Fortunate old man! Here among familiar rivers,
And these sacred founts, shalt thou take the shadowy coolness.
On this side, a hedge along the neighboring cross-road,
Where Hyblaean bees ever feed on the flower of the willow,
Often with gentle susurrus to fall asleep shall persuade thee.
Yonder, beneath the high rock, the pruner shall sing to the breezes,
Nor meanwhile shalt thy heart’s delight, the hoarse wood-pigeons,
Nor the turtle-dove cease to mourn from aerial elm-trees.
TITYRUS.
Therefore the agile stags shall sooner feed in the
ether,
And the billows leave the fishes bare on the sea-shore.
Sooner, the border-lands of both overpassed, shall
the exiled
Parthian drink of the Soane, or the German drink of
the Tigris,
Than the face of him shall glide away from my bosom!
MELIBOEUS.
But we hence shall go, a part to the thirsty Afries,
Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan Oaxes,
And to the Britons from all the universe utterly sundered.
Ah, shall I ever, a long time hence, the bounds of
my country
And the roof of my lowly cottage covered with greensward
Seeing, with wonder behold,—my kingdoms,
a handful of wheat-ears!
Shall an impious soldier possess these lands newly
cultured,
And these fields of corn a barbarian? Lo, whither
discord
Us wretched people hath brought! for whom our fields
we have planted!
Graft, Meliboeus, thy pear-trees now, put in order
thy vine-yards.
Go, my goats, go hence, my flocks so happy aforetime.
Never again henceforth outstretched in my verdurous
cavern
Shall I behold you afar from the bushy precipice hanging.
Songs no more shall I sing; not with me, ye goats,
as your shepherd,
Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or blooming laburnum.
TITYRUS.
Nevertheless, this night together with me canst thou
rest thee
Here on the verdant leaves; for us there are mellowing
apples,
Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in
abundance;
And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the
distance,
And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the
shadows.
OVID IN EXILE
AT TOMIS, IN BESSARABIA, NEAR THE MOUTHS OF THE DANUBE.
TRISTIA, Book III., Elegy X.
Should any one there in Rome remember Ovid the exile,
And, without me, my name still in the
city survive;
Tell him that under stars which never set in the ocean
I am existing still, here in a barbarous
land.
Fierce Sarmatians encompass me round, and the Bessi
and Getae;
Names how unworthy to be sung by a genius
like mine!
Yet when the air is warm, intervening Ister defends
us:
He, as he flows, repels inroads of war
with his waves.
But when the dismal winter reveals its hideous aspect,
When all the earth becomes white with
a marble-like frost;