from tree-trunks,

or brands his cattle, or labels his ricks’ measures.

Others sharpen stakes and two-pronged forks,

or make tethers for the pliant vines, from Amerian willow.

Now weave the graceful basket of reddish twigs,

now parch grain by the fire, now grind it on the stone.

Even on sacred days you can carry out certain tasks,

by divine and human law: no religious rule forbids

diverting streams, protecting crops with a hedge,

setting snares for birds, firing brambles,

or dipping the bleating flock in the health-giving water.

Often the farmer loads his slow mule’s flanks

with flasks of olive-oil, or humble fruit, and returns

from town with a metalled millstone, or a mass of dark pitch.

The Moon herself has set certain days as auspicious

for certain kinds of work. Avoid the fifth: it’s then pale Orcus

and the Furies were born: then in impious labour Earth

gave birth to Coeus, Iapetus, and savage Typhoeus,

and the brothers who banded together to raze the Heavens.

Three times, indeed, they tried to pile Ossa on Pelion,

and roll wooded Olympus on top of Ossa: three times

Jupiter split the mountain pile apart with his lightning bolt.

The seventeenth is good for planting vines,

and taming yoked oxen, and adding threads to the loom.

The ninth is better for runaways, harmful for the thief.

Many things too go better in the cool night,

or when, at first light, Dawn wets the Earth with dew.

Slender stalks are best cut at night, and dry meadows,

at night there’s no lack of lingering moisture.

One stays awake by the late blaze of a winter fire,

and sharpens torches with a keen knife, while his wife

solaces herself with singing over her endless labour,

running the noisy shuttle through the warp,

or boiling down the sweet juice of grape must, on the fire,

while skimming the cauldron’s boiling liquid with a leaf.

But Ceres’s golden crop is reaped in midday heat,

and in midday heat the threshing floor thrashes the dry ears.

Plough half-naked: half-naked, sow: winter’s the farmer’s quiet time.

In the cold season countrymen mainly enjoy their lot

and treat themselves, delighting in feasts, together.

Genial winter entices them, and soothes their cares,

just as when loaded ships touch harbour,

and happy sailors crown the sterns with garlands.

But then is the time to gather acorns, and berries

from the bay-tree, and trim the olives, and blood-red myrtles,

to set snares for cranes, and nets for stags,

and chase the long-eared hares, to strike the deer

whirling a Balearic sling by its thongs of hemp,

when snow lies deep, and rivers thrust up ice.

BkI:311-334 Storms

What should I tell of autumn’s storms, and stars,

and what men must watch for when the daylight shortens,

and summer becomes more changeable, or when spring

pours down showers, when spiked crops bristle in the fields,

and wheat swells with sap on its green stem?

Often, when the farmer brought the reapers to his golden fields,

and cut the barley with its brittle stalks, I’ve seen

all the winds conflict in battle, ripping up the heavy crop

from its deepest roots, on every side, and hurling it

into the air: then the storm  would sweep away

the light stalks and the flying stubble in its dark whirlwind.

Often a vast column of water towers in the sky,

and clouds from the heights gather into a vile tempest

of dark rain: high heaven falls, and washes away

the joyful crops and the oxen’s labour, with its great deluge:

the ditches fill, and the channelled rivers swell and roar,

and the heaving ocean boils in the narrow straits.

Jupiter himself, at storm-clouded midnight, wields

his lightning bolts with glittering hand: at whose shock

the vast earth trembles: the creatures run, and humbling terror

subdues men’s hearts everywhere: with blazing shafts of light

he rushes over Athos, Rhodope and the Ceraunian peaks.

The Southerlies redouble, and the rain intensifies,

now the woods moan with the mighty blast, now the shores.

BkI:335-350 The Worship Of Ceres 

Fearing this, note the signs and seasons of the heavens,

to what region Saturn’s cold planet retreats,

and into what celestial orbit Mercury’s fire wanders.

Above all worship the gods, and offer great Ceres

her yearly rites, with sacrifice on the  grass, delighted,

at winter’s final end, now it is clear springtime.

Then lambs grow fattest, and wine is mellow,

sleep is sweet, and the shadows are dense on the hills.

Let all the country folk worship Ceres: bathe

the honeycomb for her, in milk and vintage wine,

let the auspicious victim go three times round the new crop,

while your whole choir of companions follow, rejoicing,

and call Ceres loudly to their homes: and let no one

put his sickle to the ripe corn, until he has wreathed

his brow with a garland of oak leaves,

danced artless dances and sung her songs.

BkI:351-392 Weather Signs: Terrestrial

And so that we might learn the sure signs of these things,

heat, and rain, and cold-bearing winds,

Jupiter himself commanded what the monthly moon

should warn of, what would signal the easing of the winds,

at what frequent sight the farmer should stable his cattle.

Immediately the winds rise, either the straits of the sea

begin to heave and swell, and a low noise is heard

from the high mountains: or the shore rings

with a distant sound, and a murmuring rises in the glades.

Then the waves don’t spare the curved ships, the swift

sea-birds fly back from mid-ocean, and send their cries to shore,

coots of the seaboard settle on dry land, and the grey heron

leaves its familiar marsh, and flies high above the clouds.

Often when the wind is threatening you’ll see stars slide

headlong from the sky, showing white in the dark of night,

with a long trail of flame behind them:

often light chaff, and fallen leaves fly up,

and feathers dance together skimming the water.

But when lightning flashes from the wild North sector,

and when the house of the East and West winds thunders,

the whole countryside is afloat, with overflowing ditches,

every sailor furls dripping sails at sea. Rain never takes men

unawares: either the cranes, airborne, fly before it, as it reaches

the valley’s depths, or a heifer looks up at the sky

and sniffs the air with nostrils spread,

or the swallows twitter circling the pools,

and the frogs in the mud croak their ancient lament.

And often the ant, beating out a narrow track,

brings eggs from an innermost nest, and a huge rainbow

drinks, and a great troop of rooks leaving the fields

beat their wings together densely, in ranks.

Then there are the many sea birds, and those

that search in Cayster’s sweet pools among the Asian meadows:

you see them emulating each other splashing water madly

over their backs, dipping their heads in the waves, paddling

into the stream, and enjoying their bath with wild enthusiasm.

Then the cruel raven’s deep cry calls up the rain,

and, alone with himself, he walks the dry sands.

Even girls, spinning, at their nocturnal task, have not failed

to note the coming storm, seeing the oil sputter

in the fiery lamp, and a clot of soot gather on the wick.

BkI:393-423 Weather Signs: After The Rain

No less, after rain, do we predict sunlight and clear skies,

and recognise fair weather by certain signs:

since the stars’ sharp edges are not obscured

and the Moon rises, not dimmed by her brother’s rays,

and thin fleecy clouds no longer drift across the sky:

The halcyons, Thetis’s delight, stop spreading their wings

on the sand, to catch the warm sun, and the muddy pigs

forget to toss loose bales of hay around with their snouts.

But the mists seek out the valleys more, and settle

on the plains, and the owl, watching the sunset

from some high hill, gives out its twilight calls in vain.

Nisus, the sea-eagle’s seen high in the clear sky,

and Scylla, the rock-dove, suffers for the purple lock:

wherever she flies, cutting the thin air with her wings,

see, her fierce enemy Nisus, follows her through the breeze

with a loud whirring: when Nisus climbs in the sky,

she flies quickly, cutting the thin air with her wings.

Now the rooks repeat their clear calls, three or four times,

with narrowed throats, and often caw to themselves

in their high nests among the leaves, delighting

in some unusual pleasantry: they’re glad, the rain over,

to see their sweet nests and their little chicks again:

not that I think they have divine wisdom

or greater knowledge of the workings of Fate:

but when the weather changes, and the rain from fickle skies,

and Jupiter, among the wet South winds, makes what was now

rarefied, dense, and makes dense what was rarefied,

ideas in their minds alter, and their hearts feel differently,

differently to when the wind was chasing the clouds.

