(27) OUI, je t'aime d'un amour profond, HELAS, trop vite (28) mon Premier prend sa fuite : trop lent, hélas, mon Second traîne ses pas : mon Tout, ville ancienne, grande, belle, fière de superbes tableaux, de son église, de sa citadelle, domine la campagne et les eaux. (29) UN mendiant à ma porte tint ce discours: ah, que je suis à plaindre! il me vient mon Premier très rarement, mon Second tous les jours: mon Tout souvent. (30) MON Premier aggrandit; mon Second enrichit; vous m'êtes mon Tout, Marie. (31) MON Premier avec vous près de mon Second m'est plus doux que le plus beau spectacle de mon Tout, (32) THE scene of many a gallant deed, (33) Ein Räthsel bin ich, dunkel zu verstehn; doch bin ich immer dunkel, muß es sein so lang' es strömt mir an der Sonnenschein. (34) Ein Lebensbilde bin ich, kurz verweilend : kehrst du mich um, so werd' ich gleich das enge traur'ge leßte Reich wohin das Leben schreitet, immer eilend. (35) PARS capitis Caput est; caelum mea Cauda serenat; diuus ab antiqua plebe colebar Ego. The following version of Virgil's Eclogues is inserted for the purpose of explaining and illustrating a principle of poetic translation, first adopted by the author in his Edition of Virgil (Longmans, Green and Co., 1876), and either overlooked or misunderstood by most of the critics who have reviewed that work. A note at the end of the present volume contains a full account and justification of this principle, which is also exemplified in the translations from Horace, printed on pp. 282, 283. ECLOGUE I. TITYRUS. MELIBOEUS. TITYRUS. M. TITYRUS, you, reclining underneath the covert of a spreading beech, rehearse with slender oat a woodland melody; we leave our country's bounds and darling fields:. we from our country fly; you, Tityrus, within the shade reposeful, teach the woods beautiful Amaryllis to resound. 5 T. O Meliboeus, 'twas a god for us this leisure wrought; for he shall ever be to me a god; his altar from my folds a tender lambkin often shall embrue. 'twas he that gave permission for my kine to wander as you see, and for myself to play whate'er I list on rustic reed. 10 20 M. I envy not, good sooth, but marvel more ; 15 such turmoil is in all the fields around. lo! sick myself I drive my she-goats on; this one I scarcely, Tityrus, even lead; for late among the clustering hazels here twins, of my flock the promise, on bare flint she yeaned, alas! and left. full oft to me this evil, I remember, blasted oaks, had not my soul been reasonless, foretold. but tell me, Tityrus, who that god of yours. T. The city, Meliboeus, they call Rome I in my folly thought like this of ours, to which the tender weanlings of our ewes 25 we shepherds oft are customed to convey: thus whelps I knew like dogs, kids like their dams, thus great things used I to compare with small. 30 but amidst other cities this hath reared as high a head as cypresses are wont among the lithely-bending maple-trees. 35 M. And what great cause had you for seeing Rome? T. Freedom, who late indeed on shiftless me looked, when my beard fell whiter as I shaved; yet look she did, and long time afterward (since Amaryllis hath me for her mate, and Galatea left me) she arrived. for, whilst I was in Galatea's thrall, nor hope of freedom, I must own, was mine, 40 45 the very pine-trees, you the very founts, these very vineyards were invoking you. T. What could I do? no power had I to 'scape from servitude, nor deities so kind 50 elsewhere to know. here I beheld that youth, for whom, O Meliboeus, every year twelve day's mine altars smoke. here first he gave an answer to my suit: 'as heretofore, 55 your kine, young herdsmen, pasture, rear your bulls.' M. So, fortune-favoured sire, you keep your lands, and large enough for you. though naked stone, 60 and marsh with slimy rush, the pastures all o'erspread, no food unusual shall assail |