The Praises of a Country Life
Happy the man, who, remote from business, after the manner of the
ancient race of mortals, cultivates his paternal lands with his own
oxen, disengaged from every kind of usury; he is neither alarmed by the
horrible trump, as a soldier, nor dreads he the angry sea; he shuns both
the bar and the proud portals of citizens in power. Wherefore he either
weds the lofty poplars to the mature branches of the vine; and, lopping
off the useless boughs with his pruning-knife, he ingrafts more fruitful
ones: or he takes a prospect of the herds of his lowing cattle,
wandering about in a lonely vale; or stores his honey, pressed [from the
combs], in clean vessels; or shears his tender sheep. Or, when autumn
has lifted up in the fields his head adorned with mellow fruits, how
does he rejoice, while he gathers the grafted pears, and the grape that
vies with the purple, with which he may recompense thee, O Priapus, and
thee, father Sylvanus, guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights
to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the
waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the
woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which
invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous
air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with
many a dog, into the intercepting toils; or spreads his thin nets with
the smooth pole, as a snare for the voracious thrushes; or catches in
his gin the timorous hare, or that stranger the crane, pleasing rewards
[for his labor]. Among such joys as these, who does not forget those
mischievous anxieties, which are the property of love. But if a chaste
wife, assisting on her part [in the management] of the house, and
beloved children (such as is the Sabine, or the sun-burned spouse of the
industrious Apulian), piles up the sacred hearth with old wood, just at
the approach of her weary husband; and, shutting up the fruitful cattle
in the woven hurdles, milks dry their distended udders: and, drawing
this year's wine out of a well-seasoned cask, prepares the unbought
collation: not the Lucrine oysters could delight me more, nor the
turbot, nor the scar, should the tempestuous winter drive any from the
eastern floods to this sea: not the turkey, nor the Asiatic wild-fowl,
can come into my stomach more agreeably, than the olive gathered from
the richest branches from the trees, or the sorrel that loves the
meadows, or mallows salubrious for a sickly body, or a lamb slain at the
feast of Terminus, or a kid rescued from the wolf. Amid these dainties,
how it pleases one to see the well-fed sheep hastening home! to see the
weary oxen, with drooping neck, dragging the inverted ploughshare! and
slaves, the test of a rich family, ranged about the smiling household
gods! When Alfius, the usurer, now on the point of turning countryman,
had said this, he collected in all his money on the Ides; and endeavors
to put it out again at the Calends.
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