Pages

Friday, March 11, 2011

Vergil, Eclogue I

Publius Vergilius Maro [Vergil]

70-19 BC
Trans RMBullard
Latin (Republican Era/Golden Age of Latin Literature/Imperial Era)



Meliboeus

Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi* silvestram tenui musam meditaris avena*;

(Tityrus, you, reclining under the cover of a spreading beech-tree, meet a forest muse in the light oat;)


nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arva, nos patriam fugimus;
(we left behind the boundaries of the fatherland and the sweet field, we flee the fatherland;)


tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.
(you, Tityrus, a slow one, teach the forests how to call out the beautiful [muse] in the Amaryllidan shade.)


Tityrus


O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit;
(O Meliboeus, a god made these leisures for me;)


namque erit ille mihi semper deus;
(for he will always be a god to me;)


illius aram saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus;
(often does the tender male sheep from our flocks stain his altar;)


Ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum ludere quae vellem calamo* permisit agresti*.
(He allowed my cattle to wander, as you see, and for himself to play the things I wished for on the wild reed.)


Meliboeus
Non equidem invideo; miror magis; undique totis usque adeo turbatur agris.
(Indeed, I am not envious; instead, I am amazed; everywhere evermore is she whirled about in all the fields;)


En ipse capellas protenus aeger; hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco:
(For I, thinning my hair, am sick; scarcely even, Tityre, do I lead this girl:)


hic inter densas crylos modo namque gemellos, spem gregis, a silice in nuda conixa reliquit.
(Here, between the thick twin hazel trees, she left the hope of the flock, trying upon the naked flint;)


saepe malum hoc nobis, si mens non laeva fuisset, de caelo tactas memini praedicere quercus.
(This is often a wicked thing for me, if my mind was not incorrect, to announce how I recall the oaks that were touched from the sky;)


Sed tamen, iste deus qui sit, da, Tityre, nobis.
(But still, Tityrus, reveal to me, if he is a god;)


Tityrus
Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi stultus ego huic nostrae similem, quo saepe solemus pastores ovium teneros depellere fetus;
(Meliboeus, I stupidly thought the city, which they call Rome, was similar to our own, where often we shepherds are accustomed to beat down the tender younglings of sheep;)


Sic canibus catulos similes, sic matribus haedos noram;
(Thus shall I feed like calves to dogs, as young goats to their mothers;)


Verum haec tantum alias inter caput extulit urbes, quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.
(Truly as much as she carried away the other cities upon her head, so much as they are accustomed to be pressed between the slow wayfaring trees.)