Which ice and frosts and stormes perpetuall hold Twixt that and these to comfort mans estate The gods have plac't two zones more temperate Twixt both these two a line i' th' midst is put Which by the Zodiack is obliquoly cut And as the world is elevated to The Scythian North it does declining go Down to the Libyan South The North's still high To us the South vnder our feet doth lye Seen by the ghosts and balefull Styx below The mighty dragon there windes to and fro And like a crooked river doth passe through And compasse round the great and lesser Beare Which to be dipped in the Ocean feare There as they say an ever silent night Remaines and darknesse never pierc'd by light Or else the morne returnes to them when gone From us and brings them day when th'Eastern suâ— Doth in the morne salute our haemisphere Darke night compels them to light candles therâ— Hence we in doubtfull skies may stormes foresee When a fit harvest or seed time will bee Or when to plow th' uncertain â—eas t is fit With cares or when to rig an armed fleet And when pine trees are seasonably fell'd Nor can this speculation vaine be held How th' heavenly signes doe rise and fall and here Into foure seasons do divide the yeare When storms within doores keep the husbandman They give him leisure to make ready than What they would hasten in faire weather more To grinde their plowshares dulled edge to borâ— And hollow treeâ— for boates the husbandmen Then measure corne and marke their cattell then Some horned forkes prepare some sharpen stakes Bonds for the limber vines another makes Panyers sometimes of Rubean twigs they make Sometimes they grinde their corne somtimes they bake For all diuine and humane Lawes allow On greatest holy-daies some workes to do To digge a dike or fence about the corne To catch the harmefull birds brambles to burne To wash the bleating flocks in riuers cleare By no Religion was forbidden ere Some driue their Asses to the market towne With oyle and apples who returne anone Laden with pitch and grinding stones againe The Moone did not all daies alike ordaine Happy for euery worke The fift Moone fly Then hell and furies first began to be Then did the earth an impious birth produce Typhoeus Caeus and Iapetus That durst conspire the towers of heauen to rase Thrice they indeavour'd with strong hand to place The mountain Ossa on high Pelion On that Olympus thrice great Ioue threw downe Their worke with thunder But the fourteenth day Is best to plant your vineyards and assay Your new-tam'd Oxen. Then best spinning thriues The ninth is safe to travell free from Theeues Some works by night are happiest brought to pass Or when the morning starre bedeawes the grasse By night your stubble and dry Meadowes mow For night faire moisture doth on them bestow Some sit up late at winter-fires and fit Their sharp edg'd tools the while their wiues do sit Beside them carding Wooll and there make light With songs the tedious labour of the night Or boyle new wine from crudities and skim The bubbling froth off from the Caldrons brim But reape thy corne in the daies heat and drought For dry-reap't corne will thresh more cleanly out In Summer naked plow thy ground and sow Cold Winter rest on plowmen doth bestow Then they enioy what they before did gaine And with glad feasts each other entertaine The geniall Winter to free ioy inuites From care Such are the Mariners delights When laden ships long absent from their home Now deckt with garlands to the hauen come Besides the Winter is a season fit To gather ackorns and ripe berries get Of bayes of olive trees and myrtles red To catch wilde cranes in sprindges and to spred Toiles for red Deere the long-ear'd Hare to start And fallow Deere with a loop'd Spanish dart Wel thrown to kil wheÌ„ with deep snow the ground Is hid and rivers with strong ice are bound The stormes of Autumne why should I relate When daies grow shorter and more moderate The heat what care good husbands entertaine Or when the showâ—ry spring doth promise raine WheÌ„ all the fields with green ear'd corn are proud And tender blades the swelling graine do shroud â—oft have seen when corne was ripe to mow And now in dry and brittle straw did grow Windes from all quarters oppositely blow By whose dire force the full-ear'd blades were torn Vp by the roots and into th' aire were born No otherwise than when blacke whirle windes rise And tosse dry straw and stubble to the skies Oft fall huge gusts of water from the sky And all the full-swell'd clouds whirle from on high Black showers stormes about the thunders noise Even rends high heaven falling raine destroyes All crops and all that th' Oxens toile has done Dikes fill with sound the swelled rivers run The seas with troubled agitations move In midst of that tempestuous night great Iove From a bright hand his winged thunder throwes Which shakes the earth beasts flye sad terror goes Through mortal breasts His burning dart doth aw Rhodope Athos th' high