University of Virginia Library

The Georgiks Of Publius Virgilius Maro:

Otherwise called his Italian Husbandrie,

The first Booke of Virgil his Georgiks, otherwise called his Rurals or Husbandrie, Made for the climat of Italie specially, &c.

The argument of Modestinus a lawyer vpon the first Booke.

The poet Virgil [in this first booke of his Georgiks heere]
Hath plainly taught what thing cā make the corne feelds ranke and lustie,
[Or corne delightsome, whose increase makes th' owners merry men]
What stars [what seasons] th' husbandman should duly marke and keepe,
How he should cut vp casie moold with plough, and how his seeds
Are to be throwne into the ground: [and he hath plainly taught]
The tilling and good husbanding of places [fit therefore,]
And haruests to be made [restord] with great increase and gaine.

The first Booke of the Georgiks, written to Mecenas, a nobleman.

The second booke of Virgils Georgiks written to Mecenas, &c.

Thus for the husbanding of fal-low feelds, and stars of heauen,
Now thee O Bacchus will I sing, and with thee trees in woods,
And frute of oliues growing slowe O father [Bacchus thou
Lenæus [named so of wine-presses which thou mainteinst]
Come hither: all things heere are full replenisht with thy gifts,
The feelds well stord and chargd with har-uest vinetree boughs and leaues,
Doth flourish for thy sake, the vin-tage fomes with filled lips;
Come hither father O Lenæus and dip in with me
Thy naked legs in sweet new wine, thy buskins pulled off.
In primis trees already growne [in making trees to grow]
Nature is diuerse: for some [trees] come vp themselues [alone]
Euen of their owne accord, no man compelling them [thereto]
And they [possesse and] hold at large the feelds and crooked streames
[Or water banks:] as namely the soft willow, bending broome,
Poplar and horie osier sets, with leaue of greenish graie:
Some [other] sort of trees also rise vp out of the seed,
As chestnuts tall and Esculus which beareth leaues for Ioue,
The greatest trees in all the woods [or growing most in woods]
And okes accounted oracles of and amongst the Greekes.
A very thicke wood springeth vp of others from the root
As cherrie trees and elms and baies of Parnasse hill [for Phæbe]
[Which] being litle [or but yoong] doth cast [or list it selfe]
Up vnder shadow great of mo-ther [namely beggers baies]
Nature gaue first these meanes of trees [to make them spring & sprowt.]
All sortes of woods and shrubs likewise, and hollow groues also,
Doe greenely grow with these [same means of natures owne prouiding.]
Some other [means] also there be which [proofe or] vse it selfe
Hath found by way [of reasons rule.] This man from tender body
Of mothers [elder trees] cutting [some plants or imps hath laid
Or put them into furrows [fit, but yet] another man
Hath buried in the ground the stocks or truncks [with roots and all,]
And trunchions cleft in peeces foure, and stakes of sharpened oke.
Some other woods doo looke [to haue] the strained bendings of
The vine, and quicksets in or with their owne [or natiue] soile;
Some other need no root at all. The lopper of the tree
He bearing home [a twig or impe from] highest top of tree,
Doubts not to put it in the ground. Moreouer th' oliue root
Is thrust [vp also in the growth] euen out of wood so drie,
The stocks or truncks being cut: a thing most woonderfull to tell.
And oftentimes we see the boughs of one tree turne into
[The nature] of another with-out perill [hurt or losse]
The peare tree changed for to beare apples grafted thereon,
And stonie cornells to wax red with damsens or with plums.
Wherfore go to O husbandmen and learne the proper dressing
[Of trees] in genrall [or each one in his especiall kind]
And so often [or make pleasant] their wild frutes by skilfull trimming,
Ne let your grounds lie idle [waste.] Yet doth [a man] delight
To plant [mount] Ismarus with Bacchus [vinetrees vowd to him]
And for to cloath great Taburne [hill] with frutefull] oliue trees.
And thou O my Mecenas [thou most worthie gentleman]
My honor, and by thy desert most part of our renowme,
Assist me, aid me, and run through together [now] with me
This labour new begun, and flieng giue the wide sea sailes
[Thou flieng, making hast with me, giue this my worke good speed]
(I wish not to conteine all things within these verses mine,
Not if to me a hundred toongs, and mouths a hundred were,
An iron voice) and gather vp the waues of the first shore
In th' hands of th' earth [euen now at my] beginning enter thou
Into this great discourse of trees with me, wherin we will
Not treat of euery thing at large, but touch them all in breefe.
I will not hold thee heere with fai-ned verses, ne [keepe thee]
With doubtfull words, nor with begin-nings large [and full of length]
[Those things] which of their owne accord lift vp themselues [& spring]
Into the aire of light [or light-some aire] arise and grow
Indeed vnfrutefull; neretheles they are both ranke and strong,
Bicause [the force of] nature is within the soile or ground:
Howbeit if that any man doo these same also graft,
Or being changed put them in to diches digd [or made]
They will cast off their nature wilde, and so with trimming oft
Will follow nothing slowe vnto what practise thou canst call them.
The barren [tree] also which goes and growes from roots below
Will doo the same, if it be drest in void [and sunnie] feeldes.
Sometimes high leaues and branches of the mother [or old tree]
Doo ouer shadow and beereaue the growing [plant] of fruite,
And bearing mares it vtterly. For why, a tree that hath
Heau'd vp it selfe [and risen] out of seeds cast [in the ground]
Coms slowly vp to make a shade for lateward Nephues [sake]
[It will be long yer they beare frute, and longer time before
[There come from them large spreding boughs wherewith to make a shade.]
And apples grow quite out of kind, forgetting former iuce,
And grapes [or vines] a prey doo beare for birds euen clusters fowle
Know therefore that vpon all [trees] labour must be bestowd,
And all trees to be brought into a trench, and to be tam'd,
[Or trimd] with great reward [or gaine to him that takes the pains.]
But oliue trees content [vs] best with [their owne proper] stocks,
Uines with their former stocke [well prund the better grapes to beare]
Mirtles of Paphos ile, [or giuen to Venus Paphian queene]
Out of the verie maine stocke grow, and hazell trees so hard,
[Or hardles and soone broken grow] of plants or tendersets.
The mightie ash, and shadie tree of Hercles garland [greene]
[The poplar tree] and father Cha-on [Ioue] his wallnut trees,
The palme [or date tree] high [all these] spring vp of plants or sets:
So doth the fir tree, which shall see the falls of wauing seas.
But yet the rugged wilding [or the crab stocke rough] is grafted
With th' impe or plant of nut tree, and the barren planetree [stocks]
Haue carried apple trees much woorth, [profitable and good]
And chestnuts [stocks] haue borne the grafts of] beech; and ashen [stocke]
Hat horie waxt with blossome white of peare tree [planted on]
And swine haue also crasht and bro-ken akorns vnder elmes.
Ne is there but one fashion or one way alone to graft
And to inoculat or set yoong imps into the stocke,
For in what part the budds thrust out themselues amidst the barke,
And breake the thin and tender rinde [in place where it appears]
There is a little narow hole made [like vnto an ey]
Euen in the very knot, into this hole they [put] the impe
[Cut] from another tree, and close it vp within the same
And teach it to begin to grow with [th' inward] rind so moist:
Or else the knotles trunks are cut againe, and way with wedges
Is deeply clift into the maine stocke, and then afterwards
The frutefull sets are put therein; and long time [being past]
A mightie tree hath sproong thereout to heauen with frutefull branches
And wondreth at her new greene leaues, and frutes none of hir owne.
Beside all this, there is not one [but diuers] kind [of grafting]
Upon strong elms nor willow [stocks] nor Lotus nor vpon
The cypresses of Ida [hill:] ne doo fat oliue berries
Grow all alike, or after one and selfe same sort [on trees]
The codlike oliues, with the long and rounded oliues, and
The fleshie oliue [full of meat] with bitter berrie, and
[All frutes or] apples, and the woods of king Alcinous,
[The king of the Pheacians, they grow not all alike]
Ne is there one and selfe same impe for Crustume peares, and eeke
For Syrian peares, and [peares so] great [which wardens we doo call]
Not one and selfe same vintager hangs on our [Italian] trees,
[The grapes] which Lesbian [vintager] doth crop from Methym vine,
The Thasian vines, the vine tree white of Mareotides,
These able are for rankish soile, those fit for leaner ground:
And Psythian vines more profita-ble be for raisons [sweet]
Lageos grape subtill and thin will trie, the [tasters] feet,
And tie his toong in time [the iuce so persing is and strong]
And there be purple coloured grapes and sooner ripe than others,
And grapes of Rhetia vine, of thee in what verse shall I speake?
Contend not then with cellars [full] of Falerne [plesant] wines.
There be likewise Aminian vines, wines very strong [they yeeld]
Unto with vines mount Tmolus doth [most reuerently] arise
And king Phaneus his owne selfe [with all his wines of cheife.]
There is a litle whitish grape, wherwith none will contend
Either to yeeld so much [of iuce] or last so many years.
And O thou grape of Rhodos [ile] receiued of the gods
In second seruice [all among their dishes banketting]
I may not ouerpasse thee; nor O thee Bumasthe [vine]
With clusters of thy grapes big blowne, puft vp and fully swolne
But it is to no purpose [here to shew] how many sorts
[Of vines or wines] there he, nor what the names of them might be.
There is a number of them, but it makes not any matter
In number to conteine them: which he that [so faine] would know,
The selfe same fellow [faine] would learne how many sands [on shore]
Of Lybian sea are tost and turnd with [puffing] westerne wind:
Or else to know how many waues of the Ionian sea
Doo come to shore when violent ea-sterne wind doth follow ships,
Ne truly can all grounds [bring forth and] beare all [kind of] things;
The willows grow in riuers, and in fens full thicke grow alns
The barren ash on stonie hills, and shores are passing glad
Of places set with mirtle trees: and to be short [the vine]
Bacchus doth loue well open hills [open against the sun]
Ewgh trees [doo loue] the northerne wind and wether that is cold.
Behold the world like to a ball [the earth in compasse round]
Tamed by the husbandmen which dwell in furthest parts thereof,
And eeke th' Arabians easterne hou-ses, and the painted [folks
Of Scythia calld] Geloni and thou shalt perceiue and see
That natiue soiles diuided be [and sorted] vnto trees.
For India only and alone doth beare blacke Hebenum,
And twigs of frankincense [belong] to the Sabeis alone,
Wherto should I rehearse to thee balme sweating out of wood
Most sweet in smells? and berries of [the shrub] Achantus al-
Waies bearing [greenish] leaues? wherto should I rehearse likewise]
Th' Aethiopian woods growne horie gray with [cotton] soft [or] wooll,
And how the [people] Seres doo both combe and card away
Fine fleeces from the leaues [fine stuffe whereof our silke is made]
Or what thicke woods the neerer Inde vnto the Ocean sea,
A coast [or portion] of the world hense furthest off doth beare,
Where arows none could ouer come by casting [out of bowe]
The aire most hie with trees [whose tops no shaft could flie vnto,]
And sure that people is not slowe with quiuers caught [to shoot.]
The countrie Media beareth sowre and sharpish iuces, and
A taste vntoothsome blunt and dull of wholsome cytron pome,
Than which no readier [remedie] more present come [to hand]
If cruell stepdames poisoned haue the pots at any time,
And mingled herbs and witching words [or hurtfull charms withall]
And this [pome citron] doth [expell and] driue out of the lims
And members [of infected folks] vile venem blacke [like cole:]
The tree it selfe is great, and is in fashion like the bay,
And if it did not cast farre off another kind of smell
It were a bay, the leaues not fal-ling off with any windes:
The floure thereof is passing fast. The Medians nourish life,
[Or vse it for a comfort when they swoone or chance to faint]
And stinking breaths doo helpe, and heale old broken winded men.
But yet the Medians woods, a ground [or countrie] verie rich,
Nor Ganges faire [of India land a riuer great of name]
Nor Hermus [streame in Meonie] troubled with gold [en sands]
May not contend or striue in prai-ses [due to] Italie.
Not Bactra [soile in Scythia] nor yet the Indies [twaine]
And all Panchaia fat with sands which frankincense doo beare,
Bulls breathing at their nosetrils fire haue not allowd these places,
Nor with the teeth of Hydra huge [fowle adders teeth] them fowne,
Ne haue the feeld of corne growne rough [or hideous to behold]
With helmets thicke and speares of men [in armor fitt to fight]
But frutes abundant, and of Bac-chus [wine] the Massike iuce
[Or liquor of Campania hill] haue filled Italie:
The oliue trees and lustie herds of cattell do possesse it.
From hense the tall and warlike horsse betakes him to the feeld,
And O Clitumnus [riuer cleere] white flocks [of cattell fat]
The bull, the greatest sacrifice [in triumphs made to Ioue]
Well washed and clensd through with thy sacred [holie water]
Haue often brought from hense vnto the temples of the gods
The Roman triumphs: heere the spring continuall is, and heere
Is summer time in others months [when winter is elswhere]
The cattell twise are great with yoong, the tree is twise [a yeere]
For apples [and for other frutes] profitable [and good.]
But tigers swift [or rauenous and raging mad] from hense
Are far away; so be the cru-ell seed [or whelps] of lions,
Nor Aconites doo not deceiue the sillie gatherers,
Nor skaled snake doth force vpon the ground great rounds or rings,
Ne gathers vp himselfe in com-passe with so great a length
[As other where, in Affrica in Aegypt, and] such like.]
Ioine [thereunto] so many ci-ties rare and excellent,
And labour too of workes [that is of handicrafts and trades]
So many townes heapt vp with hand of rough and broken stones,
And floods or riuers vnder flow-eng th' old and ancient walls
Why should I reckon vp the sea [surnamed Adrian]
Which washeth [Italie] aboue, [eastward to Uenice] or
[The sea surnamed Tyrrhen] which doth wet the same beelow,
[Westward to Anne? Italie betweene two seas doth lie]
Or [should I recon] lakes so great? O Larius greatest [lake]
And thee Benacus rising vp with flouds and sea-like rage?
Or should I hauens heere recount, or closures, [stops and letts]
Ioyned and set to Lucrine lake by Iulius Cæsar drift?]
Or [tell how] that the sea became displeasd and moued sore
[Bicause his current was cut short] with noise and rorings great,
[Euen there] where Iulian streams sound far with sea powrd in againe,
And where the flowing Tyrrhen sea is let into' Auerne streicts.
This selfe same [Italie] doth shew [faire] draines of siluer, and
In vains [of th' earth] meatals of brasse, and floweth much with gold.
This [Italie] aduanced hath an egar kind of men
The Marses and the Sabell youths; and the Ligurians
Accustomed to wickednes [enur'd to labour hard]
The Volces also bearing darts [or sppuds in shape like spits]
The Decies, Maries, and the great Camillies [gentlemen]
The Scipios hardie [stowt] in warre, and the most mightie Cæsar,
Who being conqueror euen now in Asias furthest coasts,
Doost turne away th' unwarlike Inde from territors of Rome
O Saturns land [our Italie] great mother thou of fruites,
Great [mother thou] of men, all haile: [Salue, well maist thou fare,]
I enter for thy sake on things of old and ancient praise,
And of good skill, being bold t'vnshut or open holie springs,
[Or founteins of the Muses, or of sacred things the secrets,]
And through the townes of Rome I sing th' Ascrean [poets] verse.
Now place [is fit] for qualities of fallows [to be showne]
What strength in euery one there is what colour [they they be of]
And what their [proper] nature is in bringing forth of things.
In primis hard and barren grounds, and naughtie hillocks too,
Where clay is thin and weake, [and in] the bushie [thornie] fields,
Where [many] grauell stones [be thwackt] take pleasure and delight,
[Reioise] in woods of long liu'd O-liue tree by Pallas [found]
The wild or bastard Oliue tree rising most plentifull
In selfe same coast [for tract of land] a token is hereof:
So are the feelds scattered and spred with [o-liue] beries wild.
But ground thats fat and also ranke with iuce or moisture sweet,
And feelds well stored with greene grasse, and fruitfull with increase,
(Such as we woonted are to see in mounteins hollow dales)
Hither [to them] are streams draind downe from hie & steepie rocks,
And they draw prosperous mud with them [into the vallies low.]
A feeld also which lies aloft against the southerne wind,
And which doth feede and cherish ferne, enuide of crooked plow;
This [feeld] sometimes shall giue to thee sufficiently strong vines,
And flowing with much wine: this [feeld] is frutefull of the grape
And of the liquor [in the grape] such as we offer in
Brode drinking bols and gold [of gold or golden drinking cups]
When Tyrhen [piper] fat hath blowne his yuorie pipe by th' altar,
And when we do present the smo-king bowels in brode platters.
But if so be thy mind be more to take a charge to keepe
[Some] heards of beasts and calues, or else the yoonglings of the sheepe
Or little gotes burning thy sets of vines or other trees,
[Bicause what thing soeuer they do bite it dries and dies]
Then get thee vnto vplands [and to grounds] a great way hense
Of Tarent [towne in Italie] exceeding plentifull;
Or such a feeld as Mantua infortunat hath lost:
[A feeld] feeding in grassie floud or riuer snow white swans;
Cleere running water springs, for sheepe nor pastures [there] do want,
And where the coldish dew restores so much in shortest night,
As heards of beasts will crop and eat in longest [summers] day.
