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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=479705" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Eclogue 8: To Pollio Damon Alphesiboeus</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of Damon and Alphesiboeus now,<br>Those shepherd-singers at whose rival strains<br>The heifer wondering forgot to graze,<br>The lynx stood awe-struck, and the flowing streams,<br>Unwonted loiterers, stayed their course to hear-<br>How Damon and Alphesiboeus sang<br>Their pastoral ditties, will I tell the tale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thou, whether broad Timavus' rocky banks<br>Thou now art passing, or dost skirt the shore<br>Of the Illyrian main,- will ever dawn<br>That day when I thy deeds may celebrate,<br>Ever that day when through the whole wide world<br>I may renown thy verse- that verse alone<br>Of Sophoclean buskin worthy found?<br>With thee began, to thee shall end, the strain.<br>Take thou these songs that owe their birth to thee,<br>And deign around thy temples to let creep<br>This ivy-chaplet 'twixt the conquering bays.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Scarce had night's chilly shade forsook the sky<br>What time to nibbling sheep the dewy grass<br>Tastes sweetest, when, on his smooth shepherd-staff<br>Of olive leaning, Damon thus began.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">DAMON<br>'Rise, Lucifer, and, heralding the light,<br>Bring in the genial day, while I make moan<br>Fooled by vain passion for a faithless bride,<br>For Nysa, and with this my dying breath<br>Call on the gods, though little it bestead-<br>The gods who heard her vows and heeded not.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Ever hath Maenalus his murmuring groves<br>And whispering pines, and ever hears the songs<br>Of love-lorn shepherds, and of Pan, who first<br>Brooked not the tuneful reed should idle lie.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Nysa to Mopsus given! what may not then<br>We lovers look for? soon shall we see mate<br>Griffins with mares, and in the coming age<br>Shy deer and hounds together come to drink.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Now, Mopsus, cut new torches, for they bring<br>Your bride along; now, bridegroom, scatter nuts:<br>Forsaking Oeta mounts the evening star!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>O worthy of thy mate, while all men else<br>Thou scornest, and with loathing dost behold<br>My shepherd's pipe, my goats, my shaggy brow,<br>And untrimmed beard, nor deem'st that any god<br>For mortal doings hath regard or care.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Once with your mother, in our orchard-garth,<br>A little maid I saw you- I your guide-<br>Plucking the dewy apples. My twelfth year<br>I scarce had entered, and could barely reach<br>The brittle boughs. I looked, and I was lost;<br>A sudden frenzy swept my wits away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Now know I what Love is: 'mid savage rocks<br>Tmaros or Rhodope brought forth the boy,<br>Or Garamantes in earth's utmost bounds-<br>No kin of ours, nor of our blood begot.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Fierce Love it was once steeled a mother's heart<br>With her own offspring's blood her hands to imbrue:<br>Mother, thou too wert cruel; say wert thou<br>More cruel, mother, or more ruthless he?<br>Ruthless the boy, thou, mother, cruel too.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Now let the wolf turn tail and fly the sheep,<br>Tough oaks bear golden apples, alder-trees<br>Bloom with narcissus-flower, the tamarisk<br>Sweat with rich amber, and the screech-owl vie<br>In singing with the swan: let Tityrus<br>Be Orpheus, Orpheus in the forest-glade,<br>Arion 'mid his dolphins on the deep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.<br>Yea, be the whole earth to mid-ocean turned!<br>Farewell, ye woodlands I from the tall peak<br>Of yon aerial rock will headlong plunge<br>Into the billows: this my latest gift,<br>From dying lips bequeathed thee, see thou keep.<br>Cease now, my flute, now cease Maenalian lays.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus Damon: but do ye, Pierian Maids-<br>We cannot all do all things- tell me how<br>Alphesiboeus to his strain replied.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ALPHESIBOEUS<br>'Bring water, and with soft wool-fillet bind<br>These altars round about, and burn thereon<br>Rich vervain and male frankincense, that I<br>May strive with magic spells to turn astray<br>My lover's saner senses, whereunto<br>There lacketh nothing save the power of song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>Songs can the very moon draw down from heaven<br>Circe with singing changed from human form<br>The comrades of Ulysses, and by song<br>Is the cold meadow-snake, asunder burst.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>These triple threads of threefold colour first<br>I twine about thee, and three times withal<br>Around these altars do thine image bear:<br>Uneven numbers are the god's delight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>Now, Amaryllis, ply in triple knots<br>The threefold colours; ply them fast, and say<br>This is the chain of Venus that I ply.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>As by the kindling of the self-same fire<br>Harder this clay, this wax the softer grows,<br>So by my love may Daphnis; sprinkle meal,<br>And with bitumen burn the brittle bays.<br>Me Daphnis with his cruelty doth burn,<br>I to melt cruel Daphnis burn this bay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>As when some heifer, seeking for her steer<br>Through woodland and deep grove, sinks wearied out<br>On the green sedge beside a stream, love-lorn,<br>Nor marks the gathering night that calls her home-<br>As pines that heifer, with such love as hers<br>May Daphnis pine, and I not care to heal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>These relics once, dear pledges of himself,<br>The traitor left me, which, O earth, to thee<br>Here on this very threshold I commit-<br>Pledges that bind him to redeem the debt.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>These herbs of bane to me did Moeris give,<br>In Pontus culled, where baneful herbs abound.<br>With these full oft have I seen Moeris change<br>To a wolf's form, and hide him in the woods,<br>Oft summon spirits from the tomb's recess,<br>And to new fields transport the standing corn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>Take ashes, Amaryllis, fetch them forth,<br>And o'er your head into the running brook<br>Fling them, nor look behind: with these will<br>Upon the heart of Daphnis make essay.<br>Nothing for gods, nothing for songs cares he.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.<br>Look, look I the very embers of themselves<br>Have caught the altar with a flickering flame,<br>While I delay to fetch them: may the sign<br>Prove lucky! something it must mean, for sure,<br>And Hylax on the threshold 'gins to bark!<br>May we believe it, or are lovers still<br>By their own fancies fooled?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Give o'er, my songs,<br>Daphnis is coming from the town, give o'er.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Publius+Vergilius+Maro">Publius Vergilius Maro</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=479705" data-title="Eclogue 8: To Pollio Damon Alphesiboeus de Publius Vergilius Maro" data-description="Of Damon and Alphesiboeus now,
Those shepherd-singers at whose rival strains
The heifer wondering forgot to graze,
The lynx stood awe-struck, and the flowing streams,
Unwonted loiterers, stayed their course to hear-
How Damon and Alphesiboeus sang..."></div>
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