314 FLORA DOMESTICA. 



" Difficiles primum terra?, collesque maligni, 

 Tenuis ubi argilla, et dumosis calculus arvis, 

 Palladia gaudent silva vivacis olivae. 

 Indicio est tractu surgens oleaster eodem 

 Plurimus, et strati baccis silvestribus agri." 



VIRGIL, Georgic 2. 



" In the first place, stubborn lands, and unfruitful hills, where the 

 bushy fields abound with lean clay and pebbles, rejoice in a wood of 

 long-lived Palladian olives. You may know this soil by wild olives 

 rising thick, and the fields being strewed with wild berries." 



MARTYN'S TRANSLATION. 



Ulysses was indebted to his patroness Minerva for a safe 

 and sheltered retreat to repose in after shipwreck : 



< ' Thus long debating in himself he stood : 

 At length he took the passage to the wood, 

 Whose shady horrors on a rising brow 

 Waved high, and frowned upon the stream below. 

 There grew two olives, closest of the grove, 

 With roots entwined, and branches interwove ; 

 Alike* their leaves, but not alike they smiled 

 With sister fruits; one fertile, one was wild. 

 Nor here the sun's meridian ray had power, 

 Nor wind sharp-piercing, nor the rushing shower, 

 The verdant arch so close its texture kept : 

 Beneath this covert great Ulysses crept. 

 Of gathered leaves an ample bed he made 

 (Thick strewn by tempest through the bowery shade) ; 

 Where three at least might winter's cold defy, 

 Though Boreas raged along the inclement sky. 

 This store with joy the patient hero found, 

 And, sunk amidst them, heaped the leaves around." 



POPE'S HOMER'S ODYSSEY, Book 5. 



