Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed, Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain;And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed, See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls, Waking hoarse murmurs o'er the polished stones, And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty fields?
Or why of him, who lest the heavy ears O'erweigh the stalk, while yet in tender blade Feeds down the crop's luxuriance, when its growth First tops the furrows? Why of him who drains The marsh-land's gathered ooze through soaking sand, Chiefly what time in treacherous moons a stream Goes out in spate, and with its coat of slime Holds all the country, whence the hollow dykes Sweat steaming vapour?
But no whit the more For all expedients tried and travail borne By man and beast in turning oft the soil, Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm, Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself No easy road to husbandry assigned, And first was he by human skill to rouse The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men With care on care, nor suffering realm of his In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line-Even this was impious; for the common stock They gathered, and the earth of her own will All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
He to black serpents gave their venom-bane, And bade the wolf go prowl, and ocean toss;Shook from the leaves their honey, put fire away, And curbed the random rivers running wine, That use by gradual dint of thought on thought Might forge the various arts, with furrow's help The corn-blade win, and strike out hidden fire From the flint's heart. Then first the streams were ware Of hollowed alder-hulls: the sailor then Their names and numbers gave to star and star, Pleiads and Hyads, and Lycaon's child Bright Arctos; how with nooses then was found To catch wild beasts, and cozen them with lime, And hem with hounds the mighty forest-glades.
Soon one with hand-net scourges the broad stream, Probing its depths, one drags his dripping toils Along the main; then iron's unbending might, And shrieking saw-blade,- for the men of old With wedges wont to cleave the splintering log;-Then divers arts arose; toil conquered all, Remorseless toil, and poverty's shrewd push In times of hardship. Ceres was the first Set mortals on with tools to turn the sod, When now the awful groves 'gan fail to bear Acorns and arbutes, and her wonted food Dodona gave no more. Soon, too, the corn Gat sorrow's increase, that an evil blight Ate up the stalks, and thistle reared his spines An idler in the fields; the crops die down;Upsprings instead a shaggy growth of burrs And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway.
Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds, Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade, Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye, Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow, And in the greenwood from a shaken oak Seek solace for thine hunger.
Now to tell The sturdy rustics' weapons, what they are, Without which, neither can be sown nor reared The fruits of harvest; first the bent plough's share And heavy timber, and slow-lumbering wains Of the Eleusinian mother, threshing-sleighs And drags, and harrows with their crushing weight;Then the cheap wicker-ware of Celeus old, Hurdles of arbute, and thy mystic fan, Iacchus; which, full tale, long ere the time Thou must with heed lay by, if thee await Not all unearned the country's crown divine.
While yet within the woods, the elm is tamed And bowed with mighty force to form the stock, And take the plough's curved shape, then nigh the root A pole eight feet projecting, earth-boards twain, And share-beam with its double back they fix.
For yoke is early hewn a linden light, And a tall beech for handle, from behind To turn the car at lowest: then o'er the hearth The wood they hang till the smoke knows it well.
Many the precepts of the men of old I can recount thee, so thou start not back, And such slight cares to learn not weary thee.
And this among the first: thy threshing-floor With ponderous roller must be levelled smooth, And wrought by hand, and fixed with binding chalk, Lest weeds arise, or dust a passage win Splitting the surface, then a thousand plagues Make sport of it: oft builds the tiny mouse Her home, and plants her granary, underground, Or burrow for their bed the purblind moles, Or toad is found in hollows, and all the swarm Of earth's unsightly creatures; or a huge Corn-heap the weevil plunders, and the ant, Fearful of coming age and penury.
Mark too, what time the walnut in the woods With ample bloom shall clothe her, and bow down Her odorous branches, if the fruit prevail, Like store of grain will follow, and there shall come A mighty winnowing-time with mighty heat;But if the shade with wealth of leaves abound, Vainly your threshing-floor will bruise the stalks Rich but in chaff. Many myself have seen Steep, as they sow, their pulse-seeds, drenching them With nitre and black oil-lees, that the fruit Might swell within the treacherous pods, and they Make speed to boil at howso small a fire.
Yet, culled with caution, proved with patient toil, These have I seen degenerate, did not man Put forth his hand with power, and year by year Choose out the largest. So, by fate impelled, Speed all things to the worse, and backward borne Glide from us; even as who with struggling oars Up stream scarce pulls a shallop, if he chance His arms to slacken, lo! with headlong force The current sweeps him down the hurrying tide.