So that chorus of birds in the fields, the delight

of the cattle, the triumphant cries of the rooks.

BkI:424-460 Weather Signs: Moon And Sun

If you pay close attention to the rapid suns and moon,

following in order, tomorrow’s hour won’t fail you,

you’ll not be caught out by a cloudless night.

As soon as the moon waxes, as her light renews,

if she encloses a dark mist in dim horns,

heavy rains are brewing for farmers and for sailors:

but if a virgin blush spreads over her face, the wind will rise,

golden Phoebe always blushes in the wind.

And if on the fourth day (and this is the clearest sign)

she travels a clear sky with undimmed horns,

then that day, and all the days after it, to the end

of the month, will be free of wind and rain,

and sailors safe in harbour will worship

Glaucus, Panopea, and Melicerta, Ino’s son.

The Sun too provides signals, rising, and when setting

into the waves: certain signals follow the sun,

those he brings at dawn, and as the stars rise.

When, hidden in cloud, he’s discoloured the early morning

with blotches, and is veiled at the centre of his disc,

expect the showers: since the south wind, inauspicious

for trees, crops and herds, is sweeping up from the deep.

Or when scattered rays break through dense cloud

at dawn, or Aurora rises pale as she leaves

Tithonus’s saffron bed, ah, then the vine-leaf

will protect the ripe grapes badly: the bristling hail

dances so fiercely, rattling on the roofs.

And it will do you more good still to remember, this,

when he’s crossed the sky and is setting: often

we see varied colours wandering over his face:

dark-blue announces rain, fiery colours an Easterly,

but if the hues begin to mix with glowing fire,

then you’ll see everything rage with wind and storm.

Don’t let anyone advise me to travel the sea that night,

or haul in my cable from the land.

But if when the sun brings and ends the day

his disc is bright, your fear of storms is groundless,

and you’ll see the woods swaying in a clear North wind.

BkI:461-497 The Portents At Julius Caesar’s Death

So, the sun will give you signs of what late evening brings,

and from where a fair-weather wind blows the clouds,

or what the rain-filled southerly intends. Who dares to say

the sun tricks us? He often warns us that hidden troubles

threaten, that treachery and secret wars are breeding.

He pitied Rome when Caesar was killed,

and hid his shining face in gloomy darkness,

and an impious age feared eternal night.

At that time earth, and the level sea,

troublesome dogs, and fateful birds, gave omens.

How often Etna inundated the Cyclopes’s fields,

streams of lava pouring from her shattered furnace,

hurling gouts of flame and molten rock!

In Germany they heard the clash of weapons,

across the sky, the Alps shook with strange quakes.

A great shout was heard, openly, in the silent groves,

and pale ghosts in strange forms were seen in the dark of night,

and, ah horror, creatures spoke like men.

Rivers stopped, earth split, and sad, the ivories wept

in the temples, and the bronze sweated.

Eridanus, king of the rivers, washed away forests

in the whirl of his maddened vortex, and swept

cattle and stables over the plains. Nor at that time

was there any lack of ominous marks in the dark entrails,

blood flowing in the wells, and mighty cities

echoing at night with the howls of wolves.

Never did greater lightning flash from a clear sky,

never did fatal comets shine more often.

So Philippi again saw Roman armies clash

amongst themselves, with equal weapons:

And the gods thought it not unfitting that Emathia and the broad plain

of Haemus, should twice be enriched with our blood.

And a time will come, when in those lands,

the farmer labouring at the earth with curved plough,

will come upon spears eaten by scabrous rust,

or strike an empty helmet with his heavy hoe,

and wonder at giant bones in the opened grave.

BkI:498-514 A Prayer for Augustus’s Success

Gods of my country, Heroes, Romulus, Mother Vesta,

who guards the Tuscan Tiber, and Rome’s Palatine,

don’t stop this young prince at least from rescuing

a world turned upside down! Our blood’s atoned,

long enough, for Laomedon’s perjuries at Troy:

heaven’s realms have denied you to us long enough,

Caesar, and they complain of your need for earthly triumphs.

Here right and wrong are reversed: so many wars

in the world, so many faces of evil: the plough

not worthy of any honour, our lands neglected, robbed of farmers,

and the curved pruning-hooks beaten into solid blades.

Here Germany, there Euphrates wages war:

neighbouring cities take up arms, breaking the laws

that bound them: impious Mars rages through the world:
just as when the chariots stream from the starting gates,

add to their speed each lap, and the charioteer tugging vainly at the bridles,

is dragged on by the horses, the chariot not responding to the reins

                                        End Of Book I

Book II: Arboriculture And Viniculture

BkII:1-8 Introduction

So much for the cultivation of fields, and the stars in the sky:

Now I’ll sing you, Bacchus, not forgetting the saplings

of woodlands, and the children of slow-growing olives.

Here, O Lenaean Father (here all is filled with your gifts,

the field flourishes filled with autumnal vine shoots,

the grape harvest foams in the brimming vats)

here, O Lenaean Father, come, and, free of footwear

plunge naked feet, with me, in the new vintage.

BkII:9-34 Methods of Propagation

Firstly Nature has various ways of propagating trees.

Some, unforced by Man, appear far and wide, on their own,

and colonise the plains and the winding rivers:

such as the pliant osier and the slow-growing broom,

the poplar and the pale silver-leafed willow:

others spring from fallen seed, like the tall

chestnut, the broad-leaved oak of Jupiter’s groves,

and the oak the Greeks consider to be oracular.

With others a dense thicket sprouts from the roots,

as in cherries and elms: even the laurel of Parnassus

springs as a tiny shoot, in its mother’s extensive shade.

These are the methods Nature first ordered: by these means

every kind of forest tree, shrub, and sacred grove flourishes.

There are others that practice has found out for herself,

in her own way. This man cuts shoots from the tender trunk

of the mother tree, and sets them in furrows: that one buries

stems in the ground, as cross-cut stakes and pointed spikes:

other shrubs wait to be bent in curved layers,

and the shoots gain life from their own soil:

others need no roots, and the pruner has no fear

of cutting the top, and trusting the tip to the earth.

Amazing to say, when an olive-trunk is cut,

an olive root thrusts itself out of the dry wood.

And often we see one tree’s branches harmlessly

given over to another’s, a pear altered to carry grafted apples,

and stony cornelian cherries blushing on a plum.

BkII:35-60 The Labour Required

So, farmers, work, oh, learn the methods proper to each species,

and tame wild fruits by cultivation, and never let your soil

be idle. Thrace delights in planting vines

and adorning great Tabernus with the olive.

And come, Maecenas, trace together the labour I’ve begun,

oh noble one, deservedly, the chief part of my fame,

set your sails to course over the open sea.

I don’t seek to embrace all in my verses,

not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,

an iron voice. Come, pass by the nearest point of shore,

land is to hand: I’ll not hold you here with idle song,

through rambling ways and lengthy preludes.

Trees that lift themselves into the regions of light

spring up unfruitful, but are pleasing and vigorous,

since there’s a natural power in the soil: these too

if grafted, or transplanted in well-dug trenches,

will lose their woodland nature, and in careful cultivation

will not be slow to follow any pattern you wish.

And indeed the barren sucker that springs from the base

of the stem will do this if set in open ground:

now though it’s mother’s leaves and branches darken it,

inhibiting fruit as it grows, nipping it in the bud.

The tree that raises itself from scattered seed,

grows slowly, creating shade for our descendants,

its fruits degenerate, losing their former savour,

and the vine bears sad clusters, a prize for the birds.

