Vergil - Georgica - liber primus - Deutsche Übersetzung: Georgica - liber primus [1-42] Proömium [461-514] Katastrophen und Kriege: Anmerkungen und Hilfen zur Übersetzung: Verse 1-42 - Proömium: 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40: Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram vertere, Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere vitis Then, and then only, does the slimy “horse madness,” which cruel stepdames often gather, mixing herbs and baleful spells. But if you fear a rigorous winter, and would be lenient with their future, and have pity for their crushed spirits and broken fortunes – yet who would hesitate to fumigate them with thyme, and cut away the empty waxen cells? Often they lift him on their shoulders, for him expose their bodies to battle, and seek amid wounds a glorious death. And even when Oeagrian Hebrus rolled in mid-current that head, severed from its marble neck, the disembodied voice and the tongue, now cold for ever, called with departing breath on Eurydice – ah, poor Eurydice!
What milk they drew at sunrise of day, they press into cheese at night; what they drew at night or sunset, they press at dawn: they ship it in baskets which a shepherd takes to town, or else they salt it sparingly and put it by for the winter. Whither turn, twice robbed of his wife? Only, upon those whom you mean to rear for the hope of the race, be sure to spend special pains, even from their early youth. Erichthonius first dared to couple four steeds to the car, and to stand victorious over the flying wheels. Him, my son, you must first take in fetters, that he may unfold to you all the cause of the sickness, and bless the issue. The viper, too, vainly defended in her winding lairs, perishes, and the water snake, his scales erect in terror. With what tears move Hell? Yet no help for their ills is of more avail than when one has dared to cut open with steel the ulcer’s head; the mischief thrives and lives by concealment, while the shepherd refuses to lay healing hands on the wounds, and sits idle, calling upon the gods for happier omens. In his honour I, a victor resplendent in Tyrian purple, will drive a hundred four-horse chariots beside the stream. Their rage is beyond measure; when hurt, they breathe poison into their bites, and fastening on the veins leave there their unseen stings and lay down their lives in the wound. There is a vast cavern, hollowed in a mountain’s side, whither many a wave is driven by the wind, then separates into receding inlets – at times a haven most sure for storm-caught mariners. ‘Tis even he, your own beloved, your Aristaeus, standing sadly and in tears by the waters of our father, and crying out on you by name for cruelty.”[357] To her the mother, her soul smitten with strange dread cries: “O bring him, bring him to us; lawful it is for him to tread the threshold divine.” And withal, she bade the deep streams part asunder far, that so the youth might enter in. Here is toil, hence hope for fame, yet sturdy yeomen! Enter a Perseus citation to go to another section or work. I first, if life but remain, will return to my country, bringing the Muses with me in triumph from the Aonian peak; first I will bring back to you, Mantua, the palms of Idumaea, and on the green plain will set up a temple in marble beside the water, where great Mincius wanders in lazy windings and fringes his banks with slender reeds. Within, Proteus shelters himself with the barrier of a huge rock. For the sight of the female slowly inflames and wastes his strength, nor, look you, does she, with her soft enchantments, suffer him to remember woods or pastures; oft she drives her proud lovers to settle their mutual contest with clash of horns.