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MELIBOEUS
You, Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy
reclining, on the slender oat rehearse
your silvan ditties: I from my sweet fields,
and home's familiar bounds, even now depart.
Exiled from home am I; while, Tityrus, you
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sit careless in the shade, and, at your call,
“Fair Amaryllis” bid the woods resound.
TITYRUS
O Meliboeus, 'twas a god vouchsafed
this ease to us, for him a god will I
deem ever, and from my folds a tender lamb
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oft with its life-blood shall his altar stain.
His gift it is that, as your eyes may see,
my kine may roam at large, and I myself
play on my shepherd's pipe what songs I will.
MELIBOEUS
I grudge you not the boon, but marvel more,
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such wide confusion fills the country-side.
See, sick at heart I drive my she-goats on,
and this one, O my Tityrus, scarce can lead:
for 'mid the hazel-thicket here but now
she dropped her new-yeaned twins on the bare flint,
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