Earth almost blacke and fat [withall] vnder the plow prest in,
Whose moold also is rotten (for we follow this in plowing)
Is best for corne: thou shalt not see more wains depart [or go]
From any feeld [or champion ground] home with their oxen slow.
Or else [that land is good for graine] from whense the [husbandman
Or] plowman being angry [with the barren trees there growing]
Hath carried quite away the woods, and vtterly destroid
The idle groues [vnthriftie and vnfrutefull] many yeares:
And he hath turned vp and wa-sted by the lowest roots
The houses old of birds, the same haue fled aloft [in th' aire]
Their nests being left. But land vntild, or barren ground and leane
Hath had good liking [or hath loo-ked horie white] a while
After the plow hath beene thrust in [and driuen thereinto]
For truly hungry grauell ground of vpland country soile
Doth scarse afford low Casia [flours] and dew vnto the bee.
The rough [and hollow] Tophie [stone] the chalkie [soile likewise]
Eaten with [vermins] Chelidres blacke [skind, are such vile things
As diuers writers] do deny that any other feelds
Beare food as well for serpents as yeeld crooked holes to them.
That [ground] which breatheth out a va-por thin [or little mist]
And [reeking] smokes soone vanishing, and drinketh moisture vp,
And of it selfe doth giue againe [or waxeth wet and moist]
And which doth alwaies cloth it selfe with greene grasse of it owne,
Ne hurts the yron [of the plow] with scabbednesse and with
Salt rustinesse [for rust and yron is as it were the scab]
That ground hath wrapt & wrought in it elmetrees with pleasant vines,
The same is frutefull of the o-liue tree, and thou shalt trie
By tilling it [how] kindly both for castell, and [withall]
[How] patient of the culture knife or crooked shares [it is.]
Rich Capüa [countrie] ploweth such [a soile] so doth the coast
Neere neighbor to Ueseuus hill, and so doth Clanius [streame]
Iniurious too Acerre void [of people there to dwell.]
Now will I tell thee how thou maist know euery kind of ground.
If thou doost seeke to vnderstand if it be thin, or else
Aboue and out of measure thicke: because the one doth loue
And fauour corne, th' other Bac-chus [vine trees yeelding wine]
The thickest fauours Ceres more, each thinnest likes Lycus,
First and afore [all other thinges] thou oft shalt take the place
In [both thine] eies [thou shalt suruey or view it ouer all]
And shalt command a pit to be digd deepe in firmest ground,
And shalt put in the mould againe, and with thy feet shalt plane
Or euen make [and tread] the sands] which vppermost [do lie]
If sands shall want to fill it vp, then is the soile but] thin,
And fitter yeeld it is for beasts and nourishable vines.
But if they shall denie [and say] they cannot go againe
Into their places, and the di-ches filled vp againe
There shall remaine earth ouerplus [then sure] the soile is thicke,
[There] looke for lingring clods [for clods requiring labour long.]
In ridges grosse cut vp or plow this ground with oxen strong.
But saltish soile and that which is auouched [to be] bitter
Unfrutefull is for corne; the same by plowing doth not wax
The milder [or the handsommer] nor doth preserue and saue
A stocke for Bacchus [for the vine] nor other frutes their names.
That soile shall giue [thee] such a signe, and [therefore] take them downe
From smokie house tops baskets of thicke wicker, and likewise
The cullinders or strayners of the presses [crushing grapes.]
Here let that naughtie soile and wa-ters sweet from out of springs
Be troden brimfull: then know this, the water euery whit
Will struggle or gush out, the big-ger drops will go betweene
Or through the wickers. But the tast [so] plaine and manifest
[Of soile] will make or giue a shew [what qualitie it hath:]
The bitternesse [thereof] also shall writh the triers mouths
Displeasd with seeking it; [and shall with bitter smacke thereof
Uncomfortable make the lookes of people tasting it.]
What ground also is battable [or fat and lustie soile]
By this means to be short we learne: it neuer crumbs away
Being tost and turned much with hands [much handled moolders not]
But waxeth clammy [and doth cleaue] with handling to the fingers
In maner of [or like to] pitch. Wet ground doth feed much grasse,
And is more ranke than needs or ought; fie, let not the same be
Too frutefull or too battable for me [to serue my turne,]
Ne let it shew [or want] it selfe [too free] or ouerstrong
In first appearing-ears of corne [or comming vp in blade.]
[Ground] which is heauie, and [the ground] that's light bewraies it selfe
Being silent, by the very weight: an easie thing it is
To learne a forehand [or foretell] the blacke [earth] by the eye,
And what soeuer colour is [thereon.] But to search out
The cold most mischeefous, it is a matter very hard:
Only the pitch-trees and the noi-some Ewghtrees, or sometimes
The iuies blacke shew openly the tokens of the cold
[What ground is cold: and thus far of the qualities of grounds.]
These [former] things considered, remember thou to season
[With heat and cold] the moold, and in-to diches [for] to cut
Great hils, and [for] to shew vnto the northerne wind the clods
Of earth turnd vpward, long before thou dig or put in ditch
The pleasant kind of vine. The fal-low fields are best, the mould
[Thereof] being rotten: this do winds and cold hore frosts procure,
And deliuer sturdie stirring fur-longe [acres] made to fall.
But if that any watchfulnesse hath not escap't some men,
They seeke a likely place wherein the planting first for trees
May be prouided, and whereto the same growne vp in order
May be remooued by and by; least that the sets being shifted
Upon the sudden should not know their dam or mother soile.
Moreouer [skilfull graffers] print or make vpon the barke
Of tree to be displast, the coast or quarter of the heauen,
How euery [tree] should stand, and on what side it should abide
The southerne heats, and which should turne his backe against the north:
Let [grafters] as they tooke it vp, so set it new againe,
Sith it is much in tender [years] to grow into a custome.
First secke if it be best on hils or planes to plant thy vines,
If thou shalt measure feelds of fat and lustie champion grounds,
[Then] set them thicke, in thicker yeeld the vine is not the slower,
[It answereth the nature of the soile where it is set.]
But if [thou measure] vpland ground with hillocks [therevpon]
And mounteins steepe and clambering; take heed and see to order,
[That in due order they be set] nor otherwise should all
And euery way [or row of trees] in quadrant maner set
[Foure square like to a quadrangle] the trees being placed so
With passage ouerthwart cut out [or made betweene each row:]
As when an armie long hath oft inlargd in battell maine
Their bands, and in the open feeld a warlike troupe hath stood,
The hosts directed be [the campe is pitcht] and all the ground
Quakes all abrode with brasen wea-pons fighting face to face,
[Shine all abrode with glistering ar-mor made of copper, brasse]
Ne meddle not as yet with dread-full skirmishes, but doubt-
full Mars [or war vncerteine] wan-ders in the midst of arms.
Let all [your] plants be measured by euen counts of rows,
Not that the sight [thereof] alone might feed vaine [idle] minds,
But for bicause th' earth otherwise will not giue equall force
[Or nourishment] vnto all trees, ne will their boughs be able
To spread and stretch themselues vnto a void and empty place.
Thou maist perhaps demaund what depths in diches there should be?
I may be bold in furrow small to plant or set a vine:
But deeper and within the ground a tree is fastned downe,
The Escul first which reacheth with his roots as far as hell,
As with hir top to airie skies: therefore not winters [cold]
Not wind nor raine do plucke it vp, vnstird it doth remaine,
And conquereth or ouercoms by lasting many yeares,
Rolling [before it and outgrowing] many an age of men.
She middlemost bears vp the sha-dow great [of branches big]
Ne plant thou hazels among vines, ne take the highest twigs,
Nor breake away from tree the lof-tiest shouts or sprigs of all.
The loue of th' earth it is so great [that nearer things do grow
The frutefuller they be,] nor do thou any hurt vnto
The grafts with blunted yron toole, ne plant thou stocks so wild
Of oliue tree [among the vines and other trees of frute.]
For fire doth happen oftentimes when shepheards heedlesse [be]
Which hidden first vnder the fat barke [of the oliue tree]
Doth stealingly catch hold vpon the trunke or stocke [thereof]
And scaping out into the leaues aloft, hath giuen a great
And mightie noise vp to the aire: from thense it followes on
[Preuailing or] a conqueror through boughs, and rules [the rost]
Through highest tops of trees, and wraps the whole wood in his flames,
And being thicke with pitchie soot, flings vp into the aire
A blackish cloud [of smoke] espe-cially if that a storme
From [northerne] pole [or ouerhead] hath lien vpon the woods,
And blowing blasts doth wind the flames [in roundels like a ring.]
Where or when as this coms to passe th' oliues are not able
To spring againe out of the stocke, and being cut cannot
Restored be [or rise afresh] in low ground [as before]
And so th' vnfrutefull oliue wild [or bastard oliue tree]
Dooth ouergrow with bitter leaues [the right ones being kild.]
Nor let not any maister of experience so wise
Persuade thee for to stir the stiffe soile, when the northwind blowes;
Then winter shuts and closeth vp with frost the countrie ground,
Ne suffereth the root growne whole to fasten in the moold,
[After] the seed [is] cast [abrode, or sowne in the same.]
Best planting is for vinetrees in the ruddie time of spring,
When whitish bird [the storke is come] hated of adders long,
Or else a while before the first cold dews of haruest [come]
When as the sun so swift [or draw-ing waterish vapors vp]
Hath not as yet toucht winter with his horsses [is not entred
Into the line or signes of heauen, which bring in winter season]
And when hot summer now is past. The spring is passing good
For leaues [of trees] the spring is pas-sing kindly for the woods,
And in the spring [all] grounds do well and couet breeding seeds,
Bicause th' almightie father [Ioue, or comfortable aire]
Dooth then come downe into the lap or bosome of his wife
Glad [Iuno, or the cheerefull earth] with frutefull showres of raine:
And he great [Ioue] being ioyned with his body great to th' earth]
Doth nourish all the yoong [increase and broode of euery thing.]
Then wailesse twigs [in woods] doo ring or sound with singing birds,
And cattell then on certaine daies ingender with their kind,
The nourishable field brings foorth, and fallowes slacke their laps
[Or open their close passages] to lukewarme westerne winds,
Soft iuice or moisture ther's enough remayning for all things,
And grasse plots dare commit themselues in trust to new sun [shines:]
Ne doth the vine tree branch or leafe feare rising southerne winds,
Or driuen showres of raine from heauen with big north blustring blasts;
But thrusteth out the buds, and all the leaues it yeeldeth out,
I might suppose none other daies [or suns than these] t'haue shone
In first beginning of th' increa-sing world, or to haue had
Another course: that which was then was springtime, then the great
Huge world kept holy day the spring; and then the easterne winds
Did spare their winters blasts, when first beasts drew [or saw] the light,
And th' yron ofspring [age] of men lift vp or heau'd the head
Out of the fallowes [stonie] hard: wild beasts were put in woods,
And stars in heauen; neither could things tender and but young
Abide this labour, if so great a quietnesse went not
Twixt cold and hot, and that the calm-nesse of the gentle aire
Did not receiue and interteine the earth [from hurts and harms.]
That which remains [is to be markt] what imps soeuer thou
Shalt plant or set, spread thou the same with the fat doong [of beasts]
And mindfull [of thy worke] them hide and couer much with moold,
And burie or put in [with] vines into the selfe same trench]
Some soking grauell stones, or else foule slimie shels [of fish]
For water will betweene them fall, and airie breathings thin
Will downward go or sinke therein; and so the sets or imps
Will lift vp courage [or take hart:] now [men] are [redie] found
Who should with stones and with the weight of [broken] shards great [store]
Upon it, force it downe: this is a safegard or defense
Against the raine pourd out [of clouds:] this is [a good defense]
When dogstar bringing heat doth cleaue the gaping grounds with drought
The plants being placed orderly to resteth downe to draw
Earth oftentimes vnto [their] heads, and [therevpon] to cast
Or hit the pickforks hard [with yron to breake the lumps of earth]
Or till and t'occupie the ground vnder the plow thrust in,
And guide the strugling oxen iust betweene the vinetree plots,
Then [afterwards] to fit [thereto] smooth canes and poles of byrch
Peeld or vnbarkt, and ashen stakes, and also two hornd forks.
By strength whereof the [vines] may vse [or practise] vp to clime,
And to despise the winds, and trace or follow woodden spars
Through tops of elms [upon which spars the vine might shoot & spread]
And whiles ye first age grows wt new leaues [whiles the vines be yong]
[Then] must you spare the tender twigs: & whiles the rankish branch
Doth raise it selfe aloft to heauen, shot vp through aire so cleare
With raines or bridle loose: the edge of hedgebill may not yet
Be tride or vsde, but branches to be cropt with crooked hands
[Or fingers bowed like a hooke] and to be gathered in
The very midst [not by ad-uenture but by speciall choise.]
Then afterwards when as the boughs hauing imbrast and wrapd
With stronger sprigs the trees of Line, shall ranklie flourish out,
Then plucke away hir leaves, and pare away hir arms [or boughs]
They feare before [they spring] the knife of yron: to be short
Then practise thou hard gouernment, and branches shooting out
Restraine, keepe vnder bridle them [with vse of grafting knife.]
Moreouer hedges must be made and wouen in and out,
And cattell of all kinds within the same are to be kept,
Especially whiles that the [vine] leaues tender be and yoong,
And ignorant [vnexercisd] of inconueniences,
[As winds and haile, bitings of beasts, breakings, and other like]
The which vineleaues wild buffes and per-secuting gotes also
Annoy and hurt; beside th' vngentle winter [season sharpe]
And sun [in summer] vehement. Sheepe feed [vpon the vines]
And so doo greedie heifers too: the cold growne hard together
With hory frost, or extreame heat lieng on thirstie rocks,
Haue not done so much hurt [to vines] as those same flocks haue done,
And as the venim of their teeth so hard, and as the skar
Markt in the bitten stocke [which is the very spoile thereof.]
The gote is kild on altars all to Bacchus, for this fault,
And ancient plaies which enter on the scaffold or the stage,
And also the Athenians about their bigger towns
And meetings of the common waies haue set downe a reward,
[Namely a gote] and merry they among their quaffing cups
Haue danst in medowes soft among their bottels sokt [with wine.]
Th' Ausonian [or Italian] hus-band men, a nation sent
From Troy, make sport with homely rimes and laughter lowd vnstaid,
They take ilfauourd vizards made of hollow barks of trees,
And call vpon thee Bacchus with their merrie songs and tunes
And hang vp little [counterfets] soft faces [made of clay]
Upon a tall pineapple tree. Then herevpon [when as
The sacrifices ended be] the vineyard all doth spring
And flourisheth with great increase: the hollow vallies and
The mountains tall are filled full [of vines and places all]
Which way soeuer god hath turnd his honourable head.
Wherefore to Bacchus we will sing his praise and glory duly
In natiue countrie songs [and tunes all in the Latine toong]
And sacrificing vessels we will bring, and holy cakes:
A gote also lead by the horne for sacrifice shall stand
At thalter, and will rost his bow-els fat on hazell spits.
Moreouer that same toile in trimming vines is otherwise,
Upon the which enough of pains is neuer [ill] bestowd:
For euery soile must euery yeare be plowd three times or foure,
And clods must alwaies broken be with pickforks turnd therein;
And euery groue or wood must be disburthend of his boughs,
Labour returns to husbandmen in compasse driuen round,
As is the yeares rold in it selfe by traces of it owne:
[First spring, then summer, haruest, win-ter last; then spring againe.
And now when as the vine at last hath cast his lateward leaues,
And cold northwind hath beaten off the beautie from the woods;
Euen then doth sturdie countriman reach out his du regard
Unto the yeare next comming; and doth persecute or proine
With crooked tooth of Saturne [with a hooked graffing knife]
The vinetree let alone awhile, by shredding of the same,
And fashions it or makes it trim by cutting [off the wast.]
First dig the ground, first burne the twigs conueid and borne away,
And first beare home into thy house the [vinetree] props or stakes,
Gather thy grapes or vintage last: the shadow [of the leaues]
[Inuadeth] commeth forceably on vines twise in the yeare,
And weeds do hide or couer twise the yoong or tender sets
With brambles thicke: [each toyle is great] both labours hard & sore.
Commend and praise large countrie grounds, plow little land [for crop]
Moreouer sharpish twigs or rods of Ruscum [that same shrub.]
Is lopt or cut throughout the woods, and reeds on riuers sides,
And care of willow plots vnset keepes husbandmen at worke.
Now vines are bound [to poles] and trees lay graffing knife aside,
[And will be proind no more] now saplesse [lustlesse] vintager,
Dooth praise in song his outmost rowes of vinetrees downe at last.
But yet the soile must tempered be, and stird must be the dust,
And Iupiter [the wether] is of ripe grapes to be feared.
