Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/95

ll. 214–269.] the tribes of the sea, cattle and coloured birds break into fury and fire; in all love is the same. At none other season does the lioness forgetful of her whelps range fiercer on the plains, nor the clumsy bear deal so many a death and such widespread devastation through the forests. Then the wild boar is fierce, then the tigress most fell: ah, ill is it then to stray in the solitary Libyan land! Seest thou not the shudder that thrills the whole body of the horse, if only the familiar scent is wafted on the gale? and now neither reins nor cruel whips of men, not cliffs or caverned rocks delay him, nor barring rivers that unseat and whirl away mountains with their wave. The great Sabellian boar charges with whetted tusks, tramples the earth before him and chafes his flanks on a tree, and on this side and that hardens his shoulders against wounds. What of the youth, through whose frame unrelenting love darts his mastering fire? late in the blind night he swims the straits vexed by stormy gusts, and over him thunders the mighty gate of heaven, and the seas dash echoing on the crags; nor can his wretched parents call him back, nor the maiden left with cruel death for her doom. What of Bacchus' dappled lynxes, and the fierce tribe of wolves and hounds? what of the battles fought by unwarlike deer? Doubtless before all the madness of mares is eminent, and Venus' very self inspired them on the day when that Potnian chariot-team champed the limbs of Glaucus in their jaws. Across Gargarus and across the roaring