Georgics Book 4, lines 149 - 190

The natural history of bees

by Virgil

In the fourth book of the Georgics, Virgil turns to bees and beekeeping with this charming account of their way of life. The Curetes are ancient Cretans, who saved the new-born Jupiter from being devoured by Chronos, his father, spiriting him away under cover of their music and hiding him in a cave where the bees fed him on honey. Cecrops is the mythical first King of Athens – Attica, and Mount Hymettus especially, was famous for bees and honey.

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Nunc age, naturas apibus quas Iuppiter ipse
addidit, expediam, pro qua mercede canoros
Curetum sonitus crepitantiaque aera secutae
Dictaeo caeli regem pavere sub antro.
solae communes natos, consortia tecta
urbis habent magnisque agitant sub legibus aevum,
et patriam solae et certos novere penates,
venturaeque hiemis memores aestate laborem
experiuntur et in medium quaesita reponunt.
namque aliae victu invigilant et foedere pacto
exercentur agris; pars intra saepta domorum
Narcissi lacrimam et lentum de cortice gluten
prima favis ponunt fundamina, deinde tenaces
suspendunt ceras: aliae spem gentis adultos
educunt fetus, aliae purissima mella
stipant et liquido distendunt nectare cellas.
sunt quibus ad portas cecidit custodia sorti,
inque vicem speculantur aquas et nubila caeli
aut onera accipiunt venientum aut agmine facto
ignavum fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent.
fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.
ac veluti lentis Cyclopes fulmina massis
cum properant, alii taurinis follibus auras
accipiunt redduntque, alii stridentia tingunt
aera lacu; gemit impositis incudibus Aetna;
illi inter sese magna vi bracchia tollunt
in numerum versantque tenaci forcipe ferrum:
non aliter, si parva licet componere magnis,
Cecropias innatus apes amor urget habendi,
munere quamque suo. Grandaevis oppida curae
et munire favos et daedala fingere tecta.
at fessae multa referunt se nocte minores,
crura thymo plenae; pascuntur et arbuta passim
et glaucas salices casiamque crocumque rubentem
et pinguem tiliam et ferrugineos hyacinthos.
omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus:
mane ruunt portis; nusquam mora; rursus easdem
vesper ubi e pastu tandem decedere campis
admonuit, tum tecta petunt, tum corpora curant;
fit sonitus, mussantque oras et limina circum.
post, ubi iam thalamis se composuere, siletur
in noctem fessosque sopor suus occupat artus.

Come, I shall tell of the qualities that Jupiter himself gave to bees as reward when they followed the sweet music and clashing cymbals of the Curetes and fed the King of Heaven, hidden in a Cretan cave. Only they nurture their young in common, own the dwellings of their city communally, and pass their busy lives in thrall to mighty laws; only they recognise a homeland and household gods and, thinking of the coming of winter, work in summer as hard as can be, pooling the results. One group looks after provisions, and by unbreakable agreement is kept at work in the fields, while indoors another lays down narcissus-juice and sticky tree-bark glue as foundations for the honeycomb, on which they hang the strong beeswax: another brings up the growing young, hope of the race, while others press in honey, pure as pure, swelling the cells with liquid nectar. The lot of some is to guard the door, watch by turns for rain and clouds in the heavens, take what others bring home, or in battle order keep the idle herd of drones out of the hive. The strenuous work goes on, and the fragrant honey gives off a perfume of thyme. And as when Cyclopes are making thunderbolts from malleable iron, while some draw in and expel blasts of air from the bull-hide bellows and others quench the hissing bronze in the bosh, and Mount Etna groans as the anvils are mounted on the stands, another group swings arms in cadence with tremendous strength and turns the iron in the grip of tongs, just so, to compare small things with great, an innate love of possession drives on Cecrops’s bees, each through its duty. That of the old is looking after the hive, building the honeycomb and shaping the intricate dwelling, while the young make their tired way home in the dark after nightfall, legs laden with thyme: everywhere, they browse on arbutus, green willow, cassia, the saffron glow of crocus, the sticky linden tree and dusky hyacinths. All have the same rest from work, and all labour alike: at dawn they rush unhesitating from their gates; the same bees, when evening has warned them that it is finally time to cease feeding and leave the fields, make for home, tend to their bodily needs, and a murmur goes up as they hum around door and threshold. Afterwards, once they have settled in their chambers, there is silence deep into the night, and well-earned slumber pervades their limbs.

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More Poems by Virgil

  1. Into battle
  2. Catastrophe for Rome?
  3. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  4. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  5. Signs of bad weather
  6. New allies for Aeneas
  7. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  8. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  9. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  10. Turnus at bay
  11. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  12. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  13. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  14. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  15. In King Latinus’s hall
  16. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  17. Dido’s story
  18. Love is the same for all
  19. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  20. Juno throws open the gates of war
  21. Juno is reconciled
  22. Sea-nymphs
  23. Storm at sea!
  24. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  25. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  26. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  27. The Syrian hostess
  28. Rites for the allies’ dead
  29. Laocoon and the snakes
  30. Rumour
  31. Virgil begins the Georgics
  32. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  33. Aristaeus’s bees
  34. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  35. Aeneas is wounded
  36. The farmer’s starry calendar
  37. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  38. The death of Priam
  39. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  40. The death of Pallas
  41. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  42. Aeneas joins the fray
  43. Dido’s release
  44. The portals of sleep
  45. The death of Dido.
  46. Jupiter’s prophecy
  47. Turnus the wolf
  48. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  49. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  50. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  51. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  52. Aeneas’s oath
  53. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  54. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  55. The journey to Hades begins
  56. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  57. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  58. King Mezentius meets his match
  59. Aeneas and Dido meet
  60. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  61. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  62. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  63. The Aeneid begins
  64. Juno’s anger
  65. What is this wooden horse?
  66. The Trojans reach Carthage
  67. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  68. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  69. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  70. Mourning for Pallas
  71. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  72. The infant Camilla
  73. Turnus is lured away from battle
  74. Vulcan’s forge
  75. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  76. Charon, the ferryman
  77. The farmer’s happy lot
  78. The Harpy’s prophecy
  79. Dido falls in love
  80. Cassandra is taken
  81. The Trojan horse opens
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