Contrariwise no trimming is on oliue trees [bestowd]
Ne looke they for vs [or wish to haue] the crooked grafting knife,
Nor weeding hookes hauing sure hold when once they sticke in ground
And can abide the wether [or the wind] the earth it selfe
When it is opened with a croo-ked toole [mattocke or spade]
Moisture it giues sufficient to tender planted imps,
And when [the same is tild] with plow, great store of corne [it yeelds]
Nourish herewith the peaceable and fattish oliue tree,
And apple [trees] also so soone as they haue felt their stocks
Able ynough and haue their strength; they suddenly shoot vp
By their owne force vnto the stars, not needing [once] our helpe.
No lesse doth all the groue wax great with frute in the meane while,
And birds abidings all vntrimd are red with bloudie berries;
The Cythise shrub shall lopped be for cattell, and the wood
So hie affoordeth gummie sticks or chips [in sted of candels]
[Wherwith] night fiers are fed and kept, and cast out glittering lights;
And men doo doubt to set those trees, and care on them bestow.
What should I follow greater things? the willowes and lowe broome
Giue largely either vnto beasts greene leaues, or shades to shepherds,
And hedges, vnto planted plots, and meat [to bees for] honie.
It doth also delight to looke vpon Cytorus hill
Abounding all with box and woods of Narice pitchtrees [too]
And eeke to see the feelds be hol-den neither to the rakes
Or harrowes of the husbandmen, nor anie care of theirs.
The barren woods themselues on Cau-case [loftie mounteine] top,
Which violent east wind breake and shake, doo daily render frute,
Some this, some that; and they dod yeeld most profitable timber.
Pinetrees for ships, reders and cy-pres trees for dwelling houses.
Hense [out of these] haue husbandmen framed by torners tools
Spokes for their wheels, & eeke from hense [haue] couerings for their carts,
And ther haue put bowd bottoms. [crooked keels] in botes or ships.
With oziers are the willowes full: with leaues doo elms [abound]
But mirtle with strong speares or poles, and Cornell good for warre,
Ewghs wrought and wrested be into Ithyrian [shooting] bowes;
The tilces smooth or box tree wood with torners toole soone shauen.
Take fashion, and are hollow made with sharpened iron toole.
Moreouer th' alnetree light being sent from Padus [riuer] banke
Doth flote or swim on wauing streames; and bees doo also hide
Their swarms in th' hollow barkes and bel-lie of the rotten holme.
What other thing as well worthie to be rehearst and told
Haue Bacchus gifts [the vinetrees] borne? Bacchus [or wine] hath giuen
Occasion of offense and blame, he tamed hath with death
The Centaurs droonken mad, Rhetus, Pholus, and Hyleus
Threatning the Lapiths with a mightie wineball [in his hand.]
O too too happie husbandmen if they their goods could know
To whome the earth most iust dooth yeeld farr off from discords arms
Out of the ground on easie life [or vittels lightly got:]
Though loftie house with stately doors spews out of euery roome.
A streame most huge [or prease] of folks them greeting in the morning,
Ne gape they greedie after posts in diuerse order deckt,
With arched roofe [or seeling] faire, and garments guilefully
Wouen with gold, and Ephyre-an [or Corinthian] place;
Neither is white wooll stained with Assirian purple die,
Nor vse of clarified oile with Casie is corrupt;
But careles quietnes, and life vnskilfull to deceiue,
Wealthie and rich in sundrie goods, and ease in plow lands large,
Caues, liuely [running] lakes, and coldish Tempe shades,
The bellowing or moouing noise of open, pleasant steeps
In shadowes vnderneath a tree, hills, and dens of wild beasts,
Are not away or wanting there [among the countrie folks]
Youth bearing or abiding worke, and so vs'de to little charge,
The sacrifices of the gods, and holie fathers too,
And iustice parting from the earth hath made hir last [abode]
Or set hir footsteps last of all among those [countrie folks;]
But let the Muses sweet aboue all things, with mightie loue
Of whome I smitten [wounded] doo their sacrifices beare,
[Let them I say] take and possesse me principally [first]
And let them shew the wayes of heauen and stars likewise to me,
Th' eclipses diuerse of the sun and labours of the moone,
Whereof comes quaking in the earth, by what force hie seas swell,
Their bounds being broken, and returne within themselues againe,
Thy winter suns should make such haste to dip or wash themselues
In Ocean sea, or what delay should let slowe [winter] nights.
But if cold bloud about the hart shall hinder me, that I
May not come neere these parts of na-ture [them to vnderstand]
Let countrie soile and watering streams please me in vallies low,
Let men loue riuers, yea and woods clown like. O what can set
Or place me where be [pleasant] feelds and Sperohius [riuer runs].
And Taiget [hills] hawnted with Bac-chus ghests the Lacen maids!
O who can set me in the val-lies coole of Hemus mount,
And couer me with shadows great of branches [full of leaues.]
Happie is he that could of things the causes vnderstand,
And hath cast vnder feet all feare, and destnie not intreatable,
And noise of greedie Acheron [that floud or feend of hell.]
Happie likewise is he which dooth acknowledge countrie gods,
Pan [god of shepheards] and Sylua-nus old [the god of woods]
The nymphs neere sisters [goddesses of hills and waters all:]
Not office or authoritie of people [giuing it]
Nor purple robe of kings hath stird or moou'd the countriman,
And disagrement vexing bre-thren faithles and vntrustie,
Nor Danish people comming downe from Istrian streams conspirde
[Or people dwelling neere the same] nor Romanish affairs
And realms about to perish quite [haue not diseased him,]
Ne hath he sorrowd pittieng the helples, or repinde
And grudged at him that hath enough [but kept him in a meane]
He gathered hath the frutes which boughes haue borne of own accord,
Which countrie grounds themselues well wil-ling [not constraind haue borne]
Ne hath he seene [hard] yron lawes, nor pleadinges at the bar
Unsober mad and quarellous, nor courts or offices
Where peoples euidences are recorded and inrolld.
Some men doo force the blind [and vn-seene] seas [with sails &] ores,
And rush int'armor, they doo pearse [or prease] into the courts
And palace gates of kings [thereby to purchase some aduancement:]
One forceth and assalteth towns with vtter ouerthrowes,
And miserable houshold gods that he might drinke in pearle,
And sleepe in Sarran purple clothes: another hoords vp goods
And grouelling lies vpon his gold hid in a digged hole:
This [man] amazed is made to muse at th' oratorie pulpit,
Clapping of hands hath rauisht that man gaping [after praise]
(For it is doubted by the throngs of people and of fathers.)
[Others] all dropping wet with bloud of brethren doo reioise,
And change their houses and abodes so sweet for banishment,
And seeke a countrie lieng vn-derneath another sun.
The husbandman hath turnd two waies the ground with crooked plow,
His labour of the yeare by this, releeueth and mainteins
By this his natiue soile and lit-tle nephues [kinred poore,]
By this his herds of oxen and his well deseruing bullocks
[Are kept] ne is there any rest, but that the yeare abounds
Either with frutes of trees, or brood of beasts, or handfull gripes
Of corne straw, and dooth burthen the plowd furrows with increase
[Or crop], and ouercoms the barns [that they can hold no more]
[When] winter coms, the Cicyo-nian berrie [oliues thense]
Is prest and drest in oliue mills, and swine come lustie home
[Fat fed] with akorns, and the woods doo yeeld their wildings [crabs,]
And haruest layes downe [storeth vp thincrease of] diuerse frutes,
And vintage milde [or pleasant grape] is made full ripe aloft
On stonie [hills or rockie bancks] wide open to the sun.
In the meane time sweet babes about [their mothers] dugs doo hang,
And honest house keepes honestie [chast huswife, houshold chaste]
Kine downward stretch their milkful vd-ders, and fat kids doo fight
Or wrestle twixt themselues with [bowd] hornes butting against horns.
He [namely the good husbandman] keeps often holidayes,
And groueling laid vpon the grasse, where fire is in the midst,
And [whereas] his companions crowne a great wineboll about,
O Lene [Bacchus] sacrifi-cing he doth call on thee,
And sets the maisters of the beasts [or cheefest shepherds] games
Or pastimes of the arrow swift in elme [to hit the marke,]
And they their bodies very hart [with sun with raine and wind]
Strip naked [bare, and out of cloths] for countrie wrestling game,
[They strip their bodies hard & tongs with wrestling countrie games.]
The old Sabine people honoured and lou'd this life long since,
This [life did] Ramus [loue, so did] his brother [Romulus]
[The countrie] strong Hetruria, marke ye, increased so,
And Rome was made [and so became] the fairest thing of things,
Which rounded hath as with one wall seuen hills vnto it selfe,
And golden Saturne lead this [countrie] life vpon the earth
Before the scepter [gouernement] of the Dictæan king,
[Yet Iupiter tooke rule of Creet, and put his father downe,]
Before bad people banketted with bullocks staine [to eat.]
Men had not yet heard trumpets blowne; nor yet swords layd vpon
Hard anuils [stithies] make a noise [while smiths did hammer them.]
But we haue rid with spaces [large] plaine ground nigh measureles,
And now it's time t'vnlose the smo-king necks of sweating horsses.

The third booke of Virgils Georgiks written to a right honourable personage of Italie, as before.

O Pales great [of pasture grounds the goddesse] we also
Will sing [or praise] thee, and thee too O shepheard high renowmd
From Amphryse floud, and you O woods, and Licey lakes or streams,
The resdue of my verses which had held [kept occupide]
Minds void [of care] are common all and noised now abrode:
[For] who knows not Hurystheus [that] hard [and cruell king]
Or th' altars of Busiris dis-commended [tyrant fearce?]
To whom hath not beene told [the tale of] Hylas [Hercles] boy,
And th' iland of Latona, and the wench Hippodame,
And Pelops [Tantals sonne] so stowt on horsse-backe] famous for
His iuory shoulders [when his owne was eaten quite away.]
A trace or way must tried be, wherby I may lift vp
My selfe aloft from ground [beelow] and [like] a conqueror
Flie oft before mens faces [to be seene and talked of.]
I will bring downe from [Helicon or] th' hill of Aonian
Formost with me (if life may last) the muses to my countrie.
O Mantua first to thee will I bring Idumean palms
[Or giue to thee victorious praise] and I will place [or build]
A church of marble in the gree-nish feelds neere to the water
Where mightie Mincius [riuer] runs or straies with windings slowe,
And doth foreclose or fense the banks with yoong and tender reeds:
In midst for me shall Cæsar be, and shall possesse the church,
I conqueror [hauing my wish] and being seene of him
In Tyrian purple robe will driue vnto the riuer streames
A hundred chariots hauing foure yokt horsses [them to draw,]
And let all Grecia leuing Al-pheus [riuer] and the rooads
Of Molorch [in Arcadia land] trie maisteries with me
In running and raw banging bats [or bastinardos tipt
With raw hide lether and wrought full of plummets [studs] of lead.
I [Maro Virgill] being deckt about the head with leaues
Of shorne or cropped oliue tree, will bring and offer gifts:
It doth delight me now to lead great traines in solemne shews
Unto the temples of the gods, and to see bullocks slaine,
Or how curtens theatricall or pagents on the stage
Doo go asside [from former place] their frontiers being turnd,
And how the Brittons [English now] wouen [in tapstrie worke]
Beare purple hanging vp. I will make in the entrie doores
Of gold and sound [meere] iuory or tooth of th' oliphant
The skirmish of the Gangards [those folke by Ganges floud]
And th' arms of Suirine conqueror [Augustus Cæsars warrs]
And heere [ile make the riuer] Nile with battell broils abounding
And greatly flowing: pillers too raisd of the brasse of ships
Wherwith their noses strengthned be against all storms on sea
And [people neere] Nyphates [floud] chased and put to foile,
And Parthian [hoast] trusting in flight and shafts turnd [full at foes,]
Moreouer two victorious shewes taken by [Cesars] hand
From diuerse enimies [of his] and nations on each shore
[Both east and west of Ocean sea] in triumph lead away:
Yea [grauen] stones of Paros ile [white marble there] shall stand,
Breathing representations, or liuely images;
The offspring of Assaracus (of whose stocke Cæsar came]
The names of that same nation too from Iupiter descended,
A Troian was their father, and of Troy was Cynthuis founder.
Unhappie enuie [sore] shall feare the furies [feends below]
And Cocyte rigorous riuers too, and Ixions writhren snakes,
And the mayne wheels [of Sisiphus] and stone not conquerable.
O my Mecenas let vs in the meane time follow woods
Of Dryades [goddesses of trees, and parks [of beastes] toucht,
Thy biddinges or commandements are not light [in account]
Our mind begins no loftie thing without [consent of] thee.
Lo, go to, breake off slowe delaies, Cytheron [forrests] calls
With mightie noise, so dooth the dogs of Taiget hill also,
And [eeke the citie] Epidaure the tamer of [great] horsses,
The voice of them redoubled ringes with eccho of the woods:
Howbeit I will girded be [or readilie prepard]
Streight waies to tell the battels hot of Cæsar, and to beare
Or carrie by report his name, throughout so many years
As Cæsar is far off from the first birth of Tithon [old]
If anie body wondering at the [notable] rewards
Of victorie olympiacall [so nam'd of Olympia fields]
Dooth horsses feed; or who so [keeps] strong bullocks for the plow,
Then let him choose [them] cheefly [by] the bodies of their dams.
The fashion of a beetle browd or sterne cow is the best,
Whose head is fowly big, whose necke is very great withall,
And from whose chin a dewlap or a crop hangs to hir shanks;
Againe, in whose long sides there is no measure or proportion,
That hath all parts both great and large, yea euen hir very foot,
[Whose] eares are hearie rough vnder hir crooked [writhen] hornes:
Nor let [a cow] marked with specks and white, me discontent,
Or one refusing yoke [to beare] and sometimes shrewd with horne,
And neere in vissage to a bull, in growth hie all in all,
Which going sweeps hir fellowes trea-dinges with hir tayle below.
Th' age t'abide Lucina, and to suffer Hymens due,
[By Lucine I meane caluing, and by Hymen bulling time]
This age dooth end before ten yeeres, and after foure begins,
The rest of [th' age] vnable is for brood and bringing foorth,
Not strong for plow: in the meane time [betwixt foure years and ten]
Whiles lustie youth remaines in heards of cattell [cows or mares]
Let loose your horsses, put your beasts to Venus [breeding] first,
and store [your selfe] with gendring still one yoongling with another;
[For] euery best and first day of [our] age dooth slip away
From miserable mortall men, diseases follow after,
And sad old age, and labour too, th' ungentlenes of hard
[Or cruell] death dooth take away the life [of man and beasts.]
There shalbe [breeding mares and kine] alwaies [vpon thy ground]
Whose bodies thou hadst rather to be changed [for the best]
And euermore repare them [or renew them that decay.]
Preuent or ouertake [that fault] and sort or choose out yeerly
Yoong cattell for thy heards [increase] least afterwards thou maist
seeke vp againe [such breeders as thou] missed [hast] and lost.
The selfe same choise there is likewise in horsses [to be made]
Bestow thou from their tender years [or lims] especiall paines
[Upon those horsses] which thou meanst [intendest] presently
For hope of kinde to put to mare [to couer and ingender.]
The fole or colt of gallant beast [which coms of a good kind]
Dooth by and by [when he is fold] tread hie [or goe vpright]
In fields or medows, and laies downe [to rest] his softly legs,
And dares go iornies first of all, and threatning riuers trie,
And put himselfe to seas vnknowne; ne feares he noises vaine;
His necke vpright, a fine made head, short beilie and fat backe,
His brest courragious dooth abound with brawns or lumps of flesh:
Bright bay and dapple gray the fai-rest horsses be and best,
Woorst colour is in [horsses] white, or branlie [horsse like box.]
Moreouer [horsse of gallant kind] knows not ne will stand still
In one and selfe same place, if war-like armor make a noise
He wags his ears and stirs or shakes his lims [with life and spirit]
And keeping downe the fire [or heat] which gathered is within
Doth roll or void it at his nose-trils [blowing all amaine]
His mane is thicke, and cast vpon his right shoulder [there] lies,
A double spine or large backe bone is drawne alongst his loines,
The ground he maketh hollow [where he treads he casts vp earth]
His hoofe with horne sound all about dooth greatly make a noise:
Such one was Cyllarus [that horsse tam'd with the rains and bit
Of Pollux Amycleus,, and [such horsses] as of which
The Grecian poets made report, horsses of [mightie Mars
Yokt [linked, coupled] two by two, and coch of great Achilles.
Swift Saturne at the comming of his wife was such a one,
And flang his maine on horsses necke [wherin he turnd himselfe]
And taking heels filld Pelion hills with wihhies shrill [of his.]
Hide thou [from vse of mare such gal-lant horsse as] this same is,
When he decaies or falles away, or greeued is with sicknesse,
Or lazie now or labourlesse with yeeres ne spare his age
Il fauourd [or beare with his age not fowle il fauoured.]
