1Sicilian Muses, let us sing of somewhat greater things! 2Not everyone delights in orchards and lowly tamarisks; 3if we sing of woods, let the woods be worthy of a consul. 4Now has come the last age of the Cumaean song; 5the great order of the ages is born anew: now the Maiden returns, the reign of Saturn returns; 7now a new generation is sent down from high heaven. 8Only do you, chaste Lucina, favour the boy now being born, under whom the iron race will first cease and a golden race arise throughout the world: now your own Apollo reigns. 11And it is in your consulship, yours, Pollio, that this glory of the age will begin, and the great months start on their march.
13under your leadership, any traces of our crime that remain will be made void and free the lands from perpetual fear. 15He will receive the life of the gods, and will see heroes mingled with gods, and will himself be seen by them, and will rule a world at peace with his father's virtues. 18But for you, boy, as her first little gifts, the earth, untilled, will pour out everywhere straying ivy with baccar, and Egyptian beans mingled with smiling acanthus. 21Of their own accord the she-goats will bring home udders swollen with milk, and the herds will not fear great lions; 23your very cradle will pour out caressing flowers for you; the serpent too will die, and the treacherous poison-plant will die; Assyrian spice will spring up everywhere.
26But as soon as you are able to read of the praises of heroes and your father's deeds, and to know what virtue is, the plain will slowly grow golden with the soft ear of corn, the reddening grape will hang from untended brambles, and hard oaks will sweat dewy honey. Yet a few traces of the old wickedness will lurk beneath, to bid men tempt Thetis with ships, gird towns with walls, and cut furrows in the earth: then there will be a second Tiphys, and a second Argo to carry chosen heroes; 35there will be other wars too, and great Achilles will be sent to Troy once more.
37Next, when strengthening age has made you a man, the trader himself will quit the sea, and the ship of pine will not exchange wares: every land will bear everything: the soil will not suffer the hoe, nor the vineyard the pruning-hook; 41the sturdy ploughman too will now loose the yoke from his bulls; 42nor will wool learn to counterfeit varied colours: but the ram himself in the meadows will change his fleece, now to sweetly blushing purple, now to saffron yellow; 45of its own accord scarlet will clothe the grazing lambs. 46'Run on, such ages,' said the Fates to their spindles, in harmony with the fixed will of destiny.
48Enter upon your great honours—the time will soon be here—dear offspring of the gods, great increase of Jupiter! 50See the world nodding with its vaulted weight, the lands and the expanses of sea and the deep sky! 52See how all things rejoice in the age to come! 53O may the last part of so long a life remain to me, and as much breath as will suffice to tell your deeds! 55Neither Thracian Orpheus nor Linus will defeat me in song, though his mother stand by the one and his father by the other, Calliope by Orpheus, lovely Apollo by Linus; even Pan, if he competed with me with Arcadia as judge, even Pan would declare himself beaten with Arcadia as judge.
60Begin, little boy, to recognise your mother with a smile: ten months have brought your mother long discomfort. 62Begin, little boy: one on whom his parents have not smiled, no god has thought worthy of his table, nor goddess of her bed.