---
title: "Georgics · Georgica"
author: "Virgil"
translator: "James Rhoades"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Classical Latin"
section: 2 of 7
url: https://scriptura.si/works/virgil-georgics/2/
cite: "Virgil, tr. James Rhoades, Georgics · Georgica, section 2. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/virgil-georgics/2/"
---

# Georgics · Georgica

*Virgil, tr. James Rhoades*

Four books on the farmer’s year, crops, vines, cattle and bees, ending with Orpheus and Eurydice.

> Latin: ed. J. B. Greenough, from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit, phi0690.phi002, CC BY-SA 4.0).

> English: James Rhoades, from the Perseus Digital Library (phi0690.phi002.perseus-eng2). Notes are not included.

> Rows follow the references the two texts share (line numbers), cut where both reach the end of a sentence.

## 2. Book II · lines 1–287

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/virgil-georgics/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/virgil-georgics/2/#p-N

[¶0] Thus far the tilth of fields and stars of heaven;
Now will I sing thee, Bacchus, and, with thee,
The forest's young plantations and the fruit
Of slow-maturing olive. Hither haste,
O Father of the wine-press; all things here
Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee
With viny autumn laden blooms the field,
And foams the vintage high with brimming vats;
Hither, O Father of the wine-press, come,
And stripped of buskin stain thy bared limbs
In the new must with me.

> Latin: Hactenus arvorum cultus et sidera caeli,
nunc te, Bacche, canam, nec non silvestria tecum
virgulta et prolem tarde crescentis olivae.
Huc, pater o Lenaee—tuis hic omnia plena
muneribus, tibi pampineo gravidus autumno
floret ager, spumat plenis vindemia labris—
huc, pater o Lenaee, veni nudataque musto
tingue novo mecum direptis crura cothurnis.

[¶1] First, nature's law
For generating trees is manifold;
For some of their own force spontaneous spring,
No hand of man compelling, and possess
The plains and river-windings far and wide,
As pliant osier and the bending broom,
Poplar, and willows in wan companies
With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be
From chance-dropped seed that rear them, as the tall
Chestnuts, and, mightiest of the branching wood,
Jove's Aesculus, and oaks, oracular
Deemed by the Greeks of old. With some sprouts forth
A forest of dense suckers from the root,
As elms and cherries; so, too, a pigmy plant,
Beneath its mother's mighty shade upshoots
The bay-tree of Parnassus. Such the modes
Nature imparted first; hence all the race
Of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred groves
Springs into verdure. Other means there are,
Which use by method for itself acquired.
One, sliving suckers from the tender frame
Of the tree-mother, plants them in the trench;
One buries the bare stumps within his field,
Truncheons cleft four-wise, or sharp-pointed stakes;
Some forest-trees the layer's bent arch await,
And slips yet quick within the parent-soil;
No root need others, nor doth the pruner's hand
Shrink to restore the topmost shoot to earth
That gave it being. Nay, marvellous to tell,
Lopped of its limbs, the olive, a mere stock,
Still thrusts its root out from the sapless wood,
And oft the branches of one kind we see
Change to another's with no loss to rue,
Pear-tree transformed the ingrafted apple yield,
And stony cornels on the plum-tree blush.

> Latin: Principio arboribus varia est natura creandis.
namque aliae nullis hominum cogentibus ipsae
sponte sua veniunt camposque et flumina late
curva tenent, ut molle siler lentaeque genestae,
populus et glauca canentia fronde salicta;
pars autem posito surgunt de semine, ut altae
castaneae nemorumque Iovi quae maxima frondet
aesculus atque habitae Grais oracula quercus.
Pullulat ab radice aliis densissima silva,
ut cerasis ulmisque; etiam Parnasia laurus
parva sub ingenti matris se subicit umbra.
Hos natura modos primum dedit, his genus omne
silvarum fruticumque viret nemorumque sacrorum.
Sunt aliae, quas ipse via sibi repperit usus.
Hic plantas tenero abscindens de corpore matrum
deposuit sulcis, hic stirpes obruit arvo
quadrifidasque sudes et acuto robore vallos;
silvarumque aliae pressos propaginis arcus
exspectant et viva sua plantaria terra;
nil radicis egent aliae summumque putator
haud dubitat terrae referens mandare cacumen.
Quin et caudicibus sectis—mirabile dictu—
truditur e sicco radix oleagina ligno.
Et saepe alterius ramos inpune videmus
vertere in alterius mutatamque insita mala
ferre pirum et prunis lapidosa rubescere corna.