The elder horsse is cold for Venus [lustfull fleshly worke,]
And lingers labour much mislik'te and lost [in riding mares;]
And if at anie time he comes to skirmishes [or running]
He rageth and takes on in vaine: euen as a mightie fier
Is fearce a while withouten force: and therefore thou shalt marke
Especially his courage and his age and thereupon
Some other skills or vses, and their parents brood [also]
[What kinde of colts the horsse and mare (that bred these) were before]
What greefe there is in ech of them foiled and ouercome,
What glorie of the victorie [or getting of the game.]
Doost thou not see when coches [drawne with horsses] taken haue
The feeld at once in headlong race [or running all for life.]
And rush amaine let loose from rails [or lists where they stood tide]
When hope of youths is raised vp [and bent to win the game]
And panting feare [to loose it] draws [or sucks] their ioyfull harts?
They prease on forward with their [lash-ing] whip of writhen [cord]
And leaning forward giue the raines or bridels [to the horsses:]
The axelltree all fierie hot, doth flie with farre amaine
Now downe below now vp aloft through void and emptie aire,
They seeme for to be carried and t'arise into the skie,
Ne is there any lingering nor resting [by the way:]
But [then] a cloud or storme of yel-low sand is hoised vp,
[The horsse] wax wet with froth and fome, and with the blowing of
The [horsses] following [next to them in teeme or course of chase,]
Their loue of praises is so great, and victories care so great.
Ericthonie durst first of all ioyne coch and horsses foure,
And sit full fast on snatching wheeles [like to] a conqueror,
The Lapiths of Peletronie [a towne in Thessalie.]
Set on [horsses] backe gaue them bridels and running in the ring,
And taught the horsseman vnder arms [or hauing harnesse on]
To praunse vpon the ground and his proud pases for to round.
Each labour equall is [each tricke indifferently is taught,]
Namely, to praunse and roundly tread, to amble and to trot:
And horsmaisters seeke all alike a horsse yoong, hot, and quicke,
Althouge he chased hath in flight his foes put oft [to foile]
And make report or vaunt Epire his countrie soile to be,
And Mycen strong, and fetch his stocke from Neptunes race it selfe.
These [matters] well considered, th' horsmasters earnest be
Before the time [of mareroiling] and all their care bestow
To stuffe or fill with fatnesse thick [that horse] which they haue chosen,
And nam'd to be the husband to the beast [or breeding mare]
And they cut growing grasse for him, and giue him riuer water,
And corne or graine, least that he should not able be to serue
Sufficiently the pleasant la-bour [of ingendring yoong,]
And [least] the weakling foles or colts should beare in open shew
The leannesse of their parents [horse and mare of whom they came.]
[Th' horssmasters also slender make and lanke with leannesse thin,
Being willing [so to do] the [breed-ing] cattell [or the mares,]
And when the sport alredy knowne doth stir vp couplings first,
They do deny them leaues [so greene] and driue them from the springs,
And shake or mooue them often times with running [vp and downe]
And tire or weary them likewise with [labouring in] the sun:
[Then] when the threshing floore doth grone greatly or greeuously
With corne bethwackt and threshed out, and when as th' empty chaffe
Is cast against the westerne wind, rising with pleasant blast,
This do horssmasters least by too much ranknesse, duller vse
Might be in breeding fallow feeld, and fill with slimie stuffe
Th' unseruiceable furrowes. But that thirsting it may take
Venus the seed of breeding yoong, and inwardly lay vp
The same [within hir very wombe or due conceiuing place.]
Againe, the care of horsses doth begin to fall or faile,
And care of mares to come in place: when [therefore] mares do stray
Being big with yoong, their mouths run out, let none [then] suffer them
To draw the yoke in heauie carts, nor t'ouercome the way
With leaping, and to passe through pa-stures with a speedy pase
[Or crop the grasse of medow grounds in going swiftly by]
And for to swim in catching streames [streams carrieng things away]
But let [horssmasters] feed them in void parks or empty feelds,
And neere vnto full riuers where mosse is, and also where
The banke is very greene with grasse, and caues may couer them,
And rockie shades may ouerreach [and keepe them from the sun.]
A flieng vermin haunteth much about the woods or groues
Of Siler [riuer] and about Alburne [that port or hauen]
Greene growne with holms; which [vermins] name in Latine is Asilus,
The Greekes haue turnd it [in their toong] by calling of it Oestrus,
Sharpe stinging, buzzing hatefully and too vnpleasantly,
Of whom the cattell all afraid, run here and there the woods
Th' aire being beaten with their mo-wing rageth furiously,
So do the woods, so doth the banke of drie Tanagrus [brooke]
Iuno hauing deuisd a plage for Inachs heifer, she
Did practise on a time hir wrath and anger horrible
With this same monster. Thou shalt driue from cattell big with yoong
This vermin, and shalt feed thy heards at sunrising betimes,
Or when the stars draw on the night [at euening not too late:]
For in the midday heats this flie most eagarly doth sting.
All care is put quite ouer [from the cowes] vnto the calues,
After the time of bringing foorth, and [owners then of beasts]
Doo by and by set marks on them, and of their kind the names,
And which they rather had to ride the cow for hauing cattell,
Or sand for holy altars, or to cut and plow the ground,
And vpside downe to turne the feeld all rough with broken clods:
The other [yoonger] beasts are fed vpon the grasse so greene,
Embolden now thy bullocks, those which thou wilt fashion to
Th' exercise and occu-pation of good husbandry,
And enter thou the way of ta-ming them, whiles that the na-
tures of the yoonglings gentle be, and trainable their age:
And first bind thou about their necks slacke collars of small twigs,
Then afterwards when as they shall accustome and enure
Their necks at liberty and free to seruice and to toile,
Ioine equall matches fitted by the very [necke] collars,
And then compell the bullocks to keepe pase or go together,
And let the void or emptie wheels be drawne oft now of them
Alongst the ground, and let them marke their feet on top of dust
[Let them learne lightly for to tread.] Then beechen apple tree
Forcing it selfe and labouring vnder a mighty waight,
Let it creake afterwards, and let the brasen wainbeame [strong]
Draw both the wheels together ioind. In the meane time thou shalt
Plucke vp or gather for thy yoong-ling cattell yet vntamde,
Not only grasse nor willow leaues sparing and very small,
And fennie seaweed [called Reeke of some] but also corne
Sowne by the hand; ne shall thy bree-ding kine fill vp the pales
Snowwhite [with milke] according to the maner of our fathers,
[As they were woont in our forefa-thers time full oft to doo.]
Thou shalt not milk the dams [the kine accompanied with their calues]
But they shall spend their vdders whole vpon their yoonglings sweet.
But if there be in thee a mind, or a desire to wars,
Troops [of horssmen] fierce, or to outflow and ouerrun
With wheeles th' Alphean streams of Pi-sa [that renowned towne.]
And oft to driue [swift] flieng co-ches in the game of Ioue,
Th' exercise or labour first of horsse is for to see
The courages and armor of stout warriors, and t'abide
The crooked trumpets, and to beare the groning wheele in draught,
And eke to heare in stable brasen bridles making noise:
Then after to reioise [and take a pleasure] more and more
In flattring prayses of his mai-ster, and to loue the sound
Of clapped necke [with palme of hand] and let the colt heare these
[Forenamed noises] presently so soone as he is weind
At first from teat or dug of dam, and let him giue [or vse]
His mouth to halters soft in steed [of snaffle or of bit]
Being but weake and fearefull too, and ignorant of his age,
[Unskilfull how to liue, wherein old horsses trained be.]
But when his fourth age, [or fourth yeare] approched is and come,
Three being past, let him begin streightwaies to tread the ring,
And make a trampling noise with trea-dings comely [downe by art]
And let him bow by course the ben-dings of his legs [his ioints]
And let him be like labouring [horsse] then let him chafe the aire
With runnings [or prouoke the winds too weake with him to run]
And flieng through th' open plaine feelds, as freed of his rains,
Let him skarse set his feet vpon th' vpmost of the sand.
As northerne wind when being thicke hath laid [on sea and land]
From Hyperborean [northerne] coasts, and driueth diuers waies
The Scythian winter storms and drie [or rainlesse] clouds also,
Then [whiles] the corne is growne [full] hie, and swimming feelds doo quake
With gentle smooth and euen winds; & highest tops of woods
Do giue a sound or make a noise; and waues or flouds from far
Force to the shores: that [wind] doth flie, sweeping both land and sea
At once in chase. This [horsse compard to northerne wind so swift]
Shall sweat at bounded races and great spaces of the field
Of Eleus, and shall cast out froth bloody at his mouth;
And he shall better beare and draw [French] Belgic coches with
His gentle soft or tender necke: then suffer thou at last,
Thy horsses being tamed now, their bodies great to grow
With prouender [or horssebread] thicke and grosse [wherein is tacke]
For yer their taming they will take vp courage great and stout,
And being catcht, they wil refuse t'abide the winding whips,
Or to obay [or take in mouth] hard bits [like teeth of woolues:]
But any diligence or skill set-tels not their strength more
Than for to turne or put away Venus [the worke of flesh]
And pricks or stings of [Cupid] loueblind [hidden and vnseen]
Whether the profit or the vse of oxen or of horsse
More pleasurable is or seruiceable to a man.
And therefore [cattell masters, gra-siers] they do put apart
The buls far off in pasture grounds alone behind a hill
Iust opposit or full against [from sight of any cow,]
And eke beyond brode riuers; or they keepe [their buls] shut vp
[In stals] at racke and manger full: for why the female [cow]
By little and by little gets away the strength [of bull]
And burns or sets him all on fire with seing hir, ne doth
She suffer him to thinke of woods, nor yet of grasse; but she
Doth eg and tempt with sweetish baits oft times the [buls so] proud
Louing [the kine] betweene themselues mastries to trie with horns.
The faire yoong cow [or heifer] is fed in the wood so great,
They keeping course [smiting avy] with violence very much
Mingle their skirmishes with many wounds and often hurts,
Blacke blood doth wash their bodies, and their horns being turnd ful butt
With rorings huge are thrust into the [fierce] not withstanding [buls]
The woods and great Olympus hill ring eccho with the noise.
Ne is't the maner vp to stall together fighting [buls]
But th' one quite ouercome departs, and banisht [leads his life]
In coasts vnknowne far off bewailing much his great disgrace,
And blowes or wounds of conqueror [or bull that ouercame.]
Then looking at the loues which he vnreuenged hath lost,
And at the stals [whereout] he went, the realms of his forefathers,
Therefore he practiseth his force with all care and regard,
And lodging all night long he lies among hard stones [twixt rocks]
Upon a couch vnmade [vnspread] being fed with rough greene leaues,
And sheere grasse sharpe or sedge, and tries himselfe and learns likewise
Angrie to be with his owne horns, striking at stocke of tree,
And chafes or challenges the winds with strokes, and proffers play
At fighting in the sand dispearst and scattered [with his heeles.]
Then after strength recouered and force receiu'd afresh,
He maketh signs or raiseth vp his standard [captaine like]
And headlong carried is against his [old] forgetfull fo:
Euen as a waue when it begins to wax or become white
In midst of sea drawes hollownesse alongst out of the deepe,
And after being rold to land, it rores amaine through rocks,
Ne fals it lesser than a hill; but water nethermost
Doth boile with whirlepools [rage with gulfes or swallowes turning round,
And from below flings vp aloft blacke sand [mingled with earth.]
Truly all kind of people and wild beasts, seafish, tamde beasts,
And painted [fairly coloured] birds rush in this rage and fire,
One selfe same loue in all. The she lion straid not in fields
At any other time [than when in loue] the crueller
Hauing forgotten hir [yoong] whelps, nor yet the shapelesse beares
Hauing giuen at none other time in places euery where
So many carcases [to ground] and slaughter through the woods:
Then cruell is the bore so wild, then is the tyger woorst,
And badly out alas, doth a-ny trauell then alone
In feelds of Lybia land [full ill alacke men trauell then
In desert feelds of wildernesse of Affrike hot and dry.]
Doost thou not see that trembling doth possesse and ouersway
The bodies whole of horsses, if but only smell [of mares]
Hath brought them airs well known [to them in rank mareroiling time]
[And seest thou not] that neither bit and bridle [vsd] of men
Nor cruell yerkings, no nor rocks, nor hollow hils or banks,
Nor riuers cast betweene [or laid against] do stop or stay
[Horsses from mares.] Nor riuers rol-ling hils, or mounteins [tall]
Caught vp, [and carried away] with water [of the streame.]
The Sabine hog himselfe doth rush and set his teeth on edge,
And deeply forward with his foot digs vp the ground and rubs
His ribs against or at a tree, and hardeneth his shoulders
Against his wounds on this side and on that side [being hurt.]
What did a yoong man, in whose bones hard loue [in enterprise]
Dooth stir and turne a great fyre vp: truly he swimmeth late
In blind night time through streights [of seas] troubled with broken stormes
On whom the gate so huge of heauen doth thunder, and the seas,
Driuen and dasht vpon the rocks, against him cry amaine,
Nor mournfull parents could call home, nor virgin like to dye
A cruell death [if parents did withstand hir in hir will]
Why [should I tell] what skirmishes the spotted Lynces of
[God] Bacchus giue, and cruell kind of woolues and eke of dogs?
What skirmishes also th' unwarlike stags or harts [do make.]
Marke this, that raging loue of mares is notablest of all,
And Venus gaue them such a mind [nature or qualitie]
At that time when the coches which foure yoked horsses [nam'd]
Potniades [of Potnia that citie] had consum'd
And with their chaps deuourd the lims of Glauc [their bringer vp.]
Loue leads them ouer Gargar hils, and Ascan roring floud,
They passe quite ouer mounteins and swim ouer streams,
Immediatly when fire is vn-derput and giuen vnto
Their greedie marrow [inward Iust:] in spring time more, bicause
In spring time heat coms to the bones: they stand all on hie rocks
[Or banks] hauing their faces turnd toward the westerne wind,
And inwardly receiue and take light aire [or gentle blasts]
And [war] bigbellide with the wind, without all wedlocke helpe,
[Without the breeding seed of a-ny horsse] strange to be told.
They gallop ouer rocks and hils, and vallies pressed low,
Not O thou easterne wind to thine arising, nor the suns,
But to the north and northwest wind, or [thither] whense the south
Most blacke doth rise, and maketh sad the heauen with rainie cold.
At length the lingring poison [or the clammie matter] which
The shepheards call by a true name Hyppomanes Horsrage,
Drops down from hense [this madding loue] euen from the secret parts
Horsrage, horsse madnesse, which oft times bad stepdames gathered haue
And taken vp, and mingled hearbs and hurtfull charms therewith.
But time in the meane season flits, flits irrecouerable,
Whiles we being taken [all] in loue, are carried round about
Particular things: this is enough for beasts of bigger growth.
Another peece of care remains to beat our wits about,
Wooll bearing flocks [sheepe bearing fleese] and rough haire gotes also.
From hense coms worke, from hense O strong and sturdy husbandmen
Hope [after] praise: ne doubt I [or, ne doubtfull am of mind]
How great a thing it is t'aduance or hoist aloft with words
These matters, and to giue vnto small things this honour [due,]
But sweet or pleasant loue doth catch, and carry me away
Through deserts hie of Parnasse hill, it doth delight me much
To passe the mounteine tops [that way] where as no beaten path
Of former fellowes [poets old] is toward turnd [or leads]
Unto Castalia [springs] with soft or easie rising banke.
O venerable Pales [thou goddesse of prouender]
Now must I sound with mightie voice [smal things in verses great,]
Beginning here I charge your sheepe to crop or feed on hay
In easie sheepcotes [temperat] paued, or flat and plaine,
Till summer season full of leaues be brought againe anon,
And t'vnderstrew or spread the bare ground with much straw, and with
Handfuls of ferne, least coldish ice [or frost and cold] should hurt
The tender cattell, and should bring the scab and filthie gowte.
Then after passing hense I charge to serue sufficiently
Your gotes with tree sprigs bearing leaues, and water fresh to giue,
And for to set your sheepcotes full against the winter sun
From winds; [the winter sun before, and northerne winds behind]
And turnd vnto the middle day [or to that very place
Where doe at noonetide see the sun, which is indeed full south.]
Then when cold Aquarie doth fall [in Ianuary month,
Or thereabouts, as at the midst of March] and brings in dew
At latter ending of the yeare [when springtime doth begin]
These cattell [namely gotes] also preserued are to be
And safely kept of vs with no care ligh-ter [than are sheepe.]
Ne is their vse and profit lesse, although Milesian fleeses,
[Or sheepe of Milet countrie] staind or dide in Tyrian reds
Are changed for a great [hie price or for some other wares.]
Thicker the yoonglings [breed] from hense, from hense [I meane from gotes]
Abundance of large milke [of both much more then coms of sheepe]
And how much more the milking pale shall fome from dug drawne drie,
So much the more their dugs shall yeeld, their niples being prest:
Neuerthelesse in the meane time heardsmen shall sheere or poll
The beards of gotes Cinyphian [by Cinyps towne or floud
Bred and brought vp] their hory chins, and briffely growing haires
For vse of teats and couerings for wofull mariners,
Gotes truly feed in woods, vpon Lycean [mounteine] tops,
On bushes rough, and thorns that loue [to grow in] places hie,
And mindfull they come to their homes, and bring their yoonglings [too]
And skarsly step the threshold ouer with big dugs [full of milke.]
