When to the nymphs our annual rites we pay,
And when our fields with victims we furvey:
While favage boars delight in shady woods,
And finny fish inhabit in the floods ;
While bees on thyme, and locufts feed on dew,
Thy grateful fwains thefe honours fhall renew.
Such honours as we pay to powers divine,
To Bacchus and to Ceres, fhall be thine.
Such annual honours fhall be giv'n, and thou
Shalt hear, and fhalt condemn thy fuppliants to their
That play through trembling trees, delight me more;
Nor murmuring billows on the founding fhore;
Nor winding ftreams that through the valley glide;
And the fcarce-cover'd pebbles gently chide.
MEN. Receive you first this tuneful pipe; the fame
That play'd my Corydon's unhappy flame.
The fame that fung Neera's conquering eyes ;
And, had the judge heen juft, had won the prize.
Mors. Accept from me this fheephook, in exchange,
The handle brafs; the knobs in equal range;
Antigenes, with kiffes, often try'd
To beg this prefent, in his beauty's pride;
When youth and love are hard to be deny'd.
But what I could refufe to his request,
Is yours unafk'd, for you deferve it best.
Two young fhepherds, Chromis and Mnafylus, having been often promifed a fong by Silenus, chance to catch him asleep in this Paftoral; where they bind him hand and foot, and then claim his promise. Silenus, finding they would be put off no longer, begins his fong, in which he defcribes the formation of the universe, and the original of animals, according to the Epicurean philofophy; and then runs through the moft furprizing transformations which have happened in nature fince her birth. This Paftoral was defigned as a compliment to Syro the Epicurean, who inftructed Virgil and Varus in the principles of that philofophy. Silenus acts as tutor, Chromis and Mnafylus as the two pupils.
FIRST transferr'd to Rome Sicilian ftrains :
Nor blufh'd the Doric Mufe to dwell on Mantuan
But when I try'd her tender voice, too young,
And fighting kings, and bloody battles fung;
Apollo check'd my pride: and bade me feed
My fattening flocks, nor dare beyond the reed.
Admonish'd thus, while every pen prepares
To write thy praises, Varus, and thy wars,
My Pastoral Muse her humble tribute brings;
And yet not wholly uninspir'd she sings.
For all who read, and, reading, not disdain
These rural poems, and their lowly strain,
The name of Varus, oft infcrib'd fhall fee,
In every grove, and every vocal tree;
And all the fylvan reign fhall fing of thee.
Thy name, to Phoebus and the Mufes known,
Shall in the front of every page be shown;
For he who fings thy praise, fecures his own.
Proceed, my Mufe: Two Satyrs, on the ground,
Stretch'd at his ease, their fire Silenus found.
Dos'd with his fumes, and heavy with his load,
They found him fnoring in his dark abode;
And feiz'd with youthful arms the drunken god.
His rofy wreath was dropt not long before,
Borne by the tide of wine, and floating on the floor. 25
His empty cann, with ears half worn away,
Was hung on high, to boast the triumph of the day.
Invaded thus, for want of better bands,
His garland they unftring, and bind his hands :
For, by the fraudful god deluded long,
They now refolve to have their promis'd fong.
Ægle came in, to make their party good;
The fairest Naïs of the neighbouring flood,
And, while he ftares around, with stupid eyes,
His brows with berries, and his temples dyes.
He finds the fraud, and, with a fmile, demands
On what defign the boys had bound his hands.
"Loose me," he cry'd, " 'twas impudence to find'
"A fleeping god, 'tis facrilege to bind.
"To you the promis'd poem I will pay ;'
“The nymph shall be rewarded in her way.'
He rais'd his voice; and soon a numerous throng'
Of tripping Satyrs crowded to the song;
And fylvan Fauns, and favage beafts advanced,
And nodding forefts to the numbers danced.
Not by Hæmonian hills the Thracian bard,
Nor awful Phoebus was on Pindus heard,
With deeper filence, or with more regard.
He fung the secret feeds of Nature's frame';
How feas, and earth, and air, and active flame,
Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall
Were blindly gather'd' in this goodly ball.
The tender foil then stiffening by degrees,
Shut from the bounded earth, the bounding feas.
Then earth and ocean various forms difclofe;
And a new fun to the new world arofe.
And mists condens'd to clouds obfcure the sky';
And clouds diffolv'd, the thirsty ground fupply.
The rifing trees the lofty mountains grace':
The lofty mountains feed the favage race,
Yet-few, and strangers, in th' unpeopled place.
From thence the birth of man the fong pursued,
And how the world was loft, and how renew'd.
The reign of Saturn, and the golden age;
Prometheus' theft, and Jove's avenging rage.
The cries of Argonauts for Hylas drown'd;
With whose repeated name the shores refound.
Then mourns the madness of the Cretan queen :
Happy for her if herds had never been.
What fury, wretched woman, feiz'd thy breast? 70
The maids of Argos (though, with rage poffefs'd,
Their imitated lowings fill'd the grove)
Yet fhunn'd the guilt of thy prepofterous love.
Nor fought the youthful husband of the herd,
Though labouring yokes on their own necks they
And felt for budding horns on their smooth fore-
heads rear'd.
Ah, wretched queen! you range the pathless wood;
While on a flowery bank he chews the cud:
Or fleeps in fhades, or through the foreft roves ;
And roars with anguish for his abfent loves..
Ye nymphs, with toils his forest-walk surround,
And trace his wandering footsteps on the ground.
But, ah! perhaps my paffion he difdains,
And courts the milky mothers of the plains.
We fearch th' ungrateful fugitive abroad;
While they at home sustain his happy load.
He fung the lover's fraud; the longing maid,
With golden fruit, like all the fex, betray'd:
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