Before her drives diseases and affright;
And every moment rises to the fight:
Aspiring to the skies, incroaching on the light.
The rivers and their banks, and hills around,
With lowings, and with dying bleats refound.
At length, she strikes an universal blow ;
To death at once whole herds of cattle go:
Sheep, oxen, horfes fall; and, heap'd on high,
The differing species in confusion lie.
Till, warn'd by frequent ills, the way they found,
To lodge their loathsome carrion under ground,
For, useless to the currier were their hides :
Nor could their tainted flesh with ocean tides
Be freed from filth: nor could Vulcanian flame
The stench abolish, or the favour tame.
Nor fafely could they fhear their fleecy store (Made drunk with poisonous juice, and ftiff with gore); Or touch the web: but if the veft they wear,
Red blifters rifing on their paps appear,
And flaming carbuncles and noisome sweat,
And clammy dews, that loathsome lice beget:
Till the flow creeping evil eats his way,
Confumes the parching limbs, and makes the life his prey.
Virgil has taken care to raise the subject of the Georgic: In the first he has only dead matter on which to work. In the second he just steps on the world of life, and describes that degree of it which is to be found in vegetables. In the third he advances to animals: and in the last singles out the bee, which may be reckoned the moft fagacious of them, for his fubject. In this Georgic he fhews us what station is most proper for the bees, and when they begin to gather honey: how to call them home when they fwarm; and how to part them when they are engaged in battle. From hence he takes occafion to discover their different kind; and, after an excurfion, relates their prudent and politic adminiftration of affairs, and the feveral diseases that often rage in their hives, with the proper fymptoms and remedies of each disease.
In the last place he lays down a method of repairing their kind, fuppofing their whole breed loft, and gives at large the hiftory of its invention.
THE gifts of heaven my following fong pursues,
Aërial honey, and ambrofial dews.
Mæcenas, read this other part, that fings
Embattled fquadrons and adventurous kings;
A mighty pomp, though made of little things.
Their arms, their arts, their manners I difclofe,
And how they war, and whence the people rofe:
Slight is the subject, but the praise not small,
If heaven affift, and Phoebus hear my call.
First, for thy bees a quiet ftation find, And lodge them under covert of the wind: For winds, when homeward they return, will drive The loaded carriers from their evening hive. Far from the cows and goats infulting crew,
That trample down the flowers, and brush the dew: 15
The painted lizard, and the birds of prey,
Foes of the frugal kind, be far away.
The titmouse, and the pecker's hungry brood,
And Progne, with her bofom ftain'd in blood:
These rob the trading citizens, and bear
The trembling captives through the liquid air;
And for their callow young a cruel feast prepare.
But near a living stream their manfion place,
Edg'd round with mofs, and tufts of matted grafs :
And plant (the wind's impetuous rage to stop),
Wild olive-trees, or palms, before the busy shop.
That when the youthful prince, with proud alarm,
Calls out the venturous colony to fwarm;
When first their way through yielding air they wing,
New to the pleasures of their native fpring;
The banks of brooks may make a cool retreat
For the raw foldiers from the fcalding heat:
And neighbouring trees, with friendly shade, invite
The troops, unus'd to long laborious flight.
Then o'er the running stream, or standing lake, 35 A paffage for thy weary people make;
With ofier floats the ftanding water ftrow
Of maffy ftones make bridges, if it flow:
That basking in the fun thy bees may lie,
And refting there, their flaggy pinions dry:
When, late returning home, the laden hoft
By raging winds is wreck'd upon the coast.
Wild thyme and favory fet around their cell;
Sweet to the tafte, and fragrant to the fmell;
Set rows of rosemary with flowering ftem,
And let the purple violets drink the stream.
Whether thou build the palace of thy bees
With twisted ofiers, or with barks of trees;
Make but a narrow mouth: for as the cold
Congeals into a lump the liquid gold;
So 'tis again diffolv'd by fummer's heat,
And the fweet labours both extremes defeat.
And therefore, not in vain, th' induftrious kind
With dawby wax and flowers the chinks have lin❜d.
And with their ftores of gather'd glue, contrive
To stop the vents and crannies of their hive.
Not birdlime, or Idean pitch, produce
A more tenacious mafs of clammy juice.
Nor bees are lodg'd in hives alone, but found
In chambers of their own, beneath the ground:
Their vaulted roofs are hung in pumices,
And in the rotten trunks of hollow trees.
But plaister thou the chinky hives with clay,
And leafy branches o'er their lodging lay,
Nor place them where too deep a water flows,
Or where the yeugh their poisonous neighbour grows:
Nor roaft red crabs t'offend the nicenefs of their nose.
Nor near the fteeming stench of muddy ground:
Nor hollow rocks that render back the found,
And doubled images of voice rebound.
For what remains, when golden funs appear,
And under earth have driven the winter year:
The winged nation wanders through the skies,
And o'er the plains and shady forest flies :
Then, ftooping on the meads and leafy bowers,
They skim the floods, and fip the purple flowers.
Exalted hence, and drunk with fecret joy,
The young fucceffion all their cares employ :
They breed, they brood, inftruct, and educate,
And make provifion for the future ftate:
They work their waxen lodgings in their hives,
And labour honey to fuftain their lives.
But when thou feest a swarming cloud arife,
That sweeps aloft, and darkens all the skies,
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