As to the traveller, parch'd with noontide heat,
The crystal rill soft purling at his feet.

Nor with your reed alone your master's fame

61

You emulate; like praise your voice may claim :
Blest boy! henceforth ordain'd to second such a name.
Yet shall my simple strain, in turn, arise-
That strain, alas! how mean!-and to the skies
Exalt your Daphnis, to the skies above:

For me, too, Daphnis honor'd with his love.

Mops. What boon more grateful can my song repay?

Worthy young Daphnis of thy happiest lay;

And oft, that lay how ravishingly sweet,

Has Stimicon delighted to repeat.

66

Men. Surprised, bright Daphnis hails the untried world,

And views the clouds and stars beneath him whirl'd. 70
Hence Rapture, bounding 'mid the groves and plains,
O'er Pan, the shepherds, and the Dryads reigns!
No more the wolf prowls nightly round the fold;
The careless stag no wily meshes hold.

Nor dropping waters, that in grots distil,
And with a tinkling sound their caverns fill.

63 Of your favorite Daphnis we will sing the apotheosis. It is probable that Julius Cæsar (as a learned man, and a patron of letters) admired Virgil, whose estate lay near Mantua, in his beloved province of Cisalpine Gaul. The verses of Menalcas (it may be observed) correspond, after the Amabæan fashion, with those of Mopsus, being each thirty in number.

69 Untried. Compare Pope's fourth pastoral; where Daphne,' &c.

But see

71 Rapture is opposed to Mopsus' 'That day no shepherd,' &c.; and Pan and the shepherds' to the desertion of Pales and Phoebus.' This passage is imitated by Philips; For this the golden skies,' &c. A similar double copying occurs again below, v. 83, &c.

Peace, peace mild Daphnis loves: with joyous cry 75
The untill'd mountains strike the echoing sky;

And rocks and towers the triumph speed abroad-
'A god! Menalcas, Daphnis is a god!'
O shine serene! Four altars, lo! we raise;
And two to Phoebus, two to thee shall blaze.
Yearly two bowls of milk shall bathe thy shrine,
And two rich goblets crown'd with oil be thine:
And cheerful shall thy feast with wine be made,
By winter's fire or in the summer's shade;
For my full flask its Ariusian store,
New nectar worthy of the day, shall pour.

80

85

The hymn shall Ægon and Damotas sound,
While light Alphesibœus frisks around.

Such, when our offerings to the Nymphs we bear,
Or with wreathed victims to the fields repair,
Such honors shall thy shrine, blest Daphnis, wear.
While boars the hills, the streams while fishes love,
And Hybla's thyme to bees shall grateful prove,
Or dew to the cicada's thirsty taste;

90

So long thy rites, thy name, thy praise shall last. 95

75 Peace, peace, &c. Beside his warlike character, Julius Cæsar, as an eloquent orator, a judicious historian, a merciful conqueror, a forgetter of injuries, a grave and wise man, might fairly be represented as a lover of peace.'

80 Julius Cæsar was born on the day of the ludi Apolli

nares.

85 The Ariusian' wine was brought from Chios, hod. Scio, and was esteemed the best of all the Greek wines. It is said by Tournefort to be called nectar' to this day by the inhabitants of that island. Dancing, we may add, was much used in religious ceremonies, not only by idolatrous nations, but also by the Jews.

89-91 At the two seasons, winter and summer, of sacrificing to the Nymphs within doors, and the Ambarvalia in the open fields.

Yearly to thee his vows the hind shall pay :
Not more his prayer shall Bacchus Ceres sway;
Thou arbiter of vows, as well as they.'

100

Mops. A strain so soft what recompense shall greet? For to my ear the whispering breeze less sweet, And waves low rippling as they kiss the shore, And brooks their pebbled channels gurgling o'er. Men. First thou from me this reed, a gift, ap

prove:

6

With this I sung Young Corydon's' sad love ;

This breathed of 'Egon's sheep' the playful strain. 105
Maps. And thou, what oft Antigenes in vain
Solicited, but I refused to give

(Fair though he was), this jointed crook receive:
With polish'd brass its knobs all equal shine;
'Tis elegantly wrought, and it is thine.

