In Sila's forest feeds the heifer fair, While each on each the furious rivals run;Wound follows wound; the black blood laves their limbs;Horns push and strive against opposing horns, With mighty groaning; all the forest-side And far Olympus bellow back the roar.
Nor wont the champions in one stall to couch;But he that's worsted hies him to strange climes Far off, an exile, moaning much the shame, The blows of that proud conqueror, then love's loss Avenged not; with one glance toward the byre, His ancient royalties behind him lie.
So with all heed his strength he practiseth, And nightlong makes the hard bare stones his bed, And feeds on prickly leaf and pointed rush, And proves himself, and butting at a tree Learns to fling wrath into his horns, with blows Provokes the air, and scattering clouds of sand Makes prelude of the battle; afterward, With strength repaired and gathered might breaks camp, And hurls him headlong on the unthinking foe:
As in mid ocean when a wave far of Begins to whiten, mustering from the main Its rounded breast, and, onward rolled to land Falls with prodigious roar among the rocks, Huge as a very mountain: but the depths Upseethe in swirling eddies, and disgorge The murky sand-lees from their sunken bed.
Nay, every race on earth of men, and beasts, And ocean-folk, and flocks, and painted birds, Rush to the raging fire: love sways them all.
Never than then more fiercely o'er the plain Prowls heedless of her whelps the lioness:
Nor monstrous bears such wide-spread havoc-doom Deal through the forests; then the boar is fierce, Most deadly then the tigress: then, alack!
Ill roaming is it on Libya's lonely plains.
Mark you what shivering thrills the horse's frame, If but a waft the well-known gust conveys?
Nor curb can check them then, nor lash severe, Nor rocks and caverned crags, nor barrier-floods, That rend and whirl and wash the hills away.
Then speeds amain the great Sabellian boar, His tushes whets, with forefoot tears the ground, Rubs 'gainst a tree his flanks, and to and fro Hardens each wallowing shoulder to the wound.
What of the youth, when love's relentless might Stirs the fierce fire within his veins? Behold!
In blindest midnight how he swims the gulf Convulsed with bursting storm-clouds! Over him Heaven's huge gate thunders; the rock-shattered main Utters a warning cry; nor parents' tears Can backward call him, nor the maid he loves, Too soon to die on his untimely pyre.
What of the spotted ounce to Bacchus dear, Or warlike wolf-kin or the breed of dogs?
Why tell how timorous stags the battle join?
O'er all conspicuous is the rage of mares, By Venus' self inspired of old, what time The Potnian four with rending jaws devoured The limbs of Glaucus. Love-constrained they roam Past Gargarus, past the loud Ascanian flood;They climb the mountains, and the torrents swim;And when their eager marrow first conceives The fire, in Spring-tide chiefly, for with Spring Warmth doth their frames revisit, then they stand All facing westward on the rocky heights, And of the gentle breezes take their fill;And oft unmated, marvellous to tell, But of the wind impregnate, far and wide O'er craggy height and lowly vale they scud, Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's, But westward and north-west, or whence up-springs Black Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.
Hence from their groin slow drips a poisonous juice, By shepherds truly named hippomanes, Hippomanes, fell stepdames oft have culled, And mixed with herbs and spells of baneful bode.
Fast flies meanwhile the irreparable hour, As point to point our charmed round we trace.
Enough of herds. This second task remains, The wool-clad flocks and shaggy goats to treat.
Here lies a labour; hence for glory look, Brave husbandmen. Nor doubtfully know How hard it is for words to triumph here, And shed their lustre on a theme so slight:
But I am caught by ravishing desire Above the lone Parnassian steep; I love To walk the heights, from whence no earlier track Slopes gently downward to Castalia's spring.
Now, awful Pales, strike a louder tone.
First, for the sheep soft pencotes I decree To browse in, till green summer's swift return;And that the hard earth under them with straw And handfuls of the fern be littered deep, Lest chill of ice such tender cattle harm With scab and loathly foot-rot. Passing thence I bid the goats with arbute-leaves be stored, And served with fresh spring-water, and their pens Turned southward from the blast, to face the suns Of winter, when Aquarius' icy beam Now sinks in showers upon the parting year.
These too no lightlier our protection claim, Nor prove of poorer service, howsoe'er Milesian fleeces dipped in Tyrian reds Repay the barterer; these with offspring teem More numerous; these yield plenteous store of milk:
The more each dry-wrung udder froths the pail, More copious soon the teat-pressed torrents flow.
Ay, and on Cinyps' bank the he-goats too Their beards and grizzled chins and bristling hair Let clip for camp-use, or as rugs to wrap Seafaring wretches. But they browse the woods And summits of Lycaeus, and rough briers, And brakes that love the highland: of themselves Right heedfully the she-goats homeward troop Before their kids, and with plump udders clogged Scarce cross the threshold. Wherefore rather ye, The less they crave man's vigilance, be fain From ice to fend them and from snowy winds;Bring food and feast them with their branchy fare, Nor lock your hay-loft all the winter long.
But when glad summer at the west wind's call Sends either flock to pasture in the glades, Soon as the day-star shineth, hie we then To the cool meadows, while the dawn is young, The grass yet hoary, and to browsing herds The dew tastes sweetest on the tender sward.
When heaven's fourth hour draws on the thickening drought, And shrill cicalas pierce the brake with song, Then at the well-springs bid them, or deep pools, From troughs of holm-oak quaff the running wave:
