Book III.
Thee also, mighty Pales, and thee will we sing, O renowned shepherd of Amphrysus, and you, Lycaean woods and rivers. All else that might have held idle minds fast in song is staled by usage now: who knows not cruel Eurystheus or accursed Busiris' altars? to whom is untold the boy Hylas, and Latona in Delos, and Hippodame, or the hero of the ivory shoulder, the keen horseman Pelops? A path must be adventured where I too may rise from earth and fly triumphing on the lips of men. First will I lead home with me, if life but last, the Muses from their Aonian hill; first, my Mantua, bring thee back the palms of Idume, and build a shrine of marble on the green meadow by the waterside, where broad Mincius wanders in slow windings, and borders his banks with delicate reed. In the midst shall Caesar be my temple's habitant: to him will I, splendid in Tyrian scarlet, drive in triumph, by the river an hundred chariots fourfold-yoked; For me all Greece, leaving Alpheus and the groves of Molorchus, shall contend in the foot-race or with the raw hide boxing-glove. Myself, chapleted with stripped leaves of olive, I will bear offerings: even now is it good to lead the fitly ordered processions to the shrines and see the oxen sacrificed, or the stage opening as the scenes swing round, and the inwoven Britons rising on the crimson curtains. On the doors I will fashion in gold and solid
