IX. Kal. 24th
After the setting of that constellation (the Lyre), the fire that glitters in the middle of the Lion’s breast will be sunk below the horizon at nightfall.
Three or four times I searched the record of the calendar, but nowhere did I find the Day of Sowing. Seeing me puzzled, the Muse observed, “That day is appointed by the priests. Why look for movable feasts in the calendar? And while the day of the feast may shift, the season is fixed: it is when the seed has been sown and the field fertilized.” Ye steers, take your stand with garlands on your heads at the full crib: with the warm spring your toil will return. Let the swain hang up on the post the plough that has earned its rest: the cold ground shrinks from every wound inflicted by the share. Thou bailiff, when the sowing is done, let the land rest, and let the men who tilled the land rest also. Let the parish keep festival; purify the parish, ye husbandmen, and offer the yearly cakes on the parish hearths. Propitiate Earth and Ceres, the mothers of the corn, with their own spelt and flesh of teeming sow. Ceres and Earth discharge a common function: the one lends to the corn its vital force, the other lends it room. Partners in labour, ye who reformed the days of old and replaced the acorns of the oak by food more profitable, O satisfy the eager husbandmen with boundless crops, that they may reap the due reward of their tillage. O grant unto the tender seeds unbroken increase; let not the sprouting shoot be nipped by chilly snows.
When we sow, let the sky be cloudless and winds blow fair; but when the seed is buried, then sprinkle it with water from the sky. Forbid the birds—pests of the tilled land—to devastate the fields of corn with their destructive flocks. You too, ye ants, O spare the sown grain; so shall ye have a more abundant booty after the harvest. Meantime may no scurfy mildew blight the growing crop nor foul weather blanch it to a sickly hue; may it neither shrivel up nor swell unduly and be choked by its own rank luxuriance. May the fields be free from darnel, that spoils the eyes, and may no barren wild oats spring from the tilled ground. May the farm yield, with manifold interest, crops of wheat, of barley, and of spelt, which twice shall bear the fire.” These petitions I offer for you, ye husbandmen, and do ye offer them yourselves, and may the two goddesses grant our prayers. Long time did wars engage mankind; the sword was handier than the share; the plough ox was ousted by the charger; hoes were idle, mattocks were turned into javelins, and a helmet was made out of a heavy rake. Thanks be to the gods and to thy house! Under your foot long time War has been laid in chains. Yoke the ox, commit the seed to the ploughed earth. Peace is the nurse of Ceres, and Ceres is the foster-child of Peace.
VI. Kal. 27th
On the sixth day before the coming Calends a temple was dedicated to Leda’s divine sons: brothers of the race of the gods founded that temple for the brother gods beside Juturna’s pools.
III. Kal. 30th
The course of my song hath led me to the altar of Peace. The day will be the second from the end of the month. Come, Peace, thy dainty tresses wreathed with Actian laurels, and let thy gentle presence abide in the whole world. So but there be nor foes nor food for triumphs, thou shalt be unto our chiefs a glory greater than war. May the soldier bear arms only to check the armed aggressor, and may the fierce trumpet blare for naught but solemn pomp! May the world near and far dread the sons of Aeneas, and if there be any land that feared not Rome, may it love Rome instead! Add incense, ye priests, to the flames that burn on the altar of Peace, let a white victim fall with cloven brow, and ask of the gods, who lend a favouring ear to pious prayers, that the house, which is the warranty of peace, with peace may last for ever.
But now the first part of my labour is done, and with the month of which it treats the book doth end.
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