Georgics (Oxford World's Classics)
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transported from Campania, nor did they ever do
damage to themselves by indulgence, feast after feast.
For them a simple diet of leaves and plain grass, their drink clear springs
and running streams; nothing disturbs their sleep, they’ve no worries in the world.
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There was talk that was the only time
you’d be hard-pressed to find cattle fit for the ritual to Juno,
when to the temple front they led mismatched pairs of oxen they hadn’t even broken.
No wonder they would scrabble in the ground with mattocks
and cut their fingers to the bone planting saplings
and strain to drag creaking carts up hill, down dale, and their own necks shouldering the yoke.
Wolves no longer lurk in ambush near the folds
nor prowl at night around the flock—more pressing cares
have made them tame. You’ll find shy does and timid hinds
straggling in and out among the hounds and in between the houses.
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Now all the creatures of the deep, indeed everything that swims,
lie washed up on the farthest shore as if they were the victims of a shipwreck,
and seals escape upriver where they have never been before,
the viper meets its end failing to defend its labyrinthine hiding place,
as do watersnakes, caught off guard, their scales bristling.
The air itself is no fit place for birds; down they plunge
and forfeit life somewhere among the clouds above.
What’s more, a change of pasture altered nothing.
What cures they looked for caused but harm, and they gave up;
who were to know it all knew nothing: Chiron, son of Phillyra; Melampus, son of Amythaon.*
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Unleashed, a pale-faced fury came rampaging—Tisiphone—
an emissary into light out of hell’s darkness, sowing seeds of distress and disease,
and every day, bit by bit, she held her hungry head up higher.
With the bleating of sheep and loud roars of cattle
the dried-up rivers rang, those and the rolling hills.
Then she caused them to die in droves, and rotting carcasses,
smitten by the epidemic, piled up—even in the pens—
until men learned to open pits and lay them covered underground.
Their hides were useless now—you couldn’t find the water that would wash
those corpses, nor flame or fire that would do away with them.
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You couldn’t even save the wool, the sores had so corrupted fleeces
you couldn’t let them near your loom.
In fact, if anyone tried on a garment made from them
he’d break out in a fester of pustules
and foul-smelling sweat. Not long now before
that rank contagion would begin to gnaw on cursèd limbs.
BOOK FOUR
Which brings me to heaven’s gift of honey,* or manna, if you will.
Lend kind ears to this part, my lord, Maecenas, in which I’ll tell
about a small society comprising systems worthy of your high esteem.
Its leaders great of heart, its customs, character, and conflicts—
these I’ll report, bit by bit, as is appropriate.
A humble theme—but far from humble is the fame
for one spared by the gods, if his voice attract Apollo’s ear.
First find a site and station for the bees
far from the ways of the wind (for wind obstructs them bringing home
whatever they may forage), with neither ewes nearby nor butting kids
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to trample down the blossom—to say nothing of a heifer
straying through the dew and flattening growing grass.
And keep out from their grazing grounds the lizard with its ornate back,
the bee-eater, and other creatures of the air,
not least the fabled swallow, Procne, her breast still bearing stains* from her bloodied hands,
for all of these lay widespread waste—they’ll snatch your bees on the wing
and bear them off in their mouths, a tasty snack for greedy nestlings.
Make sure you have at hand clear springs and pools with moss-fringed rims,
a rippling stream that rambles through the grass,
and have a palm or outsize oleaster to cast its shadow on the porch,
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so that, in spring that they so love, when sent out by the queens
first swarms of young and new bees issued from the hive
may play; a river bank nearby might tempt them to retire from the heat
and, on their way and in their way, a leafy tree entices them to tarry.
Whether water there is standing still or flowing
lob rocks into its middle and willow logs to lie crosswise
so they’ll have stepping stones where they can take a rest
and spread their wings to dry by the fires of the sun, all this
in case an east wind occurred to sprinkle them
while they were dawdling, or dunked them head first in the drink.
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Let all around be gay with evergreen cassia, spreads of fragrant thyme
and masses of aromatic savory. Let violet beds absorb moisture from the rills and runnels.
So to the hives themselves. Whether you’ve woven them of hollowed bark
or laid down a thatch of supple twigs,
give them a narrow opening. For winter’s cold
makes honey hard, just as surfeit of heat causes it to melt and run.
Fear each of these extremes in equal measure. It’s not for nothing
bees seal their tiny ceiling vents with daubs of wax,
or close the openings with a mastic made from flower blossoms.
And to this very end they generate accumulations of such glue,
more viscous than birdlime or pitch from Asia Minor.
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And frequently, they’ll even dig a hiding place (if what is told is true)
to make a snug home underground; or be discovered
ensconced within the cavities of pumice and the chambers of dead trees.
But you, you should still skim their leaky nests with light coats of mud
to keep them warm, and top them with a layer of leaves.
And don’t allow a yew tree grow near their abode;
don’t roast red crabs at your hearth, don’t risk a murky pool,
nor anywhere where there’s a pungent odour, nor any place
where hollow rocks return with eerie echoes anything you say.
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And furthermore, when the golden sun has beaten winter back
below the ground and aired the sky in summer’s light,
they lose no time in touring woods and fields and sampling fruits of flowers
and sipping from the water’s brim—and all this while they’re on the wing;
and, though enraptured by such strange delight,* they mind
their nestlings and newborn, seed and breed of them,
and use their special skills to shape new cells and press the sticky honey home.
Then, when you lift your eyes and see a swarm discharged
to ride the skies, a moving smudge through summer,
and marvel at a darksome cloud trailing down the wind,
keep note of how they make—yes—make a beeline
for fresh water and a leafy shade. Then, in that very spot,
sprinkle tastes prescribed as treats: balm you’ve crushed,
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blades of honeywort and borage; have Cybele’s cymbals fill the air.
