Friday, April 16, 2010
Rural Delights
Vergil, Georgics 2.485-486 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):
Thomas Bewick (1753-1828), from his History of British Birds
Tactitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus 9:
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Let my delight be the country, and the running streams amid the dells—may I love the waters and the woods, though fame be lost.
rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,
flumina amem silvasque inglorius.
Tactitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus 9:
One must withdraw into woods and groves, that is, into solitude.Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage II.xxv:
in nemora et lucos, id est in solitudinem, secedendum est.
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; 't is but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.
