And flaming carbuncles, and noisome sweat, And clammy dews, that loathsome lice beget; 'Till the slow-creeping evil eats his way, Consumes the parching limbs, and makes the life his prey.
Virgil has taken care to raise the subject of each Georgic. In the first, he has only dead matter on which to work. In the second, he just steps on the world of life, and describes that degree of it which is to be found in vegetables. In the third, he advances to animals: and, in the last, he singles out the bee, which may be reckoned the most sagacious of them, for his subject.
In this Georgic, he shows us what station is most proper for the bees, and when they begin to gather honey: how to call them home when they swarm; aud how to part them when they are engaged in battle. From hence he takes occasion to discover their different kinds: and, after an excursion, relates their prudent and politic administration of affairs, and the general diseases that often rage in their hives, with the proper symptoms and remedies of each disease. In the last place he lays down a method of repairing their kind, supposing their whole breed lost; aad gives at large the history of its invention.
THE gifts of heav'n my following song pursues,
Arial honey, and ambrosial dews.
Mecenas, read this other part, that sings
En battl'd squadrons and advent'rous kings-
A mighty pomp, though made of little things.
Their arms, their arts, their manners, I disclose,
And how they war, and whence the people rose.
Slight is the subject, but the praise not small,
If heav'n assist, and Phoebus hear my call.
First, for thy bees a quiet station find,
And lodge them under covert of the wind
(For winds, when homeward they return, will drive
The loaded carriers from their evening hive,)
Far from the cows' and goats' insulting crew,
That trample down the flow'rs, and brush the dew. 15
The painted lizard, and the birds of prey,
Foes of the frugal kind, be far away-
The titmouse, and the pecker's hungry brood,
And Procne, with her bosom stain'd in blood:
These rob the trading citizens, and bear
The trembling captives through the liquid air,
And for their callow young a cruel feast prepare.
But near a living stream their mansion place,
Edg'd round with moss, and tufts of matted grass:
And plant, (the wind's impetuous rage to stop)
Wild olive trees, or palms, before the busy shop;
That when the youthful prince, with proud alarm,
Calls out th' venturous colony to swarm-
When first their way through yielding air they wing,
New to the pleasures of their native spring-
The banks of brooks may make a cold retreat
For the raw soldiers from the scalding heat,
And neighb'ring trees with friendly shade invite
The troops, unus'd to long laborious flight.
Then o'er the running stream or standing lake,
A passage for thy weary people make;
With osier floats the standing water strow;
Of massy stones make bridges, if it flow;
That basking in the sun thy bees may lie,
And, resting there their flaggy pinions dry,
When, late returning home, the laden host
By raging winds is wreck'd upon the coast.
Wild thyme and sav'ry set around their cell,
Sweet to the taste, and fragrant to the smell:
Set rows of rosemary with flow'ring stem,
And let the purple vi'lets drink the stream.
Whether thou build the palace of thy bees
With twisted ogiers, or with barks of trees,
Make but a narrow mouth; for as the cold
Congeals into a lump the liquid gold,
So 'tis again dissolv'd by summer's neat;
And the sweet labours by extremes defeat.
And therefore not in vain, th' industrious kind
With dauby wax and flow'rs the chinks have fin'd,
And with their stores of gather'd glue, contrive
To stop the vents and crannies of their hive.
Not birdlime, or Idæan pitch, produce
A more tenacious mass of clammy juice.
Nor bees are lodg'd in hives alone, but found
In chambers of their own beneath the ground:
Their vaulted roofs are hung in pumices,
And in the rotten trunks of hollow trees.
But plaster thou the chinky hives with clay,
And leafy branches o'er their lodgings lay:
Nor place them where too deep a water flows,
Or where the yew, their pois'nous neighbour, grows;
Nor roast red crabs, t' offend the niceness of their
Nor near the streaming stench of muddy ground;
Nor hollow rocks that render back the sound,
And double images of voice rebound.
For what remains, when golden suns appear,
And under earth have driv'n the winter year,
The winged nation wanders through the skies,
And o'er the plains and shady forest flies:
Then, stooping on the meads and leafy bow'rs,
They skim the floods, and sip the purple flow'rs.
Exalted hence, and drunk with secret joy,
Their young succession all their cares employ:
They breed, they brood, instruct, and educate,
And make provision for the future state:
They work their waxen lodgings in their hives,
They labour honey to sustain their lives.
But when thou seest a swarming cloud arise,
That sweeps aloft, and darkens all the skies,
The motions of their hasty flight attend;
And know, to floods or woods, their airy march they berd.
Then melfoil be t, and honey-suckles pound;
With these alluring savours strew the ground:
And mix with tinkling brass the cymbal's droning
sound.
Straight to their ancient cells, recall'd from air,
The reconcil'd deserter's will repair.
But, if intestine broils alarm the hive,
(For two pretenders oft for empire strive)
The vulgar in divided factions jar;
And murm'ring sounds proclaim the civil war.
Inflam'd with ire, and trembling with disdain,
Scarce can their limbs their mighty souls contain.
With shouts, the coward's courage they excite,
And martial clangors call them out to fight:
With hoarse alarms the hollow camp rebounds,
That imitate the trumpets angry sounds:
Then to their common standards they repair;
The nimble horsemen scour the fields of air;
In form of battle drawn, they issue forth,
And ev'ry knight is proud to prove his worth.
Prest for their country's honour, and their kings,
On their sharp beaks they whet their pointed stings,
And exercise their arms, and tremble with their wings.
Full in the midst the haughty monarchs ride;
The trusty guards come up, and close the side;
With shouts the daring foe to battle is defied.
Thus, in the season of unclouded spring,
To war they follow their undaunted king,
Crowd through their gates; and, in the fields of light,
The shocking squadrons meet in mortal fight.
Headlong they fall from high, and wounded wound;
And heaps of slaughter'd soldiers bite the ground.
Hard hailstones lie not thicker on the plain,
Nor shaken oaks such show'rs of acorns rain.
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