Ceraunia The showery South windes double now and round The woods do murmur and beate shores resound For fearâ— of this observe the moneths and signes Marke to what house Saturns cold star inclines And with what planet Mercurie doth ioyne But first give worship to the powers divine Offer to i Ceres yearely sacrifice With feasts upon the grasse when winter is Quite spent and now the spring doth fresh appear Then lambs are fat then wines are purg'd clear The shady mountaines then sweet sleeps afford Let her by all thy plowmen be ador'd Let honey milke and wine be offered To her and th' happy sacrifice be led About the new corne thrice whilst every one Followes with ioyfull acclamation Imploring Ceres favour and let none Presume to thrust a sickle into corne Vnlesse with oaken wreathes he first adorne His head and dance unartificially With hymnes of praise to Ceres Deity And that by certain tokens we might know When heat will come when raine when winds shal blow Great Ioue ordained monethly what the Moone Should teach what signes foretell when winds go down That husbandmen marking what oft befals Know when to keep their cattell in the stals Iust ere the windes arise the Sea swels high Great noise is heard from all the mountaines nigh Then hollow murmurs through the woods you hear And all the shoares resounding far and near Then Seas are ill to Saylers evermore When Cormorants fly crying to the shore From the mid-sea when Sea fowle pastime make Vpon dry land when Herns the ponds forsake And mounted on their wings do flye aloft You may discerne when windes are rising oft The stars in heauen do seeme to fall and make Through nights dark ayre a long and fiery tracke Oft straw and wither'd leaues in th' aire fly vp And feathers swimme upon the waters top But when
VIRGIL'S Georgicks Englished by Tho May Esq Lo printed for Tho. Walkley in Brittains Burse Râ—ughan fecit 1628 To my truely judicious Friend Christopher Gardiner of Haleng Esquire I Cannot make a fitter choise of any Name to stand prefixed before this Worke than such a friends who not onely vnderstands but loves endeavours of this nature one as far from pride as ignorance and such a Reader as I could wish all but cannot hope to finde many It is a Translation of such a Poet as in our age is no lesse admired than hee was once honoured in his Romane world To speake how learned the Poem is how full of heights not improperly raised out of a meane subject were needlesse to you who so well vnderstand the originall of it and the pattern of this originall the Poem of Hesiod If there were any thing in my paines which might either offend an honest eare or justly suffer a great condemnation from a learned Censurer I should bee fearefull to commend it to you whose Religion Life and Learning are so well known vnto me This Worke may informe some delight others it can hurt none it is no new thing being a Translation but an old Worke of such a Poet who in the Opinion of his owne times was an honest man as well as an able writer Whose Poem if I have truely rendered I thinke it better than publishing mine owne fancies to the World especially in an Age so much cloyed with cob-webbe Inventions and vnprofitoble Poemes How much I have failed in my vndertaking as missing the sense of Virgil or not expressing of him highly and plainely enough they onely are able Iudges who can conferre it and such are you to whose iudgement I leave it and rest Your true Friend THOMAS MAY. GEORGICON The first BOOKE THE ARGVMENT TIllage in all her severall parts is showne Her favouring gods her first invention Her various seasons the celestiall signes And how the Plow-mans providence divines Of future weather what presages bee From Beasts and Birds by wise antiquity Drawne into rules insallible from whence The Plow-man takes despaire or confidence It hat tooles th' industrious husband's works aâ— vaile Fro whence our Poet sadly doth bewaile That crooked Sickles turn'd to Swords so late Had drunke the blood of Romes divided State And in few yeares with her unnaturall wounds Had twice manur'd Aemathiaeâ— fatal grounds What makes rich crops what season most enclines To plowing th' earth marrying elms with vines What care of Neat or Sheep is to be hâ—d Of frugall Bees what trials may be made I sing Mecoenaâ— here You lights most cleare Whose heavenly course directs the sliding yeare Bacchus and fostring Ceres if first you Did for Chaonian Mast rich Corne bestow And temper'd waters with invented b wine You tillage-favouring gods ye c Fauns divine And virgin Dryades be present now I sing your bounties and great d Neptune thou Whose tridents stroke did first froÌ„ th' earth produce A warlike horse thou that the woods dost use Whose full three hundred snow-white Bullocks run Grazing rich e Caeas pasture fields upon Sheep-keâ—ping Pan with favour present bee If thy Mâ—â—nalian flocks be deare to thee Leaving Lycaeus and faire Arcady Minerva foundresse of the Olive tree