BkII:61-108 Treatment Of Individual Species

Labour must be spent on them all, of course,

and all have to be set in trenches and tamed at great cost.

But olives respond best as boles, vines in layers,

Paphian myrtles from the solid trunk:

tough hazels spring from suckers, and the giant ash:

and the shade-giving tree that garlanded Hercules,

and Chaonian Jupiter, from acorns: so too the tall palm

rises, and the fir that will meet the dangers of the sea.

But the wild strawberry-tree is grafted with a walnut shoot,

and barren plane-trees have carried vigorous apple:

the beech has shown white with pale chestnut flowers, and the ash

with the pear’s: and pigs have crunched acorns under the elm.

Nor is the method of grafting and budding always the same.

Where the buds push out of the bark and burst

their tender sheaths, a narrow slit’s made in the knot:

in this they insert a bud from a different tree,

and teach it to grow into the sapwood.

Or, again, trunks without knots are split open,

and paths are cut deep to the core, using wedges,

then vigorous shoots admitted: and, in a little while,

a tall tree with fine branches rises to the sky,

wondering at strange leaves and fruit not its own.

Also the strong elms are not of only one species,

nor the willow, lotus, nor the cypresses of Ida,

nor do rich olives only grow in one form, there are

oval orchads, long radii, and bitter-fruited pausians:

and so with apples and the orchards of Alcinous: nor are cuttings

the same for Crustumian pears, and Syrian, or the heavy volema.

The same vines don’t hang from our trees

that Lesbos harvests in Methymna’s branches:

there are Thracian grapes, and the white Mareotic,

one suited to rich soils, the other to lighter ones,

and the Psithian, better for raisin-wine, and the light Lagean,

sure to trip your feet, and tie your tongue some day:

the ripe purple and the early-ripening, and what should I say

of you Rhaetic? Still yours don’t compete with Falernian cellars!

And there are Aminnean vines, their wine’s most certain,

to which the Tmolian bows, and the king itself, Phanaean:

and the lesser Argitis, that none can match

in quantity or in enduring so many years.

I wouldn’t pass you by, Rhodian, fit for the gods

and the second course: or Bumastus, your swollen clusters.

But there’s no final count of the many species or names,

nor indeed is it worth counting them all:

who wishes to know, will also want to learn how many grains

of sand, on the Libyan plain, are blown by the West wind,

or how many waves of the Ionian Sea reach shore

when an East wind strikes the ships violently.

BkII:109-135 The Effects of Climate and Location

Nor do all lands carry all kinds of plants.

Willows grow by rivers, and alders in dank marshes,

and the barren manna ash on rocky hills:

the coast delights in myrtles: lastly Bacchus’s vine

loves open hills, and the yew the cold North wind.

See, the furthest regions are tamed by cultivation,

the Arabs at home in the East, the tattooed Scythians:

country’s differ in their trees. Only India

bears black ebony, only Sabeans have frankincense.

Why tell you of the balsams that drip from perfumed wood,

or the berries of the evergreen acanthus?

Why mention the Ethiopian trees white with cotton,

or how the Chinese obtain silk from their leaves?

Or the jungles India bears nearer to the Ocean,

on that coast at the world’s end, where no arrows

can reach the air above the tops of the trees?

Yet that people’s not slow to handle the quiver.

Media produces bitter juices, and the lasting taste

of the healthy citron, which comes as an antidote,

and drives the dark venom from the limbs

if a cruel stepmother poisons the drinks,

mixing herbs with harmful spells, no one suspecting.

The tree itself is tall and looks like a bay

(and would be a bay if it didn’t give off

a different perfume): no wind makes its leaves fall:

its flowers are particularly lasting: the Mede

sweetens his breath with it, and cures old age’s asthma.

BkII:136-176 A Celebration of Italy

But neither the groves of Media, its richest soils,

nor lovely Ganges, nor Hermus full of gold,

compete with Italy’s glories, not Bactria, or India,

nor all Panchaea, rich with incense-bearing sands.

No bulls with nostrils breathing fire, ploughed this land

in order to sow the savage dragon’s teeth,

no human harvest bristled, thick with helmets and spears:

but dense fruit filled her, and the juice of Massica’s vines:

she contains olive-trees and pleasing herds.

Here the war-horse charges proudly over the plain,

here are your snowy flocks, Clitumnus, and, the noblest sacrifice,

your bulls, that, drenched in your sacred stream,

have often led Roman triumphs to the gods’ temples.

Here is continual spring, and summer in unseasonable months,

the herds breed twice, the trees are good, twice, for fruit.

And raging tigers are absent, and lions’ savage young,

no aconite deceives unlucky foragers,

no scaly serpent slides his huge segments over the ground,

or winds his vast length in coils.

Add to that all the towns, the work of human labour,

built up by hand on the steep cliffs,

and the rivers gliding by the ancient walls.

Shall I recall the seas that wash the land to east and west?

Or the vast lakes? You, Larius, our largest, and you, Benacus,

with the waves and roar of the surging sea?

Shall I recall the harbours, and the barrier across the Lucrine,

and the angry ocean sounding, far off, in mighty anger

where the Julian waves are repulsed

and the Tyrrhenian tide pours into the straits of Avernus?

This land has revealed streams of silver and copper mines,

in its deep veins, and has flowed with much gold.

She has bred a fierce race of men, Marsians and Sabines,

Ligurians used to hardship, and Volscian spearmen,

the Decii, the Marii, and the great Camilli,

the Scipios tough in war, and you, greatest Caesar,

who, having conquered Asia’s furthest shores, now drive

the cowardly Indians from our Roman strongholds.

Hail, land of Saturn, great mother of fruits and men:

for you I carry out this work of ancient art and praise,

and dare to unseal the sacred fountains,

and sing the songs of Ascra in Roman towns.

BkII:177-225 The Nature of Various Soils

This is the section on the nature of soils, the vigour of each,

its colour, and its natural powers for supporting growth.

Firstly, difficult ground and unkindly hills,

where there’s poor clay and gravel in the thorny fields,

enjoy Minerva’s groves of long-lived olives.

A sign of this is the wild olive, the oleaster, growing freely

in the same place, the ground covered with its fruit.

But a rich soil delighting in sweet moisture,

a level thick with grass, and deeply fertile,

(such as we’re often used to seeing in a hollow valley

in the hills: the streams flow into it from the high cliffs,

carrying with them rich mud), one that rises to the south,

and nourishes ferns, hostile to the curved plough,

this will one day provide you the strongest of vines,

and rich flowing wine: from it come fruitful grapes,

and the juice we offer in golden bowls,

while the sleek Tuscan blows his ivory flute at the altars,

and we deliver up the steaming organs in curved dishes.

If you’re more inclined to keep cows and calves,

or breed sheep, or goats that nip the plants,

search out the distant woodland pastures of rich Tarentum,

or such fields as those unfortunate Mantua lost,

feeding the snowy swans in grass-bordered rivers:

the flocks won’t lack clear springs or grazing,

and whatever the herds crop in the long days,

the cool dew will replace at night.

Earth that’s black and rich under the heavy ploughshare

and whose soil crumbles (such as we try for by ploughing)

is best for crops: you won’t see more wagons heading

home from any other, behind the slow oxen:

or the earth from which an irate farmer’s stripped the trees,

destroying groves untouched for many years,

and, with the deep-rooted trunks, tearing up ancient homes

of birds: they leave their nests and seek the skies,

but the virgin fields gleam under the driven plough.

For the barren gravel of the hill country hardly feeds

the bees with humble spurge-laurel and rosemary,

and the rough tufa and chalk haunted by black water-snakes

shows that no other land gives the snakes

such sweet food or such winding retreats.