Therefore thou shalt remoue [and turne or put away from them]
With all thy care and diligence the frost and snowish winds;
The lesse regard that mens necessitie hath vnto them:
And gladly thou shalt beare them meat, and twigs of trees for food,
Ne shalt shut vp thy haybarns all the midst of winter time:
But when as pleasant summer [coms] thou shalt send both the flocks
[Of gotes and sheepe] into the woods, and into pasture grounds,
The westerne winds calling [or bid-ding thee and them do so.]
Let vs crop the cold country grounds at Lucifers first star,
[By morning star, and euening star, before and after sun,]
Whiles morning time is fresh and gay, and grasse is hory gray,
And dew most pleasant vnto beasts is on the tender hearbs.
Then when the fourth houre [after sun is risen] gather shall
The drought of heauen [thirst of aire] and chirping grashoppers
Shall riue or rent the groues of trees with singing: then bid thou
Thy flocks go drinke at wels, or else at standing waters deepe,
Or waters running out of pipes [spouts made of wood] of holme;
[And bid thy flocks] seeke out the dale or vallie full of shade
In midst of sommer, if somwhere the oke tree huge of Ioue,
Doo reach and spred from ancient trunke or stocke his mighty boughs,
Or if somwhere the wood so blacke [and darke] with holy shade
Lies neere vnto the holmtrees thicke: and giue them then againe
Thin water, and feed them againe at setting of the sun,
When coldish [Uesper] euening star asswageth [heat of] aire,
And dewish moone doth new refresh the woods and shores of seas
Do sound againe the Halcyon, bird [or singing kings fisher]
And so do bushes [sound againe] the singing thistle finch.
What should I further wade in verse for thee [to vnderstand]
The shepheards; what the pasture grounds of [Affrike] Lybia land
And cottages dwelt in [of them] with thin and slender roofes.
The cattell [there] is fed oft times by day and eke by night,
And all the month in order and goes into deserts large
Without all inning [housing, fense, shroud, houell, or such like,]
So much there of the feeld lies [void of corne and serues for grasse.]
T' Affrike heardsman driueth all [the goods he hath] with him,
Both house and houshold trinkets, tools, and Amyclean cur,
Nam'd Candie quiuer, not vnlike a Roman [soldiour] stout
In arms for countries cause [in warlike furniture] when he
Taketh his way vnder a lode vneasie [heauie arms]
And stands against his enemie yer looking for: the campe
Being pitcht and placed in the host [amongst the armed men.]
But not [so as in Affrica where beasts be harbourlesse,
In that part of the world] wherein the Scythian people be,
And water of Meotis fen, and troubled Ister floud
Rolling his yellowish sands; and where the mounteine Rhodope
Goes backe being stretcht out along vnder the mid northpole.
There [heardsmen] keepe their heards shut vp in stables or in stals,
Neither doo any hearbs appeare in field, or leaues on tree,
But fashionlesse, ilfauoured, vnhandsome lies the land
With heaps of snow and with deepe frosts [in places all] abrode,
And riseth seuen faddoms hie: there winter alwaies [lasts]
And westerne winds are blowing e-uermore cold [wether] there;
Yea there the sun doth neuer driue away the shadowes pale,
Nor when being borne or carried vpon his horsses [backs]
He mounts vp to the loftie skie [ariseth in the east,]
Nor when he washeth or dooth wet his hedlong running coch
In the red sea of th' Ocean swift [goes downward in the west:]
The sudden crafts or flakes of [yce] do grow together hard
In running streame; and now the water runneth on his backe
Wheeles wrought about with yron worke. That [water] at the first
Was harborous to brode wide ships, now harborous to wains:
And brasen [tooles] doo commonly in sunder start and rent,
And garments put [vpon the barke] become stiffe [with the frost]
And they [the people] hew with hat-chets watrish wines, and whole
Diches haue turnd [themselues] into sound and substantiall yce,
And ragged ysicle hath become hard on their beards vncombd.
In the meane time it snowes all o-uer th' aire or skie no les,
Cattell doo perish and the bo-dies huge of oxen stand
Compast about with frosts, and stags in herds thicke and threefold
Are stiffe with heapes [of snow] new [falln, or heapes both rare & strange]
And skarse stand out therof with th' high-est tops of all their horns.
The Scythians doo not chase or hunt these fearfull stags or harts
With putting dogs or hounds to them, nor yet with any nets,
Or with the feare of arrow red: but hard at hand them kill
With weapon sharpe, thrusting before them with their brest in vaine
The mounteine full against them set [the mounteine huge of snow]
And staie them braieng greeuously; and so glad [merrie] men
They carrie them away with a great shout or mightie crie.
[The Scythians] take their careles rest vnder the ground so deepe
In digged caues or dens, and haue rolld to their chimnie harths
Okes [or the trunks of trees] toge-ther laid [logs in a pile,]
And they haue giuen to the fier [or set on fire] whole elms;
Heere doo they passe or driue away the night in sport and plaie,
And merrie men they counterfet their vinetree quaffing cups,
[They make them wines by art in steed of that which grapes doo yeeld]
With leuen and sowre seruice be-ries [crusht and pressed out]
A kind of men vnbridled, [wilde] subiect [or which abide]
Under Septentrio [or Charles waine, seuen stars trianglifide]
[Cold] Hyperborean [northerne blastes] and such [a people] is
Beaten with th' east Riphean winds [winds from Riphean hills:]
Their bodies couered be with haire like brussels hard of beasts,
[Of sheeps rough wooll] russet or li-on tawnie [coloured.]
If yarne for cloth be vnto thee a care, first thornie thickets
And burrs and brambles must away; shun pasture grounds too ranke,
[Or flie thou and auoid such food as maketh beastes too fat]
And choose or cull out presently [as quickly as thou canst]
The whitish flocks with softish wooll: but driue away the ram
(Though he be white) whose doong alone is blacke vnder the moist
Roufe of his mouth, least with his blac-kish spots he should make dim
Duskish and darke the fleeses of the growing [lambs,] and eke
Looke round about in feeld full [fraught with flocks] another ram.
O Luna, Pan of Arcadie the God deceiued thee
(If so be that it be a thing well worthie to beleeue)
With [such] a gift of snow white wooll [a ram with fleese snow white]
Calling thee into loftie woods; ne didst thou skorne him calling.
But he to whome the loue of [ha-uing] nilke [is a regard]
Let him beare in his hand vnto the sheepcotes Cythise [shrub]
And Lotos [leaues] full oft, and sal-ted herbs or weeds [likewise]
Hereby they loue water the more, and stretch their dugs the more,
[By this means doo they drinke the more, and doo yeeld milke the more]
And giue a secret smacke or taste of saltnes in their milke.
Many keepe off or driue away the full growne kids from dams,
[Doo waine them] and make fast the foreparts of their lips with strings
Wrought full of yron nailes [to pricke the teat and so be waind.]
Many doo presse at night that which they milke at rising sun
And hours by day [before noonetide] and carrie out in baskets
Yer day that which [they milkt] by the darke night and setting sun,
The shepheard goes to villages and townes [to sell the same:]
Or else they touch and season it with sparing [thriftie] salt,
And lay it vp in store for win-ter [when as milke is skant,]
Ne may the care of dogs be last [or least regard] to thee,
But feede together like fat whelps of Sparta [countrie] and
The fearce Molosson [countrie] cur, with whey [to make them] fat:
And thou shalt neuer feare, they being keepers [of thy beasts]
The night theefe in thy folds or stalls, and runnings in of wolues,
Or discontented [Spaniards] Iberians at thy backe.
Thou also oftentimes shalt driue in chase fearfull wilde asses,
The hare with hounds, and thou shalt hunt the fallow deere with dogs,
And chasing wild bores driuen from their wallowing puddels [fowle,]
Thou shalt them rowse with barking [of thy hounds] and shalt compell
And force with yolping noise [of them] vnto thy trapping nets
Ouer the mounteins hie a huge and mightie stag or bucke.
Learne thou to kindle in thy stalls [places to keepe thy beasts]
Sweet smelling Cedar wood, and driue away the noisome serpents
Chelydri with the smokie smell of Galbanum [that gum:]
Either the viper dangerous and euill to be taught
Lurkes oft in stables [full of doong] vnstird [and seldome clensd]
And being fraid auoids the heauen [or shuns the light so cleere:]
Or else the adder woonted and accustomed to go
Into the couert [of the shade] a cruell place of oxen,
[And woont also] to sprincke hir strong poison vpon cattell,
Dooth sit abrood vpon the ground [dooth couch vnto the earth.]
Thou shepheard [or thou husbandman by fortune finding such]
Take stones in hand, catch cudgils [clubs] and throw or strike [the same]
Lifting aloft his angry threates and hissing necke all swolne,
Euen now when he by skipping thense hath hid his fearfell head
Deepe [in some hole] and when his mid-dle winding and the rownds
Of his tailes and are loosd, and the last ring or circle drawes
Slow windinges [when his head is hid, and middle parts are loose
From hindmost parts and stretching out his body, seeming dead.]
That snake also [Chelydrus] hurtfull in Calabrian woods
Folding his skalie backe toge-ther with brest lifted vp,
And spotted all the bellie long with specks great and large,
Which [worne] whiles any streams are bro-ken out of running springs,
And whiles grounds moistoned be in spring-time wet and waterish
With raine southerne winds, dooth hunt the standing waters, and
Dwelling or keeping on banckesides, this serpent [mischeefous]
Dooth fill his fowle blacke gorge with fish, & speaking [croking] frogs,
After the fen is drawne out drie, and ground with heat doo gape,
He leapes out on drie land, and wrething round his flaming eyes
Tyranniseth, or practiseth great crueltie in feelds,
Eger with drowght and fraid with heat. It may not please me then
To take sweet sleeps in open aire, nor on my backe to ly
Upon the grasse in woods; when he is new become againe
Hauing cast off his skin, and trick-sie trim with youth afresh
Is rolled hie or turnd against the sun, and wags himselfe
Or glistereth with a three edged toong in his [malicious] mouth,
Leauing at home in house his yoong-ling [serpents] or his egs.
I will thee teach the causes and the tokens of diseases.
The filthie scab dooth cumber sheepe, when cold and mistie raine
Hath setled and sunke deepe into the quicke, [life parts and bones]
And quaking winter with gray frosts, or sweat vnwasht away
Dooth cleaue vnto them being shorne; and when sharp pricking thorns
Haue rent or torne their bodies. Now therfore doo sheepmasters
Wash well and throughly all their beasts in [running] riuers sweet;
The ram also with fattie fleese, or moist and greasie wooll
Is diued often in the gulfe, and being let alone
[Or put into the streame] he down-ward swims with merie tide,
Or else [men] doo annoint and rub their bodies polld and shorne
With smarting dregs of oile, and they doo mingle therwithall
The spume of argent, sulphur quicke, [or brimstone naturall]
And pitch of trees on Ida hill, and fattish wax with grease,
And Scilla [onion of the sea] and heauie Hellebore,
And blacke Bitumen [lime of Iu-da lake or Syrian earth,]
But yet there is not any lucke of labours present more,
[No medcine of more redie helpe] than if so be a man
Could cut and lance or open with a knife the very mouth
Or vpmost part of rotten sore: the sicknes and disease
Or the corruption nourisht is, and liues by hiding it,
Whiles that the shepherd dooth deny to put to helping hands
Unto the wounds, or sitteth still beseeching gods [aboue]
All things the better [to befall]. Moreouer when as paine
being falln into the very bones [or marow closd within]
Of bleating sheepe outragious is, and when a feuer drie
[On lingering consumption] dooth cut away the lims,
It hath bene profitable to auert or turne away
The kindled heats, and for to strike a veine stuft full of bloud
Betweene the lowest hoofes [or sole and bottome] of the foot,
In maner as Bisalts [people in Macedonie]
And Gelons [people] fearce [in warrs] accustomd are [to doo]
When he doth flie to Rhodope [a hill in Thracia land]
And wildernesses of the Ghets [a people bordering there]
And drinketh milke thickned with bloud of horsses [or of mares.]
Auoid or take away with knife [or burning yron] the fault
[Or sicknes of that sheepe] which thou shalt see oft far behind,
Or [oftentimes] to goe into the gentle [pleasant] shade,
Or slowly cropping th' upmost [parts or tops of] grasse or weeds,
And hindermost or very last to follow [all the droue,]
And to giue place alone vnto the lateward [comming] night,
[Auoid I say the fault] before infection horrible
May creepe quite through or ouer all th' unwarie multitude
[Or flocke of sheepe not hauing wit to shun so shrewd a plage]
Ne doth a whirle winde forcing win-ter [storms or shours of haile]
In sea [or plaine fields] rush or fall so oft as many plages
Of beastes; ne doo diseases take their bodies seuerall,
But all [the cattell] suddenly summering [in shadie places,]
Yea th' hope [of flocke] and flocke at once [the yoong and old for brood]
And all the kind or sort of them euen from the very first.
If any man [had] then [behold] the mounteins [aierie Alps
Diuiding Italie from France and Germanie likewise.]
And Norike castels [built] on lit-tle hislocks, or the fields
Of Timaue [floud] in Iapis [of Venice being part]
And now also so long after should see the realms [or grounds]
Of shepheards made a wildernes, or vtterly forsaken,
And vp landes far and wide lie void: let that man vnderstand
[What I haue said before of beasts, all sicke at once, not some.]
A miserable tempest [or plage] sometimes arose
Heere [in this land] by sicknes or infection of the aire,
And burned [during] all the heat of haruest [burned sore
With feruent fits of feuers hot like heat of haruest time]
And gaue to death all kind of beasts and cattell tame and wild,
Corrupted ponds or lakes and poi-sond pastures with the rot:
Ne was the way of death all one [alike or naturall]
But when the fierie thirstines being forste to all the veins
had drawne away [or made to shrinke] their miserable lims,
A thin superfluous water did abound againe, and did
Draw all their bones togither falln by little and by little
With their disease: a sacrifice standing at th' altar oft
In th' honor of the gods among or in the midst of people,
Whiles that the woollen miter with a snow white fillet [or
a ribben] compassed or hembd about, hath fallen downe
Faintfull and like to die among the leasurable preestes:
Or if the sacrificer had slaine with a knife some [beast]
Before [it fell downe fainting] nor that th' altars burnd therwith
The bowels being laid theron: ne can the prophet giue
Or make his answeres being askt his counsell and aduise;
And kniues thrust in are skarsly staind and coloured with the bloud,
And vpmost stand is duskish made with matter leane and thin.
Hereby calues and yoong bullocks die in ranke grasse euery where
And yeeld their sweet liues vnto stalls full [of conuenient food]
Hereof coms madnes vnto fawn-ing dogs, the breathing cough
Dooth shake sicke swine and strangles them with fowle fat chops [big blowne]
The conquerous horsse vnluckie and vnmindfull of his gaines
And of his grasse falls [faintingly] and water springes refuseth,
And strikes the ground oft with his foot, his eares are hanged downe,
Sweat doubtfull [vpon cause vnknowne] is there, and the same [sweat]
In horsses truly like to die is cold, their skin is drie,
And being hard withall resistes the handler in the touching:
These signes they giue in the first dayes before their end and death.
But if the sicknes hath begun to be more raw and sore,
In processe or continuance, then firie be their eies,
Their breathing combersome is fetcht, sometimes with groning deepe,
And straine their inward bowels with much yexing [or long sobbing]
Blacke bloud out of their nosetrils goes, their rugged toong also
Doth put to paine their chaps shut close [not able to be open.]
It hath beene good and profitable to poure in at their mouth
With horne put thereinto the wine of [Bacchus] Lenæus;
That [helpe to] health one and alone was seene in dieng horsse:
And by and by againe the selfe same wine was to their death,
And being much amended with their madnesse [which doth seeme
T'affoord them strength and lustinesse, but lasts a little while]
They burned [more in frantike fits] and rent with their bare teeth
Their tatterd lims all torne, a while before their greeuous death.
The gods graunt good men better [lucke] and giue our foes that rage;
And lo the ox vnder hard plow smoking [with sweat] fals downe,
And vomits at the mouth his blood mingled with froth or fome,
And casteth vp his latter grones or gasps [and then he dies:]
The plowman he goes sad away, vnyoking th' other ox
Greeuing or sorrowing at his bro-thers death, and leaues the plow
Sticke fast in the midst of his worke; not shadows of the woods,
Not pleasant grasse can moue his mind, not riuer cleerer than
Amber, which being rold by rocks [or streaming thorow stones]
Romes to the feeld: but yet his sides below at nether parts
Are loosed [or be faint] and dul-nesse or else giddinesse
Oppresseth his ill sighted eies, his necke and head also
Doth waue vnto the ground with stoo-ping weight [down right yborn]
What good doth labour [taking paine] what doth well doing helpe?
What helps it to haue turned vp the ground with plough?
