Book III

Thee, too, great Pales, we will sing, and thee, famed shepherd of Amphrysus, and you, ye woods and streams of Lycaeus. Other themes, which else had charmed with song some idle fancy, are now all trite. Who knows not pitiless Eurystheus, or the altars of detested Busiris? Who has not told of the boy Hylas, of Latona's Delos, of Hippodame, and Pelops, famed for ivory shoulder, and fearless with his steeds? I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise from earth and fly victorious on the lips of men. I first, if life but remain, will return to my country, bringing the Muses with me in triumph from the Aonian peak; first I will bring back to thee, Mantua, the palms of Idumaea, and on the green plain will set up a temple in marble beside the water, where great Mincius wanders in slow windings and fringes his banks with slender reeds.

In the midst I will have Caesar, and he shall possess the shrine. In his honour I, a victor resplendent in Tyrian purple, will drive a hundred four-horse chariots beside the stream. For me, all Greece, leaving Alpheus and the groves of Molorchus, shall vie in races and with raw-hide gloves, and I, with brows decked with shorn olive-leaves, will bring gifts. Even now 'tis a joy to lead the solemn procession to the sanctuary, and view the slaughter of the steers; or to watch how the scene retreats with changing front, and how the inwoven Britons raise the purple curtains. On the doors I will fashion, in gold and solid ivory, the battle of the Ganges' tribe, and the arms of conquering Quirinus; there, too, the Nile, surging with war and flowing full; and columns soaring high with prows of bronze. I will add Asia's vanquished cities, the routed Niphates, the Parthian, whose trust is in flight and backward-shot arrows, the two trophies torn perforce from far-sundered foes and the nations on either shore that yielded twofold triumphs. Here, too, shall stand Parian marbles, statues that breathe — the seed of Assaracus, and the great names of the race sprung from Jove, father Tros, and the Cynthian founder of Troy. Loathly envy shall cower before the Furies and the stern stream of Cocytus, Ixion's twisted snakes and monstrous wheel, and the unconquerable stone.

Meantime let us pursue the Dryads' woods and virgin glades — no easy behest of thine, Maecenas. Apart from thee, my mind essays no lofty theme; arise then, break through slow delays! With mighty clamour Cithaeron calls, and Taygetus' hounds and Epidaurus, tamer of horses; and the cry, doubled by the applauding groves, rings back. Yet anon I will gird me to sing Caesar's fiery fights, and bear his name in story through as many years as Caesar is distant from the far-off birth of Tithonus.

Whether a man aspires to the prize of Olympia's palm and breeds horses, or rears bullocks, strong for the plough, let his chief care be to choose the mould of the dams. The best-formed cow is fierce-looking, her head ugly, her neck thick, and her dewlaps hanging down from chin to legs. Moreover, her long flank has no limit; all points are large, even the feet; and under the crooked horns are shaggy ears. Nor should I dislike one marked with white spots, or impatient of the yoke, at times fierce with the horn, and more like a bull in face; tall throughout, and as she steps sweeping her footprints with the tail's tip. The age to bear motherhood and lawful wedlock ends before the tenth year, and begins after the fourth; the rest of their life is neither fit for breeding nor strong for the plough. Meantime, while lusty youth still abides in the herds, let loose the males; be first to send your cattle to mate, and supply stock after stock by breeding. Life's fairest days are ever the first to flee for hapless mortals; on creep diseases, and sad age, and suffering; and stern death's ruthlessness sweeps away its prey. Ever will there be some kine whose mould you would wish to change; ever, I pray, renew them, and, lest too late you regret your losses, keep in advance, and year by year choose new stock for the herd.

