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diff --git a/4775-0.txt b/4775-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fadcdac --- /dev/null +++ b/4775-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6461 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, by Theocritus, +et al, Translated by Andrew Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Theocritus, Bion and Moschus + + +Author: Theocritus + + + +Release Date: August 6, 2014 [eBook #4775] +[This file was first posted on March 16, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEOCRITUS, BION AND MOSCHUS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + THEOCRITUS, BION + AND + MOSCHUS + + + RENDERED INTO ENGLISH PROSE + WITH + _AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY_ + + BY + ANDREW LANG, M.A. + + _Lately Fellow of Merton College_, _Oxford_ + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + LONDON + + MACMILLAN AND CO. + AND NEW YORK + 1889 + + _All rights reserved_ + + * * * * * + + TO + + ERNEST MYERS + + ’Εκ Μοισᾶν ξεινήιον + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +THEOCRITUS AND HIS AGE xi +THEOCRITUS— + Idyl I 3 + ,, II 11 + ,, III 20 + ,, IV 23 + ,, V 27 + ,, VI 35 + ,, VII 38 + ,, VIII 46 + ,, IX 52 + ,, X 55 + ,, XI 59 + ,, XII 64 + ,, XIII 67 + ,, XIV 71 + ,, XV 76 + ,, XVI 85 + ,, XVII 91 + ,, XVIII 97 + ,, XIX 101 + ,, XX 102 + ,, XXI 105 + ,, XXII 110 + ,, XXIII 121 + ,, XXIV 125 + ,, XXV 132 + ,, XXVI 144 + ,, XXVII 147 + ,, XXVIII 152 + ,, XXIX 154 + ,, XXX 147 + Epigrams 159 +BION— + Idyl I 171 + ,, II 176 + ,, III 178 + ,, IV 179 + ,, V 179 + ,, VI 180 + Fragments 181 +MOSCHUS— + Idyl I 187 + ,, II 189 + ,, III 197 + ,, IV 203 + ,, V 208 + ,, VI 208 + ,, VII 209 + ,, VIII 209 + ,, IX 210 + + + + +LIFE OF THEOCRITUS + + + (_From Suidas_) + +THEOCRITUS, the Chian. But there is another Theocritus, the son of +Praxagoras and Philinna (see Epigram XXIII), or as some say of Simichus. +(This is plainly derived from the assumed name Simichidas in Idyl VII.) +He was a Syracusan, or, as others say, a Coan settled in Syracuse. He +wrote the so-called _Bucolics_ in the Dorian dialect. Some attribute to +him the following works:—_The Proetidae_, _The Pleasures of Hope_ +(Ἐλπίδες), _Hymns_, _The Heroines_, _Dirges_, _Ditties_, _Elegies_, +_Iambics_, _Epigrams_. But it known that there are three Bucolic poets: +this Theocritus, Moschus of Sicily, and Bion of Smyrna, from a village +called Phlossa. + + + + +LIFE OF THEOCRITUS +ΘΕΟΚΡΙΤΟΥ ΓΕΝΟΣ + + + (_Usually prefixed to the Idyls_) + +THEOCRITUS the Bucolic poet was a Syracusan by extraction, and the son of +Simichidas, as he says himself, _Simichidas_, _pray whither through the +noon dost thou dray thy feet_? (Idyl VII). Some say that this was an +assumed name, for he seems to have been snub-nosed (σιμός), and that his +father was Praxagoras, and his mother Philinna. He became the pupil of +Philetas and Asclepiades, of whom he speaks (Idyl VII), and flourished +about the time of Ptolemy Lagus. He gained much fame for his skill in +bucolic poetry. According to some his original name was Moschus, and +Theocritus was a name he later assumed. + + + + +THEOCRITUS AND HIS AGE + + +AT the beginning of the third century before Christ, in the years just +preceding those in which Theocritus wrote, the genius of Greece seemed to +have lost her productive force. Nor would it have been strange if that +force had really been exhausted. Greek poetry had hitherto enjoyed a +peculiarly free development, each form of art succeeding each without +break or pause, because each—epic, lyric, dithyramb, the drama—had +responded to some new need of the state and of religion. Now in the +years that followed the fall of Athens and the conquests of Macedonia, +Greek religion and the Greek state had ceased to be themselves. Religion +and the state had been the patrons of poetry; on their decline poetry +seemed dead. There were no heroic kings, like those for whom epic +minstrels had chanted. The cities could no longer welcome an Olympian +winner with Pindaric hymns. There was no imperial Athens to fill the +theatres with a crowd of citizens and strangers eager to listen to new +tragic masterpieces. There was no humorous democracy to laugh at all the +world, and at itself, with Aristophanes. The very religion of Sophocles +and Aeschylus was debased. A vulgar usurper had stripped the golden +ornaments from Athene of the Parthenon. The ancient faith in the +protecting gods of Athens, of Sparta, and of Thebes, had become a lax +readiness to bow down in the temple of any Oriental Rimmon, of Serapis or +Adonis. Greece had turned her face, with Alexander of Macedon, to the +East; Alexander had fallen, and Greece had become little better than the +western portion of a divided Oriental empire. The centre of intellectual +life had been removed from Athens to Alexandria (_founded_ 332 B.C.) The +new Greek cities of Egypt and Asia, and above all Alexandria, seemed no +cities at all to Greeks who retained the pure Hellenic traditions. +Alexandria was thirty times larger than the size assigned by Aristotle to +a well-balanced state. Austere spectators saw in Alexandria an Eastern +capital and mart, a place of harems and bazaars, a home of tyrants, +slaves, dreamers, and pleasure-seekers. Thus a Greek of the old school +must have despaired of Greek poetry. There was nothing (he would have +said) to evoke it; no dawn of liberty could flush this silent Memnon into +song. The collectors, critics, librarians of Alexandria could only +produce literary imitations of the epic and the hymn, or could at best +write epigrams or inscriptions for the statue of some alien and luxurious +god. Their critical activity in every field of literature was immense, +their original genius sterile. In them the intellect of the Hellenes +still faintly glowed, like embers on an altar that shed no light on the +way. Yet over these embers the god poured once again the sacred oil, and +from the dull mass leaped, like a many-coloured frame, the genius of +THEOCRITUS. + +To take delight in that genius, so human, so kindly, so musical in +expression, requires, it may be said, no long preparation. The art of +Theocritus scarcely needs to be illustrated by any description of the +conditions among which it came to perfection. It is always impossible to +analyse into its component parts the genius of a poet. But it is not +impossible to detect some of the influences that worked on Theocritus. +We can study his early ‘environment’; the country scenes he knew, and the +songs of the neatherds which he elevated into art. We can ascertain the +nature of the demand for poetry in the chief cities and in the literary +society of the time. As a result, we can understand the broad twofold +division of the poems of Theocritus into rural and epic idyls, and with +this we must rest contented. + +It is useless to attempt a regular biography of Theocritus. Facts and +dates are alike wanting, the ancient accounts (p. ix) are clearly based +on his works, but it is by no means impossible to construct a ‘legend’ or +romance of his life, by aid of his own verses, and of hints and fragments +which reach us from the past and the present. The genius of Theocritus +was so steeped in the colours of human life, he bore such true and full +witness as to the scenes and men he knew, that life (always essentially +the same) becomes in turn a witness to his veracity. He was born in the +midst of nature that, through all the changes of things, has never lost +its sunny charm. The existence he loved best to contemplate, that of +southern shepherds, fishermen, rural people, remains what it always has +been in Sicily and in the isles of Greece. The habits and the passions +of his countryfolk have not altered, the echoes of their old love-songs +still sound among the pines, or by the sea-banks, where Theocritus +‘watched the visionary flocks.’ + +Theocritus was probably born in an early decade of the third century, or, +according to Couat, about 315 B.C., and was a native of Syracuse, ‘the +greatest of Greek cities, the fairest of all cities.’ So Cicero calls +it, describing the four quarters that were encircled by its walls,—each +quarter as large as a town,—the fountain Arethusa, the stately temples +with their doors of ivory and gold. On the fortunate dwellers in +Syracuse, Cicero says, the sun shone every day, and there was never a +morning so tempestuous but the sunlight conquered at last, and broke +through the clouds. That perennial sunlight still floods the poems of +Theocritus with its joyous glow. His birthplace was the proper home of +an idyllic poet, of one who, with all his enjoyment of the city life of +Greece, had yet been ‘breathed on by the rural Pan,’ and best loved the +sights and sounds and fragrant air of the forests and the coast. Thanks +to the mountainous regions of Sicily, to Etna, with her volcanic cliffs +and snow-fed streams, thanks also to the hills of the interior, the +populous island never lost the charm of nature. Sicily was not like the +overcrowded and over-cultivated Attica; among the Sicilian heights and by +the coast were few enclosed estates and narrow farms. The character of +the people, too, was attuned to poetry. The Dorian settlers had kept +alive the magic of rivers, of pools where the Nereids dance, and uplands +haunted by Pan. This popular poetry influenced the literary verse of +Sicily. The songs of Stesichorus, a minstrel of the early period, and +the little rural ‘mimes’ or interludes of Sophron are lost, and we have +only fragments of Epicharmus. But it seems certain that these poets, +predecessors of Theocritus, liked to mingle with their own composition +strains of rustic melody, _volks-lieder_, ballads, love-songs, ditties, +and dirges, such as are still chanted by the peasants of Greece and +Italy. Thus in Syracuse and the other towns of the coast, Theocritus +would have always before his eyes the spectacle of refined and luxurious +manners, and always in his ears the babble of the Dorian women, while he +had only to pass the gates, and wander through the fens of Lysimeleia, by +the brackish mere, or ride into the hills, to find himself in the golden +world of pastoral. Thinking of his early years, and of the education +that nature gives the poet, we can imagine him, like Callicles in Mr. +Arnold’s poem, singing at the banquet of a merchant or a general— + + ‘With his head full of wine, and his hair crown’d, + Touching his harp as the whim came on him, + And praised and spoil’d by master and by guests, + Almost as much as the new dancing girl.’ + +We can recover the world that met his eyes and inspired his poems, though +the dates of the composition of these poems are unknown. We can follow +him, in fancy, as he breaks from the revellers and wanders out into the +night. Wherever he turned his feet, he could find such scenes as he has +painted in the idyls. If the moon rode high in heaven, as he passed +through the outlying gardens he might catch a glimpse of some deserted +girl shredding the magical herbs into the burning brazier, and sending +upward to the ‘lady Selene’ the song which was to charm her lover home. +The magical image melted in the burning, the herbs smouldered, the tale +of love was told, and slowly the singer ‘drew the quiet night into her +blood.’ Her lay ended with a passage of softened melancholy— + + ‘Do thou farewell, and turn thy steeds to Ocean, lady, and my pain I + will endure, even as I have declared. Farewell, Selene beautiful; + farewell, ye other stars that follow the wheels of Night.’ + +A grammarian says that Theocritus borrowed this second idyl, the story of +Simaetha, from a piece by Sophron. But he had no need to borrow from +anything but the nature before his eyes. Ideas change so little among +the Greek country people, and the hold of superstition is so strong, that +betrayed girls even now sing to the Moon their prayer for pity and help. +Theocritus himself could have added little passion to this incantation, +still chanted in the moonlit nights of Greece: {0a} + + ‘Bright golden Moon, that now art near to thy setting, go thou and + salute my lover, he that stole my love, and that kissed me, and said, + “Never will I leave thee.” And, lo, he has left me, like a field + reaped and gleaned, like a church where no man comes to pray, like a + city desolate. Therefore I would curse him, and yet again my heart + fails me for tenderness, my heart is vexed within me, my spirit is + moved with anguish. Nay, even so I will lay my curse on him, and let + God do even as He will, with my pain and with my crying, with my + flame, and mine imprecations.’ + +It is thus that the women of the islands, like the girl of Syracuse two +thousand years ago, hope to lure back love or avenged love betrayed, and +thus they ‘win more ease from song than could be bought with gold.’ + +In whatever direction the path of the Syracusan wanderer lay, he would +find then, as he would find now in Sicily, some scene of the idyllic +life, framed between the distant Etna and the sea. If he strayed in the +faint blue of the summer dawn, through the fens to the shore, he might +reach the wattled cabin of the two old fishermen in the twenty-first +idyl. There is nothing in Wordsworth more real, more full of the +incommunicable sense of nature, rounding and softening the toilsome days +of the aged and the poor, than the Theocritean poem of the Fisherman’s +Dream. It is as true to nature as the statue of the naked fisherman in +the Vatican. One cannot read these verses but the vision returns to one, +of sandhills by the sea, of a low cabin roofed with grass, where +fishing-rods of reed are leaning against the door, while the +Mediterranean floats up her waves that fill the waste with sound. This +nature, grey and still, seems in harmony with the wise content of old men +whose days are waning on the limit of life, as they have all been spent +by the desolate margin of the sea. + +The twenty-first idyl is one of the rare poems of Theocritus that are not +filled with the sunlight of Sicily, or of Egypt. The landscapes he +prefers are often seen under the noonday heat, when shade is most +pleasant to men. His shepherds invite each other to the shelter of +oak-trees or of pines, where the dry fir-needles are strown, or where the +feathered ferns make a luxurious ‘couch more soft than sleep,’ or where +the flowers bloom whose musical names sing in the idyls. Again, +Theocritus will sketch the bare beginnings of the hillside, as in the +third idyl, just where the olive-gardens cease, and where the short grass +of the heights alternates with rocks, and thorns, and aromatic plants. +None of his pictures seem complete without the presence of water. It may +be but the wells that the maidenhair fringes, or the babbling runnel of +the fountain of the Nereids. The shepherds may sing of Crathon, or +Sybaris, or Himeras, waters so sweet that they seem to flow with milk and +honey. Again, Theocritus may encounter his rustics fluting in rivalry, +like Daphnis and Menalcas in the eighth idyl, ‘on the long ranges of the +hills.’ Their kine and sheep have fed upwards from the lower valleys to +the place where + + ‘The track winds down to the clear stream, + To cross the sparkling shallows; there + The cattle love to gather, on their way + To the high mountain pastures and to stay, + Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, + Knee-deep in the cool ford; for ’tis the last + Of all the woody, high, well-water’d dells + On Etna, . . . + . . . glade, + And stream, and sward, and chestnut-trees, + End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare + Of the hot noon, without a shade, + Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare; + The peak, round which the white clouds play.’ {0b} + +Theocritus never drives his flock so high, and rarely muses on such +thoughts as come to wanderers beyond the shade of trees and the sound of +water among the scorched rocks and the barren lava. The day is always +cooled and soothed, in his idyls, with the ‘music of water that falleth +from the high face of the rock,’ or with the murmurs of the sea. From +the cliffs and their seat among the bright red berries on the arbutus +shrubs, his shepherds flute to each other, as they watch the tunny +fishers cruising far below, while the echo floats upwards of the sailors’ +song. These shepherds have some touch in them of the satyr nature; we +might fancy that their ears are pointed like those of Hawthorne’s +Donatello, in ‘Transformation.’ + +It should be noticed, as a proof of the truthfulness of Theocritus, that +the songs of his shepherds and goatherds are all such as he might really +have heard on the shores of Sicily. This is the real answer to the +criticism which calls him affected. When mock pastorals flourished at +the court of France, when the long dispute as to the merits of the +ancients and moderns was raging, critics vowed that the hinds of +Theocritus were too sentimental and polite in their wooings. Refinement +and sentiment were to be reserved for princely shepherds dancing, crook +in hand, in the court ballets. Louis XIV sang of himself— + + ‘_A son labeur il passe tout d’un coup_, + _Et n’ira pas dormir sur la fougere_, + _Ny s’oublier aupres d’une Bergere_, + _Jusques au point d’en oublier le Loup_.’ {0c} + +Accustomed to royal goatherds in silk and lace, Fontenelle (a severe +critic of Theocritus) could not believe in the delicacy of a Sicilian who +wore a skin ‘stripped from the roughest of he-goats, with the smell of +the rennet clinging to it still.’ Thus Fontenelle cries, ‘Can any one +suppose that there ever was a shepherd who could say “Would I were the +humming bee, Amaryllis, to flit to thy cave, and dip beneath the +branches, and the ivy leaves that hide thee”?’ and then he quotes other +graceful passages from the love-verses of Theocritean swains. Certainly +no such fancies were to be expected from the French peasants of +Fontenelle’s age, ‘creatures blackened with the sun, and bowed with +labour and hunger.’ The imaginative grace of Battus is quite as remote +from our own hinds. But we have the best reason to suppose that the +peasants of Theocritus’s time expressed refined sentiment in language +adorned with colour and music, because the modern love-songs of Greek +shepherds sound like memories of Theocritus. The lover of Amaryllis +might have sung this among his ditties— + + Χελιδονάκι θα γενω, σ’ τα χείλη σου να καττώ + Να σε φιλήσω μια και δυό, και πάλε να πετάξω + + ‘To flit towards these lips of thine, I fain would be a swallow, + To kiss thee once, to kiss thee twice, and then go flying homeward.’ + {0d} + +In his despair, when Love ‘clung to him like a leech of the fen,’ he +might have murmured— + + ’Ηθελα να εΐμαι σ’ τα βουνα, μ’ αλάφια να κοιμοΰμαι + Και το δικον σου το κορμι να μη το συλλογιοΰμαι + + ‘Would that I were on the high hills, and lay where lie the stags, + and no more was troubled with the thought of thee.’ + +Here, again, is a love-complaint from modern Epirus, exactly in the tone +of Battus’s song in the tenth idyl— + + ‘White thou art not, thou art not golden haired, + Thou art brown, and gracious, and meet for love.’ + +Here is a longer love-ditty— + + ‘I will begin by telling thee first of thy perfections: thy body is + as fair as an angel’s; no painter could design it. And if any man be + sad, he has but to look on thee, and despite himself he takes + courage, the hapless one, and his heart is joyous. Upon thy brows + are shining the constellated Pleiades, thy breast is full of the + flowers of May, thy breasts are lilies. Thou hast the eyes of a + princess, the glance of a queen, and but one fault hast thou, that + thou deignest not to speak to me.’ + +Battus might have cried thus, with a modern Greek singer, to the shade of +the dead Amaryllis (Idyl IV), the ‘gracious Amaryllis, unforgotten even +in death’— + + ‘Ah, light of mine eyes, what gift shall I send thee; what gift to + the other world? The apple rots, and the quince decayeth, and one by + one they perish, the petals of the rose! I send thee my tears bound + in a napkin, and what though the napkin burns, if my tears reach thee + at last!’ + +The difficulty is to stop choosing, where all the verses of the modern +Greek peasants are so rich in Theocritean memories, so ardent, so +delicate, so full of flowers and birds and the music of fountains. +Enough has been said, perhaps, to show what the popular poetry of Sicily +could lend to the genius of Theocritus. + +From her shepherds he borrowed much,—their bucolic melody; their +love-complaints; their rural superstitions; their system of answering +couplets, in which each singer refines on the utterance of his rival. +But he did not borrow their ‘pastoral melancholy.’ There is little of +melancholy in Theocritus. When Battus is chilled by the thought of the +death of Amaryllis, it is but as one is chilled when a thin cloud passes +over the sun, on a bright day of early spring. And in an epigram the +dead girl is spoken of as the kid that the wolf has seized, while the +hounds bay all too late. Grief will not bring her back. The world must +go its way, and we need not darken its sunlight by long regret. Yet +when, for once, Theocritus adopted the accent of pastoral lament, when he +raised the rural dirge for Daphnis into the realm of art, he composed a +masterpiece, and a model for all later poets, as for the authors of +_Lycidas_, _Thyrsis_, and _Adonais_. + +Theocritus did more than borrow a note from the country people. He +brought the gifts of his own spirit to the contemplation of the world. +He had the clearest vision, and he had the most ardent love of poetry, +‘of song may all my dwelling be full, for neither is sleep more sweet, +nor sudden spring, nor are flowers more delicious to the bees, so dear to +me are the Muses.’ . . . ‘Never may we be sundered, the Muses of Pieria +and I.’ Again, he had perhaps in greater measure than any other poet the +gift of the undisturbed enjoyment of life. The undertone of all his +idyls is joy in the sunshine and in existence. His favourite word, the +word that opens the first idyl, and, as it were, strikes the keynote, is +αδύ, _sweet_. He finds all things delectable in the rural life: + + ‘Sweet are the voices of the calves, and sweet the heifers’ lowing; + sweet plays the shepherd on the shepherd’s pipe, and sweet is the + echo.’ + +Even in courtly poems, and in the artificial hymns of which we are to +speak in their place, the memory of the joyful country life comes over +him. He praises Hiero, because Hiero is to restore peace to Syracuse, +and when peace returns, then ‘thousands of sheep fattened in the meadows +will bleat along the plain, and the kine, as they flock in crowds to the +stalls, will make the belated traveller hasten on his way.’ The words +evoke a memory of a narrow country lane in the summer evening, when light +is dying out of the sky, and the fragrance of wild roses by the roadside +is mingled with the perfumed breath of cattle that hurry past on their +homeward road. There was scarcely a form of the life he saw that did not +seem to him worthy of song, though it might be but the gossip of two rude +hinds, or the drinking bout of the Thessalian horse-jobber, and the false +girl Cynisca and her wild lover Æschines. But it is the sweet country +that he loves best to behold and to remember. In his youth Sicily and +Syracuse were disturbed by civil and foreign wars, wars of citizens +against citizens, of Greeks against Carthaginians, and against the fierce +‘men of Mars,’ the banded mercenaries who possessed themselves of +Messana. But this was not matter for his joyous Muse— + + κείνος δ’ ού πολέμους, ού δάκρυα, Πανα δ’ έμελπε, + και βούτασ έλίγαινε και άείδων ενόμευε + + ‘Not of wars, not of tears, but of Pan would he chant, and of the + neatherds he sweetly sang, and singing he shepherded his flocks.’ + +This was the training that Sicily, her hills, her seas, her lovers, her +poet-shepherds, gave to Theocritus. Sicily showed him subjects which he +imitated in truthful art. Unluckily the later pastoral poets of northern +lands have imitated _him_, and so have gone far astray from northern +nature. The pupil of nature had still to be taught the ‘rules’ of the +critics, to watch the temper and fashion of his time, and to try his +fortune among the courtly poets and grammarians of the capital of +civilisation. Between the years of early youth in Sicily and the years +of waiting for court patronage at Alexandria, it seems probable that we +must place a period of education in the island of Cos. The testimonies +of the Grammarians who handed on to us the scanty traditions about +Theocritus, agree in making him the pupil of Philetas of Cos. This +Philetas was a critic, a commentator on Homer, and an elegiac poet whose +love-songs were greatly admired by the Romans of the Augustan age. He is +said to have been the tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who was himself +born, as Theocritus records, in the isle of Cos. It has been conjectured +that Ptolemy and Theocritus were fellow pupils, and that the poet may +have hoped to obtain court favour at Alexandria from this early +connection. About this point nothing is certainly known, nor can we +exactly understand the sort of education that was given in the school of +the poet Philetas. The ideas of that artificial age make it not +improbable that Philetas professed to teach the art of poetry. A French +critic and poet of our own time, M. Baudelaire, was willing to do as much +‘in thirty lessons.’ Possibly Philetas may have imparted technical rules +then in vogue, and the fashionable knack of introducing obscure +mythological allusions. He was a logician as well as a poet, and is +fabled to have died of vexation because he could not unriddle one of the +metaphysical catches or puzzles of the sophists. His varied activity +seems to have worn him to a shadow; the contemporary satirists bantered +him about his leanness, and it was alleged that he wore leaden soles to +his sandals lest the wind should blow him, as it blew the calves of +Daphnis (Idyl IX) over a cliff against the rocks, or into the sea. {0e} +Philetas seems a strange master for Theocritus, but, whatever the +qualities of the teacher, Cos, the home of the luxurious old age of +Meleager, was a beautiful school. The island was one of the most ancient +colonies of the Dorians, and the Syracusan scholar found himself among a +people who spoke his own broad and liquid dialect. The sides of the +limestone hills were clothed with vines, and with shadowy plane-trees +which still attain extraordinary size and age, while the wine-presses +where Demeter smiled, ‘with sheaves and poppies in her hands,’ yielded a +famous vintage. The people had a soft industry of their own, they +fashioned the ‘Coan stuff,’ transparent robes for woman’s wear, like the +ύδάτινα βράκη, the thin undulating tissues which Theugenis was to weave +with the ivory distaff, the gift of Theocritus. As a colony of +Epidaurus, Cos naturally cultivated the worship of Asclepius, the divine +physician, the child of Apollo. In connection with his worship and with +the clan of the Asclepiadae (that widespread stock to which Aristotle +belonged, and in which the practice of leechcraft was hereditary), Cos +possessed a school of medicine. In the temple of Asclepius patients hung +up as votive offerings representations of their diseased limbs, and thus +the temple became a museum of anatomical specimens. Cos was therefore +resorted to by young students from all parts of the East, and Theocritus +cannot but have made many friends of his own age. Among these he alludes +in various passages to Nicias, afterwards a physician at Miletus, to +Philinus, noted in later life as the head of a medical sect, and to +Aratus. Theocritus has sung of Aratus’s love-affairs, and St. Paul has +quoted him as a witness to man’s instinctive consent in the doctrine of +the universal fatherhood of God. These strangely various notices have +done more for the memory of Aratus than his own didactic poem on the +meteorological theories of his age. He lives, with Philinus and the rest +of the Coan students, because Theocritus introduced them into the picture +of a happy summer’s day. In the seventh idyl, that one day of Demeter’s +harvest-feast is immortal, and the sun never goes down on its delight. +We see Theocritus + + κουπω ταν μεσάταν όδον ανυμες, ουδε το σαμα + άμιν το Βρασίλα κατεφαίνετο— + +when he ‘had not yet reached the mid-point of the way, nor had the tomb +yet risen on his sight.’ He reveals himself as he was at the height of +morning, at the best moment of the journey, in midsummer of a genius +still unchecked by doubt, or disappointment, or neglect. Life seems to +accost him with the glance of the goatherd Lycidas, ‘and still he smiled +as he spoke, with laughing eyes, and laughter dwelling on his lips.’ In +Cos, Theocritus found friendship, and met Myrto, ‘the girl he loved as +dearly as goats love the spring.’ Here he could express, without any +afterthought, an enthusiastic adoration for the disinterested joys, the +enchanted moments of human existence. Before he entered the thronged +streets of Alexandria, and tuned his shepherd’s pipe to catch the ear of +princes, and to sing the epithalamium of a royal and incestuous love, he +rested with his friends in the happy island. Deep in a cave, among the +ruins of ancient aqueducts, there still bubbles up, from the Coan +limestone, the well-spring of the Nymphs. ‘There they reclined on beds +of fragrant rushes, lowly strown, and rejoicing they lay in new stript +leaves of the vine. And high above their heads waved many a poplar, many +an elm-tree, while close at hand the sacred water from the nymph’s own +cave welled forth with murmurs musical’ (Idyl VII). + +The old Dorian settlers in Syracuse pleased themselves with the fable +that their fountain, Arethusa, had been a Grecian nymph, who, like +themselves, had crossed the sea to Sicily. The poetry of Theocritus, +read or sung in sultry Alexandria, must have seemed like a new welling up +of the waters of Arethusa in the sandy soil of Egypt. We cannot +certainly say when the poet first came from Syracuse, or from Cos, to +Alexandria. It is evident however from the allusions in the fifteenth +and seventeenth idyls that he was living there after Ptolemy Philadelphus +married his own sister, Arsinoë. It is not impossible to form some idea +of the condition of Alexandrian society, art, religion, literature and +learning at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The vast city, founded +some sixty years before, was now completed. The walls, many miles in +circuit, protected a population of about eight hundred thousand souls. +Into that changing crowd were gathered adventurers from all the known +world. Merchantmen brought to Ptolemy the wares of India and the +porcelains of China. Marauders from upper Egypt skulked about the native +quarters, and sallied forth at night to rob the wayfarer. The king’s +guards were recruited with soldiers from turbulent Greece, from Asia, +from Italy. Settlers were attracted from Syracuse by the prospect of +high wages and profitable labour. The Jewish quarters were full of +Israelites who did not disdain Greek learning. The city in which this +multitude found a home was beautifully constructed. The Mediterranean +filled the northern haven, the southern walls were washed by the Mareotic +lake. If the isle of Pharos shone dazzling white, and wearied the eyes, +there was shade beneath the long marble colonnades, and in the groves and +cool halls of the Museum and the Libraries. The Etesian winds blew fresh +in summer from the north, across the sea, and refreshed the people in +their gardens. No town seemed greater nor wealthier to the voyager, who +(like the hero of the Greek novel _Clitophon and Leucippe_) entered by +the gate of the Sun, and found that, after nightfall, the torches borne +by men and women hastening to some religious feast, filled the dusk with +a light like that of ‘the sun cut up into fragments.’ At the same time +no town was more in need of the memories of the country, which came to +her in well-watered gardens, in landscape-paintings, and in the verse of +Theocritus. + +It is impossible to give a clearer idea of the opulence and luxury of +Alexandria and her kings, than will be conveyed by the description of the +coronation-feast of Ptolemy Philadelphus. This great masquerade and +banquet was prepared by the elder Ptolemy on the occasion of his +admitting his son to share his throne. The entertainment was described +(in a work now lost) by Callixenus of Rhodes, and the record has been +preserved by Atheneaus (v. 25). The inner pavilion in which the guests +of Ptolemy reclined, contained one hundred and thirty-five couches. Over +the roof was placed a scarlet awning, with a fringe of white, and there +were many other awnings, richly embroidered with mythological designs. +The pillars which sustained the roof were shaped in the likeness of +palm-trees, and of _thyrsi_, the weapons of the wine-god Dionysus. Round +three outer sides ran arcades, draped with purple tissues, and with the +skins of strange beasts. The fourth side, open to the air, was shady +with the foliage of myrtles and laurels. Everywhere the ground was +carpeted with flowers, though the season was mid-winter, with roses and +white lilies and blossoms of the gardens. By the columns round the whole +pavilion were arrayed a hundred effigies in marble, executed by the most +famous sculptors, and on the middle spaces were hung works by the +painters of Sicyon and tapestry woven with stories of the adventures of +the gods. Above these, again, ran a frieze of gold and silver shields, +while in the higher niches were placed comic, tragic, and satiric +sculptured groups ‘dressed in real clothes,’ says the historian, much +admiring this realism. It is impossible to number the tripods, and +flagons, and couches of gold, resting on golden figures of sphinxes, the +salvers, the bowls, the jewelled vases. The masquerade of this winter +festival began with the procession of the Morning-star, Heosphoros, and +then followed a masque of kings and a revel of various gods, while the +company of Hesperus, the Evening-star followed, and ended all. The revel +of Dionysus was introduced by men disguised as Sileni, wild woodland +beings in raiment of purple and scarlet. Then came scores of satyrs with +gilded lamps in their hands. Next appeared beautiful maidens, attired as +Victories, waving golden wings and swinging vessels of burning incense. +The altar of the God of the Vine was borne behind them, crowned and +covered with leaves of gold, and next boys in purple robes scattered +fragrant scents from golden salvers. Then came a throng of gold-crowned +satyrs, their naked bodies stained with purple and vermilion, and among +them was a tall man who represented the year and carried a horn of +plenty. He was followed by a beautiful woman in rich attire, carrying in +one hand branches of the palm-tree, in the other a rod of the peach-tree, +starred with its constellated flowers. Then the masque of the Seasons +swept by, and Philiscus followed, Philiscus the Corcyraean, the priest of +Dionysus, and the favourite tragic poet of the court. After the prizes +for the athletes had been borne past, Dionysus himself was charioted +along, a gigantic figure clad in purple, and pouring libations out of a +golden goblet. Around him lay huge drinking-cups, and smoking censers of +gold, and a bower of vine leaves grew up, and shaded the head of the god. +Then hurried by a crowd of priests and priestesses, Maenads, Bacchantes, +Bassarids, women crowned with the vine, or with garlands of snakes, and +girls bearing the mystic _vannus Iacchi_. And still the procession was +not ended. A mechanical figure of Nysa passed, in a chariot drawn by +eighty men, among clusters of grapes formed of precious stones, and the +figure arose, and poured milk out of a golden horn. The Satyrs and +Sileni followed close, and behind them six hundred men dragged on a wain, +a silver vessel that held six hundred measures of wine. This was only +the first of countless symbolic vessels that were carried past, till last +came a multitude of sixteen hundred boys clad in white tunics, and +garlanded with ivy, who bore and handed to the guests golden and silver +vessels full of sweet wine. All this was only part of one procession, +and the festival ended when Ptolemy and Berenice and Ptolemy Philadelphus +had been crowned with golden crowns from many subject cities and lands. + +This festival was obviously arranged to please the taste of a prince with +late Greek ideas of pictorial display, and with barbaric wealth at his +command. Theocritus himself enables us in the seventeenth idyl to +estimate the opulence and the dominion of Ptolemy. He was not master of +fertile Aegypt alone, where the Nile breaks the rich dank soil, and where +myriad cities pour their taxes into his treasuries. Ptolemy held lands +also in Phoenicia, and Arabia; he claimed Syria and Libya and Aethiopia; +he was lord of the distant Pamphylians, of the Cilicians, the Lycians and +the Carians, and the Cyclades owned his mastery. Thus the wealth of the +richest part of the world flowed into Alexandria, attracting thither the +priests of strange religions, the possessors of Greek learning, the +painters and sculptors whose work has left its traces on the genius of +Theocritus. + +Looking at this early Alexandrian age, three points become clear to us. +First, the fashion of the times was Oriental, Oriental in religion and in +society. Nothing could be less Hellenic, than the popular cult of +Adonis. The fifteenth idyl of Theocritus shows us Greek women +worshipping in their manner at an Assyrian shrine, the shrine of that +effeminate lover of Aphrodite, whom Heracles, according to the Greek +proverb, thought ‘no great divinity.’ The hymn of Bion, with its +luxurious lament, was probably meant to be chanted at just such a +festival as Theocritus describes, while a crowd of foreigners gossiped +among the flowers and embroideries, the strangely-shaped sacred cakes, +the ebony, the gold, and the ivory. Not so much Oriental as barbarous +was the impulse which made Ptolemy Philadelphus choose his own sister, +Arsinoë, for wife, as if absolute dominion had already filled the mind of +the Macedonian royal race with the incestuous pride of the Incas, or of +Queen Hatasu, in an elder Egyptian dynasty. This nascent barbarism has +touched a few of the Alexandrian poems even of Theocritus, and his +panegyric of Ptolemy, of his divine ancestors, and his sister-bride is +not much more Greek in sentiment than are those old native hymns of +Pentaur to ‘the strong Bull,’ or the ‘Risen Sun,’ to Rameses or Thothmes. + +Again, the early Alexandrian was what we call a ‘literary’ age. +Literature was not an affair of religion and of the state, but ministered +to the pleasure of individuals, and at their pleasure was composed. {0f} +The temper of the time was crudely critical. The Museum and the +Libraries, with their hundreds of thousands of volumes, were hot-houses +of grammarians and of learned poets. Callimachus, the head librarian, +was also the most eminent man of letters. Unable, himself, to compose a +poem of epic length and copiousness, he discouraged all long poems. He +shone in epigrams, pedantic hymns, and didactic verses. He toyed with +anagrams, and won court favour by discovering that the letters of +‘Arsinoë,’ the name of Ptolemy’s wife, made the words ίον Ηρας, the +violet of Hera. In another masterpiece the genius of Callimachus +followed the stolen tress of Queen Berenice to the skies, where the locks +became a constellation. A contemporary of Callimachus was Zenodotus, the +critic, who was for improving the Iliad and Odyssey by cutting out all +the epic commonplaces which seemed to him to be needless repetitions. It +is pretty plain that, in literary society, Homer was thought out of date +and _rococo_. The favourite topics of poets were now, not the tales of +Troy and Thebes, but the amorous adventures of the gods. When Apollonius +Rhodius attempted to revive the epic, it is said that the influence of +Callimachus quite discomfited the young poet. A war of epigrams began, +and while Apollonius called Callimachus a ‘blockhead’ (so finished was +his invective), the veteran compared his rival to the Ibis, the +scavenger-bird. Other singers satirised each others’ legs, and one, the +Aretino of the time, mocked at king Ptolemy and scourged his failings in +verse. The literary quarrels (to which Theocritus seems to allude in +Idyl VII, where Lycidas says he ‘hates the birds of the Muses that cackle +in vain rivalry with Homer’) were as stupid as such affairs usually are. +The taste for artificial epic was to return; although many people already +declared that Homer was the world’s poet, and that the world needed no +other. This epic reaction brought into favour Apollonius Rhodius, author +of the _Argonautica_. Theocritus has been supposed to aim at him as a +vain rival of Homer, but M. Couat points out that Theocritus was seventy +when Apollonius began to write. The literary fashions of Alexandria are +only of moment to us so far as they directly affected Theocritus. They +could not make him obscure, affected, tedious, but his nature probably +inclined him to obey fashion so far as only to write short poems. His +rural poems are ειδύλλια, ‘little pictures.’ His fragments of epic, or +imitations of the epic hymns are not + + όσα πόντος άείδει + +—not full and sonorous as the songs of Homer and the sea. ‘Ce poète est +le moins naïf qui se puisse rencontrer, et il se dégage de son oeuvre un +parfum de naïveté rustique.’ {0g} They are, what a German critic has +called them, _mythologischen genre-bilder_, cabinet pictures in the +manner called _genre_, full of pretty detail and domestic feeling. And +this brings us to the third characteristic of the age,—its art was +elaborately pictorial. Poetry seems to have sought inspiration from +painting, while painting, as we have said, inclined to _genre_, to +luxurious representations of the amours of the gods or the adventures of +heroes, with backgrounds of pastoral landscape. Shepherds fluted while +Perseus slew Medusa. + +The old order of things in Greece had been precisely the opposite of this +Alexandrian manner. Homer and the later Homeric legends, with the +tragedians, inspired the sculptors, and even the artisans who decorated +vases. When a new order of subjects became fashionable, and when every +rich Alexandrian had pictures or frescoes on his walls, it appears that +the painters took the lead, that the initiative in art was theirs. The +Alexandrian pictures perished long ago, but the relics of Alexandrian +style which remain in the buried cities of Campania, in Pompeii +especially, bear testimony to the taste of the period. {0h} Out of +nearly two thousand Pompeian pictures, it is calculated that some +fourteen hundred (roughly speaking) are mythological in subject. The +loves of the gods are repeated in scores of designs, and these designs +closely correspond to the mythological poems of Theocritus and his +younger contemporaries Bion and Moschus. Take as an example the +adventure of Europa: Lord Tennyson’s lines, in _The Palace of Art_ are +intended to describe _picture_— + + ‘Or sweet Europa’s mantle blew unclasp’d, + From off her shoulder backward borne: + From one hand droop’d a crocus: one hand grasp’d + The mild bull’s golden horn.’ + +The words of Moschus also seem as if they might have derived their +inspiration from a painting, the touches are so minute, and so +picturesque— + + ‘Meanwhile Europa, riding on the back of the divine bull, with one + hand clasped the beast’s great horn, and with the other caught up her + garment’s purple fold, lest it might trail and be drenched in the + hoar sea’s infinite spray. And her deep robe was blown out in the + wind, like the sail of a ship, and lightly ever it wafted the maiden + onward.’ + +Now every single ‘motive’ of this description,—Europa with one hand +holding the bull’s horn, with the other lifting her dress, the wind +puffing out her shawl like a sail, is repeated in the Pompeian +wall-pictures, which themselves are believed to be derived from +Alexandrian originals. There are more curious coincidences than this. +In the sixth idyl of Theocritus, Damoetas makes the Cyclops say that +Galatea ‘will send him many a messenger.’ The mere idea of describing +the monstrous cannibal Polyphemus in love, is artificial and Alexandrian. +But who were the ‘messengers’ of the sea-nymph Galatea? A Pompeian +picture illustrates the point, by representing a little Love riding up to +the shore on the back of a dolphin, with a letter in his hand for +Polyphemus. Greek art in Egypt suffered from an Egyptian plague of +Loves. Loves flutter through the Pompeian pictures as they do through +the poems of Moschus and Bion. They are carried about in cages, for +sale, like birds. They are caught in bird-traps. They don the lion-skin +of Heracles. They flutter about baskets laden with roses; round rosy +Loves, like the cupids of Boucher. They are not akin to ‘the grievous +Love,’ the mighty wrestler who threw Daphnis a fall, in the first idyl of +Theocritus. They are ‘the children that flit overhead, the little Loves, +like the young nightingales upon the budding trees,’ which flit round the +dead Adonis in the fifteenth idyl. They are the birds that shun the boy +fowler, in Bion’s poem, and perch uncalled (as in a bronze in the Uffizi) +on the grown man. In one or other of the sixteen Pompeian pictures of +Venus and Adonis, the Loves are breaking their bows and arrows for grief, +as in the hymn of Bion. + +Enough has perhaps been said about the social and artistic taste of +Alexandria to account for the remarkable differences in manner between +the rustic idyls of Theocritus and the epic idyls of himself and his +followers Moschus and Bion. In the rural idyls, Theocritus was himself +and wrote to please himself. In the epic idyls, as in the Hymn to the +Dioscuri, and in the two poems on Heracles, he was writing to please the +taste of Alexandria. He had to choose epic topics, but he was warned by +the famous saying of Callimachus (‘a great book is a great evil’) not to +imitate the length of the epic. {0i} He was also to shun close imitation +of what are so easily imitated, the regular recurring _formulae_, the +commonplace of Homer. He was to add minute pictorial touches, as in the +description of Alcmena’s waking when the serpents attacked her child,—a +passage rich in domestic pathos and incident which contrast strongly with +Pindar’s bare narrative of the same events. We have noted the same +pictorial quality in the _Europa_ of Moschus. Our own age has often been +compared to the Alexandrian epoch, to that era of large cities, wealth, +refinement, criticism, and science; and the pictorial _Idylls of the +King_ very closely resemble the epico-idyllic manner of Alexandria. We +have tried to examine the society in which Theocritus lived. But our +impressions about the poet are more distinct. In him we find the most +genial character; pious as Greece counted piety; tender as became the +poet of love; glad as the singer of a happy southern world should be; +gifted, above all, with humour, and with dramatic power. ‘His lyre has +all the chords’; his is the last of all the perfect voices of Hellas; +after him no man saw life with eyes so steady and so mirthful. + +About the lives of the three idyllic poets literary history says little. +About their deaths she only tells us through the dirge by Moschus, that +Bion was poisoned. The lovers of Theocritus would willingly hope that he +returned from Alexandria to Sicily, about the time when he wrote the +sixteenth idyl, and that he lived in the enjoyment of the friendship and +the domestic happiness and honour which he sang so well, through the +golden age of Hiero (264 B.C.) No happier fortune could befall him who +wrote the epigram of the lady of heavenly love, who worshipped with the +noble wife of Nicias under the green roof of Milesian Aphrodite, and who +prophesied of the return of peace and of song to Sicily and Syracuse. + + + + +THEOCRITUS + + +IDYL I + + +_The shepherd Thyrsis meets a goatherd_, _in a shady place beside a +spring_, _and at his invitation sings the Song of Daphnis_. _This ideal +hero of Greek pastoral song had won for his bride the fairest of the +Nymphs_. _Confident in the strength of his passion_, _he boasted that +Love could never subdue him to a new question_. _Love avenged himself by +making Daphnis desire a strange maiden_, _but to this temptation he never +yielded_, _and so died a constant lover_. _The song tells how the cattle +and the wild things of the wood bewailed him_, _how Hermes and Priapus +gave him counsel in vain_, _and how with his last breath he retorted the +taunts of the implacable Aphrodite_. + +_The scene is in Sicily_. + + * * * * * + +_Thyrsis_. Sweet, meseems, is the whispering sound of yonder pine tree, +goatherd, that murmureth by the wells of water; and sweet are thy +pipings. After Pan the second prize shalt thou bear away, and if he take +the horned goat, the she-goat shalt thou win; but if he choose the +she-goat for his meed, the kid falls to thee, and dainty is the flesh of +kids e’er the age when thou milkest them. + +_The Goatherd_. Sweeter, O shepherd, is thy song than the music of +yonder water that is poured from the high face of the rock! Yea, if the +Muses take the young ewe for their gift, a stall-fed lamb shalt thou +receive for thy meed; but if it please them to take the lamb, thou shalt +lead away the ewe for the second prize. + +_Thyrsis_. Wilt thou, goatherd, in the nymphs’ name, wilt thou sit thee +down here, among the tamarisks, on this sloping knoll, and pipe while in +this place I watch thy flocks? + +_Goatherd_. Nay, shepherd, it may not be; we may not pipe in the +noontide. ’Tis Pan we dread, who truly at this hour rests weary from the +chase; and bitter of mood is he, the keen wrath sitting ever at his +nostrils. But, Thyrsis, for that thou surely wert wont to sing _The +Affliction of Daphnis_, and hast most deeply meditated the pastoral muse, +come hither, and beneath yonder elm let us sit down, in face of Priapus +and the fountain fairies, where is that resting-place of the shepherds, +and where the oak trees are. Ah! if thou wilt but sing as on that day +thou sangest in thy match with Chromis out of Libya, I will let thee +milk, ay, three times, a goat that is the mother of twins, and even when +she has suckled her kids her milk doth fill two pails. A deep bowl of +ivy-wood, too, I will give thee, rubbed with sweet bees’-wax, a twy-eared +bowl newly wrought, smacking still of the knife of the graver. Round its +upper edges goes the ivy winding, ivy besprent with golden flowers; and +about it is a tendril twisted that joys in its saffron fruit. Within is +designed a maiden, as fair a thing as the gods could fashion, arrayed in +a sweeping robe, and a snood on her head. Beside her two youths with +fair love-locks are contending from either side, with alternate speech, +but her heart thereby is all untouched. And now on one she glances, +smiling, and anon she lightly flings the other a thought, while by reason +of the long vigils of love their eyes are heavy, but their labour is all +in vain. + +Beyond these an ancient fisherman and a rock are fashioned, a rugged +rock, whereon with might and main the old man drags a great net for his +cast, as one that labours stoutly. Thou wouldst say that he is fishing +with all the might of his limbs, so big the sinews swell all about his +neck, grey-haired though he be, but his strength is as the strength of +youth. Now divided but a little space from the sea-worn old man is a +vineyard laden well with fire-red clusters, and on the rough wall a +little lad watches the vineyard, sitting there. Round him two she-foxes +are skulking, and one goes along the vine-rows to devour the ripe grapes, +and the other brings all her cunning to bear against the scrip, and vows +she will never leave the lad, till she strand him bare and breakfastless. +But the boy is plaiting a pretty locust-cage with stalks of asphodel, and +fitting it with reeds, and less care of his scrip has he, and of the +vines, than delight in his plaiting. + +All about the cup is spread the soft acanthus, a miracle of varied work, +{6} a thing for thee to marvel on. For this bowl I paid to a Calydonian +ferryman a goat and a great white cream cheese. Never has its lip +touched mine, but it still lies maiden for me. Gladly with this cup +would I gain thee to my desire, if thou, my friend, wilt sing me that +delightful song. Nay, I grudge it thee not at all. Begin, my friend, +for be sure thou canst in no wise carry thy song with thee to Hades, that +puts all things out of mind! + + _The Song of Thyrsis_. + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! Thyrsis of Etna am +I, and this is the voice of Thyrsis. Where, ah! where were ye when +Daphnis was languishing; ye Nymphs, where were ye? By Peneus’s beautiful +dells, or by dells of Pindus? for surely ye dwelt not by the great stream +of the river Anapus, nor on the watch-tower of Etna, nor by the sacred +water of Acis. + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +For him the jackals, for him the wolves did cry; for him did even the +lion out of the forest lament. Kine and bulls by his feet right many, +and heifers plenty, with the young calves bewailed him. + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +Came Hermes first from the hill, and said, ‘Daphnis, who is it that +torments thee; child, whom dost thou love with so great desire?’ The +neatherds came, and the shepherds; the goatherds came: all they asked +what ailed him. Came also Priapus,— + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +And said: ‘Unhappy Daphnis, wherefore dost thou languish, while for thee +the maiden by all the fountains, through all the glades is fleeting, in +search of thee? Ah! thou art too laggard a lover, and thou nothing +availest! A neatherd wert thou named, and now thou art like the +goatherd: + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +‘For the goatherd, when he marks the young goats at their pastime, looks +on with yearning eyes, and fain would be even as they; and thou, when +thou beholdest the laughter of maidens, dost gaze with yearning eyes, for +that thou dost not join their dances.’ + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +Yet these the herdsman answered not again, but he bare his bitter love to +the end, yea, to the fated end he bare it. + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +Ay, but she too came, the sweetly smiling Cypris, craftily smiling she +came, yet keeping her heavy anger; and she spake, saying: ‘Daphnis, +methinks thou didst boast that thou wouldst throw Love a fall, nay, is it +not thyself that hast been thrown by grievous Love?’ + +_Begin ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +But to her Daphnis answered again: ‘Implacable Cypris, Cypris terrible, +Cypris of mortals detested, already dost thou deem that my latest sun has +set; nay, Daphnis even in Hades shall prove great sorrow to Love. + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +‘Where it is told how the herdsman with Cypris—Get thee to Ida, get thee +to Anchises! There are oak trees—here only galingale blows, here sweetly +hum the bees about the hives! + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +‘Thine Adonis, too, is in his bloom, for he herds the sheep and slays the +hares, and he chases all the wild beasts. Nay, go and confront Diomedes +again, and say, “The herdsman Daphnis I conquered, do thou join battle +with me.” + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +‘Ye wolves, ye jackals, and ye bears in the mountain caves, farewell! +The herdsman Daphnis ye never shall see again, no more in the dells, no +more in the groves, no more in the woodlands. Farewell Arethusa, ye +rivers, good-night, that pour down Thymbris your beautiful waters. + +_Begin_, _ye Muses dear_, _begin the pastoral song_! + +‘That Daphnis am I who here do herd the kine, Daphnis who water here the +bulls and calves. + +‘O Pan, Pan! whether thou art on the high hills of Lycaeus, or rangest +mighty Maenalus, haste hither to the Sicilian isle! Leave the tomb of +Helice, leave that high cairn of the son of Lycaon, which seems wondrous +fair, even in the eyes of the blessed. {9} + +_Give o’er_, _ye Muses_, _come_, _give o’er the pastoral song_! + +‘Come hither, my prince, and take this fair pipe, honey-breathed with +wax-stopped joints; and well it fits thy lip: for verily I, even I, by +Love am now haled to Hades. + +_Give o’er_, _ye Muses_, _come_, _give o’er the pastoral song_! + +‘Now violets bear, ye brambles, ye thorns bear violets; and let fair +narcissus bloom on the boughs of juniper! Let all things with all be +confounded,—from pines let men gather pears, for Daphnis is dying! Let +the stag drag down the hounds, let owls from the hills contend in song +with the nightingales.’ + +_Give o’er_, _ye Muses_, _come_, _give o’er the pastoral song_! + +So Daphnis spake, and ended; but fain would Aphrodite have given him back +to life. Nay, spun was all the thread that the Fates assigned, and +Daphnis went down the stream. The whirling wave closed over the man the +Muses loved, the man not hated of the nymphs. + +_Give o’er_, _ye Muses_, _come_, _give o’er the pastoral song_! + +And thou, give me the bowl, and the she-goat, that I may milk her and +poor forth a libation to the Muses. Farewell, oh, farewells manifold, ye +Muses, and I, some future day, will sing you yet a sweeter song. + +_The Goatherd_. Filled may thy fair mouth be with honey, Thyrsis, and +filled with the honeycomb; and the sweet dried fig mayst thou eat of +Aegilus, for thou vanquishest the cicala in song! Lo here is thy cup, +see, my friend, of how pleasant a savour! Thou wilt think it has been +dipped in the well-spring of the Hours. Hither, hither, Cissaetha: do +thou milk her, Thyrsis. And you young she-goats, wanton not so wildly +lest you bring up the he-goat against you. + + + +IDYL II + + +_Simaetha_, _madly in love with Delphis_, _who has forsaken her_, +_endeavours to subdue him to her by magic_, _and by invoking the Moon_, +_in her character of Hecate_, _and of Selene_. _She tells the tale of +the growth of her passion_, _and vows vengeance if her magic arts are +unsuccessful_. + +_The scene is probably some garden beneath the moonlit shy_, _near the +town_, _and within sound of the sea_. _The characters are Simaetha_, +_and Thestylis_, _her handmaid_. + + * * * * * + +WHERE are my laurel leaves? come, bring them, Thestylis; and where are +the love-charms? Wreath the bowl with bright-red wool, that I may knit +the witch-knots against my grievous lover, {11} who for twelve days, oh +cruel, has never come hither, nor knows whether I am alive or dead, nor +has once knocked at my door, unkind that he is! Hath Love flown off with +his light desires by some other path—Love and Aphrodite? To-morrow I +will go to the wrestling school of Timagetus, to see my love and to +reproach him with all the wrong he is doing me. But now I will bewitch +him with my enchantments! Do thou, Selene, shine clear and fair, for +softly, Goddess, to thee will I sing, and to Hecate of hell. The very +whelps shiver before her as she fares through black blood and across the +barrows of the dead. + +Hail, awful Hecate! to the end be thou of our company, and make this +medicine of mine no weaker than the spells of Circe, or of Medea, or of +Perimede of the golden hair. + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Lo, how the barley grain first smoulders in the fire,—nay, toss on the +barley, Thestylis! Miserable maid, where are thy wits wandering? Even +to thee, wretched that I am, have I become a laughing-stock, even to +thee? Scatter the grain, and cry thus the while, ‘’Tis the bones of +Delphis I am scattering!’ + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Delphis troubled me, and I against Delphis am burning this laurel; and +even as it crackles loudly when it has caught the flame, and suddenly is +burned up, and we see not even the dust thereof, lo, even thus may the +flesh of Delphis waste in the burning! + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Even as I melt this wax, with the god to aid, so speedily may he by love +be molten, the Myndian Delphis! And as whirls this brazen wheel, {13} so +restless, under Aphrodite’s spell, may he turn and turn about my doors. + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Now will I burn the husks, and thou, O Artemis, hast power to move hell’s +adamantine gates, and all else that is as stubborn. Thestylis, hark, +’tis so; the hounds are baying up and down the town! The Goddess stands +where the three ways meet! Hasten, and clash the brazen cymbals. + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Lo, silent is the deep, and silent the winds, but never silent the +torment in my breast. Nay, I am all on fire for him that made me, +miserable me, no wife but a shameful thing, a girl no more a maiden. + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Three times do I pour libation, and thrice, my Lady Moon, I speak this +spell:—Be it with a friend that he lingers, be it with a leman he lies, +may he as clean forget them as Theseus, of old, in Dia—so legends +tell—did utterly forget the fair-tressed Ariadne. + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Coltsfoot is an Arcadian weed that maddens, on the hills, the young +stallions and fleet-footed mares. Ah! even as these may I see Delphis; +and to this house of mine, may he speed like a madman, leaving the bright +palaestra. + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +This fringe from his cloak Delphis lost; that now I shred and cast into +the cruel flame. Ah, ah, thou torturing Love, why clingest thou to me +like a leech of the fen, and drainest all the black blood from my body? + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +Lo, I will crush an eft, and a venomous draught to-morrow I will bring +thee! + +But now, Thestylis, take these magic herbs and secretly smear the juice +on the jambs of his gate (whereat, even now, my heart is captive, though +nothing he recks of me), and spit and whisper, ‘’Tis the bones of Delphis +that I smear.’ + +_My magic wheel_, _draw home to me the man I love_! + +And now that I am alone, whence shall I begin to bewail my love? Whence +shall I take up the tale: who brought on me this sorrow? The +maiden-bearer of the mystic vessel came our way, Anaxo, daughter of +Eubulus, to the grove of Artemis; and behold, she had many other wild +beasts paraded for that time, in the sacred show, and among them a +lioness. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +And the Thracian servant of Theucharidas,—my nurse that is but lately +dead, and who then dwelt at our doors,—besought me and implored me to +come and see the show. And I went with her, wretched woman that I am, +clad about in a fair and sweeping linen stole, over which I had thrown +the holiday dress of Clearista. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +Lo! I was now come to the mid-point of the highway, near the dwelling of +Lycon, and there I saw Delphis and Eudamippus walking together. Their +beards were more golden than the golden flower of the ivy; their breasts +(they coming fresh from the glorious wrestler’s toil) were brighter of +sheen than thyself Selene! + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +Even as I looked I loved, loved madly, and all my heart was wounded, woe +is me, and my beauty began to wane. No more heed took I of that show, +and how I came home I know not; but some parching fever utterly overthrew +me, and I lay a-bed ten days and ten nights. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +And oftentimes my skin waxed wan as the colour of boxwood, and all my +hair was falling from my head, and what was left of me was but skin and +bones. Was there a wizard to whom I did not seek, or a crone to whose +house I did not resort, of them that have art magical? But this was no +light malady, and the time went fleeting on. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +Thus I told the true story to my maiden, and said, ‘Go, Thestylis, and +find me some remedy for this sore disease. Ah me, the Myndian possesses +me, body and soul! Nay, depart, and watch by the wrestling-ground of +Timagetus, for there is his resort, and there he loves to loiter. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +‘And when thou art sure he is alone, nod to him secretly, and say, +“Simaetha bids thee to come to her,” and lead him hither privily.’ So I +spoke; and she went and brought the bright-limbed Delphis to my house. +But I, when I beheld him just crossing the threshold of the door, with +his light step,— + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +Grew colder all than snow, and the sweat streamed from my brow like the +dank dews, and I had no strength to speak, nay, nor to utter as much as +children murmur in their slumber, calling to their mother dear: and all +my fair body turned stiff as a puppet of wax. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +Then when he had gazed on me, he that knows not love, he fixed his eyes +on the ground, and sat down on my bed, and spake as he sat him down: +‘Truly, Simaetha, thou didst by no more outrun mine own coming hither, +when thou badst me to thy roof, than of late I outran in the race the +beautiful Philinus: + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +‘For I should have come; yea, by sweet Love, I should have come, with +friends of mine, two or three, as soon as night drew on, bearing in my +breast the apples of Dionysus, and on my head silvery poplar leaves, the +holy boughs of Heracles, all twined with bands of purple. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +‘And if you had received me, they would have taken it well, for among all +the youths unwed I have a name for beauty and speed of foot. With one +kiss of thy lovely mouth I had been content; but an if ye had thrust me +forth, and the door had been fastened with the bar, then truly should +torch and axe have broken in upon you. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +‘And now to Cypris first, methinks, my thanks are due, and after Cypris +it is thou that hast caught me, lady, from the burning, in that thou +badst me come to this thy house, half consumed as I am! Yea, Love, ’tis +plain, lights oft a fiercer blaze than Hephaestus the God of Lipara. + +_Bethink thee of my love_, _and whence it came_, _my Lady Moon_! + +‘With his madness dire, he scares both the maiden from her bower and the +bride from the bridal bed, yet warm with the body of her lord!’ + +So he spake, and I, that was easy to win, took his hand, and drew him +down on the soft bed beside me. And immediately body from body caught +fire, and our faces glowed as they had not done, and sweetly we murmured. +And now, dear Selene, to tell thee no long tale, the great rites were +accomplished, and we twain came to our desire. Faultless was I in his +sight, till yesterday, and he, again, in mine. But there came to me the +mother of Philista, my flute player, and the mother of Melixo, to-day, +when the horses of the Sun were climbing the sky, bearing Dawn of the +rosy arms from the ocean stream. Many another thing she told me; and +chiefly this, that Delphis is a lover, and whom he loves she vowed she +knew not surely, but this only, that ever he filled up his cup with the +unmixed wine, to drink a toast to his dearest. And at last he went off +hastily, saying that he would cover with garlands the dwelling of his +love. + +This news my visitor told me, and she speaks the truth. For indeed, at +other seasons, he would come to me thrice, or four times, in the day, and +often would leave with me his Dorian oil flask. But now it is the +twelfth day since I have even looked on him! Can it be that he has not +some other delight, and has forgotten me? Now with magic rites I will +strive to bind him, {19} but if still he vexes me, he shall beat, by the +Fates I vow it, at the gate of Hell. Such evil medicines I store against +him in a certain coffer, the use whereof, my lady, an Assyrian stranger +taught me. + +But do thou farewell, and turn thy steeds to Ocean, Lady, and my pain I +will bear, as even till now I have endured it. Farewell, Selene bright +and fair, farewell ye other stars, that follow the wheels of quiet Night. + + + +IDYL III + + +_A goatherd_, _leaving his goats to feed on the hillside_, _in the charge +of Tityrus_, _approaches the cavern of Amaryllis_, _with its veil of +ferns and ivy_, _and attempts to win back the heart of the girl by song_. +_He mingles promises with harmless threats_, _and repeats_, _in exquisite +verses_, _the names of the famous lovers of old days_, _Milanion and +Endymion_. _Failing to move Amaryllis_, _the goatherd threatens to die +where he has thrown himself down_, _beneath the trees_. + + * * * * * + +COURTING Amaryllis with song I go, while my she-goats feed on the hill, +and Tityrus herds them. Ah, Tityrus, my dearly beloved, feed thou the +goats, and to the well-side lead them, Tityrus, and ’ware the yellow +Libyan he-goat, lest he butt thee with his horns. + +Ah, lovely Amaryllis, why no more, as of old, dust thou glance through +this cavern after me, nor callest me, thy sweetheart, to thy side. Can +it be that thou hatest me? Do I seem snub-nosed, now thou hast seen me +near, maiden, and under-hung? Thou wilt make me strangle myself! + +Lo, ten apples I bring thee, plucked from that very place where thou +didst bid me pluck them, and others to-morrow I will bring thee. + +Ah, regard my heart’s deep sorrow! ah, would I were that humming bee, and +to thy cave might come dipping beneath the fern that hides thee, and the +ivy leaves! + +Now know I Love, and a cruel God is he. Surely he sucked the lioness’s +dug, and in the wild wood his mother reared him, whose fire is scorching +me, and bites even to the bone. + +Ah, lovely as thou art to look upon, ah heart of stone, ah dark-browed +maiden, embrace me, thy true goatherd, that I may kiss thee, and even in +empty kisses there is a sweet delight! + +Soon wilt thou make me rend the wreath in pieces small, the wreath of +ivy, dear Amaryllis, that I keep for thee, with rose-buds twined, and +fragrant parsley. Ah me, what anguish! Wretched that I am, whither +shall I turn! Thou dust not hear my prayer! + +I will cast off my coat of skins, and into yonder waves I will spring, +where the fisher Olpis watches for the tunny shoals, and even if I die +not, surely thy pleasure will have been done. + +I learned the truth of old, when, amid thoughts of thee, I asked, ‘Loves +she, loves she not?’ and the poppy petal clung not, and gave no crackling +sound, but withered on my smooth forearm, even so. {21} + +And she too spoke sooth, even Agroeo, she that divineth with a sieve, and +of late was binding sheaves behind the reapers, who said that I had set +all my heart on thee, but that thou didst nothing regard me. + +Truly I keep for thee the white goat with the twin kids that Mermnon’s +daughter too, the brown-skinned Erithacis, prays me to give her; and give +her them I will, since thou dost flout me. + +My right eyelid throbs, is it a sign that I am to see her? Here will I +lean me against this pine tree, and sing, and then perchance she will +regard me, for she is not all of adamant. + +Lo, Hippomenes when he was eager to marry the famous maiden, took apples +in his hand, and so accomplished his course; and Atalanta saw, and madly +longed, and leaped into the deep waters of desire. Melampus too, the +soothsayer, brought the herd of oxen from Othrys to Pylos, and thus in +the arms of Bias was laid the lovely mother of wise Alphesiboea. + +And was it not thus that Adonis, as he pastured his sheep upon the hills, +led beautiful Cytherea to such heights of frenzy, that not even in his +death doth she unclasp him from her bosom? Blessed, methinks is the lot +of him that sleeps, and tosses not, nor turns, even Endymion; and, +dearest maiden, blessed I call Iason, whom such things befell, as ye that +be profane shall never come to know. + +My head aches, but thou carest not. I will sing no more, but dead will I +lie where I fall, and here may the wolves devour me. + +Sweet as honey in the mouth may my death be to thee. + + + +IDYL IV + + +_Battus and Corydon_, _two rustic fellows_, _meeting in a glade_, _gossip +about their