Book II, Elegy 1: The Country Festival (Postgate)

All present bush. We purify the crops and lands in the fashion handed down from our ancestors of old. Come to us, Bacchus, with the sweet grape cluster hanging from thy horns, and, Ceres, wreathe thy temples with the corn-ears.

Upon this holy day let earth, let ploughman rest. Hang up the share and let the heavy labour cease. Loose from the yokes their straps; now by the well-filled manger must the oxen stand with garlands round their heads. Let all things be at the service of the god; let no spinner choose to set her hand to the task of wool. Ye too I bid stand far away — let none be nigh the altar to whom Love's goddess gave her pleasures yesternight. The powers above ask purity. Clean be the raiment that ye come in, and clean the hands to take the waters from the spring. Mark how to the shining altar goes the holy lamb, and behind the white procession ; the olive binds their hair.

Gods of our sires, we cleanse the farms, we cleanse the farming folk. Do ye outside our boundaries drive all evil things. Let not our sown fields mock the reaping with defaulting blade. Let not our slow lambs fear the swifter wolves. Then the sleek rustic, full of trust in his teeming fields, will heap huge logs upon his blazing hearth ; and a young troop of home-born slaves, fair signs that show a lusty yeoman, will play about and build them huts of sticks before the fire. My prayers are heard. See in the favouring entrails how the liver-markings bear a message that the gods are gracious.

Now from the old bin bring me out the smoked Falernians and loose the bands of the Chian jar. Let drinking be the order of the day. Now we keep holiday, and to be tipsy is no shame, nor to carry ill our unsteady feet. But let each one, as he drinks, cry, " Health to Messalla ! " and in every utterance be the name of the absent heard.

Messalla, now the talk of all for thy triumph over the race of Aquitaine, whose victories cover thy unshorn ancestors with glory, hither come and breathe upon me while with my song I pay thanksgiving to the powers that tend the fields.

I sing the country and the country's gods. They were the guides when man first ceased to chase his hunger with the acorns from the oak. They taught him first to put the planks together and cover his humble dwelling with green leaves. They too, 'tis told, trained bulls to be his slaves, and placed the wheel beneath the wain. Then savage habits passed away; then was the fruit-tree planted, and the thriving garden drank the water from the rills. Then the golden grapes gave up their juices to the trampling feet, and sober water was mixed with cheering wine.

From the country comes our harvest, when in heaven's glowing heat the earth is yearly shorn of her shock of yellow hair. Through the country flits the bee in spring-time, heaping the hive with flowers in her zeal to fill the combs with the honey sweet.

Then first the countryman, sated with ploughing without cease, sang rustic words in time and tune ; and, full of meat, first composed a song on the dry oat-pipes to chaunt before the gods that his hands had dressed. And, Bacchus, it was a countryman that first dyed his skin with red vermilion and wound through the dance with unpractised art. It was he too that, offering from all his fold a gift to tell about, the he-goat, leader of the flock, gained increase for his scanty wealth.

In the country the lad first made a circlet from the flowers of spring and placed it on the ancient Lares' head. Of the country too is the sheep that will ere long make trouble for gentle girls with the soft fleece it wears upon its glistening back. Thence comes the toil of women's hands, the weighed wool and the distaff, and the spindle that twists its work 'twixt thumb and finger ; and weaving women in unremitting service to Minerva sing while the loom clatters as the clay weights swing.

Desire too himself, they say, was born amid the fields, amid the cattle and the unbridled mares. There first he practised with prentice bow. Ah, me ! what expert hands has he now ! Nor are beasts his mark as heretofore. His joy is to pierce maids' hearts and make the bold man bite the dust. He strips the young of their wealth ; the old he forces to shameful speech at the threshold of an angry fair. He guides the girl who stealthily steps by prostrate watchers and comes alone to her lover in the nighty high strung with fear, her feet feeling her path before her while her hand is advanced to find passage through the dark.

Ah, wretched they upon whom our god bears hardly ; and happy is he on whom Love in his graciousness breathes gently. Come to our festal cheer, holy lord. But, prithee, lay aside thy arrows, and far from us put away thy burning torch.

Do ye chaunt the god whom all adore, and loudly call him for your herd. Let each one call him for the herd aloud, but in a whisper for himself. Or aloud too for himself : for the merriment of the throng and the bent pipe's Phrygian note will drown the prayer. So take your sport. Now Night is yoking her team ; and on their mother's car follow the golden Stars, a capering troupe, while behind comes Sleep the silent, enwrapped in dusky wings, and black Visions of the night with wavering steps.