Virgil, Eclogue 6.64-73

How to quote this translation

tum canit, errantem Permessi ad flumina Gallum
Aonas in montis ut duxerit una sororum,
utque uiro Phoebi chorus adsurrexerit omnis;
ut Linus haec illi diuino carmine pastor
floribus atque apio crinis ornatus amaro
dixerit: ‘hos tibi dant calamos (en accipe) Musae,
Ascraeo quos ante seni, quibus ille solebat
cantando rigidas deducere montibus ornos.
his tibi Grynei nemoris dicatur origo,
ne quis sit lucus quo se plus iactet Apollo.’

Then he [Silenus] sang how one of the sisters led Gallus, wandering by the streams of Permessus, to the Aonian hills, and the whole choir of Phoebus rose for him; how Linus, the shepherd of divine song, his hair adorned with flowers and bitter parsley, said to Gallus: ‘The Muses give you this pipe – accept it – which they gave to the old Ascraean [Hesiod] before, with which, singing, he drew the rigid ash-trees down from the hills. With this pipe tell of the origin of the Grynean wood, so there is no grove that Apollo is more proud of.’

Relevant guides Gallus