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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A14500	Virgil's Georgicks Englished. by Tho: May Esqr; Georgica. English	Virgil.; May, Thomas, 1595-1650.; Vaughan, Robert, engraver.	1628 (1628)	STC 24823; ESTC S119392	50,687	160

venter 〈◊〉 lawes and ●luto's cave to enter And to the Ghosts and their grim king he went Hearts that to humane prayers did nere relent But from all parts of hell the ghosts and throng Of livelesse shadowes moved by his song Came forth as many thousands as a flight Of little birds into the woods whom night Or showres approaching thither drive in sholes The ghosts of men and women the great soules Of Heroes Virgins and of Boyes were there And Youths that tomb'd before their parents were Whom foule Cocytus reedlesse bankes enclose And that blacke muddy poole that never flowes And Styx nine times about it rowles his waves But all hels in most vaults and torturing caves Amazed stood th' Eumenides forbeare To menace now with their blew snaky harie Three-mouthed Cerberus to bark refraines Ixion's racking wheele unmov'd remaines Now comming back all dangers past had he Behinde him follow'd his Eurydice Restor'd to life for this condition Proserpina had made when lo anon Forgetfull love a suddaine frenzy wrought Yet to be pardon'd could Fie●ds pardon ought Neere to the light alas forgetfull he Love-sicke look'd backe on his Eurydice That action frustrates all the paines he tooke The ruthlesse tyrant's covenant is broke And thrice Avernus horrid lake resounds Orpheus quoth she what madnesse thus confoūde Thy wretched selfe and me sterne fates surprie Me back againe deaths slumbers close mine eyes Farewell thus hurry'd in black night I go This saide her aëry hands she lifts and so As smoake sleetes into ayre she vanisht there Now his no more and left him clasping th' ayre Offring replyes in vaine nor more alas Would churlish Charon suffer him to passe What should he do his wife twice lost how move The Fiends with tears with prayers the gods above● His wife now cold was ferry'd thence away In Charons boate But he seven moneths they say Weeping besides forsaken Strymons waves Vnder the cold and solitary caves To ruthlesse rocks did his mishaps lament That trees were mov'd and Tygers did re●ent As Phi●omel in shady Poplar tree Wailing her young ones losse whom cruelly A watching Husbandman ere fledge for flight Took from her nest She spends in griefe the night And from a bough sings forth her sorrow there With sad complaints filling the places neere No Venus now nor Hymenaean rites Could move his minde wandring in wofull plights Where on Riphaean fields frost ever lyes Ore Scythian ice and snowy Tanais He there complayn'd of Pluto's bootlesse Boone And how how againe Eurydice was gone The Thracian Dames whose beds he did despise Raging in Bacchus nightly sacrifice Scatter'd him peece-meale ore the fields abroad Yet then when swift Ocagrian Hebrus flood Carry'd the head torne from the neck along Eurydice his cold and dying tongue Ah poore Eurydice did still resound Eurydice the banks did Eccho round Thus Proteus spake and leapt into the Maine And where he leapt beneath his head againe The foaming waters rose in bubbles round Fearelesse Cyrene with this cheatfull sound Comforts her sonne Banish sad cares my sonne This this did cause thy Bees destruction For this the Nymphs which in the woods did play And dance with her have tane thy Bees away Bring thou thy offrings humbly beg thy peace And there adore the easie Dryades For they will pardon and their wrath remit I le teach thee first what way of praying's fit Choo●e out foure lusty Bulls well shap'd and fed Which on thy greene Lycaeus top are bred As many Heifers which nere yoake did beare To these foure altars in the temple reare And from their throats let out the sacred blood And leave their bodies in the leavie wood When the ninth morning after shall arise Let●aean poppy t' Orph●us sacrifice Kill a blacke sheep and th' wood again go see With a slaine Calfe appease Eurydice Without delay he doth what ●he directs Comes to the temples th' altars there erects Foure ●usty Bulls well shap'd and fed he tooke As many as Heyfers that nere bare the yoke When the ninth morning after did arise To Orpheus he perform'd his sacrifice And came to th' wood when lo strange to be told A ●udden wonder they did there behold Bees buzz'd within the Bullocks putrifi'd Bowels and issu'd out their broken sides Making great clouds in th' aire and taking trees Like grapes in clusters hung whole swarms of bee● This I of Tillage Trees and