But how [coms it to passe?] for why, the Massike gifts of Bacchus,
[Wines comming of the grapes which grow on Massike mountein hie]
Haue not annoid ne hurt [those beasts] nor meat stord vp [oft eaten,]
For they are fed with leaues of trees, and food of simple hearbs,
Their drinks are running waters cleere, and riuers exercisd
With flowing, ne doth carefulnesse breake off their wholesome sleeps.
Folke say that oxen are desird or sought in those same coasts
For Iunos sacrifices at none other time [than when
They perish all: and folke do say] that coches driuen be
Unto the [gods] hie treasuries with buffs vnequall matcht.
Therefore do plowmen painfully breake vp or cleaue the ground
With mattocks, rakes or harrowes; and dig deepe or burie with
Their very nailes [or fingers ends] the corne [that serues for food]
And drag quite ouer mountains hie their creeking carts or wains
With stretched necke. The woolfe doth not watch [to lay] snares about
The sheepfolds, neither walks by night before the flocks of sheepe:
A care more eager tameth him. The fearfull fallow deere
And coursing bucks do wander then, and go among the hounds,
And all about mens houses the waues wash the brood of sea
Unmeasurable big, and all the kind of swimming fishes
On furthest [part of all the] shore like shipwracke carcases.
Unwoonted seacalues flit vnto the riuers or the flouds,
The viper also vainly fenst in crooked lurking holes
Dooth perish: so doo watersnakes or adders all amazd
With skales vpstanding. Th' aire is not vpright and iust to birds,
So that they headlong leaue their life vnder a loftie cloud.
Moreouer, neither dooth it skill, their meat now to be changed,
Meanes medcinable now doo hurt, maisters [phisicians]
Haue ceast [or giuen ouer th' art of phisicke, or be dead]
Chyron Phillyrides, and A-mythaon Melampus,
[Two famous old phisicians haue ceast to be, are dead.]
[The hellish hag] Tisiphone pale [faced] plaies the tyrant
And being sent from Stygian darck-nes [or the diuels lake]
Into the light abrode doth driue sicknes and feare before hir,
And rising vp she daily lifts aloft hir greedie head,
Riuers and bankes being drie: and hills which vpward lie [to heauen]
[Or mounteins hie] doo make a noise with bleating of the sheepe,
And often bellowinges or the mow-inges [both of ox and cow]
And now she makes a slaughter great by companies or troupes,
And heapeth vp within the stalls the carrions falln downe dead
With fowle consuming filthie rot, vntill men learne [the meanes]
To couer or to burie them within the ground, and eke
To hide them ouer head and eares in ditches or in pits.
For in their hides there was no vse [or profit to be found]
Nor any body able is to clense their bowels [flesh]
With water, [boile it in a pot and porridge make therewith,]
Or t'ouercome it with the fire, [make rostmeat of the same:]
Nor yet to sheere their fleeses ea-ten through with their disease
And running matter, neither can atteine vnto or get
A rotten web of cloth [of such vnseruiceable wooll.]
Moreouer if that any had made proofe or tride therewith
To make him hated garments, wheales and burning blisters too,
And nastie sweat did follow [and consume] his stinking lims,
Yea and Saint Ant'nies curssed fire [a plagie running sore]
Did eat in no long lingering time the ioynts togither shrunke.

The 4. booke of Virgils Georgiks, dedicated to Mecenas a right honorable gentleman, &c.

O [my ] Mecenas now will I dispatch forthwith [to shew]
The heauenly gifts or benefits of airie honie [sweet]
Looke on this peece [of worke] likewise [as thou hast on the rest]
I will declare to thee the sights or shews most wonderfull
Of things but light [namely of bees] and their couragious guides,
The maners, vsage and the drifts of all that [thriftie] kind,
Their people and their skirmishes in order [duly all:]
My labour is a little thing [a toy] but yet my praise
Or glory is not little, if the gods vngratious [shrewd,
Veiauis, Auerruncus, and Robigus with the rest]
Do suffer any [such assay] and if Apollo be-
ing cald vpon do heare me [and set forward this my worke.]
In primis for the bees a seat or standing must be got,
Whereto no passage for the winds may be (for why the winds
Do hinder them to carrie home their meat vnto their house)
Nor where the sheepe and skittish gotes [the lambs & wanton kids]
May often leape vpon the flours, or straieng cow in field
May strike away the dew, and weare or wast the rising hearbs,
Let painted lizzards [speckled newts] hauing foule filthie backs
Be far from their fat stals [full hiues] and eke the Meropes
And other birds, as Progne [the swallow] markt on the brest
With bloodie hands: for they do wast and spoile all things abrode,
And carrie in their mouth the fli-eng [bees] a pleasant meat
To their vngentle [rauening] nests [their yoong to feed therewith.]
But springs so cleere and standing waters growing greene with mosse,
A little riuer also run-ing by or through the grasse,
Must be neere to [their hiues] the palme or date tree, and the huge
Wilde oliue tree must ouer shade th' entrance [of their hiues,]
That when the new king bees shall lead out in their due spring time
The first swarms, and the yoong ones being sent abrode [let out]
Shall plaie and dallie with their ho-nie combs, the bancke neere by
Might then entise to go away from th' heat [into the shade,]
And that the tree full in their way might keepe and interteine
Them in their branching harborows [or bowghs full of greene leaues:]
Or if the water shall stand still, or if the same shall flow,
Cast willowes ouerthwart [a crosse] and big stones [therewithall,]
Into the midst [of all the wet] that there the bees may rest
As vpon bridges [placed] thicke together [or oft times]
And may spread all abrode their winges against the summer sun,
If that perhaps the violent ea-sterne wind shall scatter them
Lingering [abrode,] and them shall drowne in Neptune [waters wet]
Let Casia greene [those pleasant flours] and th' herbe calld Sauorie
Smelling most strong farre off [abrode] and store of Thymbra strong
Of sent; let them and this grow vp and flourish th' hiues about,
And let the banckes of violets drinke the moistening water springes;
But let thy very hiues themselues, whether the same be sowde
And made of hollow barkes, or wo-uen with bent ozier rods,
Let them haue narrow entrances: for winter with the cold,
Dooth thicken and make honie hard, as heat [in summer time]
Dooth soften and dissolue the same all molten and made thin.
Each violence and force is to be feard alike of bees,
Ne doo the bees in vaine besmeare and ouerdawb with wax
Most painfully who shall doo best, the little breathing holes
Within their hiues; and fill or stop the gaps the clifts or rifts:
With Fucus [that same reddish herb] and with [the leaues of] flours,
And they doo saue the glue [or gum] gathered [of flours and herbs]
To these same seruices and vse [which glue] more clammie is
Than birdlime, and the pitch of I-da [hill in] Phrigia [sand]
Bees also haue beene often to dig them houses in
Or vnderneath the ground (if the report hereof be true)
In holes digd open; and [they haue beene found] in pumish stones
All inward hollow, and within the truncke of eaten tree
Howbeit dawbe thou and annoint their lodgings full of clifts
[Their hiues] with [ox doong or with] mud [laid] smoothly [thereupon]
keeping them warme all round about, and cast vpon the same
Thin leaues [leaues thinly strewd, to keepe the mud or cow doong moist]
Ne suffer thou the yewghtree grow to neere vnto their houses,
Ne burne thou on a hearth red sea-crabs or red creuises,
Ne trust thou fennice waters deepe [nor let thy bees be] where
The smell of durt is noisome [strong,] or where the hollow rocks
With beating force [of waters] may resound and make a noise,
And where the likenes of the voice offended dooth rebound.
That which remaineth [is] that when the golden sun hath chaste
The winter being driuen away quite vnderneath the earth,
And hath vnshut or opened heauen with summers [pleasant] light
They passe through vplandes presently, and through woods they flie,
And they doo gather, reape or sucke the purple coloured flours,
And light [of body] they doo slip or taste the vpmost streames,
And being lustie hereupon, with what delight I know not,
They nourish and mainteine their brood, their nests or hiues also,
And hereupon they fashion out fresh or new wax by skill,
And make fast honie. Furthermore, when thou shalt see on hie,
A swarme let foorth or got abroad out of their [hiues or] rages,
Up to the stars of heauen [in th' aire] to swim [with ores of winges]
All summer cleere, and woonder shalt a darke clowd drawne to be
With windes, marke thou that alwaies then [bees] seeke sweet waters, &
Harbroughs of greenish leaues [abodes among the boughs of trees.]
Hereto [to this end] sprinckle thou iuces [which] bidden [be]
Bruzde Melilot and common grasse of Cerinth [or the leaues
But little woorth of honniesuck-els growing in the hedge]
And make a ringing [noise of ba-sons] and shake all about
The rattels of [Cybele] mo-ther of the gods aboue.
The bees will settle all at once vpon their sprinckled seats;
And of their owne accord will hide [or get] themselues within
Their inmost clossets [inward rooms] according to their vse.
But if they shall go foorth to fight (for discord creepeth oft
Betweene two kinges with great ado) [much stirre,] thou maist fore-know
Immediatly the peoples minds and trembling hartes in warre,
Long time [before they pitch the feeld.] For that same warlike noise
Of brasen trumpet hoarse in sound doth checke the [bees.] behinde
Abiding [in their hiues] and then a voice resembling [like]
The broken sounds of trumpets is heard [all among the bees.]
Then fearefull they together go, and meet among themselues
They glister, with their winges and shar-pen with their snowes their stings,
And fit their arms [to fight] and mingled are about their king
Thicke [thronging] and they go vnto their courts or seats of iudgment,
And call [or challenge] out their fo with great and mightie cries.
Therefore when they haue got a faire and cleere spring time, and [haue]
Obteined and got feelds large and wide, they rush out of the gates
And are in skirmish: then a sound is made in th' aire aloft;
And being mixt they gathered be into a great round heape,
And fall downe headlong; haile [fals] not so thicke out of the skie,
Nor so great store of akorns rain-eth downe from shaken oke.
[The king bees] through the midst of th' ar-mies [flie] with gallant wings,
[With wings like ensigns or like stan-dards in the campe displaid]
And they turne oft or exercise within their narrow brests
Great courages; with standing hard, [or minding not at all]
To yeeld, vntill the heauie con-queror compelled hath
These or else those to giue their backs turnd [to their foes] by flight,
These stirrings vp of courages, these skirmishes so great,
Shall cease prest downe with throwing on them but a little dust,
[For they will thinke that haile or raine doth fall out of a cloud.]
But after thou hast called home from battell both the guides
[The kings or capteins] put to death him which shall seeme the woorser,
Least he a spend all might do hurt: and suffer thou the better
[To liue] that he may rule in court or palace void [of fo.]
Th' one [of the kings, the best of two] shalbe bright burning red,
With shining speckles like to gold (for kinds of kings are twaine)
The better [king] is notable in face [or markt for making]
And passing gay with shining skales [well known by glistering specks,]
Th' other [king] illfauoured is, and rough with idlenesse,
And vnpraiseworthy drags his large brode belly all along.
As there are of the kings [of bees] two makings, fashions, forms,
So of the people [common bees] there are two bodies [shapes.]
For why some [bees] are [owglie] foule, illfauoured and rough:
As when a thirstie traueller coms out of the deepe dust,
And spitteth with his mouth so drie vpon the [dustie] ground
Some other bees do shine and gli-ster with a brightnesse cleere,
Shining like gold [and haue] their bo-dies dasht with euen drops,
[Marked with spots of equall size] this is the better brood:
From hense in due time of the yeare, or at a certeine season,
They shall presse out sweet honie, nor so much pleasant and sweet
As clarifide or cleere from dregs, and like [t'amend or] tame
Th' hard tast of Bacchus [or of wine, of sharpe wine making sweet.]
But when the swarms do flie astray, and in the aire do play,
And care not for their honicombs, and leaue their houses cold;
Thou shalt withdraw or stay their wa-uering minds from vain pastime.
To stay their play is no great toile. Take from the kings their wings,
And none of them will beare them bold to go a iornie hie,
[To flie aloft in th' aire] or pull the standard from the campe
[To go abrode on skirmishing] their kings abiding home.
Let gardens breathing out or smel-ling sweet with saffrone flours
Entise bees to them, and let the keeper of theeues and birds
With willow [wand like] reaping hooke [let him which is] the gard
Of Priap borne in Hellespont saue gardens from annoy.
[The husbandman] himselfe from lof-tie mounteins bringing thime
And pinetree leaues, and he to whom such things are in regard,
Let him plant largely round about the houses of the bees
[Sweet thime and pinetrees] let him fret or weare away his hand
With labouring hard, and let him fast-en frutefull sets in ground,
And water them with friendly shores [the better for to grow.]
And truly but that I would now draw downe or strike my sailes,
A little while before the last end of my toils and pains,
And that I would make hast to put my prore into the land:
I would perhaps declare what care of husbanding the ground
Might beautifie ranke gardens and the rosetrees of [the towne]
Pestus [in Calabrie] which bea-reth roses twise a yeare:
And how [the hearbe] Intyba should ioine with riuers [moisture] droonk
And greenish banks with Apium, and how the Cucumber
Writhen among the weeds or hearbs should grow into a bellie,
[To haue a bellie:] neither would I haue had held my peace
And said nothing of Narcisse [floure] but slowiy bearing leaues;
And twigs of Acanth bowd and bent, and iuie pale or white,
And myrtle trees louing sea shores [neere to the which they grow.]
For I remember I haue seene vnder the loftie towrs
Of [Tarent towne] Oebalia cald, where blacke Galesus [floud]
Doth wet and water tilled lands, growne yellow [with ripe corne.]
An old Corician fellow [of the towne Coricus cald]
To whom a few acres of land forsaken [did befall]
That soile was neither frutefull for cattell, nor fit for sheepe,
Nor seruiceable vnto Bac-chus [for vines bearing grapes]:
And yet he planting painfully among the thorns and bushes,
Hearbs thinly here and there, with white lillies [set] round about,
And Ueraine too with poppie fit for food [or sparely eaten:]
This man in mind did match the welth of kings [was thought as rich,]
And comming home within late night he furnished his table
With meats vnbought: in spring time he did gather roses, and
In haruest time apples and frutes: so that when winter sad
Did now burst stones with frost and cold, and brideled [staid] with yce
The course of waters: then did he part off or cut away
Fresh leaues of new sproong Acanth, he rebuking oftentimes
The lateward summer, and the loi-tring westerne winds also.
Therefore the same [old man was woont] t'abound with breeding bees,
With many a swarme likewise, and out of crushed honicombs
To gather foming honie, and to him the Tilie tree
And pinetree was most plentifull: and with how many frutes
Each frutefull tree had clothed it selfe in floure and blossome fresh,
So many ripe frutes did that man possesse in haruest time.
He also did remoue and set asunder lateward elms
[Elms slowly growing] in good sort by leuell and by line.
[Elms ranke by ranke or row by row, in order iust and right,]
And pearetrees hard, and slo trees bea-ring damsons now [not sloes,]
The planetree also giuing shade to folks drinking [therevnder,]
But I bard [from the like] by mine vnequall length [of life
Or space of time far od to his] do ouerpasse these things,
And leaue the same to be rehearst by other men hereafter.
Now go to then, I will dispatch [or tell] the qualities
Or nature which god Iupeter hath giuen vnto bees,
For which reward they following the tinckling sound of the
Curetes [folke of Candie land] and ratling basons noise,
Haue worshipped the god of heauen in the Dictean caue.
The bees alone haue their yoong ones bred common of them all,
The houses of their cities they as partners haue and hold,
And often lead their liues vnder great lawes and gouernment;
They only know their countrie and their certeine dwelling houses,
And being mindfull of the win-ter comming they take paines
And fall to worke in sommer time; and they lay vp in store
Their gettings for the common vse and profit of them all.
For some do watch and toile for liuing, and are occupide
In feelds vpon a bargaine or a league betweene them made:
Some other lay within the bounds or fenses of their houses
The iuice of Narcisse, and the clam-mie gum from barke of tree,
The first foundation of their ho-nicombs: and afterwards
They hang or fasten therevpon wax sticking hard thereto.
Some other bring abrode the yoong ones now at perfect growth,
The hope of all the flocke [or swarms:] others do thicken the
Finest and purest honie, and stretch out the little holes
Of their sweet honicombs with ho-ny liquid passing cleere.
Others there be vnto whose lot warding at gates befals,
And they by turns do watch the raine and tempests of the wether;
Or else they take the burthens of the bees then comming home,
Or else with armie redie made, they driue away from hiues
The drones, a lazie beast: their worke is hot [well plide] and their
Sweet sauouring honie giues a smell or casts a sent with thime.
And as when the Cyclopes [folke some times of Sicilie]
Make vp in hast [Ioues] thunderbolt of softened yron lumps,
Some take in wind and let it out againe of bulhide bellowes,
Some others dig or quench the his-sing mettals in the water,
Ætna doth grone with stilthies set or placed therevpon,
They all among themselues lift vp their armes with mighty force
In order, and do turne th' yron with pinsers holding fast:
None otherwise (if that I may compare small things with great)
Doth loue bred in them [loue] of ha-uing honie greatly charge
The bees [about] Cecropia [towne] and euery one of them
With his owne office. And the towns [or hiues] are a regard
Or care vnto the greater growne, to fense their honicombs,
To make them houses Dedalan [most cunningly deuisd.]