Likewise for your breed of horses is the same choice needed. Only, upon those whom you mean to rear for the hope of the race, be sure to spend special pains, even from their early youth. From the first, the foal of a noble breed steps higher in the fields and brings down his feet lightly. Boldly he leads the way, braves threatening rivers, entrusts himself to an untried bridge, and starts not at idle sounds. His neck is high, his head clean-cut, his belly short, his back plump, and his gallant chest is rich in muscles. Good colours are bay and grey; the worst, white and dun. Again, should he but hear afar the clash of arms, he cannot keep his place; he pricks up his ears, quivers in his limbs, and snorting rolls beneath his nostrils the gathered fire. His mane is thick and, as he tosses it, falls back on his right shoulder. A double ridge runs along his loins; his hoof scoops out the ground, and the solid horn gives it a deep ring. Such was Cyllarus, tamed by the reins of Amyclaean Pollux, and those whose fame Greek poets recount, the two steeds of Mars, and the pair of the great Achilles. Such, too, was Saturn himself, when at his wife's coming he fled swiftly, flinging his horse's mane over his shoulders, and with shrill neigh filled the heights of Pelion.

Yet even such a steed, when, worn with disease or sluggish through years, he begins to fail, shut up indoors and pity not his inglorious age. Cold is his passion when old, vainly he strives at a thankless toil, and whenever he comes to the fray his ardour is futile, as in the stubble a great fire rages at times without strength. Therefore note above all their spirit and years; then, other merits and the stock of their sires, the grief each shows at defeat or the pride in victory.

See you not, when in headlong contest the chariots have seized upon the plain, and stream in a torrent from the barrier, when the young drivers' hopes are high, and throbbing fear drains each bounding heart? On they press with circling lash, bending forward to slacken rein; fiercely flies the glowing wheel. Now sinking low, now raised aloft, they seem to be borne through empty air and to soar skyward. No rest, no stay is there; but a cloud of yellow sand mounts aloft, and they are wet with the foam and the breath of those in pursuit: so strong is their love of renown, so dear is triumph.

Erichthonius first dared to couple four steeds to the car, and to stand victorious over the flying wheels. The Thessalian Lapiths, mounting the horse's back, gave us the bit and circling course, and taught the horseman, in full armour, to gallop over the earth and round his proud paces. Equal is either task; equally the trainers seek out a young steed, hot of spirit and keen in the race; though oft that other have driven the foe in flight, and claim for birthplace Epirus or valiant Mycenae, and trace his line from Neptune's own ancestry.

These points noted, they bestir themselves, as the time draws near, and take all heed to fill out with firm flesh him whom they have chosen as leader and assigned as lord of the herd. They cut him flowering grasses, and give fresh water and corn, that he may be more than equal to the seductive toil, and no feeble offspring may repeat the leanness of the sires. But the mares themselves they purposely make spare, and when now the familiar pleasure first prompts them to union, they withhold leafy fodder and debar them from the springs. Oft, too, they rouse them to the gallop and tire them in the sun, when the floor groans heavily as the corn is threshed, and the empty chaff is tossed to the freshening Zephyr. This they do that by surfeit the usefulness of the fruitful soil be not dulled, or the sluggish furrows clogged, but that it may thirstily seize upon the seed, and store it deep within.

In turn, care for the sires begins to wane, and that for the dams to take its place. When their months are fulfilled and they roam heavy with young, then let no one suffer them to draw the yokes of heavy wagons, or leap across the pathway, or scour the meadows in swift flight, or stem the swirling current. They feed them in open glades and by the side of brimming rivers, where moss grows and the banks are greenest with grass, where grottoes may shelter them and the shadow of a rock be cast afar. Round the groves of Silarus and the green holm-oaks of Alburnus swarms a fly, whose Roman name is asilus, but the Greeks have called it in their speech oestrus. Fierce it is, and sharp of note; before it whole herds scatter in terror through the woods: with their bellowings the air is stunned and maddened, the groves, too, and the banks of parched Tanager. With this monster Juno once wreaked her awful wrath, when she devised a pest for the heifer-maid of Inachus. This too — for in midday heat more fierce is its attack — you will keep from the pregnant herd, and will feed the flock when the sun is new-risen, or the stars usher in the night.