The soil that breathes out thin mists, and steams fleetingly,

and drinks the moisture and discharges it at will,

that always clothes itself greenly with its own grass,

and doesn’t coat iron with rough and salty rust,

that will wreathe your elms with healthy vines,

that will be rich in olives, that you’ll find in cultivation

suited to herds, and patient under the curved plough.

Such is the soil that rich Capua farms, and the coast near

Vesuvius’s ridge, and Clanius, not friendly to worthless Acerris.

BkII:226-258 The Recognition of Soil Types

Now I’ll tell you how to recognise each type of soil.

If you want to know if it’s nature is lighter or denser

(since one favours corn, the other vines,

the denser Ceres more, the lighter Bacchus)

pick out a place by sight, and order a pit sunk deeply

in the ground, and replace all the earth again,

and level the surface of the ground with your feet.

If it’s deficient, the land is light and fitter for herds,

and the kindly vine: if it won’t fill its previous place

and there’s earth left when the trench is filled,

the earth compacted: expect resistant clods,

and dense ridges, and plough the earth with strong oxen.

As for salt-laden land, the kind called bitter,

(it’s unfavourable for crops, and does not mellow with ploughing,

adds nothing to a vineyard’s lineage, or an apple’s fame)

it will grant this proof: take your thickly-woven baskets

and wine-strainers from the smoky roof:

press that poor soil into them, with sweet spring water,

to the top: all the water will be forced out of course

and large drops will squeeze through the willow:

but the taste will clearly manifest itself, and its bitter flavour

will make anyone testing screw up their mouths.

Again we learn which soils are rich, precisely like this:

it never crumbles when split, in the hands,

but sticks to the fingers like pitch when held.

Moist soil yields taller grass, and is duly fertile

in its own right. Ah, may that over-rich soil not belong to me,

and not show its excess vigour in the first shoots of wheat!

A heavy soil reveals itself silently by its weight, as does

a light one: it’s easy for the eye to know a black soil,

and any obvious colour. But to detect a wretchedly cold soil

is difficult: only pine, gloomy yew, and black ivy

occasionally disclose traces of its presence.

BkII:259-353 Planting A Vineyard

Having noted this, remember to let the ground dry out well,

and raze large mounds by trenching, and expose

the upturned clods of soil to the North wind,

before you plant a fertile type of vine. Fields with soils

that crumble are best: the wind and cold frost

take care of that, and the digger who moves and shakes the land.

But if these men are to let nothing escape them,

they first identify similar plots, where the vines can be prepared,

early, for their supporting trees, or where they can be taken later,

and planted out, so they don’t suddenly reject the change of soil.

They even print on the bark the region of the sky each one faced,

so they can identically align the side that withstood

the southern heat, and that which was turned to the northern pole:

we grow accustomed to so much in tender years.

Consider first whether it’s better to plant the vines on the slopes

or on the level. If you’re laying out fertile fields on the plain,

plant close: Bacchus is no more sluggish in close-planted soil:

but if the soil rises in mounds and sloping hills, give the rows room:

and again, when the vines are set, let all the paths

be squared off neatly with a clear-cut boundary.

As in great battles often, when the legion deploys its cohorts

in a long line, and the column holds the open ground,

the troops ranked deep, and the whole plain far and wide

heaves with shining bronze, the grim conflict not yet joined,

but Mars wanders uncertainly between the troops:

so let all your paths be laid out equal in size:

not just so that the view might nourish idle thought,

but because only like this will the earth grant equal vigour

to all, and the stems be able to extend into free air.

Perhaps you’ll also ask what depth the trenches should be.

I’d even trust a vine to a shallow furrow.

But sink the tree deep in the earth,

the oak above all, which stretches its crown to the air of heaven,

as far as it stretches its roots down to Tartarus.

So that no storms, or gales, or rains uproot it:

it remains untouched, and, enduring, it outlasts

many generations and centuries of men as they roll by.

It extends strong trunks and branches to either side,

and itself, in the middle, casts a vast shadow.

Don’t let your vineyard slope towards the setting sun,

and don’t plant hazel among the vines, or attack

the top shoots, or take cuttings from the tip

(they prefer the ground so much) or damage young plants

with a blunt knife, or graft into trunks of wild olive.

Since often fire’s left behind by a careless shepherd,

fire that lurking, hidden under the rich bark,

seizes the trunk and climbing to the high foliage

sends a great roaring to the sky: then following

the branches and tall crowns, rules supreme,

engulfing the whole grove in flames, and throwing up

dark clouds of thick pitch-black smoke,

especially if a gale from above has descended on the woods,

and a following wind intensifies the burning.

When this happens the tree stumps are worthless,

and can’t survive being cut back, or resurrect

their previous greenness from the depths of the earth:

only the wretched bitter-leaved oleaster remains.

And don’t let anyone be so wise as to convince you

to turn the solid earth when a North wind’s blowing.

Since winter grips the soil with frost and won’t let a shoot

that’s planted then fix its frozen roots in the ground.

The optimum season for planting vines is when the stork

that enemy of long snakes, arrives, in the first blush of spring,

or in autumn’s first chill before the horses of the swift sun

touch winter, when summer is on the wane.

Spring benefits the leaves of the groves and woods,

in Spring soil swells and demands life-bringing seed.

Then Heaven, the omnipotent father, descends as fertile rain,

into the lap of his joyful consort, and joining his power

to her vast body nourishes all growth.

Then the wild thickets echo to the songs of birds,

and in the settled days the cattle renew their loves:

the kindly earth gives birth, and the fields open their hearts,

in the warm West winds: gentle moisture flows everywhere,

and the grasses safely dare to trust to the new sun.

the vine-shoots don’t fear a rising Southerly,

or rain driven through the sky, by great Northerly gales,

but put out their buds, and unfold all their leaves.

I can believe such days shone at the first dawn

of the nascent world, and took such temperate course.

That was true Spring, the great world passed its Spring,

and the Easterlies spared their wintry gales,

when the first cattle drank in the dawn,

and the iron race of men lifted their heads from the hard ground,

and wild creatures were freed in the woods, and stars in the sky.

And tender things could not endure their labour,

if this respite did not come between the cold and the heat,

and heaven’s gentleness welcome the earth.

What’s more, whatever cuttings you push into the earth,

sprinkle them with manure, and don’t forget to bury them with soil,

and dig in porous stones or rough shell:

then the water will slip between, and the fine air steal in,

and the sown plants will breathe. And some have been known

to cover them with stones, and large heavy tiles:

defending them against driving showers, and when the Dog-Star

brings its heat, splitting the cracked fields with thirst.

BkII:354-420 Care of The Vineyard

When the sets are planted it remains to you to break up the soil

at the roots, often, and to wield the heavy hoe,

or work the ground under pressure of the ploughshare,

and turn your labouring oxen between the vines themselves:

then prepare light canes, props from peeled sticks,

ash stakes and strong forks, by means of which

the vines can be trained to climb, scorn the winds,

and follow the upper layers of the elms.

And when the fresh leaves bud in their early youth,

be careful of their tenderness, and while the shoot pushes

joyfully skyward, growing with free rein in the pure air,

don’t touch the plants themselves with a keen blade,

but pick and pluck among the leaves with bent fingers.

Later when they’ve grown to clasp the elms with strong shoots,

then clip their foliage, and prune their branches

(before then they’ll fear the knife), and, in the end,

maintain a harsh rule, and curb their uncontrolled growth.

You must weave hedgerows too, and keep out all cattle,

principally while leaves are tender, and unused to suffering,

for besides severe winters, and the power of the sun,

wild oxen, and persistent roe-deer, toy with them,

and sheep, and greedy heifers, graze on them.

