The poet, in the beginning of this book, propounds the general design of each Georgic: and, after a solemn invocation of all the gods, who are any way related to his subject, he addresses himself, in particular, to Augustus, whom he compliments with divinity; and, after, strikes into his business. He shows the different kinds of tillage proper to different soils; traces out the original of agriculture; gives a catalogue of the husbandman's tools; specifies the employments peculiar to euch season; describes the changes of the weather, with the signs in heaven and earth that forbode them; instances many of the prodigies that happened near the time of Julius Cæsar's death; and shuts up all with a supplication to the gods for the safety of Augustus, and the preservation of Rome.*
WHAT makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn
The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn;
The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine,
And how to raise on elms the teeming vine;
*The poetry of this book is more sublime than any part of Virgil, if I have any taste. And if ever I have copied his majes
The birth and genius of the frugal Bee,
I sing, Mæcenas, and I sing to thee.
Ye deities! who fields and plains protect,
Who rule the seasons, and the year direct,
Bacchus and fostering Ceres, powers divine,
Who gave us corn for mast, for water, wine—
Ye Fauns, propitious to the rural swains,
Ye Nymphs, that haunt the mountains and the plains,
Join in my work, and to my numbers bring
Your needful succour; for your gifts I sing.
And thou, whose trident struck the teeming earth,
And made a passage for the courser's birth;
And thou, for whom the Cæan shore sustains
The milky herds, that graze the flowery plains;
tic style, it is here. The compliment he makes Augustus, almost in the beginning, is ill imitated by his successors, Lucan and Statius. They dedicated to tyrants; and their flatteries are gross and fulsome. Virgil's address is both more lofty and more just. In the three last lines of this Georgic, I think I have discovered a secret compliment to the emperor, which none of the commentators have observed. Virgil had just before described the miseries which Rome had undergone betwixt the triumvirs and the commonwealth party in the close of all, he seems to excuse the crimes committed by his patron Cæsar, as if he were constrained, against his own temper, to those violent proceedings, by the necessity of the times in general, but more particularly by his two partners, Antony and Lepidus,
Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas.
They were the head-strong horses, who hurried Octavius, the trembling charioteer, along, and were deal to his reclaiming them. I observe, farther, that the present wars, in which all Europe, and part of Asia, are engaged at present, are waged in the same places here described:
Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania, bellum, &c. as if Virgil had prophesied of this age.
And thou, the shepherds' tutelary god,
Leave, for a while, O Pan! thy loved abode;
And, if Arcadian fleeces be thy care,
From fields and mountains to my song repair.
Inventor, Pallas, of the fattening oil,
Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil; And thou, whose hands the shrowd-like cypress
Come, all ye gods and goddesses, that wear
The rural honours, and increase the year;
You, who supply the ground with seeds of grain;
And you, who swell those seeds with kindly rain;
And chiefly thou, whose undetermined state
Is yet the business of the gods' debate,
Whether in after times to be declared
The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard,
Or o'er the fruits and seasons to preside,
And the round circuit of the year to guide---
Powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around,
And with thy goddess mother's myrtle crowned.
Or wilt thou, Cæsar, chuse the watery reign,
To smooth the surges, and correct the main?
Then mariners, in storms, to thee shall pray;
Even utmost Thule shall thy power obey;
And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.
The watery virgins for thy bed shall strive,
And Tethys all her waves in dowry give.
Or wilt thou bless our summers with thy ray
And, seated near the Balance, poise the days,
Where, in the void of heaven, a space is free,
Betwixt the Scorpion and the Maid, for thee?
The Scorpion, ready to receive thy laws,
Yields half his region, and contracts his claws.
Whatever part of heaven thou shalt obtain,
(For let not hell presume of such a reign;
Nor let so dire a thirst of empire move
Thy mind, to leave thy kindred gods above;
Though Greece admires Elysium's blest retreat,
Though Proserpine affects her silent seat,
And, importuned by Ceres to remove,
Prefers the fields below to those above),
Be thou propitious, Cæsar! guide my course,
And to my bold endeavours add thy force :
Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares;
Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs,
And use thyself betimes to hear and grant our
prayers.
While yet the spring is young, while earth unbinds
Her frozen bosom to the western winds;
While mountain snows dissolve against the sun,
And streams, yet new, from precipices run;
Even in this early dawning of the year,
Produce the plough, and yoke the sturdy steer,
And goad him till he groans beneath his toil,
Till the bright share is buried in the soil.
That crop rewards the greedy peasant's pains,
Which twice the sun, and twice the cold sustains,
And bursts the crowded barns with more than
promised gains.
But, ere we stir the yet unbroken ground,
The various course of seasons must be found;
The weather, and the setting of the winds,
The culture suiting to the several kinds
Of seeds and plants, and what will thrive and rise,
And what the genius of the soil denies.
This ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres, suits :
That other loads the trees with happy fruits:
A fourth, with grass unbidden, decks the ground.
Thus Tmolus is with yellow saffron crowned:
India black ebon and white ivory bears;
And soft Idume weeps her odorous tears.
Thus Pontus sends her beaver-stones from far;
And naked Spaniards temper steel for war:
Epirus, for the Elean chariot, breeds
(In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds.
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