Georgics (Oxford World's Classics)

by Virgil

  of his age, for an old stud has no heat in his performance

  and fails to rise to the task. Brought to the fray,

  he’s little more to offer than you’d fan in a fire of straws.

  He’ll get all het up for nothing; so, take particular notice of his character

  100

  and vigour, and also of his pedigree, the dam and sire,

  and the way he deals with sorrows of defeat, and wears the glory of a win.

  You’ve seen—surely you’ve seen—how in a race, right from the off,

  the chariots will gobble ground to take the lead,

  and the charioteers, their hopes sky high and hearts in mouth,

  lean forward as they ply their whips

  and strain to give the horses their head, pushing them on.

  The wheels are turning so quickly they burn.

  Now up, now down, as if they’re poised for take-off.

  And no let up, and no let off, they’re kicking up such a storm.

  110

  On their backs they feel the clammy breath of their pursuers.

  They’re so hungry for the laurels; winning means so much to them.

  It was Erichthonius who hatched the thought of harnessing four horses

  to a chariot and standing up as it sped him along, a conqueror.

  The Lapiths,* all the way from Pelion, bequeathed to us bits and bridles

  and—riders astride—the lunging ring, and taught the cavalry

  to hit the ground running, fully armed, and how to quicken their mount’s pace.

  To stand at stud, to satisfy as charger or track-horse takes equal effort:

  the experts cast about for colts with a turn of speed or spring in their step,

  ignoring how often an older horse rebuffed the foe and drove him to flight,

  120

  or even if it’s claimed he came from Epirus or Mycenae

  and could trace his bloodline the whole way back to Neptune’s stable.*

  With this in mind, they’re all go as the time draws near, the time for breeding,

  and spare no end of trouble to flesh him out and fatten him up,

  the stallion they’ve selected and settled on as kingpin of the line.

  They gather fresh greenery and serve his fill of grain and water

  so there’s no chance that he’s not up to the job he seems so keen to do,

  no chance the standard of the sire be mirrored in a scrawny foal.

  On the other hand, they mean to keep the mares lean,

  and when they see first signs of coming into heat

  130

  they refuse them fodder and deny them drink.

  And what they do is jizz them up by galloping

  and tire them out in the sun when the barns are creaking with

  the weight of provender, and scraps of chaff flap and flitter on the breeze.

  This they do so no amount of indolence can curb their field of fruitfulness

  nor clog and leave its furrows void,

  but, instead, so that love’s seed be grasped and tucked away

  deep where it should come to rest. Concern for sires dwindles then and the care

  for mares increases. Then, their months gone on and they’re now

  full with foal, let no one hitch them to a heavy waggon,

  140

  nor let them take a running jump across a roadway,

  or go racing through the grasslands or swimming in a river’s wrath.

  They’re best pastured in broad meadows alongside a brimming stream,

  a moss blanket all around and a bank of rich grazing,

  shelter for protection and rock shadows stretching on the ground.

  Around the caves of Silarus and the oaks that turn Alburnus so many shades of green

  there swarms a pest, whose Latin name is asilus—

  the horse-or warble-fly, but which the Greeks call oestrus,

  that is frenzy, whose maddening hum is the bane of whole herds

  and sends them scurrying from woods, the air itself in shock,

  150

  a rage of roars and bellows, as is the Tanager’s dried-up river bed.

  This is the pest that Juno conjured once, that time, her ire incensed,

  she turned into a heifer Io, daughter of Inachus.*

  And so, because the midday’s heat intensifies its threat,

  you must safeguard the cows in calf and let the cattle out

  only when sun’s starting up or nightfall’s ushering in the stars.

  Once they’ve been delivered, the farmer’s focus switches to the scions.

  He’ll stint no time in reckoning them as members of the herd,

  or branding those he’ll hold on to for breeding,

  or those he’ll designate for sacrificial ceremonies

  160

  and those with which he’ll cleave the ground and roll rough sods.

  All that’s left, he’ll dismiss to graze in pastures of green plenty.

