The Bucolics and Eclogues

MELIBOEUS You, Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy Reclining, on the slender oat rehearse Your silvan ditties: I from my sweet fields, And home's familiar bounds, even now depart. Exiled from home am I; while, Tityrus, you Sit careless in the shade, and, at your call, Fair Amaryllis bid the woods resound.
TITYRUS O Meliboeus, 'twas a god vouchsafed This ease to us, for him a god will I Deem ever, and from my folds a tender lamb Oft with its life-blood shall his altar stain. His gift it is that, as your eyes may see, My kine may roam at large, and I myself Play on my shepherd's pipe what songs I will.
MELIBOEUS I grudge you not the boon, but marvel more, Such wide confusion fills the country-side. See, sick at heart I drive my she-goats on, And this one, O my Tityrus, scarce can lead: For 'mid the hazel-thicket here but now She dropped her new-yeaned twins on the bare flint, Hope of the flock- an ill, I mind me well, Which many a time, but for my blinded sense, The thunder-stricken oak foretold, oft too From hollow trunk the raven's ominous cry. But who this god of yours? Come, Tityrus, tell.
TITYRUS The city, Meliboeus, they call Rome, I, simpleton, deemed like this town of ours, Whereto we shepherds oft are wont to drive The younglings of the flock: so too I knew Whelps to resemble dogs, and kids their dams, Comparing small with great; but this as far Above all other cities rears her head As cypress above pliant osier towers.
MELIBOEUS And what so potent cause took you to Rome?
TITYRUS Freedom, which, though belated, cast at length Her eyes upon the sluggard, when my beard 'Gan whiter fall beneath the barber's blade- Cast eyes, I say, and, though long tarrying, came, Now when, from Galatea's yoke released, I serve but Amaryllis: for I will own, While Galatea reigned over me, I had No hope of freedom, and no thought to save. Though many a victim from my folds went forth, Or rich cheese pressed for the unthankful town, Never with laden hands returned I home.