They’ll make themselves at home in this charmed site,
and set up on their own—as is their wont—a cradle for their young in its inner reaches.
On the other hand, if maybe they’
ve come out for fight—for frequently,
when you’ve two queens,* troubles explode in all-out civil war,
as quick as lightning you’ll pick up on the common mood and feel
from miles away a restiveness, raring to go, hearts set on confrontation.
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There you’ll hear martial music—a raucous theme to galvanize the undecided,
a swarming tone that brings to mind the broken blasts of a bugle-horn.
Then, though they’re agitated, they assemble; their pinions gleam and glint,
and on their beaks they hone their stings; they are limbering up.
They jostle round the queen, the whole way to her headquarters,
and with loud noises challenge their enemies to engage.
Then, on a given day—clear skies, fields plain to see—
they’ll burst out of the entranceway, charge, lock forces high in the sky—
a mounting racket—and, mingled and massed into a ball,
trip and fall headlong: never was hail thicker,
nor a shower of acorns that rained down from a shaken oak.
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The queens themselves proceed along the ranks, their wings conspicuous,
a mighty passion seething in their tiny frames,
determined not to give an inch until the victor’s heavier hand
has forced one side or other to turn their backs and run.
And still a rising so incensed, or combat so enormous,
a mere handful of dust will check and put to rest.
But when you have recalled both leaders from the battle
select the one that looks the worse for wear and do him down, to death,
to save all that would be a waste on him and leave the way open for his vanquisher
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to hold sway in the hive.
For you’ll find there are two kinds of
bees—
the one aglow with golden flecks—the one you want—
its bright, distinguished reddish mail; the other a sight,
the picture of pure laziness, its sagging paunch distended to the ground.
And as there are two sets of qualities in queens, so the masses
differ too, one sort a dread, just like that traveller who fetches up
caked in dust and spits out dirt to clear his throat;
the other resplendent, their brightness flashing,
with matching specks of gold a pattern on their bodies.
It’s their offspring you’d favour: from them, at the appointed time,
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you’ll get the best of honey, not just the best for sweetness,
but for clearness, too, and its ability to take the edge off a rough wine.
But when the swarms fly off without a point or purpose and caper
in the sky with no thought for their combs and leave their homes to cool
you must intervene to sway their idle minds from such inconstant play;
nor is that intervention hard: pick up the queens, pinch their wings and pluck them off.
While they stay put, none of the others dares take to the air,
nor budge a standard from the camp.
Let there be gardens to amuse them, with the scent of brightly coloured flowers.
Let Priapus of Hellespont* stand guard,
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armed with a curved willow branch to fend off attacks by birds and burglars.
Have him, and none but him, who cares to do such things, carry
from the mountains thyme and wild laurel, and set them all around the hives;
have him, and none but him, wear his hands hard with work;
have him, and none but him, plant healthy plants and water them with friendly showers.
Indeed, if I were not already near the limit of my undertaking,
furling my sails and hurrying my prow to shore,
it may be that my song would turn to fruitful gardens and the loving labours
that embellish them, to those rose beds that flower twice a year at Paestum,
to how endive delights in drinking from the brook
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whose banks are rife with celery, and how cucumber winds its way
through grass and swells into big bladders; nor would I not speak of
the narcissus, late to leaf, nor of the bendy stem of bear’s breech, that is acanthus,
or pale ivy, or myrtle that’s so fond of shores.
I mind it well, beneath the arched turrets of Tarentum,
where deep Galaesus irrigates the goldening fields,
I set my eyes on an old man, a Cilician who
had a few forsaken roods that wouldn’t feed a calf,
not to mention fatten cattle, and no way fit for vines.
Still, he scattered in the thickset his vegetables and a lily border,
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vervain and poppies that you’d eat—in his mind the match of anything
a king might have, and when he came home late at night
he’d pile the table high with feasts no one had paid money for.
In spring, with roses first for picking, and autumn, apples—
and yet, while winter’s hardest frosts were splitting
stones in two and putting stops to water’s gallop,
he’d be already clipping hyacinth’s frail foliage
and muttering about summer’s late arrival and the dallying west winds.
Likewise, his bees were first to breed, first to swarm,
and first to gather honey and have it spilling from the comb.
He had lime trees and a wealth of shrubs in flower,
and as many as the blossoms with which each tree
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bedecked itself early in the year was the number ripening later on.
He’d been known in his day to set in rows elms that were well grown,
a hardy pear, and thorns already bearing sloes,
a plane tree that provided shade for drinking under.
The like of this, however, I must forgo—time and space conspiring
to defeat me—and leave for later men to make more of.
So listen now, while I outline the qualities bestowed on bees by Jupiter
as his reward for their attention to the Curetes’
songlike sounds, their shields clashing like cymbals,
and for nourishing our king of heaven in that Cretan cave.*
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They alone share the care of their young and live united in one house,
and lead lives subject to the majesty of law.
They alone recognize the full worth of home and homeland.
Mindful that winter follows, they set to work in summer
and store what they acquire for the common good.
Some are responsible for food and by a fixed agreement
keep busy in the fields, others stay within the walls
and lay down as the first foundation of the comb the tear of a narcissus
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and sticky resin from the bark of trees from which they then suspend the clinging honey cells.
Others are appointed to bring up the young, the future of the race,
while others still pack the honey, the purest honey,
and stuff the cells with perfect nectar. Some,
allotted to be sentries at the alighting boards,