[¶2] Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs
According to their kinds, ye husbandmen,
And tame with culture the wild fruits, lest earth
Lie idle. O blithe to make all Ismarus
One forest of the wine-god, and to clothe
With olives huge Tabernus! And be thou
At hand, and with me ply the voyage of toil
I am bound on, O my glory, O thou that art
Justly the chiefest portion of my fame,
Maecenas, and on this wide ocean launched
Spread sail like wings to waft thee. Not that I
With my poor verse would comprehend the whole,
Nay, though a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths
Were mine, a voice of iron; be thou at hand,
Skirt but the nearer coast-line; see the shore
Is in our grasp; not now with feigned song
Through winding bouts and tedious preludings
Shall I detain thee.

> Latin: Quare agite o proprios generatim discite cultus,
agricolae, fructusque feros mollite colendo,
neu segnes iaceant terrae. Iuvat Ismara Baccho
conserere atque olea magnum vestire Taburnum.
Tuque ades inceptumque una decurre laborem,
O decus, o famae merito pars maxima nostrae,
Maecenas, pelagoque volans da vela patenti;
non ego cuncta meis amplecti versibus opto,
non, mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum,
ferrea vox; ades et primi lege litoris oram.
In manibus terrae; non hic te carmine ficto
atque per ambages et longa exorsa tenebo.

[¶3] Those that lift their head
Into the realms of light spontaneously,
Fruitless indeed, but blithe and strenuous spring,
Since Nature lurks within the soil. And yet
Even these, should one engraft them, or transplant
To well-drilled trenches, will anon put of
Their woodland temper, and, by frequent tilth,
To whatso craft thou summon them, make speed
To follow. So likewise will the barren shaft
That from the stock-root issueth, if it be
Set out with clear space amid open fields:
Now the tree-mother's towering leaves and boughs
Darken, despoil of increase as it grows,
And blast it in the bearing. Lastly, that
Which from shed seed ariseth, upward wins
But slowly, yielding promise of its shade
To late-born generations; apples wane
Forgetful of their former juice, the grape
Bears sorry clusters, for the birds a prey.
Soothly on all must toil be spent, and all
Trained to the trench and at great cost subdued.
But reared from truncheons olives answer best,
As vines from layers, and from the solid wood
The Paphian myrtles; while from suckers spring
Both hardy hazels and huge ash, the tree
That rims with shade the brows of Hercules,
And acorns dear to the Chaonian sire:
So springs the towering palm too, and the fir
Destined to spy the dangers of the deep.
But the rough arbutus with walnut-fruit
Is grafted; so have barren planes ere now
Stout apples borne, with chestnut-flower the beech,
The mountain-ash with pear-bloom whitened o'er,
And swine crunched acorns 'neath the boughs of elms.

