Lines from Hesiod’s Theogony, translated by Thomas Cooke

“Shepherds, attend, your happiness who place
In gluttony alone, the swain’s disgrace;
Strict to your duty in the field you keep,
There vigilant by night to watch your sheep:
Attend, ye swains, on whom the Muses call,
Regard the honour not bestow’d on all;
’Tis ours to speak the truth in language plain
Or give the face of truth to what we feign.”
So spoke the maids of Jove, the sacred Nine,
And pluck’d a sceptre from the tree divine;
To me the branch they gave, with look serene
The laurel ensign, never fading green:
I took the gift, with holy raptures fired.
My words flow sweeter, and my soul’s inspired;
Before my eyes appears the various scene
Of all that is to come, and what has been.
Me have the Muses chose, their bard to grace,
To celebrate the bless’d immortal race;
To them the honours of my verse belong!
To them I first and last devote the song:
But where, O where, enchanted do I rove.
Or o’er the rocks, or through the vocal grove!
Now with th’ harmonious Nine begin, whose voice
Makes their great sire, Olympian Jove, rejoice;
The present, future, and the past, they sing,
Join’d in sweet concert to delight their king;
Melodious and untired their voices flow;
Olympus echoes, ever crown’d with snow.
The heavn’ly songsters fill th’etherial round;
Jove’s palace laughs, and all the courts resound
Soft warbling endless with their voice divine,
They celebrate the whole immortal line.