Virgil · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| [Menalcas] Mopsus, since we have met, both of us skilled — you at blowing on light reeds, I at singing verses — why don't we sit down here among the elms mixed with hazels?
4| [Mopsus] You are the elder; it is right for me to obey you, Menalcas, whether we go under the shifting shade as the west winds stir it, or rather into the cave. Look how the wild vine has spread its scattered clusters over the cave.
8| [Menalcas] In our hills only Amyntas competes with you.
9| [Mopsus] What if he were to compete in outsinging Phoebus too?
10| [Menalcas] Begin first, Mopsus, if you have any songs of the flames of Phyllis, or praises of Alcon, or quarrels with Codrus. Begin; Tityrus will watch the grazing kids.
13| [Mopsus] No, I will try these verses I wrote down the other day on the green bark of a beech, setting them to music and marking them in turn: then you can tell Amyntas to compete.
16| [Menalcas] As far as the pliant willow yields to the pale olive, as far as the lowly valerian yields to the crimson rose beds, so far, in my judgment, does Amyntas yield to you. But say no more, boy: we have come into the cave.
20| [Mopsus] The Nymphs were weeping for Daphnis, cut off by a cruel death — you hazels and rivers are witnesses for the Nymphs — when his mother, clasping her son's pitiful body, called the gods and the stars cruel. In those days, Daphnis, no one drove the pastured cattle to the cool rivers; no four-footed beast drank from the stream or touched a blade of grass. Daphnis, the wild mountains and woods tell how even the lions of Carthage groaned at your death. Daphnis taught men to yoke Armenian tigers to the chariot; Daphnis taught them to lead the dancing bands of Bacchus and to twine pliant wands with soft leaves. As the vine is the glory of the trees, as grapes are of the vines, bulls of the herds, crops of the rich fields, you were the whole glory of your people. Since the Fates took you, Pales herself and Apollo himself have left the fields. In the furrows where we often sowed big barley, miserable darnel and barren wild oats spring up; in place of the soft violet, in place of the purple narcissus, the thistle grows and the thorn with its sharp spikes. Strew the ground with leaves, shepherds, draw shade over the springs — Daphnis bids that this be done for him — and build a tomb, and on the tomb add this verse: "I am Daphnis, known in the woods from here to the stars; lovely was the flock I guarded, lovelier I myself."
45| [Menalcas] Your song is to me, divine poet, what sleep on the grass is to the weary, what quenching thirst in the heat from a leaping stream of sweet water is. You match your master not only on the reed but with your voice; fortunate boy, you will now be second only to him. Still, I will sing you these verses of mine in my turn, as best I can, and I will raise your Daphnis to the stars; I will carry Daphnis to the stars: Daphnis loved me too.
53| [Mopsus] Could any gift be greater to me than that? The boy himself deserved to be sung, and Stimichon praised those songs of yours to me long ago.
56| [Menalcas] Radiant Daphnis marvels at the unfamiliar threshold of Olympus and sees the clouds and stars beneath his feet. So a lively delight fills the woods and the rest of the countryside, and Pan, and the shepherds, and the Dryad girls. The wolf plots no ambush against the flock, and no nets plot deception for the deer: kind Daphnis loves peace. The unshorn mountains themselves fling their joyful voices to the stars; the very rocks, the very orchards now ring with the song: "A god, he is a god, Menalcas!" Be kind and gracious to your own! Look, here are four altars: two for you, Daphnis, two high altars for Phoebus. Every year I will set up for you two cups foaming with fresh milk and two bowls of rich olive oil; and above all, cheering the feast with plenty of wine, in front of the hearth if it is cold, in the shade if it is harvest time, I will pour from goblets Ariusian wine, a new nectar. Damoetas and Lyctian Aegon will sing for me; Alphesiboeus will imitate the dancing Satyrs. These rites will always be yours, both when we pay our solemn vows to the Nymphs and when we purify the fields. As long as the boar loves the mountain ridges and the fish the rivers, as long as bees feed on thyme and cicadas on dew, your honor, your name and your praises will always remain. As to Bacchus and Ceres, so to you the farmers will make vows every year; you too will hold them bound to their vows.
81| [Mopsus] What gifts, what gifts can I give you in return for such a song? For neither the whistling of the rising south wind delights me so much, nor shores beaten by the waves, nor rivers running down between rocky valleys.
85| [Menalcas] First I will give you this fragile hemlock pipe: this taught me "Corydon burned for handsome Alexis"; this same one taught me "Whose flock is this? Meliboeus'?"
88| [Mopsus] And you, Menalcas, take this crook, handsome with its even knots and its bronze, which Antigenes did not get, though he often asked me for it — and he was worth loving then.
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