AN ECLOGUE FROM VIRGIL.
[The exile Melibœus finds Tityrus in possession of his own farm, restored to him by the Emperor Augustus, and a conversation ensues. The poem is in praise of Augustus, peace, and pastoral life.]
MELIBŒUS.
Tityrus, all in the shade of the wide-spreading beech-tree reclining,
Sweet is that music you've made on your pipe that is oaten and slender;
Exiles from home, you beguile our hearts from their hopeless repining,
As you sing Amaryllis the while in pastorals tuneful and tender.
TITYRUS.
A god—yes, a god, I declare—vouchsafes me these pleasant conditions,
And often I gayly repair with a tender white lamb to his altar;
He gives me the leisure to play my greatly admired compositions,
While my heifers go browsing all day, unhampered of bell and of halter.
MELIBŒUS.
I do not begrudge you repose; I simply admit I'm confounded
To find you unscathed of the woes of pillage and tumult and battle.
To exile and hardship devote, and by merciless enemies hounded,
I drag at this wretched old goat and coax on my famishing cattle.
Oh, often the omens presaged the horrors which now overwhelm me—
But, come, if not elsewise engaged, who is this good deity, tell me!
TITYRUS (reminiscently).
The city—the city called Rome, with my head full of herding and tillage,
I used to compare with my home, these pastures wherein you now wander;
But I didn't take long to find out that the city surpasses the village
As the cypress surpasses the sprout that thrives in the thicket out yonder.