divided bark, and is {so} finding nourishment for a stranger nursling.
Nor does she suffer them to endure thirst; she waters, too, the winding
fibres of the twisting root with the flowing waters. This is her
delight, this her pursuit; and no desire has she for love. But fearing
the violence of the rustics, she closes her orchard within {a wall}, and
both forbids and flies from the approach of males.

What did not the Satyrs do, a youthful crew expert at the dance, and the
Pans with their brows wreathed with pine, and Sylvanus, ever more
youthful than his years, and the God who scares the thieves either with
his pruning-hook or with his groin, in order that they might gain her?
But yet Vertumnus exceeded even these in his love, nor was he more
fortunate than the rest. O! how often did he carry the ears of corn in a
basket, under the guise of a hardy reaper; and he was the very picture
of a reaper! Many a time, having his temples bound with fresh bay, he
would appear to have been turning over the mowed grass. He often bore a
whip in his sturdy hand, so that you would have sworn that he had that
instant been unyoking the wearied oxen. A pruning-knife being given him,
he was a woodman, and the pruner of the vine. {Now} he was carrying a
ladder, {and} you would suppose he was going to gather fruit.
{Sometimes} he was a soldier, with a sword, {and sometimes} a fisherman,
taking up the rod; in fact, by means of many a shape, he often obtained
access for himself, that he might enjoy the pleasure of gazing on her
beauty.

He, too, having bound his brows with a coloured cap,[53] leaning on a
stick, with white hair placed around his temples, assumed the shape of
an old woman, and entered the well-cultivated gardens, and admired the
fruit; and he said, "So much better off {art thou}!" and {then} he gave
her, thus commended, a few kisses, such as no real old woman {ever}
could have given; and stooping, seated himself upon the grass, looking
up at the branches bending under the load of autumn. There was an elm
opposite, widely spread with swelling grapes; after he had praised it,
together with the vine united {to it}, he said, "{Aye}, but if this
trunk stood unwedded,[54] without the vine, it would have nothing to
attract beyond its leaves; this vine, too, while it finds rest against
the elm, joined to it, if it were not united to it, would lie prostrate
on the ground; {and} yet thou art not influenced by the example of this
tree, a