No cold, solid with hoar frost, or summer heat,

hanging heavily over arid crags, has done as much harm

as the herds, the mischief from their harsh teeth,

and the scars gnawed deep in the stems.

It’s for no other crime that a goat is sacrificed to Bacchus

on every altar, and that the old tragedies arrived on stage,

and the people of Theseus set up tributes to genius, in the villages

and at the crossroads, and danced joyfully in the soft meadows,

among the wine-cups, on the oiled goat-skin.

Likewise the Ausonian farmers, a people out of Troy,

act out rough verses, with unrestrained laughter,

and wear fearful faces, hollowed from bark,

and call to you, Bacchus, in joyful song, and hang

tender little masks on the tall pine-trees.

Then every vineyard ripens with plentiful fruit,

richness fills hollow valleys and deep glades,

and wherever else the god has turned his handsome face.

So, in the songs of our land, we’ll duly speak in Bacchus’s

honour, and bring him dishes of meats and sacred cakes,

and, led by the horn, the sacrificial goat will stand at the altar,

and the rich organs will be roasted on hazel spits.

There’s another task too of dressing the vines, over which

there can never be too much trouble taken: since three or four times

each year your soil must be turned and the clods broken

endlessly with a reversed hoe, and all the plantation

lightened of its leaves. The farmer’s work returns, driven

in a cycle, and the year revolves on itself over its own track.

And once the vineyard has shed its autumn leaves,

and the cold North wind has shaken the glory from the woods,

the keen farmer already gives thought to the coming year,

and attacks the vines he left, trimming them with Saturn’s

curved blade, and shaping them by pruning.

Be first to dig the ground, first to carry the off-cuts away

and burn them, and first to put the stakes away under cover:

be the last to harvest. Twice, leaf shadow thickens on the vines,

twice, weeds and briars cover the vineyard: either labour

is heavy: praise the large estates but farm a small one.

Also rough shoots of broom must be cut, in the woods,

and reeds from the river, along the banks,

and you’re kept busy tending the beds of wild willows.

Now the vines are tied, now they’re free of the pruning knife,

now the last vine-dresser sings of his finished rows:

still you must stir the soil, and trouble the dust,

and be fearful of Jupiter’s rain on your ripening grapes.

BkII:420-457 A Wealth of Trees And Plants

Olives, on the contrary, need no care,

they don’t require curved knife or stubborn hoe,

once they’ve clung to the fields, and endured the breeze:

the earth itself, opened up by the curved ploughshare,

gives enough moisture and heavy fruit.

Nurture the rich olive, like this, pleasing to Peace.

Fruit-trees too race skywards with natural vigour,

as soon as they sense that their trunks are firmly set,

and reach full strength, needing no effort from us.

Meanwhile ever wood’s no less heavy with fruit,

and the wild-bird’s haunts redden with crimson berries.

The clover’s grazed: the high wood provides pine torches,

so the fires of night are fed and pour out their light.

And do men hesitate to plant and tend the fields?

Why talk of the greater? Willows and humble broom

provide grazing for the sheep, shade for the shepherd,

a hedge for the crops, pastures for the bees.

And the delight of viewing Cytorus’s undulating boxwood,

or groves of Narycian pitch pine, the delight

of seeing fields that owe nothing to men or hoes.

Even the barren woods on the heights of the Caucasus,

storm-tossed, and shattered, endlessly by angry Easterlies,

give something useful in their way, good timber,

pine for ships, cedar and cypress for houses.

From them farmer’s plane spokes, and wheels, for carts,

and lay out curved keels, and ribs, for boats.

The willow’s rich in osiers, the elm in leaves: the myrtle,

and the cornel, good for war, make strong spear-shafts,

and yews are bent into Ituraean bows.

Smooth lime and box, turned on the lathe, take form,

and are hollowed out by the sharp steel.

So, the light alder, sent on its way, rides the foaming waves

of the River Po, and so the bees swarm and build

in the hollow cork-trees, and the hearts of rotten oaks.

What gift as memorable has the vine brought?

Bacchus even gave reason for offence: he caused the deaths

of the maddened Centaurs, Rhoetus, Pholos

and Hylaeus, who threatened the Lapiths with a heavy bowl.

BkII:458-542 The Joys Of The True Life

O farmers, more than happy if they’ve realised their blessings,

for whom Earth unprompted, supreme in justice, pours out

a rich livelihood from her soil, far from the clash of armies!

If no tall mansion with proud entrance disgorges a tide of guests

at dawn, if they don’t gaze at doors inlaid with tortoiseshell,

clothes threaded with gold, or bronzes from Ephyra,

if their white wool’s not dipped in Assyrian dyes,

nor the clear oil they use spoiled by rosemary,

still there’s no lack of tranquil peace, life without deceit,

rich in many things, the quiet of broad estates

(caves, and natural lakes, and cool valleys,

the cattle lowing, and sweet sleep under the trees):

they have glades in the woods, and haunts of game,

a youth of patient effort, accustomed to hardship,

worship of the gods, and respect for old age: Justice,

as she left the Earth, planted her last steps among them.

As for me, may the sweet Muses, supreme above all,

whose rites, I celebrate, stirred by a great love,

receive me, and show me heaven’s roads, and the stars,

the sun’s many eclipses, the moon’s labours,

where earth-quakes come from, forces that swell the deep seas,

bursting their barriers, then sinking back again into themselves:

why winter suns rush so to dip themselves in the ocean,

and what it is that holds back the slow nights.

But if the chill blood around my heart prevents me

from reaching those regions of nature, let the country

and the flowing streams in the valleys please me,

let me love the rivers and the woods, unknown. O for the plains,

for Spercheus, for Taygetus of the Spartan virgins’ Bacchic rites!

O set me in the cool valleys of Haemus, and protect me

with the shadows of mighty branches!

He who’s been able to learn the causes of things is happy,

and has set all fear, and unrelenting fate, and the noise

of greedy Acheron, under his feet. And he’s happy too,

who knows the woodland gods, Pan,

and old Sylvanus, and the Nymphs, his sisters.

The honours of the crowd, royal purple, won’t move him,

nor the discord stirring treacherous brothers,

the Dacians swooping down from perjured Danube,

the wealth of Rome, or doomed kingdoms: he neither

grieves in pity for the poor, nor envies the rich.

He gather the fruits that his trees and his fields

themselves have produced, and has not viewed

the laws in iron, the Forum’s madness, the public records.

Others trouble unknown seas with oars, rush on

their swords, enter the gates and courts of kings.

This man destroys a city and its wretched houses,

to drink from a jewelled cup, and sleep on Tyrian purple:

that one heaps up wealth, and broods about buried gold:

one’s stupefied, astonished by the Rostra: another, gapes,

entranced by repeated applause, from people and princes,

along the benches: men delight in steeping themselves

in their brothers’ blood, changing sweet home and hearth for exile,

and seeking a country that lies under an alien sun.

The farmer has been ploughing the soil with curving blade:

it’s his year’s work, it’s sustenance for his little grandsons,

and his country, his herds of cattle and his faithful oxen.

There’s no rest, but the season is rich in fruit

or his herds produce, or Ceres’s wheat sheaves

burden the furrows with their load, and fill the barns.

Winter comes: Sicyon’s olive is bruised in the mill,

the pigs come home fattened with acorns, the woods

give fruit from the strawberry-tree, autumn its varied yield,

and the grapes are dried high on the sunny rocks.

Meanwhile his dear children hang on his lips,

his chaste house guards its purity, the cows drop

milky udders, and the fat kids butt each other,

horn against horn, on the pleasant grass.