After birth, all care passes to the calves, and at once they brand them with the mark and name of the stock, setting apart those they wish to rear for breeding, to keep sacred for the altar, to set to cleave the soil and turn up the field, rough with its broken clods. The rest of the kine graze in the green pastures; but such as you will shape for the farm's pursuits and service, do you school while yet calves, and enter on the path of training, while their youthful spirits are docile, while their age is still pliant. And, first, fasten about their shoulders loose circles of slender osier; then when their free necks are used to servitude, yoke the bullocks in pairs linked from the collars themselves, and force them to step together. Then let them now draw empty carts oft-times over the land, and print their tracks on the surface of the dust. Later, let the beechen axle creak and strain under its heavy load and a brass-bound pole drag the coupled wheels. Meanwhile you will not feed their unbroken youth on grass alone or poor willow leaves and marshy sedge, but on young corn, plucked by hand; nor will your mother-cows fill the snowy pails, as in our fathers' days, but will spend all their udders' wealth on their dear offspring.

But if your bent is more towards war and fierce squadrons, or to glide on wheels by Pisa's Alphean waters, and in Jupiter's grove to drive the flying car, then the steed's first task is to view the arms of gallant warriors, to bear the trumpet-call, to endure the groaning of the dragged wheel, and to hear the jingle of bits in the stall; then more and more to delight in his trainer's caressing praise, and to love the sound of patting his neck. And this let him venture, soon as he is weaned from his mother, and now and again let him entrust his mouth to soft halters, while still weak and trembling, still ignorant of life. But when three summers are past and the fourth is come, let him soon begin to run round the circuit, to make his steps ring evenly, to bend his legs in alternating curves, and be as one hard labouring: then, then let him challenge the winds to a race, and, skimming over the open plains, as though free from reins, let him scarce plant his steps on the surface of the sand — as when the gathered North-wind swoops down from Hyperborean coasts, driving on Scythia's storms and dry clouds, then the deep cornfields and the watery plains quiver under the gentle gusts, the tree-tops rustle, and long rollers press shoreward: on flies the wind, sweeping in his flight the fields and seas alike. Such a horse will either sweat towards the Elean goal, over the vast courses of the plain, and fling from his mouth bloody foam, or will bear more nobly with docile neck the Belgian car. Then at last, when the colts are now broken, let their bodies wax plump with coarse mash; for ere the breaking they will raise their mettle too high, and when caught will scorn to submit to the pliant lash, or obey the cruel curb.

But no care so strengthens their powers as to keep from them desire and the stings of secret passion, whether one's choice is to deal with cattle or with horses. Therefore men banish the bull to lonely pastures afar, beyond a mountain barrier and across broad rivers, or keep him well mewed beside full mangers. For the sight of the female slowly inflames and wastes his strength, nor, look you, does she, with her soft enchantments, suffer him to remember woods or pastures; nay, oft she drives her proud lovers to settle their mutual contest with clash of horns. She is grazing in Sila's great forest, a lovely heifer: the bulls in alternate onset join battle with mighty force; many a wound they deal, black gore bathes their frames, amid mighty bellowing the levelled horns are driven against the butting foe; the woods and the sky, from end to end, re-echo. Nor is it the rivals' wont to herd together, but the vanquished one departs, and dwells an exile in unknown scenes afar. Much does he bewail his shame, and the blows of his haughty conqueror, and much the love he has lost unavenged — then, with a wistful glance at his stall, he has quitted his ancestral realm. Therefore with all heed he trains his powers, and on an unstrewn couch, among flinty rocks, lies through the night, with prickly leaves and pointed sedge for fare. Anon he tests himself, and, learning to throw wrath into his horns, charges a tree's trunk; he lashes the winds with blows, and paws the sand in prelude for the fray. Soon, when his power is mustered and his strength renewed, he advances the colours, and dashes headlong on his unmindful foe: as, when a wave begins to whiten in mid-sea, from the farther deep it arches its curve, and, rolling shoreward, roars thundering along the reefs, and, huge as a very mountain, falls prone, while from below the water boils up in eddies, and tosses black sand aloft.

