Eclogue VI (Fairclough)

My Muse first deigned to sport in Sicilian strains, and blushed not to dwell in the woods. When I was fain to sing of kings and battles, the Cynthian plucked my ear and warned me: "A shepherd, Tityrus, should feed sheep that are fat, but sing a lay fine-spun." And now — for enough, and more, wilt thou find eager to sing thy praises, Varus, and build the story of grim war — now will I woo the rustic Muse on slender reed. Unbidden strains I sing not; still if any there be to read even these my lays — any whom love of the theme has won, 'tis of thee. Varus, our tamarisks shall sing, of thee all our groves. To Phoebus no page is more welcome than that which bears on its front the name of Varus.

Proceed, Pierian maids! The lads Chromis and Mnasyllos saw Silenus lying asleep in a cave, his veins swollen, as ever, with the wine of yesterday. Hard by lay the garlands, just fallen from his head, and his heavy tankard was hanging by its well-worn handle. Falling on him — for oft the aged one had cheated both of a promised song — they cast him into fetters made from his own garlands. Aegle joins their company and seconds the timid pair — Aegle, fairest of the Naiads — and, as now his eyes open, paints his face and brows with crimson mulberries. Smiling at the trick, he cries: "Why fetter me? Loose me, lads; enough that you have shown your power. Hear the songs you crave; you shall have your songs, she another kind of reward." Therewith the sage begins. Then indeed you might see Fauns and fierce beasts sport in measured time, then stiff oaks nod their tops. No such joy has the rock of Parnassus in Phoebus; no such a marvel to Rhodope and Ismarus is Orpheus.

For he sang how, through the great void, were brought together the seeds of earth, and air, and sea, and streaming fire withal; how from these elements came all beginnings and even the young globe of the world grew into a mass; how then it began to harden the ground, to shut Nereus apart in the deep, and, little by little, to assume the forms of things; how next the earth is awed at the new sun shining and from the uplifted clouds fall showers; when first woods begin to arise, and living things roam here and there over mountains that know them not.

Then he tells of the stones that Pyrrha threw, of Saturn's reign, of the birds of Caucasus, and the theft of Prometheus. To these he adds the tale of the spring where Hylas was left, and how the seamen called on him, till all the shore rang "Hylas! Hylas!" Now he solaces Pasiphae — happy one, if herds had never been! — with her passion for the snowy bull. Ah, unhappy girl, what madness seized thee? The daughters of Proetus filled the fields with unreal lowings, yet not one was led by so foul a love for beasts, albeit each had feared the yoke for her neck, and often looked for horns on her smooth brow. Ah! unhappy girl, thou art now roaming on the hills: he, pillowing his snowy side on soft hyacinths, under a dark ilex chews the pale grass, or courts some heifer in the great herd. "Close, Nymphs, Nymphs of Dicte, close ye now the forest glades, if so, perchance, the bull's truant footsteps may meet my eyes; it may be that, tempted by a green meadow or following the herd, he will be led home by some cows to our Cretan stalls."

Then he sings of the maid who marvelled at the apples of the Hesperides; then he encircles Phaethon's sisters in moss of bitter bark, and raises them from the ground as lofty alders. Then he sings of Gallus, wandering by the streams of Permessus — how one of the sisterhood led him to the Aonian hills, and how all the choir of Phoebus rose to do him honour; how Linus, a shepherd of immortal song, his locks crowned with flower and bitter parsley, cried to him thus: "These reeds — see, take them — the Muses give thee — even those they once gave the old Ascraean, wherewith, as he sang, he would draw the unyielding ash-trees down the mountain-sides. With these do thou tell of the birth of the Grynean wood, that there may be no grove wherein Apollo glories more."

Why tell how he sang of Scylla, daughter of Nisus, of whom is still told the story that, with howling monsters girt about her white waist, she harried the Ithacan barques, and in the swirling depths, alas! tore asunder the trembling sailors with her sea-dogs? Or how he told of Tereus' changed form, what feast, what gifts Philomela made ready for him, on what wise she sped to the desert, and with what wings, luckless one! she first hovered above her home?

All the songs that of old Phoebus rehearsed, while happy Eurotas listened and bade his laurels learn by heart — these Silenus sings. The re-echoing valleys fling them again to the stars, till Vesper gave the word to fold the flocks and tell their tale, as he set forth over an unwilling sky.