Cattells care Have sung whilst mighty Caesar in his warre Thundring by great Euphrates doth impose Lawes on the conquer'd Parthians and goes The way to heaven Then sweet Parthenope Happy in peacefull stydies nourish'd me Who Shepheards layes and Tytirus thee young Vnder the broade beech covert boldly sung FINIS Annotations upon the fourth BOOKE 1 VIrgil in this fourth Booke lest any businesse of a countrey life should be wanting in his Georgicks beginnes here the discourse of Bees a subiect though small ●et as one observes written of by many the ablest Authours and in different manner Aristotle first in his booke intituled De historia animalium had written with much subtletie and depth concerning the Bees nature Amongst the Latines Varro in a discourse wondrous for the brevity hath written fully of them Iunius Higinius with diligence and walking as it were in a spacious field hath at large discoursed of the nature of Bees he omitteth nothing which the ancient Poets have pleasantly fabled of that subject Cornelius Celsus in an elegant and facetious stile hath made illustration of it Columella moderately and onely as himselfe confesses because it is a part of that subject which he had before began with no great ardour hath expressed it And lest it should only be written in prose our Poet in this place in most elegant Verse inferior to none that ever was entreateth of this small subiect b The King of the Bees saith one it usually spotted more than the rest and of a forme more faire and beautifull He is twice as bigge as the common Bees his wings are shorter than theirs but his legs are straighter and longer so that his walking up and down she h●●e is more lofty and full of majesty Vpon his forehead is a bright spot glittering in manner of a d●ad● me He wants a sting armed with nothing but majesty and a wondrous obedi●nce of the other Bees to him When ever hee goes forth the whole swarme ●aite about him guard him and suffer him not to be seene When the common Bees are 〈◊〉 their worke hee walkes to take survey of ●hem he himselfe only being free from labor About him still are his guards and officers those strength hee uses in punishing the idle and sloathfull Bees But others are of opini●n who deny the generation of bees without ●span that this great Bee called the King 〈◊〉 the onely male in the hive without whose company there can bee no generation at all and therefore that all the other bees doe per●etually slocke and throng about him not ●ith respect as to a

weeds for want of tillers mournd And crooked sickles into swords were turnd Euphrates here there Germany in arms Was up on tother side the loud alarms F●ight neighbouring cities all accords are broke And all the world with impious war is shooke So when swift charriots from the lists are gone Their furious hast increases as they run In vaine the charrioter their course would stay Th'ungovern'd horses hurry him away Finis libri primi Annotations upon the first BOOKE IT is not unknowne to any man who is an able iudge of this worke that Virgil though Prince of the Roman Poets for that title his own age freely affoorded him and the judgement or modesty of succeeding times never detracted from him did help his inuention by imitation of the Grecian Poets in this work of his Georgicks to speak nothing of his Aeneids or Bucolicks he has taken his subject from Ascraean Hesiod as his own verse in the second booke modestly acknowledges Ascraeuinque cano Romana per oppida carmen In this subiect though the learning of Virgil must needes carry him vpon other matters than Hesiod treated of and his own intent to honour his natiue Italy which was then mistresse of the conquer'd world and to whose climate and properties hee especially proportions this discourse of husbandry hee retaines in many things the Grecian way bee invokes their gods men whose ancient worth had deis●ed them to posterity he builds upon many stories which either the Gre●kes inuented or the distance of time has made posterity not to credit them as truths but intitle them poeticall stories Some of these histories which are shortly mentioned in this Werks I haue thought fitting to relate here for th● ease or delight of the English reader ●●treating all Readers to pardon me for striving onely to please them for to mee it can adde nothing since all men of iudgement can tell how easily and where I find them I haue not mentioned them all nor made a large comment upon the worke to extend it to an unnecessary bulke but mentioned such only as I thought fitting b Staphylus the son of Sithneus and chiefe Shepheard to Oeneus king of