NEXT will I airy honey's heavenly boons
Pursue. On this branch, too, Mæcenas, look;
An exhibition of minute affairs
Worthy thy wonder: both the high-souled chiefs,
And habits, and pursuits, and tribes, and wars,
Of a whole nation will I duly sing.
Upon a trifling [theme] the travail, yet
Not trifling the renown, if favouring gods
Permit one, and invoked Apollo hears.
In the first place, a homestead and a stand
Must for your bees be sought, whither may lie
Neither for winds an entrance (for their food
The winds prevent them bringing home), nor sheep
And butting kids may trample on the flowers,
Nor may the heifer, roving through the plain,
The drama of a pigmy commonwealth.
7. Verses 6 and 7 are imitated by Pope in the opening of his inimitable mock heroic, the Rape of the Lock:
"What dire offence from amorous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing. This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, even Belinda may vouchsafe to view :
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays."
Shake off the dew, and bruise the springing blades.
And let be far aloof from the rich cribs,
Lizards, enamelled o'er their scaly backs,
And bee-eaters, and other birds, and Procne stamped
Upon her breast with gory hands. For all
They widely ransack, and the very [bees]
While on the wing they in their mouth bear off,
A honied morsel for their ruthless nests.
But crystal springs, and plashes green with moss,
Be nigh at hand, and, scampering through the grass,
A shallow rivulet; and let the palm,
Or a huge oleaster th' outer court
O'ershadow, that, what time the new [-born] kings
Shall lead the earliest swarms in spring their own,
And, sallied from the combs, the youth disport,
A neighbouring bank may woo them to give way
Before the heat, and in their route a tree
Harbour them in its hostelries in leaf.
Into the middle, whether motionless
Shall stand the water, or run on, throw down
[Some] willow rods athwart and bulky stones,
That on the frequent bridges they may light,
And spread their pinions to the summer sun,
If haply headlong Eurus shall have sprent
The loiterers, or plunged them in the flood.
Round these let emerald casias and wild thyme,
That sheds a fragrance far and wide, and store
Of savory, [a scent] strong breathing, bloom,
And beds of violet quaff the watering spring.
Line 22. So Thomson; Spring, 675:
Affectionate, and undesiring bear
The most delicious morsel to their young.'
But let the hives themselves, whether for thee
They may be stitched of hollow bark, or plight
Of limber twig, have narrow entrances;
For winter candies honey with its cold,
And heat dissolves the same to fluid turned.
Each power for bees alike is to be feared;
Nor do they bootlessly within their homes
In rivalry the narrow vents with wax besmear,
And th' edges close with propolis and flowers,
And, gathered for these very services,
A cement do they store, more glutinous
Both than birdlime and Phrygian Ida's pitch.
Ofttimes, moreo'er, in excavated shrouds,
(If true is rumour) underneath the earth
They've nursed their tutelary god, and deep
Been found both in the hollow pumice-rocks,
And in the grot of [some] heart-eaten tree.
Do thou natheless both with smooth mud anoint
Their chinky chambers, warming them around,
And o'er them throw [a] thin [supply of] leaves.
Neither too near their homes the yew allow,
Nor burn the coral crabs upon the hearth,
Nor to the deepsome marish trust, or where
There is a noisome smell of mire, or where
The vaulted rocks with verberation ring,
And th' echo of the voice impinged rebounds.
For what remains, when hath the golden sun
The routed winter chased beneath the lands,
And heaven uncurtained with his summer light,
Straight lawns and woods they range, and reap gay flowers,
And sip the surface of the brooks, light [-poised].
Hence with what ravishment I know not blithe,
Their offspring and their nests they cherish; hence
With skilfulness fresh wax elaborate,
And mould th' adhesive honey. Hence when now
Forth issued from the cells to heaven's stars,
Thou shalt have spied a swarm above [thy head]
Line 79. Notwithstanding the comments of Heyne and others, I venture to render the third hinc in verse 58 of the original in the same way as the preceding two. It appears forced to give it a wholly different meaning from that which it is agreed that they bear. No doubt, in the first two instances, the poet's leading idea lies in this particular word; yet he may well continue the idea in the third, though it then becomes subordinate. The warm weather is quite as much the cause of swarming, as of making wax or honey; and it seems to me clear enough that he intended to convey the fact by the word in question.
However, the weight of the translators being thrown into the opposite scale, if the reader think it right to follow them, he can render the passage thus:
This is more satisfactory than, with Dr. Trapp, to employ "hence," but in a totally different sense.
Milton has a very beautiful simile of bees issuing from the hive on a fine day; Paradise Lost, b. i. :
In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters: they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs."
Thomson is also highly successful; Spring, 508:
"Here their delicious task the fervent bees,
In swarming millions, tend: around, athwart,
Through the soft air, the busy nations fly,
Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube,
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul;
And oft, with bolder wing, they soaring dare
The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows,
And yellow load them with the luscious spoil.".
Floating throughout the limpid summer air,
And thou shalt marvel at a darkling cloud
Warping upon the wind,-observe them close:
Sweet waters seek they aye, and leafy bowers.
Hither do thou the ordered dainties strew,
Bruised balm, and honeywort's unnoble herb;
And tingling sounds awake, and rattle round
The cymbals of the Dame: they of themselves
"Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon :
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim,
Quick-glancing to the sun."
"Thick as the bees, that with the spring renew
Their flowery toils, and sip the fragrant dew,
When the wing'd colonies first tempt the sky,
O'er dusky fields and shaded waters fly,
Or, settling, seize the sweets the blossoms yield,
And a low murmur runs along the field."
This and other passages in Virgil call to mind Pope's beautiful description of the sylphs in the Rape of the Lock, c. ii. :
"Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light,
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew,
Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies,
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes;
While every beam new transient colours flings,
Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings."
Line 86. If the reader think that "dainties" is too free a version of sapores, he is at liberty to substitute "savours," though it appears too bold a term for the English idiom.
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