Yea, every single race on earth, man and beast, the tribes of the sea, cattle and birds brilliant of hue, rush into fires of passion: all feel the same Love. At no other season doth the lioness forget her cubs, or prowl over the plains more fierce; never doth the shapeless bear spread death and havoc so widely through the forest; then savage is the boar, then most fell the tigress. Ah! it is ill faring then in Libya's lonely fields! See you not how a trembling thrills through the steed's whole frame, if the scent has but brought him the familiar breezes? No longer now can the rider's rein or the cruel lash stay his course, nor rocks and hollow cliffs, nay, nor opposing rivers, that tear up mountains and hurl them down the wave. On rushes the great Sabine boar; he whets his tusks, his foot paws the ground in front, he rubs his sides against a tree, and on either flank hardens his shoulders against wounds. What of the youth, in whose marrow fierce Love fans the mighty flame? Lo! in the turmoil of bursting storms, late in the black night, he swims the straits. Above him thunders Heaven's mighty portal, and the billows, dashing on the cliffs, echo the cry; yet neither his hapless parents can call him back, nor thought of the maid who in cruel fate must die withal. What of Bacchus' spotted lynxes, and the fierce tribe of wolves and dogs? What of the battles fought by peaceful stags? But surely the madness of mares surpasses all. Venus herself inspired their frenzy, when the four Potnian steeds tore with their jaws the limbs of Glaucus. Love leads them over Gargarus and over the roaring Ascanius; they scale mountains, they swim rivers. And, soon as the flame has stolen into their craving marrow (chiefly in spring, for in spring the heat returns to their breasts), they all, with faces turned to the Zephyrs, stand on a high cliff, and drink in the gentle breezes. Then oft, without any wedlock, pregnant with the wind (a wondrous tale!) they flee over rocks and crags and lowly dales, not towards thy rising, East-wind, nor the Sun's, but to the North, and the North-west, or thither where rises the blackest South, saddening the sky with chilly rain. Then, and then only, does the slimy "horse-madness," as shepherds rightly name it, drip slowly from the groin — horse-madness, which cruel stepdames oft gather, mixing herbs and baleful spells.

But time meanwhile is flying, flying beyond recall, while we, charmed with love of our theme, linger around each detail! Enough this for the herds; there remains the second part of my task, to tend the fleecy flocks and shaggy goats. Here is toil, hence hope for fame, ye sturdy yeomen! And well I know how hard it is to win with words a triumph herein, and thus to crown with glory a lowly theme. But sweet desire hurries me over the lonely steeps of Parnassus; joyous it is to roam o'er heights, where no forerunner's track turns by a gentle slope down to Castalia. Now, worshipful Pales, now must we sing in lofty strain.

First I decree that the sheep crop the herbage in soft pens, till leafy summer soon returns, and that you strew the hard ground beneath them with straw and handfuls of fern, lest the chill ice harm the tender flock, bringing scab and unsightly foot-rot. Passing hence, I next bid you give the goats much leafy arbutus, offering them fresh running water, and placing the stalls away from the winds towards the winter sun, to face the south, at the time when the cold Water-bearer is now setting, sprinkling the departing year. These goats, too, we must guard with no lighter care, and not less will be the profit, albeit the fleeces of Miletus, steeped in Tyrian purple, are bartered for a high price. From them is a larger progeny, from them a plenteous store of milk; the more the milk-pail has foamed from the drained udder, the more richly will flow the streams, when again the teats are pressed. Nor less, meanwhile, do herdsmen clip the beard on the hoary chin of the Cinyphian goat, and shear his hairy bristles, for the need of camps, and as coverings for hapless sailors. Again, they feed in the woods and on the summits of Lycaeus among the prickly briars and the hill-loving brakes; and of themselves they are mindful to return home, leading their kids, and scarce able to overtop the threshold with their teeming udders. Therefore, the less they need man's care, the more zealously should you screen them from frost and snowy blasts, gladly bringing them their food and provender of twigs, and closing not your hay lofts throughout the winter.