> Latin: Sponte sua quae se tollunt in luminis oras,
infecunda quidem, sed laeta et fortia surgunt;
quippe solo natura subest. Tamen haec quoque, si quis
inserat aut scrobibus mandet mutata subactis,
exuerint silvestrem animum cultuque frequenti
in quascumque voles artis haud tarda sequentur.
Nec non et sterilis, quae stirpibus exit ab imis,
hoc faciat, vacuos si sit digesta per agros;
nunc altae frondes et rami matris opacant
crescentique adimunt fetus uruntque ferentem.
Iam quae seminibus iactis se sustulit arbos
tarda venit seris factura nepotibus umbram,
pomaque degenerant sucos oblita priores
et turpis avibus praedam fert uva racemos.
Scilicet omnibus est labor inpendendus et omnes
cogendae in sulcum ac multa mercede domandae.
Sed truncis oleae melius, propagine vites
respondent, solido Paphiae de robore myrtus;
plantis et durae coryli nascuntur et ingens
fraxinus Herculeaeque arbos umbrosa coronae
Chaoniique patris glandes, etiam ardua palma
nascitur et casus abies visura marinos.
Inseritur vero et fetu nucis arbutus horrida,
et steriles platani malos gessere valentis;
castaneae fagus, ornusque incanuit albo
flore piri glandemque sues fregere sub ulmis.

[¶4] Nor is the method of inserting eyes
And grafting one: for where the buds push forth
Amidst the bark, and burst the membranes thin,
Even on the knot a narrow rift is made,
Wherein from some strange tree a germ they pen,
And to the moist rind bid it cleave and grow.
Or, otherwise, in knotless trunks is hewn
A breach, and deep into the solid grain
A path with wedges cloven; then fruitful slips
Are set herein, and—no long time—behold!
To heaven upshot with teeming boughs, the tree
Strange leaves admires and fruitage not its own.

> Latin: Nec modus inserere atque oculos inponere simplex.
Nam qua se medio trudunt de cortice gemmae
et tenuis rumpunt tunicas, angustus in ipso
fit nodo sinus: huc aliena ex arbore germen
includunt udoque docent inolescere libro.
Aut rursum enodes trunci resecantur et alte
finditur in solidum cuneis via, deinde feraces
plantae inmittuntur: nec longum tempus, et ingens
exsilit ad caelum ramis felicibus arbos
miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.

[¶5] Nor of one kind alone are sturdy elms,
Willow and lotus, nor the cypress-trees
Of Ida; nor of self-same fashion spring
Fat olives, orchades, and radii
And bitter-berried pausians, no, nor yet
Apples and the forests of Alcinous;
Nor from like cuttings are Crustumian pears
And Syrian, and the heavy hand-fillers.
Not the same vintage from our trees hangs down,
Which Lesbos from Methymna's tendril plucks.
Vines Thasian are there, Mareotids white,
These apt for richer soils, for lighter those:
Psithian for raisin-wine more useful, thin
Lageos, that one day will try the feet
And tie the tongue: purples and early-ripes,
And how, O Rhaetian, shall I hymn thy praise?
Yet cope not therefore with Falernian bins.
Vines Aminaean too, best-bodied wine,
To which the Tmolian bows him, ay, and king
Phanaeus too, and, lesser of that name,
Argitis, wherewith not a grape can vie
For gush of wine-juice or for length of years.
Nor thee must I pass over, vine of Rhodes,
Welcomed by gods and at the second board,
Nor thee, Bumastus, with plump clusters swollen.
But lo! how many kinds, and what their names,
There is no telling, nor doth it boot to tell;
Who lists to know it, he too would list to learn
How many sand-grains are by Zephyr tossed
On Libya's plain, or wot, when Eurus falls
With fury on the ships, how many waves
Come rolling shoreward from the Ionian sea.

