The time will come
when the sharp might of the sun stops
making you feel hot and sweaty.
Autumnal rains [415]
will be sent by Zeus.
Then mortal flesh
feels refreshed.
This will be when the Dog Star, Sirius,
over the heads of sleeping humans,
humans weighted with cares, rises earlier.
It’ll travel only a little while by day.
It’ll spend most of its time moving by night.
At that time, wood drops its leaves to the ground.
It stops sprouting. [420]
At that time, the wood you cut with your ax
is least likely to worm.
This then is the time to remember: cut timber.
This is the season for wood work.
Cut a mortar and pestle,
for grinding the grain.
Cut an axle big enough for a broad cart,
able to carry much, to and from the field.
Cut enough to make a mallet,
for breaking up the clods of earth. [425]
Cut the rims and spokes for big wheels,
big enough for a big wagon.
Cut curved pieces, for the plow.
But bring home the piece for the plow beam
when you can find it. You’ll have to look
on the mountain or in the meadows
for one of holm oak. That’s the strongest wood
for oxen to plow with.
The carpenter, Athena’s handyman,
can fix it for you into the share beam. [430]
He’ll bolt it on with pegs
and fasten it to the pole beam.
At home you should always have
two plows ready for work:
one single-pieced, the other jointed.
This is the better way to prepare to plow.
What if you break one of them?
You can hitch the oxen to the other.
Poles of laurel or elm
are least likely to be eaten by worms. [435]
But make the share beam of oak
and the plow beam of holm oak. Then get two oxen.
Get bulls nine years old.
Then their strength is not all used up.
They are in the prime of their youth.
That’s when they are best for work.
They won’t put up a struggle.
You don’t want them in the furrow, breaking
the plow, leaving the work unfinished. [440]
The best man to follow behind them
is a fit forty-year-old. (Guess who I’m talking about?
Me!) Be sure you feed him a big meal.
Good food, good mood.
Mature, this man will focus on his work.
He needs to drive a straight furrow.
Mature, he won’t be looking around
to see what’s going on elsewhere. He will focus
his competitive spirit only on his work.
No young buck can ever be his match. [445]
Mature, he knows best how to sow the seed.
He doesn’t double up the seed, wasting it.
The younger man always gets distracted by his peers.
Young and dumb! Wasting time!
The time will come
when you hear the voice of the cranes.
Flying in the clouds above,
they move in their southward migration.
This is the sign for you to plow, now.
It is also the sign that the season [450]
of winter rain approaches. The heart saddens at this sound
only for the man with no oxen!
At that time, feed the curved horned oxen
you have, until then, kept ready indoors. True,
preparation is not easy! Others find it easy to ask:
“Loan me your oxen and your wagon?”
But you can be just as ready with your refusal:
“Sorry, they are busy with my work.”
People are lazy dreamers.
They think a wagon need not be built until it is needed. [455]
They think like dumb children!
Is not a wagon assembled from a hundred pieces? Is that
really a simple, one-day task? No! Plan ahead.
What’s needed isn’t lying around at home.
When the time to plow has come,
a time obvious to all mortal men (prepared or not),
then, more than ever, it’s time
not to be wasting your time. You and your helpers
must plow, plow, plow, now the season has come.
In wet weather or dry weather, [460]
wake up early and do the work.
How else can a land reach its full yield?
Plow the fallow land in the spring.
Even fallow land plowed in the summer will be fine.
Sow the fallow land,
once the soil has been lightly turned by the plow.
Always keep half your land fallow.
Then you can feed your children safely all year.
Make a prayer to Zeus, the protector of the Earth,
and to holy mother Demeter. [465]
Ask them to make Demeter’s sacred grain
grow to its fullest.
Pray when you start to plow.
And as you grip the plow in your hand, keep praying.
As you smack the backs of the oxen,
keep praying.
As they pull on the pole bar with their yoke straps,
pray. And get human help too!
A little helper should follow you,
working a tool to cover the sown seed. [470]
You can’t keep the birds away, unless you hide the seed.
All human mortals may attest:
good management brings out the best.
Bad management brings out the worst.
Plow piously, and plow wisely.
Then your grain will grow full and heavy,
since it is Olympian Zeus himself
who decrees fulfillment for a noble effort.
At harvest time, you will cheerfully
brush the cobwebs from your storage bins. [475]
Then will you fill your storeroom,
and draw food from it, whenever you need it.
You will have plenty to eat, right up until springtime.
You won’t have to look
longingly at others. No, it is the other man
who will come begging to you in his need.
You want to be lazy like him? Go ahead,
wait until winter solstice before you plow!
Your best land will yield only a handful of grain:
so little you can reap it reclining, [480]
so short that you can harvest it
lying down in the dust.
Oh well, bind the grain with a fancy bow!
Won’t that still delight you?
Carry it in a pricey handbag!
Isn’t it style alone that earns cheers?
Remember, it’s only Zeus who wears the aegis.
And his mind changes.
He thinks differently
at different times. It is difficult for mortal men
to understand it. So don’t presume
your prosperity! Still, even if you do get lazy,
and sow too late, Zeus may give [485]
a second chance to you. The song of the cuckoo
will ring out in spring
from behind the leaves of the oak tree.
Then, when the song is making hearts glad
all over the boundless Earth, watch if Zeus
sends rain on the third day. If it does not cease
until rain fills the height of an ox’s
hoof – no more, no less – then he who plows late
just got lucky. Zeus may very well grant him
a greater yield than the early plow. [490]
Your competitive spirit needs
to store up all this advice. Do not forget
as you watch for the arrival of bright spring.
Look for her season of forgiving rains.