But when, at the Zephyrs' call, joyous Summer sends both sheep and goats to the glades and pastures, let us haste to the cool fields, as the morning-star begins to rise, while the day is young, while the grass is hoar, and the dew on the tender blade most sweet to the cattle. Then, when heaven's fourth hour has brought thirst to all, and the plaintive cicalas rend the thickets with song, I will bid the flocks at the side of wells or deep pools drink of the water that runs in oaken channels. But in midday heat let them seek out a shady dell, where haply Jove's mighty oak with its ancient trunk stretches out giant branches, or where the grove, black with many holms, lies brooding with hallowed shade. Then give them once more the trickling stream, and once more feed them till sunset, when the cool evening-star allays the air, and the moon, now dropping dew, gives strength to the glades, when the shores ring with the halcyon, and the copses with the finch.

Why follow up for you in song the shepherds of Libya, their pastures, and the settlements where they dwell in scattered huts? Often, day and night, and a whole month through, the flocks feed and roam into the desert stretches, with no shelters; so vast a plain lies outstretched. The African herdsman takes with him his all — his house and home, his arms, his Spartan dog and Cretan quiver — even as the valiant Roman, when, arrayed in his country's arms, he hastes on his march under a cruel load, and, ere the foe awaits him, halts his column and pitches his camp.

Far otherwise is it where dwell the tribes of Scythia by the waters of Maeotis, where the turbid Danube tosses his yellow sands, and where Rhodope bends back, stretching up to the central pole. There they keep the herds penned up in stalls, and no blade is seen upon the plain, or leaf upon the tree; but far and wide earth lies shapeless under mounds of snow and piles of ice, rising seven cubits high. 'Tis ever winter; ever North-west blasts, with icy breath. Then, too, never does the Sun scatter the pale mists, either when, borne on his chariot, he climbs high Heaven, or when he laves his headlong car in Ocean's crimson plain. Sudden ice-crusts form on the running stream, and anon the water bears on its surface iron-bound wheels — giving welcome once to ships, but now to broad wains! Everywhere brass splits, clothes freeze on the back, and with axes they cleave the liquid wine; whole lakes turn into a solid mass, and the rough icicle hardens on the unkempt beard. No less, meanwhile, does the snow fill the sky; the cattle perish, the oxen's great frames stand sheathed in frost, the deer in crowded herd are numb under the strange mass and above it scarce rise the tips of their horns. These they hunt not by unloosing hounds, or laying nets, or alarming with the terror of the crimson feather, but as their breasts vainly strain against that mountain rampart men slay them, steel in hand, cut them down bellowing piteously, and bear them home with loud shouts of joy. Themselves, in deep-dug caves, low in the earth, they live careless and at ease, rolling to the hearths heaps of logs, yea, whole elm-trees, and throwing them on the fire. Here they spend the night in play, and with ale and bitter service-juice joyously mimic draughts of wine. Such is the race of men lying under the Wain's seven stars in the far north, a wild race, buffeted by the Rhipaean East-wind, their bodies clothed in the tawny furs of beasts.

If wool be your care, first clear away the prickly growth of burs and caltrops; shun rich pastures, and from the first choose flocks with white, soft fleeces. But the ram, however white be his fleece, if he have but a black tongue under his moist palate, cast out, lest with dusky spots he tarnish the coats of the new-born lambs; and look about for another in your teeming field. 'Twas with gift of such snowy wool, if we may trust the tale, that Pan, Arcadia's god, charmed and beguiled thee, O Moon, calling thee to the depths of the woods; nor didst thou scorn his call.

But let him who longs for milk bring with his own hand lucerne and lotus in plenty and salted herbage to the stalls. Thus they love streams the more, and the more distend their udders, while their milk recalls a lurking savour of salt. Many bar the kids from the dams as soon as born, and from the first front their mouths with iron-bound muzzles. What milk they drew at sunrise or in the hours of day, they press at night; what they drew at night or sunset, they carry off in baskets at dawn, when a shepherd goes to town; or they sprinkle it with a pinch of salt, and store it for the winter.

