(ll. 448-457) Mark, when you hear the voice of the crane [1317] who
cries year by year from the clouds above, for she give the signal for
ploughing and shows the season of rainy winter; but she vexes the heart
of the man who has no oxen. Then is the time to feed up your horned
oxen in the byre; for it is easy to say: 'Give me a yoke of oxen and a
waggon,' and it is easy to refuse: 'I have work for my oxen.' The man
who is rich in fancy thinks his waggon as good as built already--the
fool! He does not know that there are a hundred timbers to a waggon.
Take care to lay these up beforehand at home.

(ll. 458-464) So soon as the time for ploughing is proclaimed to men,
then make haste, you and your slaves alike, in wet and in dry, to plough
in the season for ploughing, and bestir yourself early in the morning so
that your fields may be full. Plough in the spring; but fallow broken up
in the summer will not belie your hopes. Sow fallow land when the
soil is still getting light: fallow land is a defender from harm and a
soother of children.

(ll. 465-478) Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make
Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing,
when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down
your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the
yoke-straps. Let a slave follow a little behind with a mattock and make
trouble for the birds by hiding the seed; for good management is the
best for mortal men as bad management is the worst. In this way your
corn-ears will bow to the ground with fullness if the Olympian himself
gives a good result at the last, and you will sweep the cobwebs from
your bins and you will be glad, I ween, as you take of your garnered
substance. And so you will have plenty till you come to grey [1318]
springtime, and will not look wistfully to others, but another shall be
in need of your help.

(ll. 479-492) But if you plough the good ground at the solstice [1319],
you will reap sitting, grasping a thin crop in your hand, binding the
sheaves awry, dust-covered, not glad at all; so you will bring all home
in a basket and not many will admire you. Yet the will of Zeus who holds
the aegis is different at different times; and it is hard for mortal
men to tell it; for if you should plough late, you may find this
remedy--when the cuckoo first calls [1320] in the leaves of the oak and
makes men glad all over the boundless earth, if Zeus