Virgil · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1| [Lycidas] Where are your feet taking you, Moeris? Into town, where the road leads?
2| [Moeris] Lycidas, we have lived to see this — something we never feared — a stranger, the owner of our little farm, saying: "This is mine; move out, you old tenants." Now, beaten and sad, since chance turns everything upside down, we are sending him these kids — and may it bring him no luck!
7| [Lycidas] But surely I had heard that, from where the hills begin to slope away and let down their ridge in a gentle incline, all the way to the water and the old beeches, their tops now broken, your Menalcas had saved everything with his songs.
11| [Moeris] You had heard, and that was the story; but our songs, Lycidas, have as much power among the weapons of Mars as they say the doves of Chaonia have when the eagle comes. Indeed, if a crow on the left had not warned me from a hollow holm oak to cut short the new quarrel any way I could, neither your Moeris nor Menalcas himself would be alive.
17| [Lycidas] Alas! Can anyone be guilty of so great a crime? Alas, Menalcas, were we almost robbed, along with you, of the comfort you give us? Who would sing of the Nymphs? Who would strew the ground with flowering plants, or cover the springs with green shade? Or sing the songs I quietly picked up from you the other day, when you were on your way to Amaryllis, our darling? "Tityrus, till I come back — the way is short — graze my goats; and when they have grazed, drive them to drink, Tityrus, and while you drive them, watch out for meeting the billy goat — he butts."
26| [Moeris] Or rather these lines, still unfinished, that he was singing to Varus: "Varus, if only Mantua is left to us — Mantua, alas, too near unhappy Cremona — singing swans will carry your name aloft to the stars."
30| [Lycidas] So may your swarms avoid the yews of Corsica, so may your cows, fed on clover, fill their udders: begin, if you have anything. The Pierian Muses have made me a poet too; I too have songs; the shepherds call me a bard as well, but I do not believe them; for I do not think I yet sing anything worthy of Varius or Cinna, but cackle like a goose among tuneful swans.
37| [Moeris] That is just what I am doing, Lycidas, turning it over quietly in my mind, in case I can remember it; and it is no mean song: "Come here, Galatea: what fun is there in the waves? Here is radiant spring; here, around the streams, the earth pours out flowers of every color; here a white poplar leans over the cave, and pliant vines weave shady bowers. Come here; let the mad waves beat the shore."
44| [Lycidas] What about the song I had heard you singing alone on a clear night? I remember the tune, if only I could hold the words: "Daphnis, why do you watch the risings of the old constellations? Look, the star of Caesar, descendant of Dione, has come out, the star by which the fields would rejoice in their grain, and the grape would deepen its color on the sunny hills. Graft your pears, Daphnis: your grandchildren will pick their fruit."
51| [Moeris] Time takes everything away, even the mind; as a boy, I remember, I often laid long summer days to rest with singing. Now I have forgotten so many songs; even his voice itself is leaving Moeris now: the wolves saw Moeris first. But Menalcas will often repeat those songs to you well enough.
56| [Lycidas] With your excuses you put off what I long for. And now, look, the whole sea lies smooth and silent for you, and every breath of the murmuring wind has died down. From here, in fact, we are halfway: the tomb of Bianor is beginning to come into sight. Here, where the farmers are stripping the thick leaves, here, Moeris, let us sing; put down your kids here; we will still reach the town. Or, if we are afraid that night may bring rain first, we can go on singing all the way — the road is less tiring that way. So that we can go on singing, I will take this load off you.
66| [Moeris] Say no more, boy, and let us do what is in front of us now. We will sing our songs better when he himself has come.
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