The country, too, soothes the feelings, and the pursuits of agriculture: any anxiety whatever may give way before this employment. Bid the tamed oxen place their necks beneath their burden, that the crooked ploughshare may wound the hard ground. Cover the grain of Ceres with the earth turned up, which the field may restore to you with bounteous interest. Behold the branches bending beneath the weight of the apples; how its own tree can hardly support the weight which it has produced. See the rivulets trickling along with their pleasing murmur; see the sheep, as they crop the fertile mead. Behold how the she-goats climb the rocks, and the steep crags; soon will they be bringing back their distended udders for their kids. The shepherd is tuning his song on the unequal reeds; the dogs, too, a watchful throng, are not far off. In another direction the lofty woods are resounding with lowings; and the dam is complaining that her calf is missing. Why name the time when the swarms fly from the yew trees, [1215] placed beneath them, that the honey-combs removed may relieve the bending osiers [1216] of their weight? Autumn affords its fruit; summer is beauteous with its harvests; spring produces flowers; winter is made cheerful by the fire. At stated periods the rustic pulls the ripened grape, and beneath his naked foot the juice flows out; at stated periods he binds up the dried hay, and clears the mowed ground with the wide toothed rake. You yourself may set the plant in the watered garden; you yourself may form the channels for the trickling stream. The grafting [1217] is now come; make branch adopt branch, and let one tree stand covered with the foliage of another. When once these delights have begun to soothe your mind, Love, robbed of his power, departs with flagging wings. Or do you follow the pursuit of hunting. Full oft has Venus, overcome by the sister of Phoebus, retreated in disgrace. Now follow the fleet hare with the quick-scented hound; now stretch your toils on the shady mountain ridge. Or else, alarm the timid deer with the variegated feather-foils; or let the boar fall, transfixed by the hostile spear. Fatigued, at night sleep takes possession of you, not thoughts of the fair; and with profound rest it refreshes the limbs. 'Tis a more tranquil pursuit, still it is a pursuit, on catching the bird, to win the humble prize, either with the net or with the bird-limed twigs; or else, to hide the crooked hooks of brass in morsels at the end, which the greedy fish may, to its destruction, swallow with its ravenous jaws. Either by these, or by other pursuits, must you by stealth be beguiled by yourself, until you shall have learnt how to cease to love.