The Bucolics and Eclogues

MELIBOEUS

You, Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy

Reclining, on the slender oat rehearse

Your silvan ditties: I from my sweet fields,

And home's familiar bounds, even now depart.

Exiled from home am I; while, Tityrus, you

Sit careless in the shade, and, at your call,

"Fair Amaryllis" bid the woods resound.

TITYRUS

O Meliboeus, 'twas a god vouchsafed

This ease to us, for him a god will I

Deem ever, and from my folds a tender lamb

Oft with its life-blood shall his altar stain.

His gift it is that, as your eyes may see,

My kine may roam at large, and I myself

Play on my shepherd's pipe what songs I will.