110

ECLOGUE VI.-SILENUS.

ARGUMENT.

CASAR having restored Virgil to his lands, the poet now, A. U. C. 714, seems to have seized the opportunity of fulfilling the promise which he had made to Q. Atius Varus (Ecl. ix. 32.) that he would exalt his name to the ' bright stars,' if he would preserve Mantua.

This he performed in his Silenus, one of his finest Eclogues, which is dedicated to that distinguished personage. See a

long note by Martyn on nunc ego, v. 6. of the original. It was probably written not unbidden' of him; as Virgil himself obviously was anxious to make kings and war's achievements' the subjects of his poetry. Varus was, it may be believed, an Epicurean: and hence the poet makes that philosophy the subject of his pastoral; which, however, as it would have been incongruous to the simplicity of a shepherd's love, he dexterously puts into the mouth of the demi-god Silenus. Accordingly, the long-promised strain' gives a succinct account of the Natural and the Moral doctrines of Epicurus, the formation of the world from atoms, and the necessity of avoiding perturbations of the mind. It includes a fine compliment to Cornelius Gallus, vv. 72-83, who had about this time written a poem on 'Gryneum's grove' in the style of Hesiod; and was also, like Varus, a great favorite of Cæsar.

FIRST breathed my Muse the Syracusan strain,
Nor blush'd to dwell amidst the woodland train.
When, rashly bold, I struck the lyre to kings,
And war's achievements flutter'd o'er my strings,
With friendly caution Phoebus touch'd mine ear;
'Tityrus, to shepherds still their flocks be dear:
Still shrink the rural bard from lofty themes:
His modest pipe a lowlier lay beseems.'
Still, then, that lay be mine! There yet will be,
Varus, enow to sing of war and thee.
Nor flows my verse unbidden. Should the Muse-
Ah! should she win some fond eye to peruse;
Thee, Varus, shall our tamarisks give to fame :
Phoebus most loves the page that bears thy name.
Proceed, sweet maids. Within a cavern wide
Silenus Chromis and Mnasylos spied.

5

10

15

8 Lowlier; literally a drawn out' lay. The metaphor is taken from wool, which is spun thinner.

VIR.

VOL. 1.

C

Heavy with sleep the aged tippler lay,

And swoln his veins, as wont, with wine of yester

day:

Slipt from his brow, unburst, his wreath was here;
There his huge goblet hung, with well-worn ear.
Oft cheated with the promise of a strain,
They seize him; and his chaplet forms his chain.
Ægle, the fairest of the Naiad throng,
Egle the tremblers joins, who press the song;
And, as the wondering captive opes his eyes,
With ruddy mulberries his temples dyes.

20

25

'Why bind me, boys?' at last with smiles he cried : 'Loose me; suffice a demi-god descried! The lay ye ask be yours; the lay to you,

To her another recompense is due.'

30

He sings! In measured step you then might see
Fauns and fierce beasts frisk to the minstrelsy,
And knotted oaks their tops in rapture nod:
Not with such glee Parnassus hails its god;
Less, when the Muses breathe from Orpheus' shell, 35
Feel Rhodope and Ismarus the spell!

He sung, how from the void immense combined
Their seeds earth, ocean, fire, and æther join'd;
And how, no more in wild disorder hurl'd,
Sprang from these elements the nascent world.

40

20 The cantharus, a goblet,' was a sort of drinking vessel with ears or handles, sacred to Bacchus the pupil of Silenus. Both Pliny and Valerius Maximus heavily censure Marius for having presumed, after his victory over the Cimbri, to drink out of such a vessel; as thus insinuating that his own actions might vie with the victories of the god of wine.

26 This hue was added, not to make a jest of the tipsy deity, but to render him more propitious, red being the color sacred to the gods. So Pan, in Ecl. x. 32, has his vermil dye.'

32 The Fauns' are 'rural deities, so called a fando, because they speak personally to men.'-Martyn.

36 Rhodope and Ismarus were mountains of Thrace.