  But those he’ll school to shape for service of the land

  he’ll break and bring on while still calves,

  an agile age, still young and innocent.

  So, to begin—loop rings of wicker loosely round their necks;

  then, when those once unrestricted begin to bend to your will,

  and still fitted with that same collar,

  yoke them in matching pairs and make them march in step.

  Time and time again, let them drag an empty waggon,

  170

  one so light it leaves hardly a track or trace in dust.

  In due time, an axle made of beech, well worn and glistening,

  may creak beneath its heavy weight, the wheels fixed to a beam finished with bronze ferrules.

  And all the while, as they go on, in their wild ways,

  for them you’ll gather, as well as hay and sedge and spindly strips of willow leaves,

  corn you’ve cropped by hand. Don’t, the way they used to do

  when cows produced, work them to fill the churns with creamy milk—no,

  save all that flows from their spins to feed the young they’re doting on.

  But, if you’re more inclined toward the fare of war with troops

  of fearless cavalry, or to have a team glide along the side of the river Alpheus,

  180

  site of games, and race around Jupiter’s wild olive groves,

  the first trial for a horse is to tolerate the clash of arms

  and clamour of a conflict, not to shy from screeching wheels,

  nor smart at jangling harness as he’s standing in his stall—

  that done, he should be more and more at home with his master’s friendly tones

  and grow to love the feeling of his neck being patted.

  Accustom him to these when he’s but barely off the teat

  and still unsteady on his feet; next, fit him with a light bit and bridle

  before he gets cute in his ways. Three years on, and coming into

  190

  his fourth summer, take him to the training ring

  where he’ll step out in equal paces,

  his legs will fall and rise in a rotating motion,

  and him the very picture of work.

  Then he’ll take on to race

  the wind and fly across open spaces

  (as if he’s been given his full head),

  leaving only faintest hoof-prints in the dirt

  like one of those northerlies rushing from the Arctic

  and suddenly dispersing crisp clouds in its way;

  fields of corn and water stretches shiver in its path,

  woodlands echo, and tides come crashing to the shore—

  that’s the wave that wind advances as it spends itself above the land and sea.

  A horse the like of that either will work up a lather of sweat around the laps of Elis,

  blood foaming from the bit, to pass the post in first position,

&
nbsp; or be good for pulling Belgian chariots of war,* his neck responsive to the lightest touch on the reins.

  Then and only then, when he’s been broken, feed him his fill

  of grain and green vetches to fatten him—for, until you have them eating out of the palm of your hand,

  such stuff will make their spirits soar and they’ll not be held in check,

  they’ll pay no heed to springy whip, no curb chain will restrain them.

  In fact, there’s nothing better to buttress your efforts to build up their strength

  than to restrain them from love’s drive and passion’s undiscerning force.

  210

  And this is all the same, whether you’re more interested in cattle or in horses.

  You see, that’s why they banish bulls to the back of beyond, to languish on their own

  behind a mountain or the far side of a river’s current,

  or keep them locked in in pens well stocked with fodder.

  For it’s a fact, a female saps their strength and leaves them wasted by the sight of her

  and turns their heads from thoughts of woodland fare and pasture,

  so enchanting are her charms. She’ll go so far as force contending rivals

  to sort it out among themselves, and often by the wield of horns.

  See her browsing in the mighty woods of Sila,* that handsome heifer.

  See them locked in battle taking turns to deal a deadly blow,

  now one, and now the other, their bodies red with blood,

  one set of horns forward, one resisting, and it’s all moans and groans

  that echo round the forests the length and breadth of heaven.

  Fighting bulls won’t want to share a stall—

  the one, defeated, disappears, an outcast,

  with sighs all round both for the wounds and the disgrace inflicted by

  his vanquisher, and—indeed—for all he’s lost, those unrequited loves.

  And so, with one last look, he takes leave of his ancestral realm

  and then begins to work out hard, with unrelenting exercise,

  and beds down for the night on rock

  230

  with only thorny leaves and pointy sedge to eat.

  Pushing, pushing himself, channelling rage into his horns

  by charging trees, so he assails the air,

  preparing for the fray by pawing ground and scattering the clods.