Aetolia had obserued that one of his goates did often in feeding separat it selfe from the rest of the flocke and by that feeding was growne fatter and better in liking than all the rest He upon a day resolved to watch this goate and found it feeding on a cluster of grapes he gathered some of the grapes wondring at the noveltie and rarenesse of the fruit presented it to the King his Master The King tasted it and wondrously pleased and cheared with the juice of it began to esteeme it of great value insomuch as not long after it so happened that the great Bacchus returning from his Indian conquests was entertained at the court of this Oeneus who presented to Bacchus his new-found fruit Bacchus who before had learned the use of it instructed the king how to continue the race and the maner how to dresse and perfect his vines and ordained withall that the wine in the Greeke language should be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in honour of Oeneus and the grape 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the name of Staphylus the kings shepheard c These Faunt are accounted the country Gods and are thought alwaies to inhabite in the woods The first of them was Faunus king of the Aborigines the son of Picus grandchilde of Saturne who first reduced the inhabitants of Italy to a ciuill life hee built houses and consecrated woods in honour of so great a merit as this he was by his thankefull posterity as the custome was of those times consecrated a god and his oracle with great devotion kept in Abbunea an Italian wood Of his name all Temples were afterwards called Fanes hee married his sister Fauna whom the Romans in after times honoured with great deuotion and called her Bona Shee gaue Oracles to the women as her husband Faunus did unto the men d The Fable is thus When the famous City of Athens was founded and Neptune and Minerva were in great contention who should have the honour of naming the place it pleased the gods to appoint it thus that the honour should accrew to that deity who could bestow the greatest benefit upon mankinde Vpon which sentence Neptune with his trident striking the shore immediately a furious horse provided and armed for the war was created by that stroke Minerva casting her javelin from her of that javelin produced an Olive tree which being a fruitfull and good plant and the embleme of peace was iudged more usefull and profiable to mankinde The cause why our Author invoketh Neptune in this place is because hee intendeth to speake of horses in the third Booke of this Worke. Which had beene else unfit in a discourse concerning affaires of Land to have invoked a god of the Sea c Aristaeus who is here invoked was reported the son of Apollo and the Nymph Cyrene This Aristaeus the father of Actaeon who transformed into a stag as Ovid's fable delivers it was devoured by his doggs grieved for his sons death departed from Thebes to the Iland Caea which was then destitute of inhabitants by reason of a pestilence which had there happened This Caea is an Iland in the Aegaean sea from whence hee sailed into Arcadia there ended the residue of his life In Arcadia hee was honoured as a god after his death for teaching the people that strange mysterie of making Bees f This youth here named the invent●r of the Plow is by most thought to be Osiris the King and afterwards god of the Aegyptians He was the first that ever taught the Aegyptians his country-men the use of Oxen for p●owing of their ground He was honoured by them as a god after his death for this great benefit and worshipped in the forme of an Ox● which was called Apis in the City of Memphis And in memory of this also Isis the wife of that Osiris was honoured as a goddesse and had solemne sacrifices in which an care of corne was carryed before the pompe and all plowmen in harvest time sacrified to her with the straw of wheat g The history of the birth life and deity of this god Sylvanus is thus reported A shepheard whose name was Cratis abused to his lust ash●e-Goat of his flocke and when upon a time Cratis was sleeping by a river● side that hee-Goat which used the company of the shee-Goat in a jealous fury assaulted Cratis with his hornes and tumbled him into the river from whose name the flood was afterwards called Cratis This monstrous issue of he Shepheard and the Goat when it was brought to light resembled them both and was a Goat in the nether parts but in the upper it carryed the shape of a man Being afterward brought up and growing in the woods the Shepheards astonished at so strange a shape began to honour and adore him for a god calling him