DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38687#0021
And all the while you will hear the cooing of your
pigeonstand the passionate moaning of the turtle-dove
on the topmost branch of the elm.
TITYRUS i And so I will first see stags grazing on
the open sea, and, on the beach, naked fish leaving the
water-ways; and sooner shall the homeless Parthian
drink of the Arar-streamt or Germany's sons quaff
deep of the river Tigris, wandering right across both
continents, before the memory of his gracious mien
shall fade from my heart.
MELIBOEUS; But our sad lot is to wander to the
African desert, others to the Scythian steppes, or to
the furious Cretan river Oaxes, or even to that out-
lying fragment of the world — Britain. Ah! shall I after
long years see again the lands of my father, and his
thatched cottage, and stand amazed at the scanty
oatfields where had been my plenteous harvests? Shall
some soldier with no conscience possess the ground
I have broken up and tilled so carefully ? A barbarian
among these crops ? To what depths of misery has
civil discord brought us 1 Have we sown our fields for
these hateful settlers! I might well graft my pears and
plant my vines in rows. On with you, my herd of
goats once so happy. No more, from the mossy grotto
where I lie, singing my songs, shall I see you against
the sky, on the edge of a rocky cliff covered with
bushes and thickets. Never again shall I shepherd you
my goats to the pastures of flowering lucerne and
bitter willow shoots.
ii
pigeonstand the passionate moaning of the turtle-dove
on the topmost branch of the elm.
TITYRUS i And so I will first see stags grazing on
the open sea, and, on the beach, naked fish leaving the
water-ways; and sooner shall the homeless Parthian
drink of the Arar-streamt or Germany's sons quaff
deep of the river Tigris, wandering right across both
continents, before the memory of his gracious mien
shall fade from my heart.
MELIBOEUS; But our sad lot is to wander to the
African desert, others to the Scythian steppes, or to
the furious Cretan river Oaxes, or even to that out-
lying fragment of the world — Britain. Ah! shall I after
long years see again the lands of my father, and his
thatched cottage, and stand amazed at the scanty
oatfields where had been my plenteous harvests? Shall
some soldier with no conscience possess the ground
I have broken up and tilled so carefully ? A barbarian
among these crops ? To what depths of misery has
civil discord brought us 1 Have we sown our fields for
these hateful settlers! I might well graft my pears and
plant my vines in rows. On with you, my herd of
goats once so happy. No more, from the mossy grotto
where I lie, singing my songs, shall I see you against
the sky, on the edge of a rocky cliff covered with
bushes and thickets. Never again shall I shepherd you
my goats to the pastures of flowering lucerne and
bitter willow shoots.
ii