Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/27

ll. 32–84.] and the shepherds and the Dryad maidens. Neither does the wolf plot ambushes to the flock nor any hunting-nets ensnarement of the deer: gentle Daphnis loves peace. The unshorn mountains themselves cast echoes of gladness to the skies; the very rocks, the very copses now resound in song: A god, a god is he, O Menalcas. Ah be gracious and prosperous to thine own: see, four altars, two, lo! Daphnis, to thee, two for altars of offering to Phoebus: double cups frothing with fresh milk yearly, and two bowls of the fatness of the olive will I lay before thee; and above all making the banquet glad with much wine, before the hearth in the cold season, in harvest beneath the shade, I will pour from flagons the fresh nectar of Ariusian wine. Damoetas and Lyctian Aegon shall sing to me: Alphesiboeus shall mimic the leaping Satyrs. This shall ever be thine, both when we pay the Nymphs our accustomed vows and when we purify our fields. While the wild boar and the fish shall haunt mountain-ridge and river, while bees shall feed on thyme and grasshoppers on dew, ever shall thine honour, thy name and praise endure. As to the Wine-god and the Corn-goddess, so to thee shall the husbandmen make yearly vows; thou likewise shalt claim their payment.

Mo.—How, how may I repay the gift of such a song? for neither the whisper of the gathering South nor the wave breaking on the beach so delights me, nor streams that race down amid rocky dells.