> Latin: Praeterea genus haud unum nec fortibus ulmis
nec salici lotoque neque Idaeis cyparissis,
nec pingues unam in faciem nascuntur olivae,
orchades et radii et amara pausia baca
pomaque et Alcinoi silvae, nec surculus idem
Crustumiis Syriisque piris gravibusque volemis.
Non eadem arboribus pendet vindemia nostris,
quam Methymnaeo carpit de palmite Lesbos;
sunt Thasiae vites, sunt et Mareotides albae,
pinguibus hae terris habiles, levioribus illae,
et passo Psithia utilior tenuisque Lageos
temptatura pedes olim vincturaque linguam,
purpureae preciaeque, et quo te carmine dicam,
Rhaetica? Nec cellis ideo contende Falernis.
Sunt et Amineae vites, firmissima vina,
Tmolius adsurgit quibus et rex ipse Phanaeus;
Argitisque minor, cui non certaverit ulla
aut tantum fluere aut totidem durare per annos.
Non ego te, Dis et mensis accepta secundis,
transierim, Rhodia, et tumidis, Bumaste, racemis.
Sed neque quam multae species nec nomina quae sint,
est numerus; neque enim numero conprendere refert;
quem qui scire velit, Libyci velit aequoris idem
discere quam multae Zephyro turbentur harenae,
aut ubi navigiis violentior incidit Eurus,
nosse, quot Ionii veniant ad litora fluctus.

[¶6] Not that all soils can all things bear alike.
Willows by water-courses have their birth,
Alders in miry fens; on rocky heights
The barren mountain-ashes; on the shore
Myrtles throng gayest; Bacchus, lastly, loves
The bare hillside, and yews the north wind's chill.
Mark too the earth by outland tillers tamed,
And Eastern homes of Arabs, and tattooed
Geloni; to all trees their native lands
Allotted are; no clime but India bears
Black ebony; the branch of frankincense
Is Saba's sons' alone; why tell to thee
Of balsams oozing from the perfumed wood,
Or berries of acanthus ever green?
Of Aethiop forests hoar with downy wool,
Or how the Seres comb from off the leaves
Their silky fleece? Of groves which India bears,
Ocean's near neighbour, earth's remotest nook,
Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the air
Above their tree-tops? yet no laggards they,
When girded with the quiver! Media yields
The bitter juices and slow-lingering taste
Of the blest citron-fruit, than which no aid
Comes timelier, when fierce step-dames drug the cup
With simples mixed and spells of baneful power,
To drive the deadly poison from the limbs.
Large the tree's self in semblance like a bay,
And, showered it not a different scent abroad,
A bay it had been; for no wind of heaven
Its foliage falls; the flower, none faster, clings;
With it the Medes for sweetness lave the lips,
And ease the panting breathlessness of age.

> Latin: Nec vero terrae ferre omnes omnia possunt.
fluminibus salices crassisque paludibus alni
nascuntur, steriles saxosis montibus orni;
litora myrtetis laetissima; denique apertos
Bacchus amat collis, aquilonem et frigora taxi.
Aspice et extremis domitum cultoribus orbem
Eoasque domos Arabum pictosque Gelonos:
divisae arboribus patriae. Sola India nigrum
fert ebenum, solis est turea virga Sabaeis.
Quid tibi odorato referam sudantia ligno
balsamaque et bacas semper frondentis acanthi?
Quid nemora Aethiopum molli canentia lana,
velleraque ut foliis depectant tenuia Seres;
aut quos Oceano propior gerit India lucos,
extremi sinus orbis, ubi aera vincere summum
arboris haud ullae iactu potuere sagittae?
Et gens illa quidem sumptis non tarda pharetris.
Media fert tristis sucos tardumque saporem
felicis mali, quo non praesentius ullum,
pocula si quando saevae infecere novercae,
miscueruntque herbas et non innoxia verba,
auxilium venit ac membris agit atra venena.
Ipsa ingens arbos faciemque simillima lauro;
et, si non alium late iactaret odorem,
laurus erat; folia haud ullis labentia ventis;
flos ad prima tenax; animas et olentia Medi
ora fovent illo et senibus medicantur anhelis.