He himself has a holiday, and stretched on the ground,

with a fire in the middle, he calls to you, Bacchus,

offering a libation, while his friends garland the bowl,

or he sets up a target on an elm, for the swift spear-throwing,

or they strip their tough bodies for the country-wrestling.

The ancient Sabines once lived such a life,

and Remus and his brother, so Etruria grew strong,

so Rome became the loveliest of all things,

and enclosed her seven hills with a single wall.

Before even Cretan Jupiter held the sceptre, before

an impious race feasted on slaughtered oxen,

golden Saturn lived such a life on Earth:

before they’d yet heard the blare of trumpets,

or the sword-blades ring, laid on the harsh anvil.

But we’ve crossed a vast expanse of space, and now

it’s time to loose the necks of our sweating team.

                                        End of Book II

Book III: Livestock Farming

BkIII:1-48 Introduction

I’ll sing of you, great Pales, also, and you Apollo, famed shepherd

of Amphrysus, and of you, woods and rivers of Mount Lycaeus.

Now all the other themes are too well known,

that might have charmed an idle mind with song.

Who hasn’t heard of cruel Eurystheus,

or the altars of wicked Busiris?

Who has not told of the boy, Hylas, and Latona’s Delos,

and Hippodame, and Pelops, known for his ivory shoulder,

fearless with horses? I must try a path, by which I too

can rise from the earth and fly, victorious, from men’s lips.

If life lasts, I’ll be the first to return to my country,

bringing the Muses with me from the Aonian peak:

I’ll be the first, Mantua, to bring you Idumaean palms,

and I’ll set up a temple of marble by the water, on that green plain,

where great Mincius wanders in slow curves,

and clothes his banks with tender reeds.

Caesar will be in the middle, and own the temple.

I, the victor, conspicuous in Tyrian purple, will drive

a hundred four-horse chariots by the river, in his honour.

For me, all Greece will leave behind, Alpheus, and the groves

of Molorchus, to compete in races and box with raw-hide gloves.

I’ll bring gifts, my head wreathed in cut olive-leaves.

Even now it’s a delight to lead the solemn procession

to the sanctuary, and watch the sacrifice of the cattle,

or how the scene vanishes as the facade turns,

and how the purple hangings raise high their embroidered Britons.

In gold and solid ivory, on the doors, I’ll fashion battles

with the tribes of Ganges, the weapons of victorious Quirinus,

and the Nile surging with war, in full flow,

and door columns rising up with ships in bronze.

I’ll add Asia’s tamed cities, the beaten Niphates, the Parthian,

trusting to his arrows, fired behind as he flees,

two trophies taken indeed from diverse enemies,

and two triumphs over nations on either seashore.

Parian marbles will stand there too, living statues,

the Trojans, children of Assaracus, and the names of the race

of Jove, and father Tros, and Apollo, founder of Troy.

Wretched Envy will fear the Furies and Cocytus’s

grim river, Ixion’s coiling snakes and massive wheel,

and Sisyphus’s remorseless stone.

Meanwhile let’s off to the Dryads’ woods, the untouched glades,

no easy demand of yours, Maecenas. Without you

my mind attempts no high themes: come then,

end my lingering delay: Mount Cithaeron calls with loud cries,

the hounds of Taygetus, Epidaurus, tamer of horses:

and the sound doubled by echoes rings from the woods.

Soon I’ll prepare myself to speak of Caesar’s fiery battles,

and take his name forward, famous, for as many years

as Caesar’s are far from immortal Tithonus’s first birth.

BkIII:49-122 Breeding Stock

Whether you choose to nurture horses, in admiration

of the prize of Olympia’s palms, or sturdy oxen, for the plough,

select the mother’s stock carefully. The best-shaped cow

is fierce, her head ugly, with plenty of neck,

and dewlaps hanging down from chin to leg:

then there’s no end to her long flanks: all’s large,

even the feet: and there are shaggy ears under crooked horns.

One marked with blotches, and whiteness, wouldn’t displease me,

shirking the yoke, and also fierce with her horns,

and more like a bull in looks, tall overall,

sweeping her hoof prints with the tip of her tail as she walks.

The age for bearing, and regular breeding,

starts after the fourth, and ends before the tenth year: else,

they’re not fit for breeding, or strong enough for the plough.

Let loose the males, then, while fertile youth remains in the herd:

send your cattle to mate first, and produce generation

after generation of offspring, through breeding.

The best day’s of life are always the first to vanish,

for mortal beings: disease and old age creep on, and suffering,

and the harshness of cruel death snatches us away.

There’ll always be some cattle whose form you want to alter:

always refresh the stock, and lest you look for what’s already lost,

anticipate, and each year sort the offspring from the herd.

The same selection is needed for horses as for cattle.

Only spend special effort, from their earliest age,

on those you decide to rear for the good of the breed.

The foal from a noble line always steps higher

over the ground, and brings his hooves down more gently:

he dares to lead the way, and attempt menacing rivers,

and commit himself to the unknown bridge,

and not start at idle noise. He has a long neck,

a graceful head, a short belly and solid back,

and his spirited chest is muscular. Chestnuts and greys

are handsome, the least desirable are white, and dun.

Again if distant battle sounds he can’t stand still,

he pricks up his ears, and trembles in his limbs,

and snorts the gathered heat from his nostrils.

His mane is dense, tossed back to fall on his right shoulder:

a double ridge runs along his thighs, his hoof scrapes

the ground, and rings deeply with the solid horn.

Such was Cyllarus, tamed by the reins of Pollux

of Amyclae, and those the Greek poets remember,

Mars’s yoked horses, and great Achilles’s team.

Such too was swift Saturn himself flinging his mane,

a horse’s, over his shoulder, at his wife’s arrival,

filling high Pelion with his shrill neighing, as he fled.

Stable a horse too, when he declines, worn with illness,

or slower with age, don’t forgive his wretched senility.

Old, he’s cold in desire, and works uselessly at a thankless task,

and when he comes to the struggle, he rages in vain,

as a great fire does at times, without force, in the stubble.

So note their age and spirit particularly:

then their other virtues and their bloodline,

and the pain each shows in defeat, the pride in winning.

Have you seen the chariots pour from the barrier,

rushing to attack the flat, competing headlong,

when young men’s hopes are roused, and fear throbs,

draining each exultant heart? On they go with writhing whips,

bending forward to loosen the rein, the red-hot axle turns:

Now low, now lifted high, they seem to be carried

through the void, and leap into the air:

no delay, no rest: a cloud of yellow dust rises,

and they’re wet with foam, and the breath of those pursuing:

so strong the desire for glory, so dear is victory.

Ericthonius was the first who dared to yoke four horses

to his chariot, and stand above the swift wheels, victorious.

The Lapiths of Thessaly gave us the bridle, and the circuit,

mounting on horseback, and teaching the armed rider

to taunt the earth, and gather in his proud paces.

Each requires equal breeding, equally the trainers require

young horses, with fiery spirit and eager for the course:

though some older one may often have driven the enemy

to flight, and claims Epirus or noble Mycenae for his birthplace,

and traces his line of ancestry from Neptune himself.

BkIII:123-156 Care of the Sire and Dam

Noting these observations they busy themselves as the time nears,

and are careful to fatten with solid flesh the one they’ve chosen

as leader and named as head of a herd:

They cut ripe grasses for him, and serve him with water and corn,

lest he’s not more than equal to the flattering effort,

or weak offspring repeat the leanness of their sire.

But they keep female cattle thin deliberately,

and when the familiar desire first urges them to mate,

they deny them foliage, and keep them from the founts.

Often too they goad them to run, and tire them in the heat,

while the threshing-floor groans heavily as the grain is flailed,

while the light chaff is tossed on the rising breeze.

They do this so that the advantage of their fertile soil

isn’t dulled by excess, the idle furrows clogged with mud,

but it will seize on the seed thirstily and bury it deep inside.

