775

The steer, who to the yoke was bred to bow 770 (Studious of tillage, and the crooked plough), Falls down and dies; and, dying, spews a flood Of foamy madness, mix'd with clotted blood. The clown, who, cursing Providence, repines, His mournful fellow from the team disjoins; With many a groan forsakes his fruitless care, And in th' unfinish'd furrow leaves the share. The pining steer nor shades of lofty woods, Nor flow'ry meads, can ease, nor crystal floods Roll'd from the rock: his flabby flanks decrease; 780 His eyes are settled in a stupid peace;

His bulk too weighty for his thighs is grown;

And his unwieldy neck hangs drooping down.
Now what avails his well-deserving toil

To turn the glebe, or smooth the rugged soil?

And yet he never supt in solemn state
(Nor undigested feasts did urge his fate),
Nor day to night luxuriously did join,

Nor surfeited on rich Campanian wine.

785

Simple his bev'rage, homely was his food,

790

The wholesome herbage and the running flood:

No dreadful dreams awak'd him with affright:
His pains by day secur'd his rest by night.
'Twas then that buffaloes, ill pair'd, were seen
To draw the car of Jove's imperial queen,

795

For want of oxen; and the lab'ring swain

Scratch'd, with a rake, a furrow for his grain,

And cover'd with his hand the shallow seed again. He yokes himself, and up the hilly height,

799

With his own shoulders, draws the waggon's weight.
The nightly wolf, that round th' enclosure prowl'd
To leap the fence, now plots not on the fold,
Tam'd with a sharper pain. The fearful doe,
And flying stag, amidst the greyhounds go,

And round the dwellings roam of man, their fiercer

foe.

The scaly nations of the sea profound,

Like shipwreck'd carcases, are driv'n aground,
And mighty phocæ, never seen before

In shallow streams, are stranded on the shore.

The viper dead within her hole is found:

Defenceless was the shelter of the ground.

805

810

The water-snake, whom fish and paddocks fed,

With staring scales lies poison'd in his bed :
To birds their native heav'ns contagious prove;
From clouds they fall, and leave their souls above. 815
Besides, to change their pasture 'tis in vain,
Or trust to physic: physic is their bane.
The learned leeches in despair depart,

And shake their heads, desponding of their art.
Tisiphone, let loose from under ground,
Majestically pale, now treads the round,
Before her drives diseases and affright,

And ev'ry moment rises to the sight,
Aspiring to the skies, encroaching on the light.
The rivers, and their banks, and hills around,
With lowings and with dying bleats resound.
At length, she strikes an universal blow:
To death at once whole herds of cattle go:
Sheep, oxen, horses, fall; and, heap'd on high,
The diff'ring species in confusion lie,

Till, warn'd by frequent ills, the way they found
To lodge their loathsome carrion under ground:

820

825

830

For useless to the currier were their hides;

Nor could their tainted flesh with ocean tides

Be freed from filth; nor could Vulcanian flame 835 The stench abolish, or the savour tame.

Nor safely could they shear their fleecy store

(Made drunk with pois'nous juice, and stiff with gore),

Or touch the web: but, if the vest they wear,

Red blisters rising on their paps appear,

And flaming carbuncles, and noisome sweat,

And clammy dews that loathsome lice beget; 'Till the slow-creeping evil eats his way,

840

Consumes the parching limbs, and makes the life his prey.

GEORGICS,

BOOK IV.

ARGUMENT.

Virgil has taken care to raise the subject of each Georgic. In the first, he has only dead matter on which to work. In the second, he just steps on the world of life, and describes that degree of it which is to be found in vegetables. In the third, he advances to animals; and, in the last, he singles out the bee, which may be reckoned the most sagacious of them, for his subject.

In this Georgic, he shews us what station is most proper for the

bees, and when they begin to gather honey; how to call them home when they swarm; and how to part them when they are engaged in battle, From hence he takes occasion to discover their different kinds; and, after an excursion, relates their prudent and politic administration of affairs, and the several diseases that often rage in their hives, with the proper symptoms and remedies of each disease. In the last place he lays down a method of repairing their kind, supposing their whole breed lost; and gives at large the history of its invention.

THE gifts of heav'n my following song pursues,
Aërial honey, and ambrosial dews.