[¶7] But no, not Mede-land with its wealth of woods,
Nor Ganges fair, and Hermus thick with gold,
Can match the praise of Italy; nor Ind,
Nor Bactria, nor Panchaia, one wide tract
Of incense-teeming sand. Here never bulls
With nostrils snorting fire upturned the sod
Sown with the monstrous dragon's teeth, nor crop
Of warriors bristled thick with lance and helm;
But heavy harvests and the Massic juice
Of Bacchus fill its borders, overspread
With fruitful flocks and olives. Hence arose
The war-horse stepping proudly o'er the plain;
Hence thy white flocks, Clitumnus, and the bull,
Of victims mightiest, which full oft have led,
Bathed in thy sacred stream, the triumph-pomp
Of Romans to the temples of the gods.
Here blooms perpetual spring, and summer here
In months that are not summer's; twice teem the flocks;
Twice doth the tree yield service of her fruit.
But ravening tigers come not nigh, nor breed
Of savage lion, nor aconite betrays
Its hapless gatherers, nor with sweep so vast
Doth the scaled serpent trail his endless coils
Along the ground, or wreathe him into spires.
Mark too her cities, so many and so proud,
Of mighty toil the achievement, town on town
Up rugged precipices heaved and reared,
And rivers undergliding ancient walls.
Or should I celebrate the sea that laves
Her upper shores and lower? or those broad lakes?
Thee, Larius, greatest and, Benacus, thee
With billowy uproar surging like the main?
Or sing her harbours, and the barrier cast
Athwart the Lucrine, and how ocean chafes
With mighty bellowings, where the Julian wave
Echoes the thunder of his rout, and through
Avernian inlets pours the Tuscan tide?
A land no less that in her veins displays
Rivers of silver, mines of copper ore,
Ay, and with gold hath flowed abundantly.
A land that reared a valiant breed of men,
The Marsi and Sabellian youth, and, schooled
To hardship, the Ligurian, and with these
The Volscian javelin-armed, the Decii too,
The Marii and Camilli, names of might,
The Scipios, stubborn warriors, ay, and thee,
Great Caesar, who in Asia's utmost bounds
With conquering arm e'en now art fending far
The unwarlike Indian from the heights of Rome.
Hail! land of Saturn, mighty mother thou
Of fruits and heroes; 'tis for thee I dare
Unseal the sacred fountains, and essay
Themes of old art and glory, as I sing
The song of Ascra through the towns of Rome.

> Latin: sed neque Medorum, silvae ditissima, terra,
nec pulcher Ganges atque auro turbidus Hermus
laudibus Italiae certent, non Bactra neque Indi
totaque turiferis Panchaia pinguis harenis.
Haec loca non tauri spirantes naribus ignem
invertere satis inmanis dentibus hydri
nec galeis densisque virum seges horruit hastis;
sed gravidae fruges et Bacchi Massicus humor
inplevere; tenent oleae armentaque laeta.
Hinc bellator equus campo sese arduus infert;
hinc albi, Clitumne, greges et maxima taurus
victima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,
Romanos ad templa deum duxere triumphos.
Hic ver adsiduum atque alienis mensibus aestas
bis gravidae pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbos.
At rabidae tigres absunt et saeva leonum
semina nec miseros fallunt aconita legentis
nec rapit inmensos orbis per humum neque tanto
squameus in spiram tractu se colligit anguis.
Adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem,
tot congesta manu praeruptis oppida saxis
fluminaque antiquos subter labentia muros.
An mare, quod supra, memorem, quodque adluit infra
anne lacus tantos? Te, Lari maxume, teque,
fluctibus et fremitu adsurgens Benace marino
an memorem portus Lucrinoque addita claustra
atque indignatum magnis stridoribus aequor
Iulia qua ponto longe sonat unda refuso
Tyrrhenusque fretis inmittitur aestus Avernis?
Haec eadem argenti rivos aerisque metalla
ostendit venis atque auro plurima fluxit.
Haec genus acre virum, Marsos pubemque Sabellam
adsuetumque malo Ligurem Volscosque verutos
extulit, haec Decios, Marios, magnosque Camillos,
Scipiadas duros bello et te, maxume Caesar,
qui nunc extremis Asiae iam victor in oris
inbellem avertis Romanis arcibus Indum.
Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus,
magna virum; tibi res antiquae laudis et artem
ingredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontis,
Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen.

