Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/100

92 joyously counterfeit draughts of the vine. Such is the wild race of men that lies under the seven stars of the utmost North, buffeted by Rhipaean gales and wrapped in the tawny fur of beasts.

If wool-growing be thy care, first keep far from brushwood, from bur and briar; shun rank pasturage; and choose from the beginning a white and soft-fleeced flock. The ram moreover, be he else silvery as may be, if only his tongue is black under the moist palate, reject thou, or he will darken the lambs' fleeces with dusky spots, and choose another from the flock that fills the meadow. With such snowy wool for dower, if belief be deigned, Pan the god of Arcady ensnared thee, O Moon, in his treachery, when he called thee into the depth of woodland and thou didst not scorn his call.

But whoso sets his heart on milk, let him with his own hand carry store of lucerne and lotus, and salted grass to the pens: so they desire water the more, and the more swell their udders, and give back in the milk an under taste of salt. Many remove the new-born kids from their mothers, and fix iron-spiked muzzles on their baby mouths. What they milk at dayspring or in the daylight hours, they let curdle at night; what at gathering dusk and with the setting sun, they send off in pails at dawn and the shepherd trudges to the town; or prinkle it sparingly with salt and store it up for winter.

Neither be the care of thy dogs the last-deferred; but feed together on fattening whey