Thee too, great Pales, will I hymn, and thee, Amphrysian shepherd, worthy to be sung, You, woods and waves Lycaean. All themes beside, Which else had charmed the vacant mind with song, Are now waxed common. Of harsh Eurystheus who The story knows not, or that praiseless king Busiris, and his altars? or by whom Hath not the tale been told of Hylas young, Latonian Delos and Hippodame, And Pelops for his ivory shoulder famed, Keen charioteer? Needs must a path be tried, By which I too may lift me from the dust, And float triumphant through the mouths of men.
Yea, I shall be the first, so life endure, To lead the Muses with me, as I pass To mine own country from the Aonian height;I, Mantua, first will bring thee back the palms Of Idumaea, and raise a marble shrine On thy green plain fast by the water-side, Where Mincius winds more vast in lazy coils, And rims his margent with the tender reed.
Amid my shrine shall Caesar's godhead dwell.
To him will I, as victor, bravely dight In Tyrian purple, drive along the bank A hundred four-horse cars. All Greece for me, Leaving Alpheus and Molorchus' grove, On foot shall strive, or with the raw-hide glove;Whilst I, my head with stripped green olive crowned, Will offer gifts. Even 'tis present joy To lead the high processions to the fane, And view the victims felled; or how the scene Sunders with shifted face, and Britain's sons Inwoven thereon with those proud curtains rise.
Of gold and massive ivory on the doors I'll trace the battle of the Gangarides, And our Quirinus' conquering arms, and there Surging with war, and hugely flowing, the Nile, And columns heaped on high with naval brass.
And Asia's vanquished cities I will add, And quelled Niphates, and the Parthian foe, Who trusts in flight and backward-volleying darts, And trophies torn with twice triumphant hand From empires twain on ocean's either shore.
And breathing forms of Parian marble there Shall stand, the offspring of Assaracus, And great names of the Jove-descended folk, And father Tros, and Troy's first founder, lord Of Cynthus. And accursed Envy there Shall dread the Furies, and thy ruthless flood, Cocytus, and Ixion's twisted snakes, And that vast wheel and ever-baffling stone.
Meanwhile the Dryad-haunted woods and lawns Unsullied seek we; 'tis thy hard behest, Maecenas. Without thee no lofty task My mind essays. Up! break the sluggish bonds Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls, Steed-taming Epidaurus, and thy hounds, Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves With peal on peal reverberate the roar.
Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long The fiery fights of Caesar, speed his name Through ages, countless as to Caesar's self From the first birth-dawn of Tithonus old.
If eager for the prized Olympian palm One breed the horse, or bullock strong to plough, Be his prime care a shapely dam to choose.
Of kine grim-faced is goodliest, with coarse head And burly neck, whose hanging dewlaps reach From chin to knee; of boundless length her flank;Large every way she is, large-footed even, With incurved horns and shaggy ears beneath.
Nor let mislike me one with spots of white Conspicuous, or that spurns the yoke, whose horn At times hath vice in't: liker bull-faced she, And tall-limbed wholly, and with tip of tail Brushing her footsteps as she walks along.
The age for Hymen's rites, Lucina's pangs, Ere ten years ended, after four begins;Their residue of days nor apt to teem, Nor strong for ploughing. Meantime, while youth's delight Survives within them, loose the males: be first To speed thy herds of cattle to their loves, Breed stock with stock, and keep the race supplied.
Ah! life's best hours are ever first to fly From hapless mortals; in their place succeed Disease and dolorous eld; till travail sore And death unpitying sweep them from the scene.
Still will be some, whose form thou fain wouldst change;Renew them still; with yearly choice of young Preventing losses, lest too late thou rue.
Nor steeds crave less selection; but on those Thou think'st to rear, the promise of their line, From earliest youth thy chiefest pains bestow.
See from the first yon high-bred colt afield, His lofty step, his limbs' elastic tread:
Dauntless he leads the herd, still first to try The threatening flood, or brave the unknown bridge, By no vain noise affrighted; lofty-necked, With clean-cut head, short belly, and stout back;His sprightly breast exuberant with brawn.
Chestnut and grey are good; the worst-hued white And sorrel. Then lo! if arms are clashed afar, Bide still he cannot: ears stiffen and limbs quake;His nostrils snort and roll out wreaths of fire.
Dense is his mane, that when uplifted falls On his right shoulder; betwixt either loin The spine runs double; his earth-dinting hoof Rings with the ponderous beat of solid horn.
Even such a horse was Cyllarus, reined and tamed By Pollux of Amyclae; such the pair In Grecian song renowned, those steeds of Mars, And famed Achilles' team: in such-like form Great Saturn's self with mane flung loose on neck Sped at his wife's approach, and flying filled The heights of Pelion with his piercing neigh.
Even him, when sore disease or sluggish eld Now saps his strength, pen fast at home, and spare His not inglorious age. A horse grown old Slow kindling unto love in vain prolongs The fruitless task, and, to the encounter come, As fire in stubble blusters without strength, He rages idly. Therefore mark thou first Their age and mettle, other points anon, As breed and lineage, or what pain was theirs To lose the race, what pride the palm to win.
Seest how the chariots in mad rivalry Poured from the barrier grip the course and go, When youthful hope is highest, and every heart Drained with each wild pulsation? How they ply The circling lash, and reaching forward let The reins hang free! Swift spins the glowing wheel;And now they stoop, and now erect in air Seem borne through space and towering to the sky:
