The horse, when his three years have rolled away, Flowers in his prime of vigour; but the boy Not so, for oft even then he gropes in sleep After the milky nipples of the breasts, An infant still. And later, when at last The lusty powers of horses and stout limbs, Now weak through lapsing life, do fail with age, Lo, only then doth youth with flowering years Begin for boys, and clothe their ruddy cheeks With the soft down. So never deem, percase, That from a man and from the seed of horse, The beast of draft, can Centaurs be composed Or e'er exist alive, nor Scyllas be-The half-fish bodies girdled with mad dogs-Nor others of this sort, in whom we mark Members discordant each with each; for ne'er At one same time they reach their flower of age Or gain and lose full vigour of their frame, And never burn with one same lust of love, And never in their habits they agree, Nor find the same foods equally delightsome-Sooth, as one oft may see the bearded goats Batten upon the hemlock which to man Is violent poison. Once again, since flame Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bulks Of the great lions as much as other kinds Of flesh and blood existing in the lands, How could it be that she, Chimaera lone, With triple body- fore, a lion she;And aft, a dragon; and betwixt, a goat-
Might at the mouth from out the body belch Infuriate flame? Wherefore, the man who feigns Such beings could have been engendered When earth was new and the young sky was fresh (Basing his empty argument on new)May babble with like reason many whims Into our ears: he'll say, perhaps, that then Rivers of gold through every landscape flowed, That trees were wont with precious stones to flower, Or that in those far aeons man was born With such gigantic length and lift of limbs As to be able, based upon his feet, Deep oceans to bestride or with his hands To whirl the firmament around his head.
For though in earth were many seeds of things In the old time when this telluric world First poured the breeds of animals abroad, Still that is nothing of a sign that then Such hybrid creatures could have been begot And limbs of all beasts heterogeneous Have been together knit; because, indeed, The divers kinds of grasses and the grains And the delightsome trees- which even now Spring up abounding from within the earth-Can still ne'er be begotten with their stems Begrafted into one; but each sole thing Proceeds according to its proper wont And all conserve their own distinctions based In nature's fixed decree.
ORIGINS AND SAVAGE PERIOD OF MANKIND
But mortal man Was then far hardier in the old champaign, As well he should be, since a hardier earth Had him begotten; builded too was he Of bigger and more solid bones within, And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh, Nor easily seized by either heat or cold, Or alien food or any ail or irk.
And whilst so many lustrums of the sun Rolled on across the sky, men led a life After the roving habit of wild beasts.
Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs, And none knew then to work the fields with iron, Or plant young shoots in holes of delved loam, Or lop with hooked knives from off high trees The boughs of yester-year. What sun and rains To them had given, what earth of own accord Created then, was boon enough to glad Their simple hearts. Mid acorn-laden oaks Would they refresh their bodies for the nonce;And the wild berries of the arbute-tree, Which now thou seest to ripen purple-red In winter time, the old telluric soil Would bear then more abundant and more big.
And many coarse foods, too, in long ago The blooming freshness of the rank young world Produced, enough for those poor wretches there.
And rivers and springs would summon them of old To slake the thirst, as now from the great hills The water's down-rush calls aloud and far The thirsty generations of the wild.
So, too, they sought the grottos of the Nymphs-The woodland haunts discovered as they ranged-From forth of which they knew that gliding rills With gush and splash abounding laved the rocks, The dripping rocks, and trickled from above Over the verdant moss; and here and there Welled up and burst across the open flats.
As yet they knew not to enkindle fire Against the cold, nor hairy pelts to use And clothe their bodies with the spoils of beasts;But huddled in groves, and mountain-caves, and woods, And 'mongst the thickets hid their squalid backs, When driven to flee the lashings of the winds And the big rains. Nor could they then regard The general good, nor did they know to use In common any customs, any laws:
Whatever of booty fortune unto each Had proffered, each alone would bear away, By instinct trained for self to thrive and live.
And Venus in the forests then would link The lovers' bodies; for the woman yielded Either from mutual flame, or from the man's Impetuous fury and insatiate lust, Or from a bribe- as acorn-nuts, choice pears, Or the wild berries of the arbute-tree.
And trusting wondrous strength of hands and legs, They'd chase the forest-wanderers, the beasts;And many they'd conquer, but some few they fled, A-skulk into their hiding-places...
. . . . . .
With the flung stones and with the ponderous heft Of gnarled branch. And by the time of night O'ertaken, they would throw, like bristly boars, Their wildman's limbs naked upon the earth, Rolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs.