Care for the sire begins to fade, and be replaced by that of the dam.

When their months are full, and they wander swollen with young,

don’t anyone allow them to endure the yokes of heavy wagons,

or leap around on the roads, or race around madly, scouring

the meadows, or swim a fast-flowing river.

They graze them in open glades, and by brimming streams,

where there’s moss and the banks are greenest with grass,

and caves shelter them, and a rock casts a long shadow.

There’s a gadfly, its Roman name is asilus, but the Greeks call it,

in their tongue, oestrus, that buzzes round the groves of Silacus,

and the green oaks of Alburnus, in great numbers, fierce,

and high-pitched in sound, and whole herds scatter from it,

through the woods, the breeze, the trees, and banks

of dry Tanagra, stunned, in terror, mad with bellowing.

Juno once worked her terrible anger with this creature,

when she plagued Io, the daughter of Inachus, changed to a heifer.

Keep it away from the pregnant herd, too (since it attacks

more fiercely in the midday heat) by grazing the cattle

when the sun’s newly risen, or the stars are bringing on the night.

BkIII:157-208 Care of Calves and Foals

After their birth all attention’s transferred to the calves:

straight away they brand them, with the mark and name of the herd,

and hold back those they want to rear for breeding, or keep

as sacrifice for the altars, or to plough the soil

and turn rough ground, by breaking the clods.

The rest of the cattle graze on the green grass.

But train those you’ll shape for farm use and duties

as calves, and start them on the path of submission,

while their young minds are adaptable, their age pliant.

First tie loose loops of thin willow round their shoulders:

then when their once free necks are used to servitude,

yoke the bullocks in pairs, joined by the loops themselves,

and force them to take their steps together:

then let them pull empty carts over the ground, often,

and print their tracks on the surface of the dust:

later let the beech-wood axle creak as it strains beneath

its heavy load, a metalled pole dragging the yoked wheels.

Meanwhile don’t feed their untamed youth only on grass

or meagre willow leaves, or marsh plants,

but on the corn crop cut by hand: and your milch-cows

won’t fill the white milking pails after the manner of our fathers

but will dedicate their udders to their sweet calves.

If your efforts are aimed more at war and proud squadrons,

or at gliding by Pisa’s river Alpheus on wheels,

and driving a swift chariot through Jupiter’s grove,

the horse’s first task is to gaze at brave men and warlike weapons,

then endure the trumpets, suffer the groaning of the laden wheels,

and hear the jingling of bridles in the stall:

then to enjoy the trainer’s flattering praise, more and more,

and love the sound of his neck being patted.

And as soon as he’s weaned from his mother’s teats,

let him now and again dare to trust his mouth to soft halters,

while powerless and quivering, still, and ignorant of life.

But when three summers are past and the fourth arrives,

let him start trotting round the ring, his paces falling evenly,

bending his legs in curves alternately, and seeming

as if labouring hard: then let him challenge the wind to race,

and, flying over the open ground, as if free of reigns, let him

barely touch the surface of the sand with the tips of his hooves:

like a dense brooding Northerly from the Hyperborean coasts,

that brings wild weather from Scythia, with rainless cloud:

when the deep wheat-fields and the overflowing plains shiver

to the gentle gusts, the crowns of the trees give out a rustling,

and long waves drive towards the shore:

it blows, sweeping over fields and seas alike in its flight.

Such a horse will either sweat towards the winning post at Elis

over the widest space of ground, flinging bloody foam

from his mouth or better still, with tender neck, will pull

the Belgian war-chariot. But only let colts fatten on coarse mash

when they’re broken in, since before being broken

their spirits will be raised too high, and when caught they’ll balk

at the pliant whip, and refuse to obey the harsh curb.

BkIII:209-283 The Dangers of Desire

But, whether dealing with cattle or horses is more pleasing

to you, no diligence increases their powers as much

as keeping them from desire, and the pangs of hidden passion.

And so the bull’s banished to distant lonely pastures,

behind an opposing hill, and over a wide river,

or he’s kept locked up in a well-provided pen.

Because the sight of a female slowly inflames him

and wastes his strength, and she with her sweet attractions

stops him from recalling grasses and groves, and often

she drives her proud lovers to fight for her with their horns.

The lovely heifer grazes in Sila’s great southern forest:

the bulls in turn do battle, with great force

and frequent wounds, black blood bathes their bodies,

with mighty bellowing their horns are forced against

the sturdy enemy: the woods and the sky echo from end to end.

The belligerents are not accustomed to herding together,

but the defeated one leaves, and lives far off in unknown exile.

He often bemoans his shame and the proud winner’s blows,

and the love he has lost, without yet taking vengeance,

and gazing at his stall he’s abandoned his ancient lands.

So he takes great care of his strength, and rests all night

on a naked bed among hard stones,

with sharp leaves and pointed reeds to eat.

And he tests himself, and learns to attack tree trunks

with angry horns, lashes out at the winds with his blows,

and paws the sand in practice for the fight.

When he’s collected his strength and renewed his powers,

he shows intent, and runs headlong at his careless enemy:

just as when a wave starts to whiten in mid-ocean,

it raises its breaker out of the furthest depths,

and, rolling towards the shore, echoes savagely against the rocks,

and falls like nothing less than a mountain: and the water boils

from the deep in vortices, and churns up black sand.

Every species on earth, man and creature, and the species

of the sea, and cattle and bright-feathered birds,

rush about in fire and frenzy: love’s the same for all.

At no other time does the lioness forget her cubs so,

or wander the plain more fiercely, nor does the rumpled bear

wreak death and destruction more widely in the woods:

then the wild boar is savage, and the tigress at her worst:

ah it’s dangerous to wander then in Libya’s deserted fields.

Do you see how a tremor seizes the stallion’s whole body

if so much as an odour rises on the familiar breeze?

The rider’s reins and the savage whip won’t hold him,

or rocks, or hollowed cliffs, or rivers in his way,

that carve the hills away with their whirling waves.

The great Sabine boar himself rushes in, whetting his tusks,

and paws the ground in front, rubs his sides against a tree,

hardening his shoulders here and there against wounds.

What of Leander, through whose bones harsh love

winds the great flame? See how he swims the straits

in a confusion of steep waterspouts, late in the dark of night.

Heaven’s might doorway thunders above him, and the waves

striking the cliffs re-echo: his unlucky parents cannot stop him,

nor the girl who’ll die because of his cruel fate.

What of Bacchus’s spotted lynxes, and the fierce wolf species,

and dogs? What of the battles waged by peaceful stags?

Surely the frenzy of mares is conspicuous among them all:

Venus herself endowed them with passion, at that time

when the four Potnian horses tore Glaucus apart with their teeth.

Love leads them over Mount Gargarus, and the roaring Ascanius:

they climb mountains and swim rivers. And as soon as

the flame has crept deep into their eager marrow,

(in spring above all, because spring revives the heat in their bones)

they all take to the high cliffs, faces towards the west winds,

catching the light air, and often without union,

made pregnant by the breeze (a marvellous tale)

they run over rocks and crags and through low-lying valleys,

not towards your rising, East wind, nor the sun’s, but north

and north-west, or where the darkest southerlies rise

and cloud the skies with freezing rain.

Only then does the poisonous hippomanes, the horse-madness,

as the shepherds rightly call it, drip slowly from their sex,

hippomanes that evil stepmothers often collect

and mix with herbs and not un-harmful spells.

BkIII:284-338 The Care of Sheep and Goats

But meanwhile time flies, flies irretrievably,

while, captivated by passion, I describe each detail.

Enough of the herds: a second part of my subject remains,

the tending of woolly flocks and hairy goats.

