or hunt the keen wild boar; no rigour of cold shall forbid me to encircle Parthenian glades with my hounds. Even now I think I pass among rocks and echoing groves, and delight to send the Cretan arrow spinning from a Parthian bow: as if this could be healing of our madness, or that God could learn to soften at mortal griefs! Now neither Hamadryads once more nor songs themselves delight us: once more, O forests, yourselves retire. Him toils of ours cannot change; neither if in the mid-frosts we drink of Hebrus and abide the rainy winter among Sithonian snows; nor if while the dying bark scorches on the lofty elm, we guide Aethiopian sheep beneath the tropic. Love conquers all: let us too yield to Love.
This shall suffice, goddesses of Pieria, that your poet has sung while he sate and wove a basket of slim mallow shoots: you will make this precious for Gallus: for Gallus, love of whom grows in me as fast every hour as the green alder shoots up when spring is young. Let us arise; the shade is wont to be heavy on singers: the juniper shade is heavy: shade too hurts the corn. Go home full-fed, the Evening Star comes, go, my she-goats.