The yoonger bees do get them home weary much within night,
Full in the legs of thyme, and they feed euery where vpon
[The flours or leaues of] shrubs, and willows greene and gray,
And vpon Casia, Safron red, and on ranke Tilie tree,
And duskish coloured hyacinthe [of mingled blacke and red.]
One rest from worke is vnto all, one labour vnto all,
[They all do go to worke at once, and all leaue off at once,]
They rush out at the gates in the morning, no wher's delay,
Again, when Uesper [th' euening star] hath warnde them at the last
Out of the feelds from feeding to depart, then go they home,
Then cherish they their bodies, then a noise is made, then they hum
Or buz about the bounds, or th' en-trances of all their hiues.
Then afterwards when they haue laid themselues at rest in bed,
Ther's silence far within the night, and euery bees owne sleepe
Possesseth all their weary lims, ne go they far abrode
From their abodes, a shoure of raine hanging and like to fall,
Or trust vnto the skie at com-ming neere of th' easterne winds,
But watered be safe all abouts vnder their citie wals,
And do aduenture little walks abrode, and oft take vp
Small stones [wherwith they might be born against the force of winds]
As wauering botes take grauell in a rough tide tossing them:
Herewith they beare them leuell through the void and cloudie aire,
Thou wonder wilt this custome to haue pleased bees so much,
That they toke not a lewd delight in th' act of breeding yoong,
Nor being sluggish let their bo-dies loose to Venus lust,
Nor bring foorth yong with pangs and fits; but they do gather vp
Their yoong ones with their mouth out of sweet herbs, sweet flours and
They make substantially their king and Quirits [courtiers] small,
They do reforme their palaces, their waxen realms they stablish,
They oft in straieng haue rubd out or worne away their wings
Against hard rocks, and willingly haue giuen vp the ghost,
[And died] vnderneath their lode: so great a loue of flours
So great a pride and praise of making honie [is in them.]
Therefore although a space of life but short them interteins
(For not more then a seuenth sum-mer it is sayd they liue)
Yet neuer dieng doth their race and progenie remaine,
The fortune of their house abides and standeth many yeres,
And grandfathers of grandfathers are numbred [them among.]
Moreouer Ægypt and great Li-dia land, nor people of
The Parthians or Hidaspes floud in Media doo not all
So much preserue and reuerence their king [as bees do theirs.]
The king in safety and good health, one mind is in them all
But being lost, they breake their faith, and pull asunder quite
The honie hoorded vp in hiues, and loosed, haue [vnbound]
Or broken all the frames or wat-tels of their honicombs,
[The king bee] he is keeper of the works, at him they wonder,
They all stand round about him with a buzzing thicke [or they
Stand thicke about him humming] and a great sort met together
Gard him, and often lift him vp, and beare him on their shoulders:
Their bodies they throw oft into the wars, and do desire
A fayre and glorious death by wounds [susteined for his sake.]
Some folke by these [aforesaid] signs, and following these examples,
Haue said there is a portion of a godlike mind or nature
And heauenly spirit [or airie breath and life] in bees [to rest,]
For they haue sayd that god doth go through countries al and lands,
And tracts or coasts of sea, and th' aire or heauen hie and deepe,
That beasts and cattell, men and all the kind of beasts so wild
And euery one of them being bred to fetch their breathings thin
[Their slender little liues] from hense [from god that's all in all.]
Know this [also that they haue said] all things againe to be
Restored hither afterwards [ended to be in god]
And euery thing resolued [or parted asunder by
The separation of the soule and body in a moment]
To be surrendred vp againe; nor place to be for death,
But all aliue to flie into the number of the stars,
And so t'approch and clamber vp into the loftie heauen.
If thou wilt empty and vnstop at some conuenient time
Their stately seat of treasures, and preserued honie there;
First warme thou in thy mouth some draughts of water spurted on,
And hold before thee in thy hand smokes following one another:
[Before thou take the honie out, spurt water with thy mouth
Upon the hiues, that fearing raine they may keepe all within;
Then afterwards put smoke to them, till some be chokt and dead,
Then maist thou take the honie out, and when the same is gone
The swarms may not be suffred to liue all in the hiue,
For in the winter they will die and starue for lacke of meat.
They gather twise within the yeare [in spring and haruest time]
Their great increase and heauie lodes of honie, and they haue
Two times of reaping it, that is immediatly when as
Taigete Pleias [one of the seuen stars cald Pleiades]
Doth show hir faire and honest face vnto the land, and when
She hath pusht backe with foot the skor-ned waues of Ocean sea:
Or when the same Taigete shun-ning Piscis waterish star,
Is gone downe somewhat sad from heauen into wet winters shores.
In bees is anger out of woont, and being hurt they spit
Out venim at their biting mouths, and leaue blind stings behind
Fast sticking in the veins, and in their wounds they put their liues,
[For take away their stings, and then their death oft times insues.]
But if thou shalt suspect and feare a winter hard and long,
And so wilt spare for time to come, and wilt haue pitie of
The bruzed harts or courages and broken state [of bees:]
What man would doubt then to perfume [& smoke their hiues] wt thime
Or else to cut and pare away the void superfluous wax.
For oft the newt vnknowne or vn-perceiued eats away
The honycombs: and bees are made, or neasts are heaped vp
For moths which flie away from light, the drone or waspe also
Partaker of no worke, and sitt-ing still at others meat,
[Sitting still idle and scotfree, deuouring others food]
Or else the stinging hornet hath thrust in himselfe [among
The bees] with weapons far vnlike [the weapons of the bees:]
Or else a shrewd curst kind of moth, or else the spider fowle,
Hated of Pallas, hath hoong vp hir slacke nets at the doors.
How much the more the bees shalbe th' emptier, so much they
More eagerly will busie be t'amend and to restore
The ruins and the losse of their own kind decaid and spent,
And will fill vp their hatches [their storehouses or their hiues]
And weane or make their [garners] barnes [or honicombs] with flours.
If so be that their bodies shall languish and pine away
With sicknes sad (because indeede their life but short hath brought
Our chances and misfortunes vnto bees) which thing thou maist
Perceiue and know by certaine signes and tokens void of doubt:
Another colour presently is in them being sicke,
Il fauoured leannesse dooth signifie their face and countenance,
Then beare they foorth out of their house [or hiues] the bodies of
[The bees] which backe both light and life, & moorning burialls make,
Or being cloong or clustered together by the feet
They hang at th' entringes of the hiue [they hang at th' entrings in
Tangled and wrapt about the feet] or else they all abide
Loitering within their houses shut, and idle doo become
With famishment, and sluggish too with cold procurd and caught,
Then is their sound heard heauier and trailingly they hum:
Euen as sometimes the cold southwind dooth blow among the woods,
And as the troubled sea dooth make a noise with surging waues,
And as a fier fearce dooth burne with hollow sound within
Shut fornaces or ouens close: here [or in such a case]
I will perswade and counsell thee to burne or set on fire
The smells [or gums] of Galbanum; and I will counsell thee
Emboldening of thine owne accord the wearie bees, and eeke
Calling them vnto meats acquainted and well knowne to them,
To bring [into their hiues for them] honie in pipes of reeds;
It will be profitable eeke to mingle thereunto
The bruzd and beaten smell of gall, and roses dride [in sun]
Or else new wines boild with much fier [or sod to the third part]
Or raison bunches of [the grapes which grow on] Psythian vine,
And thime Cecropian, and likewise strong smelling Centaurie.
There is also in medow grounds a floure, vnto the which
Old husbandmen haue giuen the name Amellum [commonly]
An herbe full easie [to be found] of them that seeke [the same,]
For it dooth raise a mightie wood [it giueth vp great store
Of leaues and stalkes out of one root] out of one greenish turfe,
[The floure] it selfe is coloured like gold, but purple hew
Of violet blacke dooth somwhat dus-kishly shine in the leaues,
Which being very many, are spred round about [the floure]
Th' altars of the gods are deckt and garnisht oftentimes
With wreaths or garlands knit [or tide together with a threed]
The taste thereof is sharpe in mouth: shepherdes doo gather it
In vallies mowne [not wooddie] neere vnto the crooked streames
Of Mella floud in Gallia. Boile thou in sauorie wine
The roots hereof, and set the same as meat [vnto the bees]
Euen at the doores of [all] their hiues, in wicker baskets full.
But if so be that all the brood shall faile some bodie on
The sudden, neither shall he haue [some left] whereof the stocke
Of a new race might be calld backe [and kept from cleene decay:]
It's time to open and declare th' inuentions and deuises
Of Aristey th' Arcadian ma-ster woorth remembring [there,]
And by what meanes fowle bloud [vncleane] hath often brought foorth bees
In bullocks lately slaine: I will dispatch and quickly shew
The whole report from farre, rehear-sing it from first beginning.
For [all] the country from that part] wherein the wealthie people
Of Canop Pelley [towne] doo dwell hard by the riuer Nile
Watering [all Aegipt] with his streames let out [into the land]
And carried is about his grounds in painted gallefoistes,
And where [the riuer Nile] dooth force the bordering places of
[The countrie] Persis armd with bowes and arrowes in their quiuers,
And where it maketh frutefull Ae-gypt greene with his blacke sand,
And falling with a streame it run-neth diuers waies into
Seuen sundrie mouths or entringes in, the riuer being borne
Or carried downe perforce by wa-ters [stained] coloured blacke:
All that same land dooth lay their health in this same art and trade.
A little roome and hired for the turne is chosen first,
This doo they close and stop with tiles of narrow ridged house,
[Roofe tiles that couer house tops] and with streict and narrow walles,
They make thereto foure windowes with the light let in a slope
[Not full outright] from all the foure windes [east weast north & south.]
Then is a bullocke bowing hornes in forehead two yeares old
Sought for his nosetrils twaine and eeke the breathing of his mouth
Is stopt, he strugling very much, and killd with blowes and banges
His fleshly partes all bruzd and champt are loose and slacke within
His skin or hide [in euery place remaining] whole and sound:
And so they leaue him lieng in the closet [or shut place]
And vnderneath his ribs they lay bowes broken from the tree,
And Thime, and Casia fresh and greene [or newly gathered]
This feat is doone the westerne windes first driuing water streames,
[In the beginning of the spring] yer medow grounds be red
With colours fresh, and yer the chattering swallow hangeth vp
Hir nest vpon the rafters of the house. In the meane time
His moisture being made luke warme within his tender bones
Becommeth hot and fries, then beastes to be beheld and seene
Are mingled in strange sorts, they lacking at the first their feet,
And flickering with their winges anon, and take in more and more
Thin aire [they gather life] vntill at last they haue all broke
[Out of their hide:] euen like a shoure of [violent] raine powrd out
Of summer cloudes, or like to shaftes, the bowstring driuing them,
If that the Parthians light of foot at any time doo enter
The first conflicts and skirmishes [or giue the first onset.]
O muses you tell me what god, what god hath beaten out
This art, this running trade for vs, from whense hath this same new
Practise or triall [made] of men caught entrance [tooke beginning,]
The shepheard Aristey forsaking and auoiding quite
Penneian Tempe [paradise in Thessalie, about
Which pleasant places run the streames of Peney christall floud]
He, when his bees were lost with slaknes and with famishment
(As the report dooth go) stood sad and pensife at the head
Of this same holie riuer, where it hath the highest rise,
[By Pindus hill where he dooth take his first rise or beginning,]
Complaining much, and talking to his mother in this speech.
O mother mine Cyrene, which doost dwell in and possessest
The bottoms deepe of this same gulfe, to what end hast thou bred
And borne me hated of the fates and heauenly destinies?
[I comming] of the high and noble linage of the gods?
(If that Apollo Thimbrey be my father as thou saist
And bearest me in hand:) whither, or to what place is thy
Loue towardes vs driuen from thee? why didst thou bid me hope
For heauen? [to be receiu'd into the number of the gods?]
Lo I forsake and leaue, thou being mother vnto me,
This present pompe and honour of mens mortall life, the which
My skilfull [and my painfull] keeping of frutes and of beastes
Had skarsly beaten out for me [prouided for my sake]
Proouing and trieng euery thing. But go to if so great
An yrksomnes or wearinesse of my renowne hath caught thee
[Then] root and pull thou vp with hand the frutefull woods, and bring
Into the stalls [for cattell, or into the roomes of store]
Mischeefous sier; and kill the corne ripe [redie to be rept]
Burne vp yoong plantes new growne, and thrust thy strong two edged knife
Or twibill in among my vines [spoile all thinges that I haue.]
But [she] his mother did perceiue [and heare a mornefull] sound
Under [the channel or] the bed chamber of the deepe floud,
The nymphs about hir they did card or toose Milesian fleeses
[Wooll of Miletus citie] and stained or died in
A deepe and soking colour [like to] glasse, [or died in
A colour Saturan like glasse, in Saturum a towne
Or citie in Calabria a part of Italie]
The nymphs I say, Drymo by name, Pantho and Ligea,
And Phyllodoce with their gay and gallant goldilockes
Spred all about their necks so white, the nymphs Nyseæ, and
Spio, Thalia, Cidipe, and Cymodoce too,
And yellow haird Lycoris, th' one a virgin, th' other none.
Then hauing tride and felt the first labours of Lucin [or
The panges of bearing child, where of Lucina hath the rule,]
The nymphs Clio, and Beroe hir sister, and the two
Oceanitides [or daugh-ters of Oceanus]
Both girt about or clothd in gold and spotted skins [of Hinds]
The nymphs Ephire and Asia, Opis and Deiopeia,
And Arethusa swift with hir arrows put vp at last:
Among which nymphs Clymene told the vaine and needles eare
Of Vulcan [for his Venus] and the craftie slights of Mars,
And pleasant thefts or stolne delights [twixt bawdie Mars and hir.]
And she [Clymene] reckoned vp the thicke [and threefold] loues
Of all the gods from Chaos [or from the worlds first beginning,
When all thinges were a shapeles lumpe] with which discourse or verse
Whiles they being caught with ioy do twist and roll down yarne so soft
Upon their spindles, then afresh the lamentation of
[The foresaid] Aristeus droue into his mothers cares,
And all the nymphes amazed were vpon their glassie seats.
But Arethusa she foreseeing thinges before the rest,
Did lift hir yellow head aboue the water vppermost,
And farr off [thus she spake and sayd:] O Cyren sister mine,
Not all in vaine abasht at so a great and groning noise,
[Sith Aristey himselfe full sad, thy greatest care to thee
Stands weeping at the waters side of Peney [floud] thy father
[And his grandfather] and dooth call the cruell [curst] by name.
Hereat [Cyrene] mother [of the foresayd Aristey]
Smitten in mind with fearfulnes vnwoonted, rare, and strange,
Saith [thus to Arethuse,] Go to, bring, bring him vnto vs,
It's lawfull for the man to touch the thresholds of the gods
[To enter into their abodes] and there withall she bids
The riuers deepe to passe away [and to depart from thense]
Where [Aristey] the yoongman should set in his foot [and steps.]
Then did the water of the floud stand round about the man
Bowd crooked in the fashion of a mounteine [steepe] or hill,
And interteind or tooke him in his [chanell] bosome huge,
And put him vnderneath the streame. And now he went [this way]
Much woondering at his mothers house and at hir waterie realms,
And at the lakes shut vp in caues, and at the sounding woods,
And being made abashed with the mightie moouing of
The waters, he beheld all riuers falling vnderneath
The great [large] earth and seuered assunder in their places:
The riuer Phasis, Lycus floud, from whense Eniphey deepe
Breakes out and shews his head at first. [And Aristeus saw]
From what place father Tiberine [th' old riuer Tiber flowes]
From whense the streames of Amiene riuer doo proceed,
And Hypanis making a sound or noise among the stones,
And Caiycus which currently dooth run by Mysia land,
And eke Erydanus [that floud] golden on both his hornes,
And with a bulls face [hauing two bancksides much like two horns,
Golden or rich, because thereon great store of cattell feed,
Or rather towns and cities stand: bull fast, because it rores
Or counterfets a bull in voice, with rough streames in their course:]
Than which Erydanus none other riuer flows or runs
More violent into the sea of [skie or] purple hewe
Through fallow grounds [ranke medowes, by the toile of husbandrie.]
After that Aristey] was come within the roofe of the
Bed chamber [of Cyrene] hang-ing all with pumish stone,
And that she knew the vaine and needles weeping of hir sonne,
Hir sisters naturall in or-der giue or serue his handes
With faire spring water, and they bring towels with nap shorne off
[The floow or roughnes shorne away for feare to hurt his handes,]
Some furnisht and doo lode the boord or tables all with meat,
And set on pots brimfull afresh: th' altars they grow great
And are incenst or set on fier with Panchay [country wood.]
And mother Cyren spake and sayd; Take thou these quaffing cups
[Full] of Meonian Bacchus [or wine made in Lydia land,]
And let vs offer sacrifice to god Oceanus.
