Thrice happy swains! whom genuine pleasures bless,
If they but knew and felt their happiness!
From wars and discord far, and public strife,
[812] Earth with salubrious fruits supports their life;
Tho' high-arch'd domes, tho' marble halls they want,
And columns cased in gold and elephant,
In awful ranks where brazen statues stand,
The polish'd works of Grecia's skillful hand;
Nor dazzling palace view, whose portals proud
Each morning vomit out the cringing crowd;
Nor wear the tissu'd garment's cumb'rous pride,
Nor seek soft wool in Syrian purple dy'd,
Nor with fantastic luxury defile
The native sweetness of the liquid oil;
Yet calm content, secure from guilty cares,
Yet home-felt pleasure, peace, and rest, are theirs;
Leisure and ease, in groves, and cooling vales,
Grottoes, and bubbling brooks, and darksome dales;
The lowing oxen, and the bleating sheep,
And under branching trees delicious sleep!
There forests, lawns, and haunts of beasts abound,
There youth is temperate, and laborious found;
There altars and the righteous gods are fear'd,
And aged sires by duteous sons rever'd.
There Justice linger'd ere she fled mankind,
And left some traces of her reign behind!
Georgics II. Warton.
EMPLOYMENTS OF THE BEE.
(By Virgil.)
If all things with great we may compare,
Such are the bees, and such their busy care:
Studious of honey, each in his degree,
The youthful swain, the grave, experienced bee;
That in the field; this in affairs of state,
Employed at home, abides within the gate,
To fortify the combs, to build the wall,
To prop the ruins, lest the fabric fall:
[813] But late at night, with weary pinions come
The laboring youth, and heavy laden home.
Plains, meads, and orchards, all the day he plies,
The gleans of yellow thyme distend his thighs:
[814] He spoils the saffron flowers, he sips the blues
Of violets, wilding blooms, and willow dews.
Their toil is common, common is their sleep;
They shake their wings when morn begins to peep;
Rush through the city gates without delay,
Nor ends their work but with declining day:
Then, having spent the last remains of light,
They give their bodies due repose at night;
When hollow murmurs of their evening bells
Dismiss the sleepy swains, and toll them to their cells.
Georgics IV. Dryden.
VIRGIL AND HORACE.[ToList]
PUNISHMENTS IN HELL.
(By Virgil.)
Now to the left, Æneas darts his eyes,
Where lofty walls with tripple ramparts rise.
There rolls swift Phlegethon, with thund'ring sound,
His broken rocks, and whirls his surges round.
On mighty columns rais'd, sublime are hung
The massy gates, impenetrably strong.
In vain would men, in vain would gods essay,
To hew the beams of adamant away.
Here rose an iron tow'r; before the gate,
By night and day, a wakeful fury sate,
The pale Tisiphone; a robe she wore,
With all the pomp of horror, dy'd in gore.
Here the loud scourge and louder voice of pain,
The crashing fetter, and the ratt'ling chain.
Strike the great hero with the frightful sound,
The hoarse, rough, mingled din, that thunders round:
Oh! whence that peal of groans? what pains are those?
What crimes could merit such stupendous woes?
Thus she—brave guardian of the Trojan state,
None that are pure must pass that dreadful gate.
When plac'd by Hecat o'er Avernus' woods,
[815] I learnt the secrets of those dire abodes,
With all the tortures of the vengeful gods.
Here Rhadamanthus holds his awful reign,
Hears and condemns the trembling impious train.
Those hidden crimes the wretch till death supprest,
With mingled joy and horror in his breast,
The stern dread judge commands him to display,
And lays the guilty secrets bare to-day;
Her lash Tisiphone that moment shakes;
The ghost she scourges with a thousand snakes;
Then to her aid, with many a thund'ring yell,
Calls her dire sisters from the gulfs of hell.
Near by the mighty Tityus I beheld,
Earth's mighty giant son, stretch'd o'er the infernal field;
He cover'd nine large acres as he lay,
While with fierce screams a vulture tore away
His liver for her food, and scoop'd the smoking prey;
Plunged deep her bloody beak, nor plung'd in vain,
For still the fruitful fibres spring again,
Swell, and renew th' enormous monster's pain,
She dwells forever in his roomy breast,
Nor gives the roaring fiend a moment's rest;
But still th' immortal prey supplies th' immortal feast.
Need I the Lapiths' horrid pains relate,
Ixion's torments, or Perithous' fate?
On high a tottering rocky fragment spreads,
Projects in air, and trembles o'er their heads.
Stretch'd on the couch, they see with longing eyes
In regal pomp successive banquets rise,
While lucid columns, glorious to behold,
Support th' imperial canopies of gold.
The queen of furies, a tremendous guest,
Sits by their side, and guards the tempting feast,
Which if they touch, her dreadful torch she rears,
Flames in their eyes, and thunders in their ears
They that on earth had low pursuits in view,
Their brethren hated, or their parents slew,
And, still more numerous, those who swelled their store,
But ne'er reliev'd their kindred or the poor;
[816] Or in a cause unrighteous fought and bled;
Or perish'd in the foul adulterous bed;
Or broke the ties of faith with base deceit;
Imprison'd deep their destin'd torments wait.
But what their torments, seek not thou to know,
Or the dire sentence of their endless wo.
Some roll a stone, rebounding down the hill,
Some hang suspended on the whirling wheel;
There Theseus groans in pain that ne'er expire,
Chain'd down forever in a chair of fire.
There Phlegyas feels unutterable wo,
And roars incessant thro' the shades below;
Be just, ye mortals! by these torments aw'd,
These dreadful torments, not to scorn a god.
This wretch his country to a tyrant sold,
And barter'd glorious liberty for gold.
Laws for a bribe he past, but past in vain,
For those same laws a bribe repeal'd again.
To some enormous crimes they all aspir'd;
All feel the torments that those crimes requir'd!
Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,
A voice of brass, and adamantine lungs,
Not half the mighty scene could I disclose,
Repeat their crimes, or count their dreadful woes!
Æneid VI. Pitt.