Here’s labour: sturdy farmers place your hope of praise in this.

I’m in no doubt how hard it is to capture it in words,

and so add honour to a humble theme:

But sweet love seizes me and carries me over the empty heights

of Parnassus: a delight to roam the ridges, where no

other track runs down to Castalia over the gentle slopes.

Now, revered Pales, now we must sing higher.

Firstly I say that sheep should crop the grass

in comfortable pens, until leafy summer quickly returns,

and the hard ground under them should be covered

with straw and handfuls of fern, so the chill ice doesn’t harm

the tender flock, bringing mange and ugly foot-rot.

Moving on, I tell you to feed the goats on leafy arbutus,

provide them with fresh water, place their pens

out of the wind, facing the winter sun, and midday heat,

while cold Aquarius sets, moistening the vanishing year.

We must guard the goats as well with no less care,

and the profit will be no less, though the fleeces of Miletus

dyed in Tyrian purple may change hands for a  higher price.

These produce more offspring, a large supply of milk:

the more the milking pail foams from the drained udders,

the richer the streams will flow when the teats are squeezed.

No less do herdsmen clip the grey beards on the chins

of Cinyphian goats, and their hairy bristles, for the use

of the camps, and as coverings for wretched sailors.

They graze in the woods and on the heights of Lycaeus,

among bristling briars, and thorn-bushes that love the heights.

And they remember to return home, themselves, leading their kids,

and with udders so full they can scarcely mount the threshold.

So because they need man’s attention less, protect them

with all due care, from the ice and snowy winds,

happily bringing them fodder and twigs as food,

and don’t close up your hay-lofts through the winter.

But when joyful summer, at the west-wind’s call,

sends sheep and goats to the pastures and the glades,

let’s run to the cool fields while Lucifer is setting,

while the day is new, while the grass is still white,

and the dew on the tender blades is sweetest to the flocks.

Then when day’s fourth hour has brought thirst on,

and the plaintive cicadas trouble the trees with their noise,

I’ll order the flocks to drink the running water

from oak troughs, at the side of wells or deep pools:

but in noon heat let them find a shadowy valley,

wherever Jupiter’s vast oak with its ancient trunk

stretches huge branches, or wherever a grove broods,

its sacred shade black with dense elm-trees:

then give them trickling water again and graze them

again till sunset, when the cool evening tempers the air,

and the moon, shedding dew, now feeds the glades,

the shores echoing with halcyons, thorn bushes with finches.

BkIII:339-383 The Herdsmen of Africa and Scythia

Why tell you in verse of the shepherds of Lybia,

their pastures and huts where they live under meagre roofs?

Often day and night for months on end, the flocks wander

and graze deep in the desert with no shelter:

so large are the plains. The African herdsman

carries everything with him, his roof and home,

his weapons, his ‘Spartan’ dogs and ‘Cretan’ quiver:

no differently than the brave Roman, with his country’s weapons,

when he hurries on his road, under a heavy load, and halts

in column, and pitches camp, before his enemy expects him.

But not so where the Scythian tribes are, and Maeotis’s waters,

and where the wild Danube throws up its yellow sand,

and where vast Thracian Mount Rhodope touches the sky.

There they keep the herds penned in, and no grass

is visible on the plains, or leaves on the trees:

but the land far and wide lies formless under mounds of snow

and heaps of ice rising seven metres high.

It’s always winter, always North winds breathing cold.

There the Sun never disperses the pale mists,

neither when he finds high heaven, carried by his team,

nor when he drenches his chariot headlong in Ocean’s red waters.

Ice-floes form suddenly on the running rivers,

and the water soon carries metalled wheels on its back,

once greeting boats and now broad wagons:

Everywhere bronze cracks, clothes freeze as they’re worn,

and they cut out the liquid wine with axes,

whole lakes turn to solid ice, and bristling icicles

harden on their straggling beards.

Meanwhile it snows as well over the whole sky:

cattle die, the vast bodies of the oxen are cased in frost,

and the crowded herds of deer are stunned by the strange weight,

and the tips of their horns barely rise above it.

They hunt these, not by releasing dogs, or with nets, nor by driving

the terrified creatures with their fear of the crimson-feathered ropes,

but men kill them with knives, close to, as they struggle

with the hill of snow against their chests, slaughter them

as they bellow loudly, and carry them home with shouts of joy.

The people live at leisure secure in dugouts, hollowed

from the deep earth, rolling piles of logs to the hearths,

and setting fire to whole elm trunks.

Here they spend the nights at ease, and joyfully imitate

our cups of wine with beer and acidic service-berries.

Such is the wild Hyperborean race living beneath

the seven stars of the Plough, buffeted by Rhipaean Easterlies,

their bodies covered in the tawny pelts of beasts.

BkIII:384-439 Tending the Flocks

If wool’s your object, first clear the rough growth

of burs and thistles: avoid rich pastures,

and start by choosing flocks with soft white fleeces.

But even if a ram’s fleece is of the whitest, if he has so much

as a dark tongue in his moist palate, reject him,

in case he taints the wool of the lambs with dusky spots,

and look for another in the richness of your fields.

It was with such a gift of snowy wool, if it’s to be believed,

that Pan, god of Arcady, charmed and beguiled you, O Moon,

calling you into the deep woods: nor did you reject his call.

But he who desires milk, let him bring clover and lotus

and briny grasses, often, in his own hands, to the pens.

So they’ll desire more water, and stretch their udders more,

and they’ll carry a slight taste of salt in their milk.

Many keep kids from the mothers when they are born,

and at first fasten iron muzzles over their mouths.

The milk obtained at dawn or in daylight hours

they press into cheese at night: what they get in the evening

and at sunset they transport in baskets at dawn (when a shepherd

goes to town): or add a touch of salt and store it for winter.

Don’t let the dogs be your last concern, but feed swift Spartan pups,

and fierce Molassians both, on rich whey. With them as guards

you’ll never fear midnight thieves in the stables, attacks

of wolves, or aggressive robbers behind your back.

Often too you’ll set the timid wild ass running,

and hunt the hare with hounds, with hounds the deer.

Often you’ll raise the wild boar from his woodland lair,

routing him out with the baying pack, and with loud shouts,

through the high hills, drive a huge stag into the nets.

Learn also, to burn perfumed cedar in your stalls,

and drive off offensive water-snakes with Syrian fumes.

Often a viper, deadly to the touch, has lurked

under un-fumigated stalls, coiling there in fear of the light,

or the snake (a bitter plague on the oxen) is used to sliding along

in secret and in shadows, and spraying venom on the cattle,

hugging the ground. Shepherd grip stones in your hands,

grasp sticks, and kill him as he lifts in menace, and, hissing,

swells his neck. Now he’s lowered his timid head deep, in flight,

while he loosens the knot of his coils, and the tip of his long tail,

and the last fold slowly draws away in a sinuous curve.

There’s also that vile water-snake in Calabria’s glades,

writhing its scaly back with erect front,

its length of belly marked with large blotches,

and, while any streams gush from their source,

while the ground’s wet with moisture and rainy southerlies,

he lives in the pools, and, cruelly haunting the banks,

fills his dark jaws with fish and croaking frogs:

when the marsh is dry, and the ground splits with the heat,

he slithers to firm land, and rolling his blazing eyes,

rages in the fields, fierce from thirst, and afraid of the heat.

Don’t let me snatch sweet sleep then under the sky,

or lie stretched out on the grass of some grove,

when, casting his skin, fresh and gleaming with youth,

he slithers along, leaving his eggs and young in the nest,

tall in the sun, flickering a three-forked tongue from his mouth.

BkIII:440-477 The Treatment of Diseases

I’ll teach you about the causes and signs of disease as well.