Page:Virgil - The Georgics, Thomas Nevile, 1767.djvu/82

 70 But whether bulls or horses ask your pains,

No industry their vigour more maintains,

Than to avert the stings of madd'ning love:

Hence bulls to lonely pastures they remove,

Screen'd by some mountain's interposing side,

O'er rivers broad; or close in stables hide.

They pine, they burn, the female in their sight;

No thoughts of grove or herbage now delight:

Oft by sweet blandishments and coy delay

She stirs the haughty rivals to the fray:

The beauteous heifer browses in the wood:

For her, their limbs besmear'd with black'ning blood,

With mighty force the combatants engage,

And wounds on wounds are dealt with mutual rage;

Each at his rival drives with thund'ring sound

His horns; the bellow woods and skies rebound.

The conflict o'er, that instant part the foes;

Far to some unknown coast the vanquish'd goes,

A banish'd vagrant, his disgrace deplores,

And, the proud victor's gift, his smarting sores;

Nor moaning less his unreveng'd lost loves,

With look retorted on the stalls, removes

From his paternal realms: with ceaseless care

His strength he tries by practice to repair, And,