Georgics
Liber I
mpr Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram vertere, Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere vites conveniat, quae cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, apibus quanta experientia parcis, 5hinc canere incipiam. vos, o clarissima mundi lumina, labentem caelo quae ducitis annum; Liber et alma Ceres, vestro si munere tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista, poculaque inventis Acheloia miscuit uvis; 10et vos, agrestum praesentia numina, Fauni (ferte simul Faunique pedem Dryadesque puellae!): munera vestra cano. tuque o, cui prima frementem fudit equum magno tellus percussa tridenti, Neptune; et cultor nemorum, cui pinguia Ceae 15ter centum nivei tondent dumeta iuvenci; ipse, nemus linquens patrium saltusque Lycaei, Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maenala curae, adsis, o Tegeaee, favens, oleaeque Minerva inventrix, uncique puer monstrator aratri, Title: P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon libri MP: . . . Georg. GR
Book I
Book I
What makes the crops joyous, beneath what star, Maecenas, it is well to turn the soil, and wed vines to elms, what tending the cattle need, what care the herd in breeding, what skill the thrifty bees—hence shall I begin my song. 1 O most radiant lights of the firmament, that guide through heaven the gliding year, O Liber and bounteous Ceres, if by your grace Earth changed Chaonia’s acorn for the rich corn ear, and blended draughts of Achelous with the new-found grapes, and you Fauns, the rustics’ ever present gods (come trip it, Fauns, and Dryad maids withal!), ’tis of your bounties I sing. And Neptune, for whom Earth, smitten by your mighty trident, first sent forth the neighing steed; you, too, spirit of the groves, 2 for whom thrice a hundred snowy steers crop Cea’s rich thickets; you too, Pan, guardian of the sheep, leaving your native woods and glades of Lycaeus, as you love your own Maenalus, come of your grace, Tegean lord! Come, Minerva, inventress of the olive; you, too, youth, 3 who showed to man the crooked
- 1The subjects of the four books are here enumerated: (1) tillage; (2) viticulture; (3) the rearing of cattle; and (4) the keeping of bees. Then follows the invocation of the rural powers, beginning with the Sun and Moon, and closing with Caesar Augustus, who has yet to choose his divine sphere.
- 2Aristaeus.
- 3Triptolemus, son of Celeus, king of Eleusis, and favourite of Demeter.