[¶8] Now for the native gifts of various soils,
What powers hath each, what hue, what natural bent
For yielding increase. First your stubborn lands
And churlish hill-sides, where are thorny fields
Of meagre marl and gravel, these delight
In long-lived olive-groves to Pallas dear.
Take for a sign the plenteous growth hard by
Of oleaster, and the fields strewn wide
With woodland berries. But a soil that's rich,
In moisture sweet exulting, and the plain
That teems with grasses on its fruitful breast,
Such as full oft in hollow mountain-dell
We view beneath us—from the craggy heights
Streams thither flow with fertilizing mud—
A plain which southward rising feeds the fern
By curved ploughs detested, this one day
Shall yield thee store of vines full strong to gush
In torrents of the wine-god; this shall be
Fruitful of grapes and flowing juice like that
We pour to heaven from bowls of gold, what time
The sleek Etruscan at the altar blows
His ivory pipe, and on the curved dish
We lay the reeking entrails. If to rear
Cattle delight thee rather, steers, or lambs,
Or goats that kill the tender plants, then seek
Full-fed Tarentum's glades and distant fields,
Or such a plain as luckless Mantua lost
Whose weedy water feeds the snow-white swan:
There nor clear springs nor grass the flocks will fail,
And all the day-long browsing of thy herds
Shall the cool dews of one brief night repair.
Land which the burrowing share shows dark and rich,
With crumbling soil—for this we counterfeit
In ploughing—for corn is goodliest; from no field
More wains thou'lt see wend home with plodding steers;
Or that from which the husbandman in spleen
Has cleared the timber, and o'erthrown the copse
That year on year lay idle, and from the roots
Uptorn the immemorial haunt of birds;
They banished from their nests have sought the skies;
But the rude plain beneath the ploughshare's stroke
Starts into sudden brightness. For indeed
The starved hill-country gravel scarce serves the bees
With lowly cassias and with rosemary;
Rough tufa and chalk too, by black water-worms
Gnawed through and through, proclaim no soils beside
So rife with serpent-dainties, or that yield
Such winding lairs to lurk in. That again,
Which vapoury mist and flitting smoke exhales,
Drinks moisture up and casts it forth at will,
Which, ever in its own green grass arrayed,
Mars not the metal with salt scurf of rust—
That shall thine elms with merry vines enwreathe;
That teems with olive; that shall thy tilth prove kind
To cattle, and patient of the curved share.
Such ploughs rich Capua, such the coast that skirts
Thy ridge, Vesuvius, and the Clanian flood,
Acerrae's desolation and her bane.

> Latin: Nunc locus arvorum ingeniis: quae robora cuique,
quis color et quae sit rebus natura ferendis.
Difficiles primum terrae collesque maligni,
tenuis ubi argilla et dumosis calculus arvis,
Palladia gaudent silva vivacis olivae.
Indicio est tractu surgens oleaster eodem
plurimus et strati bacis silvestribus agri.
At quae pinguis humus dulcique uligine laeta,
quique frequens herbis et fertilis ubere campus—
qualem saepe cava montis convalle solemus
despicere; huc summis liquuntur rupibus amnes
felicemque trahunt limum—quique editus austro
et filicem curvis invisam pascit aratris:
hic tibi praevalidas olim multoque fluentis
sufficiet Baccho vitis, hic fertilis uvae,
hic laticis, qualem pateris libamus et auro,
inflavit cum pinguis ebur Tyrrhenus ad aras,
lancibus et pandis fumantia reddimus exta.
Sin armenta magis studium vitulosque tueri
aut ovium fetum aut urentis culta capellas,
saltus et saturi petito longinqua Tarenti
et qualem infelix amisit Mantua campum,
pascentem niveos herboso flumine cycnos;
non liquidi gregibus fontes, non gramina deerunt;
et, quantum longis carpent armenta diebus,
exigua tantum gelidus ros nocte reponet.
Nigra fere et presso pinguis sub vomere terra
et cui putre solum,—namque hoc imitamur arando—
optima frumentis; non ullo ex aequore cernes
plura domum tardis decedere plaustra iuvencis;
aut unde iratus silvam devexit arator
et nemora evertit multos ignava per annos
antiquasque domos avium cum stirpibus imis
eruit; illae altum nidis petiere relictis,
at rudis enituit inpulso vomere campus.
Nam ieiuna quidem clivosi glarea ruris
vix humilis apibus casias roremque ministrat;
et tophus scaber et nigris exesa chelydris
creta negant alios aeque serpentibus agros
dulcem ferre cibum et curvas praebere latebras.
Quae tenuem exhalat nebulam fumosque volucris
et bibit humorem et, cum volt, ex se ipsa remittit
quaeque suo semper viridi se gramine vestit
nec scabie et salsa laedit robigine ferrum:
illa tibi laetis intexet vitibus ulmos,
illa ferax oleo est, illam experiere colendo
et facilem pecori et patientem vomeris unci.
Talem dives arat Capua et vicina Vesevo
ora iugo et vacuis Clanius non aequus Acerris.