And herewithall Cyrene prayes to god Oceanus
The father of all thinges and to the sisters nymphs also,
A hundred which keepe woodes, and eeke a hundred which keep flouds:
Thrise powred she and all bewasht the burning Vesta [fire
Or sacrifice] with pure sweet wine: and therewithall the flame
Being cast vpwardes shined thrise to the top of the house:
With which good token [luckie signe, that hir oblation was
Receiued of the gods, whose grace was present in that place]
She boldening hir mind dooth thus begin [to tell hir tale.]
One Proteus a prophet of the sea, is in the gulfe
Carpathian [of Carpathos ile confronting Aegipt land]
Of Neptuns [realme a portion] which Proteus measures out
Or ouerswims the sea so huge [borne] vpon fishes [backes]
And in a coch or waggon of two footed horsses yookt:
This Proteus now is gone to see the ports of Aencathie,
[Th' hauens of Thessalia, and Pallene likewise
His natiue countrie, him doo we thy nymphs adore and worship,
And so dooth aged Nereus too [the god of th' Ocean seas:]
For why, that prophet knowes all thinges: which be, haue bene, & may
Prolonged be to come hereafter, or eftsoones, anon,
For truly it hath so seemd good to Neptuns grace, whose huge
Or monstrous cattell and ill fauoured sea calues he doth feed
Under the gulfe. This prophet O my sonne is to be caught
[And cast] of thee in bonds before [thou aske him any thing]
That he may tell thee redily all causes of diseases,
And that he may make prosperous the falling out of thinges:
For without force [doone vnto him] he will giue no precepts,
[No rules of reason] neither maist him bend or moue by praieng:
And therefore lay hard violence vpon him being caught,
Constraine and tie him hard with bondes, his vaine deceipts & guiles
Shall broken be and void become: by this meanes at the last
I mine owne selfe will lead thee in vnto the secret walkes
Of th' old man then, when as the sun hath kindled middle heates:
[At noonetide] when as hearbes be drie and thirstie, also when
The shadow is more welcome and delightfull vnto beastes:
Whereto [I meane those secret walkes] th' old man himselfe alone
Tired and wearie with the waues withdrawes and takes himselfe,
That thou maist easily come vpon him being fast asleepe.
But when thou shalt hold and possesse him caught by handes and bonds,
Then diuerse shews and likenesses and faces of wild beasts
Shall thee beguile: for suddenly he will become a hog
Rough brisled, and a tiger blacke, a dragon full of skales,
And also a she lion with a darkish yellow necke:
Or else he will giue out a shrill and crackling noise of fire,
And so will scape out of his bondes, or being slipt aside
He will go quite away from thee, into the waters thin.
But how much more he shall disguise and change himselfe into
All likenesses, so much the more my sonne tie hard his bonds
To hold him fast, vntill he shall be such a one [in shape]
His body being changed, as thou sawst him [at the first]
When as he closd and couered his eyes with sleepe begun:
[At thy first comming vpon him when he began to sleepe.]
This spake Cyrene, and withall she dasht or cast abrode
A sauour of Ambrosia pure [an euerlasting iuce]
Wherewith he did annoint and soke the body of hir sonne
All ouer, and the sweetish aire or wind [full of the sent]
Blew vnto him, this haire therwith being combd and neatly drest:
And so an able liuelinesse, or liuely ablenesse
Entred and came into his lims. A mightie hole or caue
There is in the side of an hill eaten and worne away,
Whereto much water driuen is with wind, which water cuts
Or parts it selfe in windinges or in turninges beaten backe,
[At creekes reflowing, past the which the water cannot go]
Which water sometime was a standing or a rode most safe
For seamen caught and ouerreacht [in fowle and stormie weather:]
Within this [caue] doth Proteus hide himselfe, a stop or let
Of a most huge and mightie stone [lieng at mouth thereof.]
The nymph [Cyrene] placeth heere the yoong man Aristey
Within the lurking hole he be-ing turned from the light,
[Standing aside from the caues mouth whereat the light came in,]
And she went backe againe farre off darkned with mistie clouds.
The [dog star] Sirius extreame hot [and fierie of influence]
Did shine like fier in the skie, scortching the thirstie Inds,
[A people hot and drie by meanes they are so neere the sun.]
The fierie sun likewise had swallowed vp halfe of the world,
[Had gone halfe of his daily course, midday was ouerpast]
Herbes withered and were drie, the beames [of sun] did boile and seeth
The hollow riuers made luke warme euen to the very mud,
Their mouthes being drie [and destitute of water to the brims.]
And when as Proteus went away out of the flouds, going
Unto his woonted caues: the wa-terish nation [fishes] of
The sea so huge leaping and skip-ping sprinckled far about
Him bitter dew [sea water which is bitter in the taste:]
And sundry sea calues lay themselues along vpon the shore
A sleepe, [For as they vse the sea, so doo they haunt the land]
Then [Proteus he] himselfe sat downe full in the midst [of his
[Great troopes of fishes] on a recke, and reckons them by number:
Euen as the keeper of a herd sometime dooth count [his beastes]
Upon the hills, when th' euening star dooth bring the bullocks home
Unto the house from feeding, and when lambs being heard of wolues
Doo whet or set their teeth on edge with bleatinges [that they make.]
Of [taking] which [sayd Proteus] because there was so fit
Occasion and easie leaue offred to Aristey,
He scarsly suffred th' old man to refresh his weary lims,
[Or lay them downe to take some rest] but rusht vpon him with
A great outcrie, and holds him fast with manicles [or bonds
Bound fast about his arms and hands] he lieng all along.
So [Proteus] not vnmindfull then of his deceiptfull art,
On th' other side dooth counterfet, disguise and change himselfe
Into all woonderments of thinges [maruelous likenesses]
As into fire, dredfull wilde beastes: and riuer running cleere.
But when into sight or subtiltie obteind and found him flight,
[When he could scape by no deceipt] and being ouercome
He came vnto himselfe againe [or tooke his owne right shape]
And at the last he spake with the mouth of a very man,
And said, O bloudiest of all youth, for who commanded thee
To come vnto our dwelling house? or what doost thou fetch hense?
But he said; O thou Proteus, thou knowest thy selfe, thou knowest,
Ne is it [granted] t'any man t'outreach thee by deceipt:
But cease thou and forbeare to will [or to be willing to
Beguile me with thy flights, or yet to know why I am come]
We hauing followed and obeied the gods commandements
Are come vnto this place t'inquire and aske of th' oracles
For thinges miscarried and lost. Then hauing sayd so much,
The prophet [Proteus] at these wordes [of Aristey] at last
With great inforcement rolld his fla-ming eyes with greiesh sight
And girning discontentedly, thus opened he his mouth
In oracles [he thus began the speeches of the gods.]
The wraths of no [base] god but high torments and vexeth thee,
Thou purgest and doost wash away fowle faults and great misdeedes.
Orphey a miserable man dooth raise vp these same pains.
And punishmentes for thee (but that the destinies doo withstand)
In no sort after thy desert [which hast deserued more]
And he dooth rage most greeuously for his wife caught away,
Whiles he indeede all headlong fled away from thee through flouds,
The yoong wife [but a wench in years] being neere vnto hir death,
Saw not among the weeds high growne [euen full] before hir feet,
[When she lookt backwards vpon thee] an adder measurelesse
Keeping the water banks [that none should come vnto the shore:]
So that the company of [nymphs cald] Driads of like age
[With Orpheis wife] did fill the high-est mounteins with their crie,
The Rhodopean hils did weepe, and high Pangean tops,
And Mars his countrie [in posses-sion now] of Rhesus [king,]
The Gets [a people and the floud cald] Hebrus, and also
Orithia Actias [an Athenien nymph was she:
All these bewaild Eurydice the wife of Orpheus,]
He then asswaging eager loue [his loue tormenting full]
With hollow lute or citerne [made first of a tortoise shell:]
O sweet wife he did sing of thee, of thee on shore alone,
Of thee at day [light] comming, and of thee at day departing,
This Orpheus entred [first] into the mouths Tenarian,
[The gaping holes of Tenarus, a brow of land that iuts
Into or ouerhangs the sea, and leadeth downe to hell]
The doors [or dongeons deepe] of Dis [or Pluto god of feends]
And so into a wood all darke with fearefull blacknesse, and
Then went he to the spirits and ghosts, and to the dreadfull king,
And so to harts that know not to wax gentle at mens praiers.
But yet the slender shadows [ghosts] being mou'd with Orpheis song,
Did go out of the lowermost seats of Erebus [or hell]
So did the likenesses of folks lacking the light [of life,
In count as many] as many thousand of birds do hide
Themselues in woods, when th' euening or a wet and winters shoure
Doth driue them from the hils. These [ghosts] are mothers, women wiues,
And husbands, and the bodies of couragious noble men
Dischargd of life, and boies also, and wenches neuer wedded,
And yoong men put in kindled fires, before their parents faces:
All which the blacke and durty mud, and foule ill fauoured reeds
Of Cocit riuer, and the fen not to be ouerflowne,
[Louelesse or vnbeloued] for his water flow and dull,
Dooth bind and tie in round about, and Stix [that hellish] lake
Pourd nine times in, or through nine rounds or circles holdeth in.
Moreouer, the hellish houses were astonnied, and so were
The lowest [deepest] Tartar [dark dongeons] of ougly death:
So were the [feends] Eumenides, hauing their haire be wrapt
And tangled all with blewish snakes; and gaping Cerberus
[The cur of hell] kept his three mouths from yolping, and the wheele
Of Ixion turning round [stird not] but stood still with the wind.
Now Orphey pulling backe his foot [out of th' infernall realme]
Had scaped all misfortunes, and Eurydice [his wife]
Was giuen to him againe; she came abrode in th' open aire
Following hir husband close behind (for why Proserpina
The queene of hell and hellish hags had giuen out this law)
When as a sudden sottishnesse or follie had surprizd
And caught th' unwary louer fast; a sottishnesse indeed
To be forgiuen and pardoned, if spirits knew to forgiue.
He stood still loitered] and alacke vnmindfull man was he,
And being ouercome in mind he looked backe vpon
Eurydice now [knowne] his [wife] somewhat before full light,
[So soone as he was come within the glymps of any light]
There all his [former] labour was quite ouerthrowne and lost,
The couenants of th' unmercifull tyrant [foule Pluto] burst,
A cracking noise or broken crie [of voices altogether]
Was heard three times frō th' Auerne flouds [infernal standing waters]
For now the feends reioised at Eurydices returne,
That they might heare old Orphey twang and sing vnto his lute.
Then she [perceiuing that she was going to hell againe
Cride out and] said; O Orphey, who hath cast me wretch away?
Who hath vndone thee sillie man? what madnesse, ah! so great?
Lo cruell destnies call me backe againe, and sleepe [of death]
Doth hide my swimming [dazeling] eies: and Orphey now farewell,
For I being compast with a great night [or a darknesse thicke]
Am borne away; and reaching out to thee, alacke not thine,
[No more thy wife] my feeble hands, said she: and therewithall
Eurydice did passe away and vanish out of sight
Upon the sudden into th' aire, as thin and slender smoke
Mingled [with wind] doth flit away [and scatter] diuers waies:
Ne saw she Orphey afterwards oft catching at hir ghost
In vaine [or to no purpose] and right willing to say much:
Ne did the ferriman of hell [Charon of Orcus floud]
Suffer this Orphey any more t'ouerpasse the lake
Laid full against [or iust betweene the liuing and the dead.]
What should he do? and whither should he beare himselfe on foot?
His wife being taken twise away: with what lamenting should
He moue the feends? or with what voice [should he intreat] the gods?
She truly swam now cold [and wan] in Stygian ferribote.
[Writers] auouch and say that he mourned full seuen months
In order [without rest] vnder a loftie rocke in th' aire,
Next to the water of the floud Strymon, forsaken [quite
Of people, by the means of fens which often drowne the land;
And they report] that he disclosd and vttered all these things
Under the cold and frosen caues, delighting with his song
The tigers [beasts vntamable] and making okes to moue.
[So wayled Orphey] as the dole-full [mourning] nightingale
Under the shadow of a pop-pler tree lamenteth much
Hir yoong ones lost, whom plowman hard [of hart] obseruing and
Watching, drew forth out of their neasts vnfledgd and fetherlesse:
But she [the dam] doth waile all night, and sitting on the bough
[From whense the neast was had] she doth renew hir note afresh,
And fils the places all abrode with hir mourning complaints:
No Venus [lust] no Hymeneis [new marriages] haue moou'd
Hir mind [the nightingals,] nor his, [Orpheis] who all alone
Did wander round about the [nor-therne] Hyperborean yse
[Or toasts hard frozen with the cold, and full of ysie flakes]
And Tanais floud all snowish [or all ouerlaid with snow]
And grounds at no time void of frosts vpon Riphean hils,
Lamenting his Euridice taken by force away,
And for the gifts of Dis made void [alacke by looking backe]
With which said gift [to wit a wife] the mothers [women] of
The Cicones [of Thracia a people] being skornd
And much despisd [of Orphey] they did drag and scatter him,
Being as then a youth torne all to peeces, ouer the
Wild feelds among the sacrifi-ces of the gods, and the
Night ceremonies [holy rites] of Bacchus, at what time
The floud Hebrus Oeagrius carrieng this Orpheis head
Pluckt from his whitish marble necke, did roll and tumble it
In the midst of the gulfe: his voice and toong both cold and wan
Did call Eurydice, alacke Eurydice poore wretch,
Hir sillie soule flitting away: the banks did sound againe,
[Did beat backe with a great rebound the name] Eurydice
All ouer Hebrus floud [where Or-pheis head did swim aflote.]
These words spake Proteus, and therewith he did betake himselfe
Into the deepe sea with a fling; and where he did be take
Himselfe, there turnd he round the foming water vnder the
Crowne of his head [or vnderneath the winding of the streame.]
But so did not Cyrene, for she of hir owne accord
Spake vnto fearefull [Aristey,] O thou my sonne [said she]
It's lawfull for to put away sad cares out of thy mind:
She [of whom Protey spake] is all the cause of sicknesses:
The nymphs also, with whom she prac-tisd danses in hie woods,
Haue sent destruction herevpon among bees; thou therefore
An humble sutor crauing peace [a poore petitioner]
Reach out thy presents and thy gifts [or offer sacrifice]
And worship thou the gentle Napes [the nymphs of flours and plants]
For they will giue good leaue vnto thy wishes and desires,
[Grant thy requests] and will asswage and qualifie their wrath.
But I will tell thee first what should or ought to be the maner
Or fashion of beseeching and praieng to them in order.
Choose out aside foure speciall ox-en [bullocks of the] best,
Of body peerelesse [excellent] and as many yoong kine
With necke vntoucht [of yoke] which now do feed [are fed] for thee
Upon the tops of Licey mount greene [growne and full of grasse:]
Reare vp also and place thou foure altars for those same beasts
Neere to the shrined temples of the goddesses, and then
Let foorth the sanctified blood out of their throtes, and leaue
The bodies of the bullocks in the wood full of greene leaues,
And after when the ninth morning shall shew hir risings vp,
Thou shalt send vnto Orpheus some ghostly sacrifice,
[Namely] forgetfull poppie [which doth cause forgetfulnesse]
And thou shalt kill a blacke sheepe, and shalt go to see the wood,
And shalt worship Euridice appeasd with a slaine cow.
[There was] no lingring or delay, but Aristey forth with
Goes to dispatch his mothers heasts and hir commandements:
He commeth to the shrined tem-ples, and he reareth vp
Th' altars shewne and told him [of his mother as before:]
He brings foure speciall oxen all of bodie excellent,
And as many yoong kine with necke vntoucht [of any yoke]
Then after, when the ninth morning had brought hir risings vp
[The ninth day following being come] Aristey sent vnto
Orphey a ghostly sacrifice, and went and saw the wood.
Here Aristey [and they with him] behold a sudden monster
[Bred suddenly] and woonderfull to be declard and told.
Bees for to buz and make a noise within and all about
The kines and oxens bowels, which were molten [putrifide,
Corrupt and rotten ouer all their bellie or their banch]
And with a heat to flie out of their broken ribs or sides,
And mightie clouds [or swarms of bees] together to be drawne,
And presently to meete in heapes, and flocke on top of trees,
And to let fall from bending boughes a cluster [of yoong bees.]
I [Virgill] did declare in verse these thinges concerning the
Good husbanding of fallow feelds, of cattell also, and
Concerning trees, whiles Cæsar great smites downe with thunderbolts
In battell [all his enimies] by deepe Euphrates floud,
And being conquerour he dooth giue out lawes through people all
Willing [t'obey him,] and prepares his way t' Olympus [hill,
He longeth and he lusteth for the path to paradise]
Parthenope [now Naples] sweete did nourse and foster me,
At that same time [of Cæsars wars] me Virgill flourishing
In exercises honourles of quiet rest and ease,
[How honourles? euen in regard of Cæsars warlike praise.]
[I am the man] which plaid [or writ in toiesh plaieng sort]
The verses of playne shepheards and [eeke I am very he]
Which [hauing] hardie [beene] and bold, in my yoong age haue soong
Of thee O Tityr [lieng] vnder shade of spreading beech.