Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/88

80 ; her head coarse, her neck of the largest, with dewlaps hanging down from chin to leg; and to her length of flank there is no limit; large of limb and of foot, and with shaggy ears under inward-curving horns. Nor would I quarrel with one marked with spots of white, or one reluctant to the yoke and sometimes hasty with her horn, and almost like a bull to view, and tall all her length, with a tail that sweeps her footprints below her as she moves. The age for just marriage and travail of birth ceases before the tenth, begins after the fourth year. Beyond these, she is neither fit for breeding nor strong for the plough; between them, while the lusty youth of thy flock endures, let loose the males, put thy herds early to breeding, and generation by generation keep up the succession of thy stock. In this poor mortal life the fairest day is ever the first to fly; sickness and melancholy age advance, and toil and hard death's pitilessness sweep us away. Ever will there be some stock that thou wouldst exchange: then ever replace them, and that thou miss not the lost, be beforehand in selecting the young of the herd year by year.

Even in like wise must the breed of horses too be chosen: only do thou, on such as thou purposest to nurture for the hope of the race, lavish from infancy onward thy foremost pains. From the first a well-bred foal in the fields lifts a higher pace and plants a lighter limb; he dares to advance in front and to try the threatening torrent, and trust the unknown bridge, and starts not at