[¶9] How each to recognize now hear me tell.
Dost ask if loose or passing firm it be—
Since one for corn hath liking, one for wine,
The firmer sort for Ceres, none too loose
For thee, Lyaeus?—with scrutinizing eye
First choose thy ground, and bid a pit be sunk
Deep in the solid earth, then cast the mould
All back again, and stamp the surface smooth.
If it suffice not, loose will be the land,
More meet for cattle and for kindly vines;
But if, rebellious, to its proper bounds
The soil returns not, but fills all the trench
And overtops it, then the glebe is gross;
Look for stiff ridges and reluctant clods,
And with strong bullocks cleave the fallow crust.
Salt ground again, and bitter, as 'tis called—
Barren for fruits, by tilth untamable,
Nor grape her kind, nor apples their good name
Maintaining—will in this wise yield thee proof:
Stout osier-baskets from the rafter-smoke,
And strainers of the winepress pluck thee down;
Hereinto let that evil land, with fresh
Spring-water mixed, be trampled to the full;
The moisture, mark you, will ooze all away,
In big drops issuing through the osier-withes,
But plainly will its taste the secret tell,
And with a harsh twang ruefully distort
The mouths of them that try it. Rich soil again
We learn on this wise: tossed from hand to hand
Yet cracks it never, but pitch-like, as we hold,
Clings to the fingers. A land with moisture rife
Breeds lustier herbage, and is more than meet
Prolific. Ah I may never such for me
O'er-fertile prove, or make too stout a show
At the first earing! Heavy land or light
The mute self-witness of its weight betrays.
A glance will serve to warn thee which is black,
Or what the hue of any. But hard it is
To track the signs of that pernicious cold:
Pines only, noxious yews, and ivies dark
At times reveal its traces.

> Latin: Nunc, quo quamque modo possis cognoscere, dicam.
Rara sit an supra morem si densa requires—
altera frumentis quoniam favet, altera Baccho,
densa magis Cereri, rarissima quaeque Lyaeo—
ante locum capies oculis alteque iubebis
in solido puteum demitti omnemque repones
rursus humum et pedibus summas aequabis harenas.
Si deerunt, rarum pecorique et vitibus almis
aptius uber erit; sin in sua posse negabunt
ire loca et scrobibus superabit terra repletis,
spissus ager; glaebas cunctantis crassaque terga
exspecta et validis terram proscinde iuvencis.
Salsa autem tellus et quae perhibetur amara,
frugibus infelix—ea nec mansuescit arando
nec Baccho genus aut pomis sua nomina servat—
tale dabit specimen: tu spisso vimine qualos
colaque prelorum fumosis deripe tectis;
huc ager ille malus dulcesque a fontibus undae
ad plenum calcentur; aqua eluctabitur omnis
scilicet, et grandes ibunt per vimina guttae;
at sapor indicium faciet manifestus et ora
tristia temptantum sensu torquebit amaro.
Pinguis item quae sit tellus, hoc denique pacto
discimus: haud umquam manibus iactata fatiscit,
sed picis in morem ad digitos lentescit habendo.
Humida maiores herbas alit, ipsaque iusto
laetior. Ah nimium ne sit mihi fertilis illa
nec se praevalidam primis ostendat aristis!
Quae gravis est, ipso tacitam se pondere prodit,
quaeque levis. Promptum est oculis praediscere nigram,
et quis cui color. At sceleratum exquirere frigus
difficile est: piceae tantum taxique nocentes
interdum aut hederae pandunt vestigia nigrae.