Nor let the care of dogs be last in your thoughts, but feed swift Spartan whelps and fierce Molossians alike on fattening whey. Never, with them on guard, need you fear for your stalls a midnight thief, or onslaught of wolves, or restless Spaniards in your rear. Oft, too, you will course the shy wild ass, and with hounds will hunt the hare, with hounds the doe. Oft you will rout the boar from his forest lair, driving him forth with the baying pack, and o'er the high hills with loud cry will force a huge stag into the nets.

Learn, too, to burn in your stalls fragrant cedar and with fumes of Syrian gum to banish the noisome water-snakes. Oft under sheds uncleansed has lurked a viper, deadly to touch, and shrunk in terror from the light; or an adder, sore plague of the kine, that is wont to glide under the sheltering thatch and sprinkle venom on the cattle, has hugged the ground. Snatch up in thy hand, shepherd, snatch stones and staves, and as he rises in menace and swells his hissing neck, strike him down! Lo, now in flight he has buried deep his frightened head, while his mid coils and the end of his writhing tail are still untwining themselves, and the last curve slowly drags its folds. There is, too, that deadly serpent in Calabria's glades, wreathing its scaly back, its breast erect, and its long belly mottled with large spots. So long as any streams gush from their founts, so long as earth is wet with spring's moisture and showery south winds, he haunts the pools, and, dwelling on the banks, there greedily fills his black maw with fish and croaking frogs. But when the fen is burnt up, and the soil gapes with heat, he springs forth to dry land and, rolling his blazing eyes, rages in the fields, fierce with thirst and frenzied with the heat. May I not then be fain to woo soft sleep beneath the open sky, or to lie outstretched in the grass on some wooded slope, when, his slough cast off, fresh and glistening in youth, he rolls along, leaving his young or eggs at home, towering towards the sun, and darting from his mouth a three-forked tongue!

Diseases, too, their causes and tokens, I will teach you. Foul scab attacks sheep, when chilly rain and winter, bristling with hoar frost, have sunk deep into the quick, or when the sweat, unwashed, clings to the shorn flock, and prickly briars tear the flesh. Therefore the keepers bathe the whole flock in fresh streams; the ram is plunged in the pool with his dripping fleece, and let loose to float down the current. Or, after shearing, they smear the body with bitter oil-lees, blending silver-scum and native sulphur with pitch from Ida and richly oiled wax, squill, strong hellebore, and black bitumen. Yet no help for their ills is of more avail than when one has dared to cut open with steel the ulcer's head; the mischief thrives and lives by concealment, while the shepherd refuses to lay healing hands on the wounds, and sits idle, praying the gods to better all. Nay more, when the pain runs to the very marrow of the bleating victims, there to rage, and when the parching fever preys on the limbs, it is well to turn aside the fiery heat, and within the hoof to lance a vein, throbbing with blood, even as the Bisaltae are wont to do, and the keen Gelonian, when he flees to Rhodope and the wilds of the Getae, and there drinks milk curdled with horses' blood. Should you see a sheep oft withdraw afar into soft shade, or listlessly nibble the top of the grass, lagging in the rear, or sink while grazing in the midst of the field and retire, late and lonely, before night's advance, straightway with the knife check the offence, ere the dread taint spreads through the unwary throng. Not so thick with driving gales sweeps a whirlwind from the sea, as scourges swarm among cattle. Not single victims do diseases seize, but a whole summer's fold in one stroke, the flock and the hope of the flock, and the whole race, root and branch. Of this may one be witness, should he see — even now, so long after — the skyey Alps and the forts on the Noric hills, and the fields of Illyrian Timavus with the shepherds' realm desolate, and their glades far and wide untenanted.

