HKB
But from the homestead not too far they fare, When showers hang like to fall, nor, east winds nigh, Confide in heaven, but 'neath the city walls Safe-circling fetch them water, or essay Brief out-goings, and oft weigh-up tiny stones, As light craft ballast in the tossing tide, Wherewith they poise them through the cloudy vast. This law of life, too, by the bees obeyed, Will move thy wonder, that nor sex with sex Yoke they in marriage, nor yield their limbs to love, Nor know the pangs of labour, but alone From leaves and honied herbs, the mothers, each, Gather their offspring in their mouths, alone Supply new kings and pigmy commonwealth, And their old court and waxen realm repair. Oft, too, while wandering, against jagged stones Their wings they fray, and 'neath the burden yield Their liberal lives: so deep their love of flowers, So glorious deem they honey's proud acquist. Therefore, though each a life of narrow span, Ne'er stretched to summers more than seven, befalls, Yet deathless doth the race endure, and still Perennial stands the fortune of their line, From grandsire unto grandsire backward told. Moreover, not Aegyptus, nor the realm Of boundless Lydia, no, nor Parthia's hordes, Nor Median Hydaspes, to their king Do such obeisance: lives the king unscathed, One will inspires the million: is he dead, Snapt is the bond of fealty; they themselves Ravage their toil-wrought honey, and rend amain Their own comb's waxen trellis. He is the lord Of all their labour; him with awful eye They reverence, and with murmuring throngs surround, In crowds attend, oft shoulder him on high, Or with their bodies shield him in the fight, And seek through showering wounds a glorious death. Led by these tokens, and with such traits to guide, Some say that unto bees a share is given Of the Divine Intelligence, and to drink Pure draughts of ether; for God permeates all- Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault of heaven- From whom flocks, herds, men, beasts of every kind, Draw each at birth the fine essential flame; Yea, and that all things hence to Him return, Brought back by dissolution, nor can death Find place: but, each into his starry rank, Alive they soar, and mount the heights of heaven. If now their narrow home thou wouldst unseal, And broach the treasures of the honey-house, With draught of water first toment thy lips, And spread before thee fumes of trailing smoke. Twice is the teeming produce gathered in, Twofold their time of harvest year by year, Once when Taygete the Pleiad uplifts Her comely forehead for the earth to see, With foot of scorn spurning the ocean-streams, Once when in gloom she flies the watery Fish, And dips from heaven into the wintry wave. Unbounded then their wrath; if hurt, they breathe Venom into their bite, cleave to the veins And let the sting lie buried, and leave their lives Behind them in the wound.