[¶10] All these rules
Regarding, let your land, ay, long before,
Scorch to the quick, and into trenches carve
The mighty mountains, and their upturned clods
Bare to the north wind, ere thou plant therein
The vine's prolific kindred. Fields whose soil
Is crumbling are the best: winds look to that,
And bitter hoar-frosts, and the delver's toil
Untiring, as he stirs the loosened glebe.
But those, whose vigilance no care escapes,
Search for a kindred site, where first to rear
A nursery for the trees, and eke whereto
Soon to translate them, lest the sudden shock
From their new mother the young plants estrange.
Nay, even the quarter of the sky they brand
Upon the bark, that each may be restored,
As erst it stood, here bore the southern heats,
Here turned its shoulder to the northern pole;
So strong is custom formed in early years.
Whether on hill or plain 'tis best to plant
Your vineyard first inquire. If on some plain
You measure out rich acres, then plant thick;
Thick planting makes no niggard of the vine;
But if on rising mound or sloping bill,
Then let the rows have room, so none the less
Each line you draw, when all the trees are set,
May tally to perfection. Even as oft
In mighty war, whenas the legion's length
Deploys its cohorts, and the column stands
In open plain, the ranks of battle set,
And far and near with rippling sheen of arms
The wide earth flickers, nor yet in grisly strife
Foe grapples foe, but dubious 'twixt the hosts
The war-god wavers; so let all be ranged
In equal rows symmetric, not alone
To feed an idle fancy with the view,
But since not otherwise will earth afford
Vigour to all alike, nor yet the boughs
Have power to stretch them into open space.

> Latin: his animadversis terram multo ante memento
excoquere et magnos scrobibus concidere montis,
ante supinatas aquiloni ostendere glaebas,
quam laetum infodias vitis genus. Optima putri
arva solo: id venti curant gelidaeque pruinae
et labefacta movens robustus iugera fossor.
Ac si quos haud ulla viros vigilantia fugit,
ante locum similem exquirunt, ubi prima paretur
arboribus seges et quo mox digesta feratur,
mutatam ignorent subito ne semina matrem.
Quin etiam caeli regionem in cortice signant,
ut, quo quaeque modo steterit, qua parte calores
Austrinos tulerit, quae terga obverterit axi,
restituant: adeo in teneris consuescere multum est.
Collibus an plano melius sit ponere vitem,
quaere prius. Si pinguis agros metabere campi,
densa sere; in denso non segnior ubere Bacchus;
sin tumulis adclive solum collisque supinos,
indulge ordinibus, nec setius omnis in unguem
arboribus positis secto via limite quadret.
Ut saepe ingenti bello cum longa cohortis
explicuit legio et campo stetit agmen aperto,
directaeque acies, ac late fluctuat omnis
aere renidenti tellus, necdum horrida miscent
proelia, sed dubius mediis Mars errat in armis:
omnia sint paribus numeris dimensa viarum;
non animum modo uti pascat prospectus inanem,
sed quia non aliter viris dabit omnibus aequas
terra neque in vacuum poterunt se extendere rami.