On this land from the sickened sky there once came a piteous season that glowed with autumn's full heat. Every tribe of cattle, tame or wild, it swept to death; it poisoned the lakes, it tainted the pastures with venom. Not simple was the pathway to death; but when the fiery thirst had coursed through all the veins and shrivelled the hapless limbs, in its turn a watery humour welled up and drew into itself all the bones, as piecemeal they melted with disease. Oft in the midst of divine rites, the victim, standing by the altar, even as the woollen fillet's snowy band was passed round its brow, fell in death's throes amid the tardy ministrants. Or if, ere that, the priest had slain a victim with the knife, yet the altars blazed not therewith, as the entrails were laid on; the seer, when consulted, could give no response; the knife beneath the throat is scarce stained with blood, and only the surface sand is darkened with the thin gore. Then on every side amid gladsome herbage the young kine die or yield up sweet life by their full folds. Then madness visits fawning hounds; a racking cough shakes the sickening swine and chokes them with swollen throats. The steed, once victor, sinks; failing in his efforts and forgetful of the grass, he turns from the spring, and oft-times paws the ground; his ears droop, on them breaks out a fitful sweat — sweat that is cold as death draws nigh; the skin is dry and, hard to the touch, withstands the stroking hand. Such are the signs they yield ere death in the first days; but as in its course the sickness grows fierce, then the eyes blaze, the breath is drawn deep— at times laden with moans — Their utmost flanks are strained with long-drawn sobs, black blood gushes from the nostrils, and the rough tongue chokes the blockaded throat. It has availed to pour in wine-juice through a horn inserted — this seemed the one hope for the dying. Soon even this led to death; they burned with the fury of fresh strength, and, though now in the weakness of death (Heaven grant a happier lot to the good, and such madness to our foes!), rent and mangled their own limbs with bared teeth.

But lo, the bull, smoking under the ploughshare's weight, falls; from his mouth he spurts blood, mingled with foam, and heaves his dying groans. Sadly goes the ploughman, unyokes the steer that sorrows for his brother's death, and amid its half-done task leaves the share rooted fast. No shades of deep woods, no soft meadows can touch his heart, no stream purer than amber, rolling over the rocks in its course towards the plain; but his flanks are unstrung throughout, numbness weighs upon his languid eyes, and his neck sinks with drooping weight to earth. Of what avail is his toil or his services? What avails it, that he turned with the share the heavy clod? And yet no Massic gifts of Bacchus, no feasts, oft renewed, did harm to him and his. They feed on leaves and simple grass; their cups are clear springs and rivers racing in their course, and no care breaks their healthful slumbers.

Only at that time, they say, were kine in those regions sought in vain for the rites of Juno, and chariots were drawn by ill-matched buffaloes to her lofty treasure-house. Therefore men painfully scratch the earth with harrows, with their own nails bury the seed, and over the high hills with straining necks drag the creaking wains. The wolf tries not his wiles around the sheepfold, nor prowls by night about the flocks; a keener care tames him. Timorous deer and shy stags now stray among the hounds and about the houses. Yea, the brood of the great deep, and all swimming things, like shipwrecked corpses, are washed up by the waves on the verge of the shore; in strange wise sea-calves flee to the rivers. The viper, too, vainly defended in her winding lairs, perishes, and the water-snake, his scales erect in terror. The air is unkind even to the birds; headlong they fall, leaving life beneath the clouds on high. Further, even change of pasture avails no more; the remedies sought work harm; masters in the art fail, Chiron, son of Philyra, and Melampus, Amythaon's son. Ghastly Tisiphone rages, and, let forth into light from Stygian gloom, drives before her Disease and Dread, while day by day, uprising, she rears still higher her greedy head. The rivers and thirsty banks and sloping hills echo to the bleating of flocks and incessant lowing of kine. And now in droves she deals out death, and in the very stalls piles up the bodies, rotting with putrid foulness, till men learn to cover them in earth and bury them in pits. For neither might the hides be used, nor could one cleanse the flesh by water or master it by fire. They could not even shear the fleeces, eaten up with sores and filth, nor touch the rotten web. Nay, if any man donned the loathsome garb, feverish blisters and foul sweat would run along his fetid limbs, and not long had he to wait ere the accursed fire was feeding on his stricken limbs.