  Then, his strength recovered, powers restored,

  responding to some secret sign he’ll rush head first at his oblivious enemy

  the way a wave begins to foam and froth at sea

  and summons from the deep its lengthy curve and then, tumbling

  towards the shore, makes a fearsome racket on the rocks, and breaks,

  folding over like a mountain while the waves beneath it

  240

  whirl in eddies, disgorging from the ocean floor night-dark and dismal shingle.

  Man and beast, each and every race of earth,

  creatures of the sea, domesticated animals, and birds in all their finery,

  all of them rush headlong into its raging fury: love’s the same for one and all.

  No other time a lion cub could slip from his mother’s mind

  than when she roams the plains all hot and bothered, nor has the bear, the hideous,

  ever wrought in woods such disorder and destruction.

  Then, too, the wild boar’s at its wildest, the tiger at her worst.

  Oh no, that’s not the time to go wandering on your own in the wilderness of Africa.*

  See if every stallion doesn’t shake and shiver in each pore

  250

  if a whiff of that familiar scent drifts down the wind and reaches him.

  Nothing now keeps them in hand, not the rider’s rein nor anger’s whip;

  not cliffs or rocky caves; nor sweeps of water act as obstacles

  though they may snap at mountains and snatch them away in swirling surf.

  The Sabellian boar goes lumbering by, honing his tusks,

  his trotters tearing up the ground, and grinding sides against a tree,

  up and down, this way and that, until he has inured his flanks against injuries.

  Spare a thought for that young man, his passion’s fervour burning

  to the quick. Needless to say, he swims a raging sea

  late at night, not knowing where he’s going, and all the while above his head

  260

  heaven’s gate thunders and the rocky hazards reverberate in turbulence.

  Nor can the cries of his demented parents bring him back,

  nor the girl who’ll waste away for want of him, and die of grief.

  Think of Bacchus’ dappled lynxes, raging routs of wolves and curs,

  and the way the placid stag reverts to battle in the rut,

  and then forget them—the ferocity of mares consigns them to the shade.

  What possessed them, only Venus, the day his own team turned on him

  at Potniae and gobbled Glaucus, limb by limb?

  There’s nothing that can snaffle them when they’re in season. Gargarus?

  No. Nor roaring Ascanius. They’ll make little of mountains, they’ll straddle wide waters.

  270

  The minute the embers of their lusts flick into flame

  (in spring, especially, when it’s likeliest that they’ll come into heat)

  they’ll turn, as one, towards the west to face the wind

  and breathe its airs and then—a miracle!—without being covered

  by a sire, receive the seed a breeze implants in them.

  Then over rugged rock and bluffs and onto lower plains

  they break into a gallop, not east to where day begins

  but away, in all directions, north, north-west,

  and where the southerlies cloud the sky with driving rain.

  Then, and only then, a viscous fluid, which herdsmen have good cause

  280

  to call ‘mare madness’,* oozes out of their vaginas,

  a mucus hags crave to collect to mix with herbs and hexes

  and so concoct their wicked potions.

  Time’s flying by, time we’ll never know again,

  while we in our delighted state savoured our subject bit by bit.

  Enough of herds of cows and horses—the last half of my task remains:

  my report of sheep and goats, woolly ewes and straggly nannies.

  Now you’ve your work cut out for you—stake your hopes of fame on it, courageous countrymen.

  Don’t think I’m not aware how hard it is to find the words

  for such a theme and dignify one that’s so circumscribed.

  290

  But love’s sweet force transports me to Parnassian peaks

  where none has ever trod before, where there’s no beaten path

  easing downward to the spring at Castalia.*

  Now I appeal to you, Pales, inspire me with some authority.

  First and foremost, I recommend you feed your sheep in comfort under roofs

  until, in its due course, summer sings again, all leaves,

  and spread armfuls of straw and ferns beneath them

  so neither chills nor colds afflict your tender care

  and bring on scab or foot rot—horrors you can’t bear to see.

  Moving on, I know the nanny needs a full supply of arbutus