[The exile Meliboeus finds Tityrus in possession
of his own farm, restored to him by the Emperor
Augustus, and a conversation ensues. The poem is
in praise of Augustus, peace, and pastoral life.]

MELIBOEUS.

Tityrus, all in the shade of the wide-spreading beech-tree reclining,
Sweet is that music you've made on your pipe that is oaten and
slender;
Exiles from home, you beguile our hearts from their hopeless
repining,
As you sing Amaryllis the while in pastorals tuneful and tender.

TITYRUS.

A god--yes, a god, I declare--vouchsafes me these pleasant conditions,
And often I gayly repair with a tender white lamb to his altar;
He gives me the leisure to play my greatly admired compositions,
While my heifers go browsing all day, unhampered of bell and of
halter.

MELIBOEUS.

I do not begrudge you repose; I simply admit I'm confounded
To find you unscathed of the woes of pillage and tumult and battle.
To exile and hardship devote, and by merciless enemies hounded,
I drag at this wretched old goat and coax on my famishing cattle.
Oh, often the omens presaged the horrors which now overwhelm me--
But, come, if not elsewise engaged, who _is_ this good deity, tell me!

TITYRUS (reminiscently).

The city--the city called Rome, with my head full of herding and
tillage,
I used to compare with my home, these pastures wherein you now
wander;
But I didn't take long to find out that the city surpasses the village
As the cypress surpasses the sprout that thrives in the thicket out
yonder.

MELIBOEUS.

Tell me, good gossip, I pray, what led you to visit the city?

TITYRUS.

Liberty! which on a day regarded my lot with compassion;
My age and distresses, forsooth, compelled that proud mistress to
pity,
That had snubbed the attentions of youth in most reprehensible
fashion.
Oh, happy, thrice happy, the day when the cold Galatea forsook me;
And equally happy, I say, the hour when that other girl took me!

MELIBOEUS (slyly, as if addressing the damsel).

So now, Amaryllis, the truth of your ill-disguised grief I discover!
You pined for a favorite youth with cityfied damsels hobnobbing;
And soon your surroundings partook of your grief for your recusant
lover,--
The pine-trees, the copse and the brook, for Tityrus ever went