Offers the laurel crown to Tityrus, who could only accept it from Florence.
Breathless? 'O Melibœus, others vie
To master lore litigious. Mopsus still
Year in year out himself hath dedicate [30]
To the Aonlan mountains; hath grown pale
Beneath the shadows of the sacred grove,
Drenched by prophetic waters, inly filled,
Aye to the palate, with the milk of song!
He to the leaves sprung from the Peneid's change
Invites me.'
'And thine answer? Thinkest thou
Thus still to wear thy temples unadorned,
A shepherd ever on the rustic plains?'
Said Melibœus.
'Scattered, to the winds
The glory, aye, the very name of bards!
O Melibœus,' I had said, 'And scarce
One vigil-keeping Mopsus hath the muse
Known to maintain!' Then indignation gave
A voice to utter these: 'What bleating sounds
Would gather from the flocks o'er hill and plain
If to a pæan I should smite the strings[40]
With leaf-entwined hair! But let me shun
The glades and pastures that know not the gods!
Were it not better my triumphant locks
Should hide beneath the green their hoariness,
Erst auburn-glowing, by the ancestral stream,
Should ever I return to deck them there,
Of Arno.'
'Nay, who doubts it? 'he replied,
But mark time's flight, O Tityrus, how swift!
And goats whose dams we mated waxing old!'
'Ah! when the gliding universal orbs
And the star-woning spirits, in my song,
E'en as the nether realms, shall stand revealed,
