Ah! to Cremona fatally too near! Melodious swans to yon bright stars shall bear." Me, too, the Muses taught the sylvan strain ; As gabbling geese with sweetest swans, to vie. "Hither to land, O Galatea, haste: 40 45 What joy can flourish 'mid the wat'ry waste? And every streamlet's brink is strew'd with flowers; And let the surge rave idly on the strand." 50 Lyc. One moonlight night, thou sang'st too-such a strain! The words forgotten, I the air retain. Mær. "Why on old constellations, Daphnis, gaze? 55 See, where its beams the Julian star displays; spares ! Oft, when a careless boy, I trod the mead, The lingering sun I caroll'd to his bed: Now every lay is vanish'd from my head. 60 56 In reference to this phenomenon, Augustus caused the statue of Julius Cæsar in the forum to be adorned by the addition of a star.-See Martyn on Georg. i. 488. His very voice has hapless Moris lost; His path some wolf's first-darted glance has crost; 65 But well the chasm Menaleas will supply.. 70 Lyc. My wish but grows with your apology. And see the lake's broad plain unruffled spread, Nor moves one murmuring breeze the beech's head. Now midway of our journey we are come, For lo! there rears its head Bianor's tomb. Here sit we, Moris, where the leafy boughs The farmers trim, and sing as we repose. Here rest thy kids: we soon shall reach the town; Or if we fear the night-storm's gathering frown, 75 Light song will ease the road of half its care: To aid thy song, let me this burden bear. Mær. Press me no more, but onward let us go: Sprightlier the strain, when He returns, will flow. ECLOGUE X.-GALLUS. ARGUMENT. As the Silenus appears to have been begun at the command of Varus, and the Pharmaceutria at that of Pollio, we have some reason to believe that this Eclogue, a fine imitation of Theocritus (in reference to whom he invokes the Sicilian nymph 65 It was the superstitious belief of the ancient Italians that if a wolf saw any man first, it for a time deprived him of the power of speech.-See Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 22. 71 Sepulchres were anciently placed near the highways, whence their inscriptions are frequently addressed "to travellers." Bianor, surnamed Ocnus (son, as we learn from the tenth Æneid, of the Tiber by the prophetess Manto, the daughter of Tiresias), is said to have fortified Mantua, and to have given it a name derived from that of his mother. 79 This seems to prove that he (Menalcas, or Virgil) was then at Rome. 7 Arethusa), was undertaken A. U. C. 717, at the request of Gallus, whose hapless love it records: thus extending the period occupied in writing the Eclogues over seven years, from A. U. C. 710 to 717. The order of them appears to have been (different from their usual location) Alexis, Palamon, Daphnis, Tityrus, Maris, Silenus, Pollio, Pharmaceutria, Melibæus, and Gallus. THIS closing effort, Arethusa, aid; 5 A few brief strains be to my Gallus paid: 10 Nymphs, o'er what lawns, what forests did ye rove, When Gallus faded in disastrous love? 3 So Pope, in his "Windsor Forest;" What muse for Granville can refuse to sing? 15 The same poet has also in his second Pastoral happily imitated vv. 9, 10. Lycoris is supposed to have been Cytheris, an actress of those times. The old mythology states that Alpheus, a river of Peloponnesus, fell in love with the nymph Arethusa; who, flying from his pursuit, was metamorphosed by Diana into a fountain, and made her escape under the sea to Ortygia, an island near Sicily.-See Eneid ix. 11 Imitated from Theocritus, and by Pope, as likewise by Milton in his "Lycidas,"-"Where were ye, nymphs," &c. The sheep stand round, nor slight their master's pain; -Nor thou, bright bard, the humble flock dis dain: In beauty's prime beside the lucid flood, 20 The shepherd came; and, with the herdsmen last, flame Lycoris, for another swain," he cries, 25 "Braves barbarous camps and winter's dreary skies." With woodland wreath came old Sylvanus crown'd, Fennel and largest lilies nodding round. Pan, too, we saw th' Arcadian god appear'd 30 35 "In vain it flows: No glut of tears insatiate Cupid knows. Sooner shall herbage moisture cease to love, The bee his trefoil, goats the budding grove.' -"But you, Arcadians, deign," sad Gallus cried, "To sing my sorrows on each mountain's side: You, only, of the poet's art possest; And softly, sweetly, will my relics rest, If by your simple reeds my suffering be express'd. "Ah! had I, one of you, your flocks or fed, Or pluck'd the grape with luscious ripeness red! Then, whomsoe'er had woo'd my amorous strainOr Phyllis, or Amyntas-we had lain 40 45 In willowy bower o'erhung with flaunting vine; And he would sing, or she the chaplet twine. Dusky the hyacinth's, the violet's hue. Here cooling springs, Lycoris, meadows gay 50 With flowers, and winding glades invite to stray; Here could I, blest with thee, wile life's fleet hours away. 30, 32 On the "fennel" and "elder," see Martyn in loc. "Me reckless love in iron fields detains, 55 Dauntless tread'st Alpine snows, and ice-bound Rhine! Ah! may no ice wound those soft feet of thine, 60 65 To pastoral pipe, I'll sylvan strains rehearse. 70 "Ah! nor by wood-nymphs I, nor woodland strain, Solaced or soothed! Farewell, ye woods again. 75 Vainly to tame the obdurate god we try : Not should our lip drain wintry Hebrus dry, Not though our foot 'mid storms trod Thracia's snows, Not though we fed our flocks where Cancer glows On Indian sands, and peels the towering grove- 80 Love conquers all; and we must yield to love." Enough, ye Muses, has your bard essay'd, Weaving his rushy basket in the shade. These numbers you to Gallus will endear; Gallus, for whom, as year succeeds to year, 85 60 Gallus is said to have translated the works of Euphorion, a native of Chalcis in Euboea, into Latin. |