Good ram ! why through the cave com' st thou the last?

Aforetime by the sheep thou wert not left,

But wentest first to crop the flow'ry grass

With hasty step, and to the river's stream

Wert first to go, and first at even-tide

To thy fold eagerly return'dst ; but now

The last. Dost thou regret thy master's eye,

Which that bad man with his accursed friends

Has blinded, and subdued my mind with wine,

Noman, who shall not death, I ween, escape ?

Couldst thou have sympathy with me or speech,

Thou'dst tell me where that man my wrath evades :

In all directions through the cave his brain

Should on the ground be spattered, and my heart

Rest from the pangs that worthless Noman caused.

O ram, why do you pass from the cave last of the flock?

You’ve never before hung back behind the sheep

but were always first to feed

on the tender bloom of the grass;

taking great leaps,

you’d arrive before the others to drink at the river,

and were always eager in the evening

to be the first to come home.

Now you’re the last one out.

Surely you suffer for the eye of your master,

which that evil person

and his wretched companions blinded

when my wits were quelled by wine.

No-One—-whom I say-—has not yet escaped his ruin.

If only you could think like me

and were endowed with speech

to tell me whither that person

skulked away from my anger—

then that stuff in his head

would be splattered all over the cave.