Thou f youth inventer of the crooked plow And thou that mak'st the tender Cypresse grow Vp from the root g Silvanus all that love Tillage both gods and goddesses above That growing plants can foster without seed And them from heaven with raine sufficing feed And thou great Caesar whom t is yet not plaine What ranke of gods shall one day entertaine Whether the World thy deity shall feare As Lord of fruits and seasons of the yeare Of lands and townes with Venus myrtle tree Crowning thy head or thou the god wilt bee Of the vast Sea and Thules farthest shore And thee alone the Saylors shall adore As Thetis sonne-in-law with all her Seas Giuen for a Dower or else that thou wilt please To adde one signe to the slow moneths and be Betwixt the ballance and h Erigâ—ne The fiery Scorpion will contract his space And leaue for thee in heauen the greater place What ere thou 'lt be for hell despaires to gaine Thee for her King nor thirst thou so for reigne Though Greece so much th' Elysian fields admire And sought Proserpinâ— would not retire Thence with her mother view with gracious eies And prosper this my ventrous enterprise Pity the Plow-mens errours and mine too And use thy selfe to be inuoked now When first the spring dissolues the mountaine snow When th' earth grows soft again west winds blow Then let your Oxen toile in furrowes deepe Let use from rusting your bright plowshares keep Those crops which twice have felt the sun twice The cold will Plow-mens greediest wish suffice Harvests from thence the crowded barnes will fill But least the fields we ignorantly till To know how different lands and climates are All windes and seasons let it be our care What every Region can or cannot beare Here corn thrives best vines best do prosper there Some Lands are best for fruit for pasture some From Tmolus see how fragrant saffrons come 'Mongst the Sabaeans frankincense doth grow Iron the naked Chalybes bestow India sends ivory Pontus beavers stone Epire swift horse that races oft haue wonne These severall vertues on each land and clime Nature bestow'd even from the point of time When stones in th' empti'd world Deuâ—alion threw FroÌ„ wheÌ„ce th' hard-harted race of mankind grew Therefore when first the yeare begins do thou Thy richest grounds most deep and strongly plow That Summers piercing Sun may ripen more And well digest the fallow gleâ—e but poore And barren grounds about October plow Not deepe in one lest weedes that rankly grow Spoile the rich crop in tother lest the dry And sandy grounds quite without moisture ly And let thy â—ield each other yeare remaine Fallow and ear'd to gather heart againe Or else thy corne thou there mayst safely sow Where in full codds last yeare rich pease did grow Or else where tares or lupines last were sowne Lupines that sadnesse cause for t is well knowne That oates hempe flaxe and poppy causing sleep Do burne the soile but best it is to keep The ground one yeare at rest forget not than With richest dung to hearten it againe Or with unsifted ashes so t is plaine That changing seedes gives rest unto a field And t is no losse to let it lye untill'd Fires oft are good on barren earshes made With crackling flames to burne the stubble blade Whether the earth some hidden strength do gaine From thence or wholesome nourishment obtaine Or that those fires digest or purge or dry All poisonous humours that in th' earth did ly Or else that heat new pores and caverns opes Through which good iuice comes to the following crops Or else it knits the earths too open veines And makes them more compact lest falling raines Soake
venter 〈◊〉 lawes and â—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 Fieâ—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 confouÌ„de 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 aboveâ— 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 reâ—ent As Phiâ—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 Chooâ—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 Letâ—aean poppy t' Orphâ—us sacrifice Kill a blacke sheep and th' wood again go see With a slaine Calfe appease Eurydice Without delay he doth what â—he directs Comes to the temples th' altars there erects Foure â—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 â—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 beeâ— 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 â—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 hâ—â—e is more lofty and full of majesty Vpon his forehead is a bright spot glittering in manner of a dâ—adâ— me He wants a sting armed with nothing but majesty and a wondrous obediâ—nce of the other Bees to him When ever hee goes forth the whole swarme â—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 â—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 opiniâ—n who deny the generation of bees without â—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 perâ—etually slocke and throng about him not â—ith respect as to a