neighbour_, _Aegon_, _who has gone to try his fortune at the +Olympic games_. _After some random banter_, _the talk turns on the death +of Amaryllis_, _and the grief of Battus is disturbed by the roaming of +his cattle_. _Corydon removes a thorn that has run into his friend’s +foot_, _and the conversation comes back to matters of rural scandal_. + +_The scene is in Southern Italy_. + + * * * * * + +_Battus_. Tell me, Corydon, whose kine are these,—the cattle of +Philondas? + +_Corydon_. Nay, they are Aegon’s, he gave me them to pasture. + +_Battus_. Dost thou ever find a way to milk them all, on the sly, just +before evening? + +_Corydon_. No chance of that, for the old man puts the calves beneath +their dams, and keeps watch on me. + +_Battus_. But the neatherd himself,—to what land has he passed out of +sight? + +_Corydon_. Hast thou not heard? Milon went and carried him off to the +Alpheus. + +_Battus_. And when, pray, did _he_ ever set eyes on the wrestlers’ oil? + +_Corydon_. They say he is a match for Heracles, in strength and +hardihood. + +_Battus_. And I, so mother says, am a better man than Polydeuces. + +_Corydon_. Well, off he has gone, with a shovel, and with twenty sheep +from his flock here. {24} + +_Battus_. Milo, thou’lt see, will soon be coaxing the wolves to rave! + +_Corydon_. But Aegon’s heifers here are lowing pitifully, and miss their +master. + +_Battus_. Yes, wretched beasts that they are, how false a neatherd was +theirs! + +_Corydon_. Wretched enough in truth, and they have no more care to +pasture. + +_Battus_. Nothing is left, now, of that heifer, look you, bones, that’s +all. She does not live on dewdrops, does she, like the grasshopper? + +_Corydon_. No, by Earth, for sometimes I take her to graze by the banks +of Aesarus, fair handfuls of fresh grass I give her too, and otherwhiles +she wantons in the deep shade round Latymnus. + +_Battus_. How lean is the red bull too! May the sons of Lampriades, the +burghers to wit, get such another for their sacrifice to Hera, for the +township is an ill neighbour. + +_Corydon_. And yet that bull is driven to the mere’s mouth, and to the +meadows of Physcus, and to the Neaethus, where all fair herbs bloom, red +goat-wort, and endive, and fragrant bees-wort. + +_Battus_. Ah, wretched Aegon, thy very kine will go to Hades, while thou +too art in love with a luckless victory, and thy pipe is flecked with +mildew, the pipe that once thou madest for thyself! + +_Corydon_. Not the pipe, by the nymphs, not so, for when he went to +Pisa, he left the same as a gift to me, and I am something of a player. +Well can I strike up the air of _Glaucé_ and well the strain of +_Pyrrhus_, and _the praise of Croton I sing_, and _Zacynthus is a goodly +town_, and _Lacinium that fronts the dawn_! There Aegon the boxer, +unaided, devoured eighty cakes to his own share, and there he caught the +bull by the hoof, and brought him from the mountain, and gave him to +Amaryllis. Thereon the women shrieked aloud, and the neatherd,—he burst +out laughing. + +_Battus_. Ah, gracious Amaryllis! Thee alone even in death will we +ne’er forget. Dear to me as my goats wert thou, and thou art dead! +Alas, too cruel a spirit hath my lot in his keeping. + +_Corydon_. Dear Battus, thou must needs be comforted. The morrow +perchance will bring better fortune. The living may hope, the dead alone +are hopeless. Zeus now shows bright and clear, and anon he rains. + +_Battus_. Enough of thy comforting! Drive the calves from the lower +ground, the cursed beasts are grazing on the olive-shoots. Hie on, white +face. + +_Corydon_. Out, Cymaetha, get thee to the hill! Dost thou not hear? By +Pan, I will soon come and be the death of you, if you stay there! Look, +here she is creeping back again! Would I had my crook for hare killing: +how I would cudgel thee. + +_Battus_. In the name of Zeus, prithee look here, Corydon! A thorn has +just run into my foot under the ankle. How deep they grow, the +arrow-headed thorns. An ill end befall the heifer; I was pricked when I +was gaping after her. Prithee dost see it? + +_Corydon_. Yes, yes, and I have caught it in my nails, see, here it is. + +_Battus_. How tiny is the wound, and how tall a man it masters! + +_Corydon_. When thou goest to the hill, go not barefoot, Battus, for on +the hillside flourish thorns and brambles plenty. + +_Battus_. Come, tell me, Corydon, the old man now, does he still run +after that little black-browed darling whom he used to dote on? + +_Corydon_. He is after her still, my lad; but yesterday I came upon +them, by the very byre, and right loving were they. + +_Battus_. Well done, thou ancient lover! Sure, thou art near akin to +the satyrs, or a rival of the slim-shanked Pans! {26} + + + +IDYL V + + +_This Idyl begins with a ribald debate between two hirelings_, _who_, _at +last_, _compete with each other in a match of pastoral song_. _No other +idyl of Theocritus is so frankly true to the rough side of rustic +manners_. _The scene is in Southern Italy_. + + * * * * * + +_Comatas_. Goats of mine, keep clear of that notorious shepherd of +Sibyrtas, that Lacon; he stole my goat-skin yesterday. + +_Lacon_. Will ye never leave the well-head? Off, my lambs, see ye not +Comatas; him that lately stole my shepherd’s pipe? + +_Comatas_. What manner of pipe might that be, for when gat’st _thou_ a +pipe, thou slave of Sibyrtas? Why does it no more suffice thee to keep a +flute of straw, and whistle with Corydon? + +_Lacon_. What pipe, free sir? why, the pipe that Lycon gave me. And +what manner of goat-skin hadst thou, that Lacon made off with? Tell me, +Comatas, for truly even thy master, Eumarides, had never a goat-skin to +sleep in. + +_Comatas_. ’Twas the skin that Crocylus gave me, the dappled one, when +he sacrificed the she-goat to the nymphs; but thou, wretch, even then +wert wasting with envy, and now, at last, thou hast stripped me bare! + +_Lacon_. Nay verily, so help me Pan of the seashore, it was not Lacon +the son of Calaethis that filched the coat of skin. If I lie, sirrah, +may I leap frenzied down this rock into the Crathis! + +_Comatas_. Nay verily, my friend, so help me these nymphs of the mere +(and ever may they be favourable, as now, and kind to me), it was not +Comatas that pilfered thy pipe. + +_Lacon_. If I believe thee, may I suffer the afflictions of Daphnis! +But see, if thou carest to stake a kid—though indeed ’tis scarce worth my +while—then, go to, I will sing against thee, and cease not, till thou +dust cry ‘enough!’ + +_Comatas_. _The sow defied Athene_! See, there is staked the kid, go +to, do thou too put a fatted lamb against him, for thy stake. + +_Lacon_. Thou fox, and where would be our even betting then? Who ever +chose hair to shear, in place of wool? and who prefers to milk a filthy +bitch, when he can have a she-goat, nursing her first kid? + +_Comatas_. Why, he that deems himself as sure of getting the better of +his neighbour as thou dost, a wasp that buzzes against the cicala. But +as it is plain thou thinkst the kid no fair stake, lo, here is this +he-goat. Begin the match! + +_Lacon_. No such haste, thou art not on fire! More sweetly wilt thou +sing, if thou wilt sit down beneath the wild olive tree, and the groves +in this place. Chill water falls there, drop by drop, here grows the +grass, and here a leafy bed is strown, and here the locusts prattle. + +_Comatas_. Nay, no whit am I in haste, but I am sorely vexed, that thou +shouldst dare to look me straight in the face, thou whom I used to teach +while thou wert still a child. See where gratitude goes! As well rear +wolf-whelps, breed hounds, that they may devour thee! + +_Lacon_. And what good thing have I to remember that I ever learned or +heard from thee, thou envious thing, thou mere hideous manikin! + + . . . . . + +But come this way, come, and thou shalt sing thy last of country song. + +_Comatas_. That way I will not go! Here be oak trees, and here the +galingale, and sweetly here hum the bees about the hives. There are two +wells of chill water, and on the tree the birds are warbling, and the +shadow is beyond compare with that where thou liest, and from on high the +pine tree pelts us with her cones. + +_Lacon_. Nay, but lambs’ wool, truly, and fleeces, shalt thou tread +here, if thou wilt but come,—fleeces more soft than sleep, but the +goat-skins beside thee stink—worse than thyself. And I will set a great +bowl of white milk for the nymphs, and another will I offer of sweet +olive oil. + +_Comatas_. Nay, but an if thou wilt come, thou shalt tread here the soft +feathered fern, and flowering thyme, and beneath thee shall be strown the +skins of she-goats, four times more soft than the fleeces of thy lambs. +And I will set out eight bowls of milk for Pan, and eight bowls full of +the richest honeycombs. + +_Lacon_. Thence, where thou art, I pray thee, begin the match, and there +sing thy country song, tread thine own ground and keep thine oaks to +thyself. But who, who shall judge between us? Would that Lycopas, the +neatherd, might chance to come this way! + +_Comatas_. I want nothing with him, but that man, if thou wilt, that +woodcutter we will call, who is gathering those tufts of heather near +thee. It is Morson. + +_Lacon_. Let us shout, then! + +_Comatas_. Call thou to him. + +_Lacon_. Ho, friend, come hither and listen for a little while, for we +two have a match to prove which is the better singer of country song. So +Morson, my friend, neither judge me too kindly, no, nor show him favour. + +_Comatas_. Yes, dear Morson, for the nymphs’ sake neither lean in thy +judgment to Comatas, nor, prithee, favour _him_. The flock of sheep thou +seest here belongs to Sibyrtas of Thurii, and the goats, friend, that +thou beholdest are the goats of Eumarides of Sybaris. + +_Lacon_. Now, in the name of Zeus did any one ask thee, thou +make-mischief, who owned the flock, I or Sibyrtas? What a chatterer thou +art! + +_Comatas_. Best of men, I am for speaking the whole truth, and boasting +never, but thou art too fond of cutting speeches. + +_Lacon_. Come, say whatever thou hast to say, and let the stranger get +home to the city alive; oh, Paean, what a babbler thou art, Comatas! + + +THE SINGING MATCH. + + +_Comatas_. The Muses love me better far than the minstrel Daphnis; but a +little while ago I sacrificed two young she-goats to the Muses. + +_Lacon_. Yea, and me too Apollo loves very dearly, and a noble ram I +rear for Apollo, for the feast of the Carnea, look you, is drawing nigh. + +_Comatas_. The she-goats that I milk have all borne twins save two. The +maiden saw me, and ‘alas,’ she cried, ‘dost thou milk alone?’ + +_Lacon_. Ah, ah, but Lacon here hath nigh twenty baskets full of cheese, +and Lacon lies with his darling in the flowers! + +_Comatas_. Clearista, too, pelts the goatherd with apples as he drives +past his she-goats, and a sweet word she murmurs. + +_Lacon_. And wild with love am I too, for my fair young darling, that +meets the shepherd, with the bright hair floating round the shapely neck. + +_Comatas_. Nay, ye may not liken dog-roses to the rose, or wind-flowers +to the roses of the garden; by the garden walls their beds are +blossoming. + +_Lacon_. Nay, nor wild apples to acorns, for acorns are bitter in the +oaken rind, but apples are sweet as honey. + +_Comatas_. Soon will I give my maiden a ring-dove for a gift; I will +take it from the juniper tree, for there it is brooding. + +_Lacon_. But I will give my darling a soft fleece to make a cloak, a +free gift, when I shear the black ewe. + +_Comatas_. Forth from the wild olive, my bleating she-goats, feed here +where the hillside slopes, and the tamarisks grove. + +_Lacon_. Conarus there, and Cynaetha, will you never leave the oak? +Graze here, where Phalarus feeds, where the hillside fronts the dawn. + +_Comatas_. Ay, and I have a vessel of cypress wood, and a mixing bowl, +the work of Praxiteles, and I hoard them for my maiden. + +_Lacon_. I too have a dog that loves the flock, the dog to strangle +wolves; him I am giving to my darling to chase all manner of wild beasts. + +_Comatas_. Ye locusts that overleap our fence, see that ye harm not our +vines, for our vines are young. + +_Lacon_. Ye cicalas, see how I make the goatherd chafe: even so, +methinks, do ye vex the reapers. + +_Comatas_. I hate the foxes, with their bushy brushes, that ever come at +evening, and eat the grapes of Micon. + +_Lacon_. And I hate the lady-birds that devour the figs of Philondas, +and flit down the wind. + +_Comatas_. Dost thou not remember how I cudgelled thee, and thou didst +grin and nimbly writhe, and catch hold of yonder oak? + +_Lacon_. That I have no memory of, but how Eumarides bound thee there, +upon a time, and flogged thee through and through, that I do very well +remember. + +_Comatas_. Already, Morson, some one is waxing bitter, dust thou see no +sign of it? Go, go, and pluck, forthwith, the squills from some old +wife’s grave. + +_Lacon_. And I too, Morson, I make some one chafe, and thou dost +perceive it. Be off now to the Hales stream, and dig cyclamen. + +_Comatas_. Let Himera flow with milk instead of water, and thou, +Crathis, run red with wine, and all thy reeds bear apples. + +_Lacon_. Would that the fount of Sybaris may flow with honey, and may +the maiden’s pail, at dawning, be dipped, not in water, but in the +honeycomb. + +_Comatas_. My goats eat cytisus, and goatswort, and tread the lentisk +shoots, and lie at ease among the arbutus. + +_Lacon_. But my ewes have honey-wort to feed on, and luxuriant creepers +flower around, as fair as roses. + +_Comatas_. I love not Alcippe, for yesterday she did not kiss me, and +take my face between her hands, when I gave her the dove. + +_Lacon_. But deeply I love my darling, for a kind kiss once I got, in +return for the gift of a shepherd’s pipe. + +_Comatas_. Lacon, it never was right that pyes should contend with the +nightingale, nor hoopoes with swans, but thou, unhappy swain, art ever +for contention. + +_Morson’s Judgement_. I bid the shepherd cease. But to thee, Comatas, +Morson presents the lamb. And thou, when thou hast sacrificed her to the +nymphs, send Morson, anon, a goodly portion of her flesh. + +_Comatas_. I will, by Pan. Now leap, and snort, my he-goats, all the +herd of you, and see here how loud I ever will laugh, and exult over +Lacon, the shepherd, for that, at last, I have won the lamb. See, I will +leap sky high with joy. Take heart, my horned goats, to-morrow I will +dip you all in the fountain of Sybaris. Thou white he-goat, I will beat +thee if thou dare to touch one of the herd before I sacrifice the lamb to +the nymphs. There he is at it again! Call me Melanthius, {34} not +Comatas, if I do not cudgel thee. + + + +IDYL VI + + +_Daphnis and Damoetas_, _two herdsmen of the golden age_, _meet by a +well-side_, _and sing a match_, _their topic is the Cyclops_, +_Polyphemus_, _and his love for the sea-nymph_, _Galatea_. + +_The scene is in Sicily_. + + * * * * * + +DAMOETAS, and Daphnis the herdsman, once on a time, Aratus, led the flock +together into one place. Golden was the down on the chin of one, the +beard of the other was half-grown, and by a well-head the twain sat them +down, in the summer noon, and thus they sang. ’Twas Daphnis that began +the singing, for the challenge had come from Daphnis. + + _Daphnis’s Song of the Cyclops_. + +Galatea is pelting thy flock with apples, Polyphemus, she says the +goatherd is a laggard lover! And thou dost not glance at her, oh hard, +hard that thou art, but still thou sittest at thy sweet piping. Ah see, +again, she is pelting thy dog, that follows thee to watch thy sheep. He +barks, as he looks into the brine, and now the beautiful waves that +softly plash reveal him, {36} as he runs upon the shore. Take heed that +he leap not on the maiden’s limbs as she rises from the salt water, see +that he rend not her lovely body! Ah, thence again, see, she is +wantoning, light as dry thistle-down in the scorching summer weather. +She flies when thou art wooing her; when thou woo’st not she pursues +thee, she plays out all her game and leaves her king unguarded. For +truly to Love, Polyphemus, many a time doth foul seem fair! + + _He ended and Damoetas touched a prelude to his sweet song_. + +I saw her, by Pan, I saw her when she was pelting my flock. Nay, she +escaped not me, escaped not my one dear eye,—wherewith I shall see to my +life’s end,—let Telemus the soothsayer, that prophesies hateful things, +hateful things take home, to keep them for his children! But it is all +to torment her, that I, in my turn, give not back her glances, pretending +that I have another love. To hear this makes her jealous of me, by +Paean, and she wastes with pain, and springs madly from the sea, gazing +at my caves and at my herds. And I hiss on my dog to bark at her, for +when I loved Galatea he would whine with joy, and lay his muzzle on her +lap. Perchance when she marks how I use her she will send me many a +messenger, but on her envoys I will shut my door till she promises that +herself will make a glorious bridal-bed on this island for me. For in +truth, I am not so hideous as they say! But lately I was looking into +the sea, when all was calm; beautiful seemed my beard, beautiful my one +eye—as I count beauty—and the sea reflected the gleam of my teeth whiter +than the Parian stone. Then, all to shun the evil eye, did I spit thrice +in my breast; for this spell was taught me by the crone, Cottytaris, that +piped of yore to the reapers in Hippocoon’s field. + +Then Damoetas kissed Daphnis, as he ended his song, and he gave Daphnis a +pipe, and Daphnis gave him a beautiful flute. Damoetas fluted, and +Daphnis piped, the herdsman,—and anon the calves were dancing in the soft +green grass. Neither won the victory, but both were invincible. + + + +IDYL VII + + +_The poet making his way through the noonday heat_, _with two friends_, +_to a harvest feast_, _meets the goatherd_, _Lycidas_. _To humour the +poet Lycidas sings a love song of his own_, _and the other replies with +verses about the passion of Aratus_, _the famous writer of didactic +verse_. _After a courteous parting from Lycidas_, _the poet and his two +friends repair to the orchard_, _where Demeter is being gratified with +the first-fruits of harvest and vintaging_. + +_In this idyl_, _Theocritus_, _speaking of himself by the name of +Simichidas_, _alludes to his teachers in poetry_, _and_, _perhaps_, _to +some of the literary quarrels of the time_. + +_The scene is in the isle of Cos_. _G. Hermann fancied that the scene +was in Lucania_, _and Mr. W. R. Paton thinks he can identify the places +named by the aid of inscriptions_ (Classical Review, ii. 8, 265). _See +also Rayet_, Mémoire sur l’île de Cos, p. 18, _Paris_, 1876. + + * * * * * + + _The Harvest Feast_. + +IT fell upon a time when Eucritus and I were walking from the city to the +Hales water, and Amyntas was the third in our company. The harvest-feast +of Deo was then being held by Phrasidemus and Antigenes, two sons of +Lycopeus (if aught there be of noble and old descent), whose lineage +dates from Clytia, and Chalcon himself—Chalcon, beneath whose foot the +fountain sprang, the well of Buriné. He set his knee stoutly against the +rock, and straightway by the spring poplars and elm trees showed a +shadowy glade, arched overhead they grew, and pleached with leaves of +green. We had not yet reached the mid-point of the way, nor was the tomb +of Brasilas yet risen upon our sight, when,—thanks be to the Muses—we met +a certain wayfarer, the best of men, a Cydonian. Lycidas was his name, a +goatherd was he, nor could any that saw him have taken him for other than +he was, for all about him bespoke the goatherd. Stripped from the +roughest of he-goats was the tawny skin he wore on his shoulders, the +smell of rennet clinging to it still, and about his breast an old cloak +was buckled with a plaited belt, and in his right hand he carried a +crooked staff of wild olive: and quietly he accosted me, with a smile, a +twinkling eye, and a laugh still on his lips:— + +‘Simichidas, whither, pray, through the noon dost thou trail thy feet, +when even the very lizard on the rough stone wall is sleeping, and the +crested larks no longer fare afield? Art thou hastening to a feast, a +bidden guest, or art thou for treading a townsman’s wine-press? For such +is thy speed that every stone upon the way spins singing from thy boots!’ + +‘Dear Lycidas,’ I answered him, ‘they all say that thou among herdsmen, +yea, and reapers art far the chiefest flute-player. In sooth this +greatly rejoices our hearts, and yet, to my conceit, meseems I can vie +with thee. But as to this journey, we are going to the harvest-feast, +for, look you some friends of ours are paying a festival to fair-robed +Demeter, out of the first-fruits of their increase, for verily in rich +measure has the goddess filled their threshing-floor with barley grain. +But come, for the way and the day are thine alike and mine, come, let us +vie in pastoral song, perchance each will make the other delight. For I, +too, am a clear-voiced mouth of the Muses, and they all call me the best +of minstrels, but I am not so credulous; no, by Earth, for to my mind I +cannot as yet conquer in song that great Sicelidas—the Samian—nay, nor +yet Philetas. ’Tis a match of frog against cicala!’ + +So I spoke, to win my end, and the goatherd with his sweet laugh, said, +‘I give thee this staff, because thou art a sapling of Zeus, and in thee +is no guile. For as I hate your builders that try to raise a house as +high as the mountain summit of Oromedon, {40} so I hate all birds of the +Muses that vainly toil with their cackling notes against the Minstrel of +Chios! But come, Simichidas, without more ado let us begin the pastoral +song. And I—nay, see friend—if it please thee at all, this ditty that I +lately fashioned on the mountain side!’ + + _The Song of Lycidas_. + +Fair voyaging befall Ageanax to Mytilene, both when the _Kids_ are +westering, and the south wind the wet waves chases, and when Orion holds +his feet above the Ocean! Fair voyaging betide him, if he saves Lycidas +from the fire of Aphrodite, for hot is the love that consumes me. + +The halcyons will lull the waves, and lull the deep, and the south wind, +and the east, that stirs the sea-weeds on the farthest shores, {41} the +halcyons that are dearest to the green-haired mermaids, of all the birds +that take their prey from the salt sea. Let all things smile on Ageanax +to Mytilene sailing, and may he come to a friendly haven. And I, on that +day, will go crowned with anise, or with a rosy wreath, or a garland of +white violets, and the fine wine of Ptelea I will dip from the bowl as I +lie by the fire, while one shall roast beans for me, in the embers. And +elbow-deep shall the flowery bed be thickly strewn, with fragrant leaves +and with asphodel, and with curled parsley; and softly will I drink, +toasting Ageanax with lips clinging fast to the cup, and draining it even +to the lees. + +Two shepherds shall be my flute-players, one from Acharnae, one from +Lycope, and hard by Tityrus shall sing, how the herdsman Daphnis once +loved a strange maiden, and how on the hill he wandered, and how the oak +trees sang his dirge—the oaks that grow by the banks of the river +Himeras—while he was wasting like any snow under high Haemus, or Athos, +or Rhodope, or Caucasus at the world’s end. + +And he shall sing how, once upon a time, the great chest prisoned the +living goatherd, by his lord’s infatuate and evil will, and how the +blunt-faced bees, as they came up from the meadow to the fragrant cedar +chest, fed him with food of tender flowers, because the Muse still +dropped sweet nectar on his lips. {42} + +O blessed Comatas, surely these joyful things befell thee, and thou wast +enclosed within the chest, and feeding on the honeycomb through the +springtime didst thou serve out thy bondage. Ah, would that in my days +thou hadst been numbered with the living, how gladly on the hills would I +have herded thy pretty she-goats, and listened to thy voice, whilst thou, +under oaks or pine trees lying, didst sweetly sing, divine Comatas! + +When he had chanted thus much he ceased, and I followed after him again, +with some such words as these:— + +‘Dear Lycidas, many another song the Nymphs have taught me also, as I +followed my herds upon the hillside, bright songs that Rumour, perchance, +has brought even to the throne of Zeus. But of them all this is far the +most excellent, wherewith I will begin to do thee honour: nay listen as +thou art dear to the Muses.’ + + _The Song of Simichidas_. + +For Simichidas the Loves have sneezed, for truly the wretch loves Myrto +as dearly as goats love the spring. {43} But Aratus, far the dearest of +my friends, deep, deep his heart he keeps Desire,—and Aratus’s love is +young! Aristis knows it, an honourable man, nay of men the best, whom +even Phoebus would permit to stand and sing lyre in hand, by his tripods. +Aristis knows how deeply love is burning Aratus to the bone. Ah, Pan, +thou lord of the beautiful plain of Homole, bring, I pray thee, the +darling of Aratus unbidden to his arms, whosoe’er it be that he loves. +If this thou dost, dear Pan, then never may the boys of Arcady flog thy +sides and shoulders with stinging herbs, when scanty meats are left them +on thine altar. But if thou shouldst otherwise decree, then may all thy +skin be frayed and torn with thy nails, yea, and in nettles mayst thou +couch! In the hills of the Edonians mayst thou dwell in mid-winter time, +by the river Hebrus, close neighbour to the Polar star! But in summer +mayst thou range with the uttermost Æthiopians beneath the rock of the +Blemyes, whence Nile no more is seen. + +And you, leave ye the sweet fountain of Hyetis and Byblis, and ye that +dwell in the steep home of golden Dione, ye Loves as rosy as red apples, +strike me with your arrows, the desired, the beloved; strike, for that +ill-starred one pities not my friend, my host! And yet assuredly the +pear is over-ripe, and the maidens cry ‘alas, alas, thy fair bloom fades +away!’ + +Come, no more let us mount guard by these gates, Aratus, nor wear our +feet away with knocking there. Nay, let the crowing of the morning cock +give others over to the bitter cold of dawn. Let Molon alone, my friend, +bear the torment at that school of passion! For us, let us secure a +quiet life, and some old crone to spit on us for luck, and so keep all +unlovely things away. + +Thus I sang, and sweetly smiling, as before, he gave me the staff, a +pledge of brotherhood in the Muses. Then he bent his way to the left, +and took the road to Pyxa, while I and Eucritus, with beautiful Amyntas, +turned to the farm of Phrasidemus. There we reclined on deep beds of +fragrant lentisk, lowly strown, and rejoicing we lay in new stript leaves +of the vine. And high above our heads waved many a poplar, many an elm +tree, while close at hand the sacred water from the nymphs’ own cave +welled forth with murmurs musical. On shadowy boughs the burnt cicalas +kept their chattering toil, far off the little owl cried in the thick +thorn brake, the larks and finches were singing, the ring-dove moaned, +the yellow bees were flitting about the springs. All breathed the scent +of the opulent summer, of the season of fruits; pears at our feet and +apples by our sides were rolling plentiful, the tender branches, with +wild plums laden, were earthward bowed, and the four-year-old pitch seal +was loosened from the mouth of the wine-jars. + +Ye nymphs of Castaly that hold the steep of Parnassus, say, was it ever a +bowl like this that old Chiron set before Heracles in the rocky cave of +Pholus? Was it nectar like this that beguiled the shepherd to dance and +foot it about his folds, the shepherd that dwelt by Anapus, on a time, +the strong Polyphemus who hurled at ships with mountains? Had these ever +such a draught as ye nymphs bade flow for us by the altar of Demeter of +the threshing-floor? + +Ah, once again may I plant the great fan on her corn-heap, while she +stands smiling by, with sheaves and poppies in her hands. + + + +IDYL VIII + + +_The scene is among the high mountain pastures of Sicily_:— + + ‘_On the sward_, _at the cliff top_ + _Lie strewn the white flocks_;’ + +_and far below shines and murmurs the Sicilian sea_. _Here Daphnis and +Menalcas_, _two herdsmen of the golden age_, _meet_, _while still in +their earliest youth_, _and contend for the prize of pastoral_. _Their +songs_, _in elegiac measure_, _are variations on the themes of love and +friendship_ (_for Menalcas sings of Milon_, _Daphnis of Nais_), _and of +nature_. _Daphnis is the winner_; _it is his earliest victory_, _and the +prelude to his great renown among nymphs and shepherds_. _In this +version the strophes are arranged as in Fritzsche’s text_. _Some critics +take the poem to be a patchwork by various hands_. + + * * * * * + +AS beautiful Daphnis was following his kine, and Menalcas shepherding his +flock, they met, as men tell, on the long ranges of the hills. The +beards of both had still the first golden bloom, both were in their +earliest youth, both were pipe-players skilled, both skilled in song. +Then first Menalcas, looking at Daphnis, thus bespoke him. + +‘Daphnis, thou herdsman of the lowing kine, art thou minded to sing a +match with me? Methinks I shall vanquish thee, when I sing in turn, as +readily as I please.’ + +Then Daphnis answered him again in this wise, ‘Thou shepherd of the +fleecy sheep, Menalcas, the pipe-player, never wilt thou vanquish me in +song, not thou, if thou shouldst sing till some evil thing befall thee!’ + +_Menalcas_. Dost thou care then, to try this and see, dost thou care to +risk a stake? + +_Daphnis_. I do care to try this and see, a stake I am ready to risk. + +_Menalcas_. But what shall we stake, what pledge shall we find equal and +sufficient? + +_Daphnis_. I will pledge a calf, and do thou put down a lamb, one that +has grown to his mother’s height. + +_Menalcas_. Nay, never will I stake a lamb, for stern is my father, and +stern my mother, and they number all the sheep at evening. + +_Daphnis_. But what, then, wilt thou lay, and where is to be the +victor’s gain? + +_Menalcas_. The pipe, the fair pipe with nine stops, that I made myself, +fitted with white wax, and smoothed evenly, above as below. This would I +readily wager, but never will I stake aught that is my father’s. + +_Daphnis_. See then, I too, in truth, have a pipe with nine stops, +fitted with white wax, and smoothed evenly, above as below. But lately I +put it together, and this finger still aches, where the reed split, and +cut it deeply. + +_Menalcas_. But who is to judge between us, who will listen to our +singing? + +_Daphnis_. That goatherd yonder, he will do, if we call him hither, the +man for whom that dog, a black hound with a white patch, is barking among +the kids. + +Then the boys called aloud, and the goatherd gave ear, and came, and the +boys began to sing, and the goatherd was willing to be their umpire. And +first Menalcas sang (for he drew the lot) the sweet-voiced Menalcas, and +Daphnis took up the answering strain of pastoral song—and ’twas thus +Menalcas began: + +_Menalcas_. Ye glades, ye rivers, issue of the Gods, if ever Menalcas +the flute-player sang a song ye loved, to please him, feed his lambs; and +if ever Daphnis come hither with his calves, nay he have no less a boon. + +_Daphnis_. Ye wells and pastures, sweet growth o’ the world, if Daphnis +sings like the nightingales, do ye fatten this herd of his, and if +Menalcas hither lead a flock, may he too have pasture ungrudging to his +full desire! + +_Menalcas_. There doth the ewe bear twins, and there the goats; there +the bees fill the hives, and there oaks grow loftier than common, +wheresoever beautiful Milon’s feet walk wandering; ah, if he depart, then +withered and lean is the shepherd, and lean the pastures + +_Daphnis_. Everywhere is spring, and pastures everywhere, and everywhere +the cows’ udders are swollen with milk, and the younglings are fostered, +wheresoever fair Nais roams; ah, if she depart, then parched are the +kine, and he that feeds them! + +_Menalcas_. O bearded goat, thou mate of the white herd, and O ye +blunt-faced kids, where are the manifold deeps of the forest, thither get +ye to the water, for thereby is Milon; go, thou hornless goat, and say to +him, ‘Milon, Proteus was a herdsman, and that of seals, though he was a +god.’ + +_Daphnis_. . . . + +_Menalcas_. Not mine be the land of Pelops, not mine to own talents of +gold, nay, nor mine to outrun the speed of the winds! Nay, but beneath +this rock will I sing, with thee in mine arms, and watch our flocks +feeding together, and, before us, the Sicilian sea. + +_Daphnis_ . . . . + +_Menalcas_ . . . . + +_Daphnis_. Tempest is the dread pest of the trees, drought of the +waters, snares of the birds, and the hunter’s net of the wild beasts, but +ruinous to man is the love of a delicate maiden. O father, O Zeus, I +have not been the only lover, thou too hast longed for a mortal woman. + +Thus the boys sang in verses amoebaean, and thus Menalcas began the +crowning lay: + +_Menalcas_. Wolf, spare the kids, spare the mothers of my herd, and harm +not me, so young as I am to tend so great a flock. Ah, Lampurus, my dog, +dost thou then sleep so soundly? a dog should not sleep so sound, that +helps a boyish shepherd. Ewes of mine, spare ye not to take your fill of +the tender herb, ye shall not weary, ’ere all this grass grows again. +Hist, feed on, feed on, fill, all of you, your udders, that there may be +milk for the lambs, and somewhat for me to store away in the +cheese-crates. + +Then Daphnis followed again, and sweetly preluded to his singing: + +_Daphnis_. Me, even me, from the cave, the girl with meeting eyebrows +spied yesterday as I was driving past my calves, and she cried, ‘How +fair, how fair he is!’ But I answered her never the word of railing, but +cast down my eyes, and plodded on my way. + +Sweet is the voice of the heifer, sweet her breath, {50} sweet to lie +beneath the sky in summer, by running water. + +Acorns are the pride of the oak, apples of the apple tree, the calf of +the heifer, and the neatherd glories in his kine. + +So sang the lads; and the goatherd thus bespoke them, ‘Sweet is thy +mouth, O Daphnis, and delectable thy song! Better is it to listen to thy +singing, than to taste the honeycomb. Take thou the pipe, for thou hast +conquered in the singing match. Ah, if thou wilt but teach some lay, +even to me, as I tend the goats beside thee, this blunt-horned she-goat +will I give thee, for the price of thy teaching, this she-goat that ever +fills the milking pail above the brim.’ + +Then was the boy as glad,—and leaped high, and clapped his hands over his +victory,—as a young fawn leaps about his mother. But the heart of the +other was wasted with grief, and desolate, even as a maiden sorrows that +is newly wed. + +From this time Daphnis became the foremost among the shepherds, and while +yet in his earliest youth, he wedded the nymph Nais. + + + +IDYL IX + + +_Daphnis and Menalcas_, _at the bidding of the poet_, _sing the joys of +the neatherds and of the shepherds life_. _Both receive the thanks of +the poet_, _and rustic prizes_—_a staff and a horn_, _made of a spiral +shell_. _Doubts have been expressed as to the authenticity of the +prelude and concluding verses_. _The latter breathe all Theocritus’s +enthusiastic love of song_. + + * * * * * + +SING, Daphnis, a pastoral lay, do thou first begin the song, the song +begin, O Daphnis; but let Menalcas join in the strain, when ye have mated +the heifers and their calves, the barren kine and the bulls. Let them +all pasture together, let them wander in the coppice, but never leave the +herd. Chant thou for me, first, and on the other side let Menalcas +reply. + +_Daphnis_. Ah, sweetly lows the calf, and sweetly the heifer, sweetly +sounds the neatherd with his pipe, and sweetly also I! My bed of leaves +is strown by the cool water, and thereon are heaped fair skins from the +white calves that were all browsing upon the arbutus, on a time, when the +south-west wind dashed me them from the height. + +And thus I heed no more the scorching summer, than a lover cares to heed +the words of father or of mother. + +So Daphnis sang to me, and thus, in turn, did Menalcas sing. + +_Menalcas_. Aetna, mother mine, I too dwell in a beautiful cavern in the +chamber of the rock, and, lo, all the wealth have I that we behold in +dreams; ewes in plenty and she-goats abundant, their fleeces are strown +beneath my head and feet. In the fire of oak-faggots puddings are +hissing-hot, and dry beech-nuts roast therein, in the wintry weather, +and, truly, for the winter season I care not even so much as a toothless +man does for walnuts, when rich pottage is beside him. + +Then I clapped my hands in their honour, and instantly gave each a gift, +to Daphnis a staff that grew in my father’s close, self-shapen, yet so +straight, that perchance even a craftsman could have found no fault in +it. To the other I gave a goodly spiral shell, the meat that filled it +once I had eaten after stalking the fish on the Icarian rocks (I cut it +into five shares for five of us),—and Menalcas blew a blast on the shell. + +Ye pastoral Muses, farewell! Bring ye into the light the song that I +sang there to these shepherds on that day! Never let the pimple grow on +my tongue-tip. {53} + +Cicala to cicala is dear, and ant to ant, and hawks to hawks, but to me +the Muse and song. Of song may all my dwelling be full, for sleep is not +more sweet, nor sudden spring, nor flowers are more delicious to the +bees—so dear to me are the Muses. {54} Whom they look on in happy hour, +Circe hath never harmed with her enchanted potion. + + + +IDYL X +THE REAPERS + + +_This is an idyl of the same genre as Idyl IV_. _The sturdy reaper_, +_Milon_, _as he levels the swathes of corn_, _derides his languid and +love-worn companion_, _Buttus_. _The latter defends his gipsy love in +verses which have been the keynote of much later poetry_, _and which echo +in the fourth book of Lucretius_, _and in the Misanthrope of Molière_. +_Milon replies with the song of Lityerses_—_a string_, _apparently_, _of +popular rural couplets_, _such as Theocritus may have heard chanted in +the fields_. + + * * * * * + +_Milan_. Thou toilsome clod; what ails thee now, thou wretched fellow? +Canst thou neither cut thy swathe straight, as thou wert wont to do, nor +keep time with thy neighbour in thy reaping, but thou must fall out, like +an ewe that is foot-pricked with a thorn and straggles from the herd? +What manner of man wilt thou prove after mid-noon, and at evening, thou +that dost not prosper with thy swathe when thou art fresh begun? + +_Battus_. Milon, thou that canst toil till late, thou chip of the +stubborn stone, has it never befallen thee to long for one that was not +with thee? + +_Milan_. Never! What has a labouring man to do with hankering after +what he has not got? + +_Battus_. Then it never befell thee to lie awake for love? + +_Milan_. Forbid it; ’tis an ill thing to let the dog once taste of +pudding. + +_Battus_. But I, Milon, am in love for almost eleven days! + +_Milan_. ’Tis easily seen that thou drawest from a wine-cask, while even +vinegar is scarce with me. + +_Battus_. And for Love’s sake, the fields before my doors are untilled +since seed-time. + +_Milan_. But which of the girls afflicts thee so? + +_Battus_. The daughter of Polybotas, she that of late was wont to pipe +to the reapers on Hippocoon’s farm. + +_Milan_. God has found out the guilty! Thou hast what thou’st long been +seeking, that grasshopper of a girl will lie by thee the night long! + +_Battus_. Thou art beginning thy mocks of me, but Plutus is not the only +blind god; he too is blind, the heedless Love! Beware of talking big. + +_Milan_. Talk big I do not! Only see that thou dust level the corn, and +strike up some love-ditty in the wench’s praise. More pleasantly thus +wilt thou labour, and, indeed, of old thou wert a melodist. + +_Battus_. Ye Muses Pierian, sing ye with me the slender maiden, for +whatsoever ye do but touch, ye goddesses, ye make wholly fair. + +They all call thee a _gipsy_, gracious Bombyca, and _lean_, and +_sunburnt_, ’tis only I that call thee _honey-pale_. + +Yea, and the violet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet +these flowers are chosen the first in garlands. + +The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows +the plough, but I am wild for love of thee. + +Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof once Croesus was lord, as men +tell! Then images of us twain, all in gold, should be dedicated to +Aphrodite, thou with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in +fair attire, and new shoon of Amyclae on both my feet. + +Ah gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice +is drowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them! {57} + +_Milan_. Verily our clown was a maker of lovely songs, and we knew it +not! How well he meted out and shaped his harmony; woe is me for the +beard that I have grown, all in vain! Come, mark thou too these lines of +godlike Lityerses + + +THE LITYERSES SONG. + + +_Demeter_, _rich in fruit_, _and rich in grain_, _may this corn be easy +to win_, _and fruitful exceedingly_! + +_Bind_, _ye bandsters_, _the sheaves_, _lest the wayfarer __should cry_, +‘_Men of straw were the workers here_, _ay_, _and their hire was +wasted_!’ + +_See that the cut stubble faces the North wind_, _or the West_, _’tis +thus the grain waxes richest_. + +_They that thresh corn should shun the noon-day steep_; _at noon the +chaff parts easiest from the straw_. + +_As for the reapers_, _let them begin when the crested lark is waking_, +_and cease when he sleeps_, _but take holiday in the heat_. + +_Lads_, _the frog has a jolly life_, _he is not cumbered about a butler +to his drink_, _for he has liquor by him unstinted_! + +_Boil the lentils better_, _thou miserly steward_; _take heed lest thou +chop thy fingers_, _when thou’rt splitting cumin-seed_. + +’Tis thus that men should sing who labour i’ the sun, but thy starveling +love, thou clod, ’twere fit to tell to thy mother when she stirs in bed +at dawning. + + + +IDYL XI +THE CYCLOPS IN LOVE + + +_Nicias_, _the physician and poet_, _being in love_, _Theocritus reminds +him that in song lies the only remedy_. _It was by song_, _he says_, +_that the Cyclops_, _Polyphemus_, _got him some ease_, _when he was in +love with Galatea_, _the sea-nymph_. + +_The idyl displays_, _in the most graceful manner_, _the Alexandrian +taste for turning Greek mythology into love stories_. _No creature could +be more remote from love than the original Polyphemus_, _the cannibal +giant of the Odyssey_. + + * * * * * + +THERE is none other medicine, Nicias, against Love, neither unguent, +methinks, nor salve to sprinkle,—none, save the Muses of Pieria! Now a +delicate thing is their minstrelsy in man’s life, and a sweet, but hard +to procure. Methinks thou know’st this well, who art thyself a leech, +and beyond all men art plainly dear to the Muses nine. + +’Twas surely thus the Cyclops fleeted his life most easily, he that dwelt +among us,—Polyphemus of old time,—when the beard was yet young on his +cheek and chin; and he loved Galatea. He loved, not with apples, not +roses, nor locks of hair, but with fatal frenzy, and all things else he +held but trifles by the way. Many a time from the green pastures would +his ewes stray back, self-shepherded, to the fold. But he was singing of +Galatea, and pining in his place he sat by the sea-weed of the beach, +from the dawn of day, with the direst hurt beneath his breast of mighty +Cypris’s sending,—the wound of her arrow in his heart! + +Yet this remedy he found, and sitting on the crest of the tall cliff, and +looking to the deep, ’twas thus he would sing:— + + _Song of the Cyclops_. + +O milk-white Galatea, why cast off him that loves thee? More white than +is pressed milk to look upon, more delicate than the lamb art thou, than +the young calf wantoner, more sleek than the unripened grape! Here dust +thou resort, even so, when sweet sleep possesses me, and home straightway +dost thou depart when sweet sleep lets me go, fleeing me like an ewe that +has seen the grey wolf. + +I fell in love with thee, maiden, I, on the day when first thou camest, +with my mother, and didst wish to pluck the hyacinths from the hill, and +I was thy guide on the way. But to leave loving thee, when once I had +seen thee, neither afterward, nor now at all, have I the strength, even +from that hour. But to thee all this is as nothing, by Zeus, nay, +nothing at all! + +I know, thou gracious maiden, why it is that thou dust shun me. It is +all for the shaggy brow that spans all my forehead, from this to the +other ear, one long unbroken eyebrow. And but one eye is on my forehead, +and broad is the nose that overhangs my lip. Yet I (even such as thou +seest me) feed a thousand cattle, and from these I draw and drink the +best milk in the world. And cheese I never lack, in summer time or +autumn, nay, nor in the dead of winter, but my baskets are always +overladen. + +Also I am skilled in piping, as none other of the Cyclopes here, and of +thee, my love, my sweet-apple, and of myself too I sing, many a time, +deep in the night. And for thee I tend eleven fawns, all +crescent-browed, {61} and four young whelps of the bear. + +Nay, come thou to me, and thou shalt lack nothing that now thou hast. +Leave the grey sea to roll against the land; more sweetly, in this +cavern, shalt thou fleet the night with me! Thereby the laurels grow, +and there the slender cypresses, there is the ivy dun, and the sweet +clustered grapes; there is chill water, that for me deep-wooded Ætna +sends down from the white snow, a draught divine! Ah who, in place of +these, would choose the sea to dwell in, or the waves of the sea? + +But if thou dust refuse because my body seems shaggy and rough, well, I +have faggots of oakwood, and beneath the ashes is fire unwearied, and I +would endure to let thee burn my very soul, and this my one eye, the +dearest thing that is mine. + +Ah me, that my mother bore me not a finny thing, so would I have gone +down to thee, and kissed thy hand, if thy lips thou would not suffer me +to kiss! And I would have brought thee either white lilies, or the soft +poppy with its scarlet petals. Nay, these are summer’s flowers, and +those are flowers of winter, so I could not have brought thee them all at +one time. + +Now, verily, maiden, now and here will I learn to swim, if perchance some +stranger come hither, sailing with his ship, that I may see why it is so +dear to thee, to have thy dwelling in the deep. + +Come forth, Galatea, and forget as thou comest, even as I that sit here +have forgotten, the homeward way! Nay, choose with me to go shepherding, +with me to milk the flocks, and to pour the sharp rennet in, and to fix +the cheeses. + +There is none that wrongs me but that mother of mine, and her do I blame. +Never, nay, never once has she spoken a kind word for me to thee, and +that though day by day she beholds me wasting. I will tell her that my +head, and both my feet are throbbing, that she may somewhat suffer, since +I too am suffering. + +O Cyclops, Cyclops, whither are thy wits wandering? Ah that thou wouldst +go, and weave thy wicker-work, and gather broken boughs to carry to thy +lambs: in faith, if thou didst this, far wiser wouldst thou be! + +Milk the ewe that thou hast, why pursue the thing that shuns thee? Thou +wilt find, perchance, another, and a fairer Galatea. Many be the girls +that bid me play with them through the night, and softly they all laugh, +if perchance I answer them. On land it is plain that I too seem to be +somebody! + + * * * * * + +Lo, thus Polyphemus still shepherded his love with song, and lived +lighter than if he had given gold for ease. + + + +IDYL XII +THE PASSIONATE FRIEND + + +_This is rather a lyric than an idyl_, _being an expression of that +singular passion which existed between men in historical Greece_. _The +next idyl_, _like the Myrmidons of Aeschylus_, _attributes the same +manners to mythical and heroic Greece_. _It should be unnecessary to say +that the affection between Homeric warriors_, _like Achilles and +Patroclus_, _was only that of companions in arms and was quite unlike the +later sentiment_. + + * * * * * + +HAST thou come, dear youth, with the third night and the dawning; hast +thou come? but men in longing grow old in a day! As spring than the +winter is sweeter, as the apple than the sloe, as the ewe is deeper of +fleece than the lamb she bore; as a maiden surpasses a thrice-wedded +wife, as the fawn is nimbler than the calf; nay, by as much as sweetest +of all fowls sings the clear-voiced nightingale, so much has thy coming +gladdened me! To thee have I hastened as the traveller hastens under the +burning sun to the shadow of the ilex tree. + +Ah, would that equally the Loves may breathe upon us twain, may we become +a song in the ears of all men unborn. + +‘Lo, a pair were these two friends among the folk of former time,’ the +one ‘the Knight’ (so the Amyclaeans call him), the other, again, ‘the +Page,’ so styled in speech of Thessaly. + +‘An equal yoke of friendship they bore: ah, surely then there were golden +men of old, when friends gave love for love!’ + +And would, O father Cronides, and would, ye ageless immortals, that this +might be; and that when two hundred generations have sped, one might +bring these tidings to me by Acheron, the irremeable stream. + +‘The loving-kindness that was between thee and thy gracious friend, is +even now in all men’s mouths, and chiefly on the lips of the young.’ + +Nay, verily, the gods of heaven will be masters of these things, to rule +them as they will, but when I praise thy graciousness no blotch that +punishes the perjurer shall spring upon the tip of my nose! Nay, if ever +thou hast somewhat pained me, forthwith thou healest the hurt, giving a +double delight, and I depart with my cup full and running over! + +Nisaean men of Megara, ye champions of the oars, happily may ye dwell, +for that ye honoured above all men the Athenian stranger, even Diodes, +the true lover. Always about his tomb the children gather in their +companies, at the coming in of the spring, and contend for the prize of +kissing. And whoso most sweetly touches lip to lip, laden with garlands +he returneth to his mother. Happy is he that judges those kisses of the +children; surely he prays most earnestly to bright-faced Ganymedes, that +his lips may be as the Lydian touchstone wherewith the money-changers try +gold lest perchance base metal pass for true. + + + +IDYL XIII +HYLAS AND HERACLES + + +_As in the eleventh Idyl_, _Nicias is again addressed_, _by way of +introduction to the story of Hylas_. _This beautiful lad_, _a favourite +companion of Heracles_, _took part in the Quest of the Fleece of Gold_. +_As he went to draw water from a fountain_, _the water-nymphs dragged him +down to their home_, _and Heracles_, _after a long and vain search_, _was +compelled to follow the heroes of the Quest on foot to Phasis_. + + * * * * * + +NOT for us only, Nicias, as we were used to deem, was Love begotten, by +whomsoever of the Gods was the father of the child; not first to us +seemed beauty beautiful, to us that are mortal men and look not on the +morrow. Nay, but the son of Amphitryon, that heart of bronze, who abode +the wild lion’s onset, loved a lad, beautiful Hylas—Hylas of the braided +locks, and he taught him all things as a father teaches his child, all +whereby himself became a mighty man, and renowned in minstrelsy. Never +was he apart from Hylas, not when midnoon was high in heaven, not when +Dawn with her white horses speeds upwards to the dwelling of Zeus, not +when the twittering nestlings look towards the perch, while their mother +flaps her wings above the smoke-browned beam; and all this that the lad +might be fashioned to his mind, and might drive a straight furrow, and +come to the true measure of man. + +But when Iason, Aeson’s son, was sailing after the fleece of gold (and +with him followed the champions, the first chosen out of all the cities, +they that were of most avail), to rich Iolcos too came the mighty man and +adventurous, the son of the woman of Midea, noble Alcmene. With him went +down Hylas also, to Argo of the goodly benches, the ship that grazed not +on the clashing rocks Cyanean, but through she sped and ran into deep +Phasis, as an eagle over the mighty gulf of the sea. And the clashing +rocks stand fixed, even from that hour! + +Now at the rising of the Pleiades, when the upland fields begin to +pasture the young lambs, and when spring is already on the wane, then the +flower divine of Heroes bethought them of sea-faring. On board the +hollow Argo they sat down to the oars, and to the Hellespont they came +when the south wind had been for three days blowing, and made their haven +within Propontis, where the oxen of the Cianes wear bright the +ploughshare, as they widen the furrows. Then they went forth upon the +shore, and each couple busily got ready supper in the late evening, and +many as they were one bed they strewed lowly on the ground, for they +found a meadow lying, rich in couches of strown grass and leaves. Thence +they cut them pointed flag-leaves, and deep marsh-galingale. And Hylas +of the yellow hair, with a vessel of bronze in his hand, went to draw +water against suppertime, for Heracles himself, and the steadfast +Telamon, for these comrades twain supped ever at one table. Soon was he +ware of a spring, in a hollow land, and the rushes grew thickly round it, +and dark swallow-wort, and green maiden-hair, and blooming parsley, and +deer-grass spreading through the marshy land. In the midst of the water +the nymphs were arraying their dances, the sleepless nymphs, dread +goddesses of the country people, Eunice, and Malis, and Nycheia, with her +April eyes. And now the boy was holding out the wide-mouthed pitcher to +the water, intent on dipping it, but the nymphs all clung to his hand, +for love of the Argive lad had fluttered the soft hearts of all of them. +Then down he sank into the black water, headlong all, as when a star +shoots flaming from the sky, plumb in the deep it falls, and a mate +shouts out to the seamen, ‘Up with the gear, my lads, the wind is fair +for sailing.’ + +Then the nymphs held the weeping boy on their laps, and with gentle words +were striving to comfort him. But the son of Amphitryon was troubled +about the lad, and went forth, carrying his bended bow in Scythian +fashion, and the club that is ever grasped in his right hand. Thrice he +shouted ‘Hylas!’ as loud as his deep throat could call, and thrice again +the boy heard him, and thin came his voice from the water, and, hard by +though he was, he seemed very far away. And as when a bearded lion, a +ravening lion on the hills, hears the bleating of a fawn afar off, and +rushes forth from his lair to seize it, his readiest meal, even so the +mighty Heracles, in longing for the lad, sped through the trackless +briars, and ranged over much country. + +Reckless are lovers: great toils did Heracles bear, in hills and thickets +wandering, and Iason’s quest was all postponed to this. Now the ship +abode with her tackling aloft, and the company gathered there, {70} but +at midnight the young men were lowering the sails again, awaiting +Heracles. But he wheresoever his feet might lead him went wandering in +his fury, for the cruel Goddess of love was rending his heart within him. + +Thus loveliest Hylas is numbered with the Blessed, but for a runaway they +girded at Heracles, the heroes, because he roamed from Argo of the sixty +oarsmen. But on foot he came to Colchis and inhospitable Phasis. + + + +IDYL XIV + + +_This Idyl_, _like the next_, _is dramatic in form_. _One Aeschines +tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress Cynisca_. +_He speaks of taking foreign service_, _and Thyonichus recommends that of +Ptolemy_. _The idyl was probably written at Alexandria_, _as a +compliment to Ptolemy_, _and an inducement to Greeks to join his forces_. +_There is nothing_, _however_, _to fix the date_. + + * * * * * + +_Aeschines_. All hail to the stout Thyonichus! + +_Thyonichus_. As much to you, Aeschines. + +_Aeschines_. How long it is since we met! + +_Thyonichus_. Is it so long? But why, pray, this melancholy? + +_Aeschines_. I am not in the best of luck, Thyonichus. + +_Thyonichus_. ’Tis for that, then, you are so lean, and hence comes this +long moustache, and these love-locks all adust. Just such a figure was a +Pythagorean that came here of late, barefoot and wan,—and said he was an +Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate of pancakes. + +_Aeschines_. Friend, you will always have your jest,—but beautiful +Cynisca,—she flouts me! I shall go mad some day, when no man looks for +it; I am but a hair’s-breadth on the hither side, even now. + +_Thyonichus_. You are ever like this, dear Aeschines, now mad, now sad, +and crying for all things at your whim. Yet, tell me, what is your new +trouble? + +_Aeschines_. The Argive, and I, and the Thessalian rough rider, Apis, +and Cleunichus the free lance, were drinking together, at my farm. I had +killed two chickens, and a sucking pig, and had opened the Bibline wine +for them,—nearly four years old,—but fragrant as when it left the +wine-press. Truffles and shellfish had been brought out, it was a jolly +drinking match. And when things were now getting forwarder, we +determined that each of us should toast whom he pleased, in unmixed wine, +only he must name his toast. So we all drank, and called our toasts as +had been agreed. Yet She said nothing, though I was there; how think you +I liked that? ‘Won’t you call a toast? You have seen the wolf!’ some +one said in jest, ‘as the proverb goes,’ {72} then she kindled; yes, you +could easily have lighted a lamp at her face. There is one Wolf, one +Wolf there is, the son of Labes our neighbour,—he is tall, +smooth-skinned, many think him handsome. His was that illustrious love +in which she was pining, yes, and a breath about the business once came +secretly to my ears, but I never looked into it, beshrew my beard! + +Already, mark you, we four men were deep in our cups, when the Larissa +man out of mere mischief, struck up, ‘My Wolf,’ some Thessalian catch, +from the very beginning. Then Cynisca suddenly broke out weeping more +bitterly than a six-year-old maid, that longs for her mother’s lap. Then +I,—you know me, Thyonichus,—struck her on the cheek with clenched +fist,—one two! She caught up her robes, and forth she rushed, quicker +than she came. ‘Ah, my undoing’ (cried I), ‘I am not good enough for +you, then—you have a dearer playfellow? well, be off and cherish your +other lover, ’tis for him your tears run big as apples!’ {73} + +And as the swallow flies swiftly back to gather a morsel, fresh food, for +her young ones under the eaves, still swifter sped she from her soft +chair, straight through the vestibule and folding-doors, wherever her +feet carried her. So, sure, the old proverb says, ‘the bull has sought +the wild wood.’ + +Since then there are twenty days, and eight to these, and nine again, +then ten others, to-day is the eleventh, add two more, and it is two +months since we parted, and I have not shaved, not even in Thracian +fashion. {74a} + +And now Wolf is everything with her. Wolf finds the door open o’ nights, +and I am of no account, not in the reckoning, like the wretched men of +Megara, in the place dishonourable. {74b} + +And if I could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be. But +now,—now,—as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted +pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not; +except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus, +went over seas, and came back heart-whole,—a man of my own age. And I +too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last, +perhaps, but a fair soldier as times go. + +_Thyonichus_. Would that things had gone to your mind, Aeschines. But +if, in good earnest, you are thus set on going into exile, PTOLEMY is the +free man’s best paymaster! + +_Aeschines_. And in other respects, what kind of man? + +_Thyonichus_. The free man’s best paymaster! Indulgent too, the Muses’ +darling, a true lover, the top of good company, knows his friends, and +still better knows his enemies. A great giver to many, refuses nothing +that he is asked which to give may beseem a king, but, Aeschines, we +should not always be asking. Thus, if you are minded to pin up the top +corner of your cloak over the right shoulder, and if you have the heart +to stand steady on both feet, and bide the brunt of a hardy targeteer, +off instantly to Egypt! From the temples downward we all wax grey, and +on to the chin creeps the rime of age, men must do somewhat while their +knees are yet nimble. + + + +IDYL XV + + +_This famous idyl should rather_, _perhaps_, _be called a mimus_. _It +describes the visit paid by two Syracusan women residing in Alexandria_, +_to the festival of the resurrection of Adonis_. _The festival is given +by Arsinoë_, _wife and sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus_, _and the poem +cannot have been written earlier than his marriage_, _in_ 266 B.C. [?] +_Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women_, +_which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds_. +_Theocritus is believed to have had a model for this idyl in the +Isthmiazusae of Sophron_, _an older poet_. _In the Isthmiazusae two +ladies described the spectacle of the Isthmian games_. + + * * * * * + +_Gorgo_. Is Praxinoë at home? + +_Praxinoë_. Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been here! She +_is_ at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoë, see +that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it too. + +_Gorgo_. It does most charmingly as it is. + +_Praxinoë_. Do sit down. + +_Gorgo_. Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, +Praxinoë! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands! Everywhere +cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless: yes, +you really live _too_ far away! + +_Praxinoë_. It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to +the ends of the earth and took—a hole, not a house, and all that we might +not be neighbours. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite! + +_Gorgo_. Don’t talk of your husband, Dinon, like that, my dear girl, +before the little boy,—look how he is staring at you! Never mind, +Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa. + +_Praxinoë_. Our Lady! the child takes notice. {77} + +_Gorgo_. Nice papa! + +_Praxinoë_. That papa of his the other day—we call every day ‘the other +day’—went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with +salt—the great big endless fellow! + +_Gorgo_. Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spendthrift—Diocleides! +Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings +a piece for—what do you suppose?—dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, +mere trash—trouble on trouble. But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let +us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the King, to see the Adonis; I +hear the Queen has provided something splendid! + +_Praxinoë_. Fine folks do everything finely. + +_Gorgo_. What a tale you will have to tell about the things you have +seen, to any one who has not seen them! It seems nearly time to go. + +_Praxinoë_. Idlers have always holiday. Eunoë, bring the water and put +it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are. Cats like +always to sleep soft! {78a} Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker. I +want water first, and how she carries it! give it me all the same; don’t +pour out so much, you extravagant thing. Stupid girl! Why are you +wetting my dress? There, stop, I have washed my hands, as heaven would +have it. Where is the key of the big chest? Bring it here. + +_Gorgo_. Praxinoë, that full body becomes you wonderfully. Tell me how +much did the stuff cost you just off the loom? + +_Praxinoë_. Don’t speak of it, Gorgo! More than eight pounds in good +silver money,—and the work on it! I nearly slaved my soul out over it! + +_Gorgo_. Well, it is _most_ successful; all you could wish. {78b} + +_Praxinoë_. Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my +hat on my head, the fashionable way. No, child, I don’t mean to take +you. Boo! Bogies! There’s a horse that bites! Cry as much as you +please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia take the +child, and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door. + + [_They go into the street_. + +Ye gods, what a crowd! How on earth are we ever to get through this +coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good +deed have you done, Ptolemy; since your father joined the immortals, +there’s never a malefactor to spoil the passer-by, creeping on him in +Egyptian fashion—oh! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play. +Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all! Dear Gorgo, what will +become of us? Here come the King’s war-horses! My dear man, don’t +trample on me. Look, the bay’s rearing, see, what temper! Eunoë, you +foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? The beast will kill +the man that’s leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat +stays safe at home. + +_Gorgo_. Courage, Praxinoë. We are safe behind them, now, and they have +gone to their station. + +_Praxinoë_. There! I begin to be myself again. Ever since I was a +child I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake. Come +along, the huge mob is overflowing us. + +_Gorgo_ (_to an old Woman_). Are you from the Court, mother? + +_Old Woman_. I am, my child. + +_Praxinoë_. Is it easy to get there? + +_Old Woman_. The Achaeans got into Troy by trying, my prettiest of +ladies. Trying will do everything in the long run. + +_Gorgo_. The old wife has spoken her oracles, and off she goes. + +_Praxinoë_. Women know everything, yes, and how Zeus married Hera! + +_Gorgo_. See Praxinoë, what a crowd there is about the doors. + +_Praxinoë_. Monstrous, Gorgo! Give me your hand, and you, Eunoë, catch +hold of Eutychis; never lose hold of her, for fear lest you get lost. +Let us all go in together; Eunoë, clutch tight to me. Oh, how tiresome, +Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already! For heaven’s sake, sir, if +you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my shawl! + +_Stranger_. I can hardly help myself, but for all that I will be as +careful as I can. + +_Praxinoë_. How close-packed the mob is, they hustle like a herd of +swine. + +_Stranger_. Courage, lady, all is well with us now. + +_Praxinoë_. Both this year and for ever may all be well with you, my +dear sir, for your care of us. A good kind man! We’re letting Eunoë get +squeezed—come, wretched girl, push your way through. That is the way. +We are all on the right side of the door, quoth the bridegroom, when he +had shut himself in with his bride. + +_Gorgo_. Do come here, Praxinoë. Look first at these embroideries. How +light and how lovely! You will call them the garments of the gods. + +_Praxinoë_. Lady Athene, what spinning women wrought them, what painters +designed these drawings, so true they are? How naturally they stand and +move, like living creatures, not patterns woven. What a clever thing is +man! Ah, and himself—Adonis—how beautiful to behold he lies on his +silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved +Adonis,—Adonis beloved even among the dead. + +_A Stranger_. You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk! +They bore one to death with their eternal broad vowels! + +_Gorgo_. Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to +you if we _are_ chatterboxes! Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do +you pretend to command ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are +Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak +Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume? + +_Praxinoë_. Lady Persephone, never may we have more than one master. I +am not afraid of _your_ putting me on short commons. + +_Gorgo_. Hush, hush, Praxinoë—the Argive woman’s daughter, the great +singer, is beginning the _Adonis_; she that won the prize last year for +dirge-singing. {82} I am sure she will give us something lovely; see, +she is preluding with her airs and graces. + + _The Psalm of Adonis_. + +O Queen that lovest Golgi, and Idalium, and the steep of Eryx, O +Aphrodite, that playest with gold, lo, from the stream eternal of Acheron +they have brought back to thee Adonis—even in the twelfth month they have +brought him, the dainty-footed Hours. Tardiest of the Immortals are the +beloved Hours, but dear and desired they come, for always, to all +mortals, they bring some gift with them. O Cypris, daughter of Diônê, +from mortal to immortal, so men tell, thou hast changed Berenice, +dropping softly in the woman’s breast the stuff of immortality. + +Therefore, for thy delight, O thou of many names and many temples, doth +the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinoë, lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis +with all things beautiful. + +Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees’ branches bear, and +the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden +vessels are full of incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that +women fashion in the kneading-tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the +white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft +olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and +of things that creep, lo, here they are set before him. + +Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender +anise, and children flit overhead—the little Loves—as the young +nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from +bough to bough. + +O the ebony, O the gold, O the twin eagles of white ivory that carry to +Zeus the son of Cronos his darling, his cup-bearer! O the purple +coverlet strewn above, more soft than sleep! So Miletus will say, and +whoso feeds sheep in Samos. + +Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis, one bed Cypris keeps, and one +the rosy-armed Adonis. A bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years is he, +his kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips! And +now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover! But lo, in the +morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among +the waves that break upon the beach, and with locks unloosed, and ungirt +raiment falling to the ankles, and bosoms bare will we begin our shrill +sweet song. + +Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods dost visit +both this world and the stream of Acheron. For Agamemnon had no such +lot, nor Aias, that mighty lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector, the +eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecabe, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus, +that returned out of Troyland, nor the heroes of yet more ancient days, +the Lapithae and Deucalion’s sons, nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs +of Pelasgian Argus. Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and propitious even in +the coming year. Dear to us has thine advent been, Adonis, and dear +shall it be when thou comest again. + +_Gorgo_. Praxinoë, the woman is cleverer than we fancied! Happy woman +to know so much, thrice happy to have so sweet a voice. Well, all the +same, it is time to be making for home. Diocleides has not had his +dinner, and the man is all vinegar,—don’t venture near him when he is +kept waiting for dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad +at your next coming! + + + + +IDYL XVI + + +_In_ 265 B.C. _Sicily was devastated by the Carthaginians_, _and by the +companies of disciplined free-lances who called themselves Mamertines_, +_or Mars’s men_. _The hopes of the Greek inhabitants of the island were +centred in Hiero_, _son of Hierocles_, _who was about to besiege Messana_ +(_then held by the Carthaginians_) _and who had revived the courage of +the Syracusans_. _To him Theocritus addressed this idyl_, _in which he +complains of the sordid indifference of the rich_, _rehearses the merits +of song_, _dilates on the true nature of wealth_, _and of the happy +lift_, _and finally expresses his hope that Hiero will rid the isle of +the foreign foe_, _and will restore peace and pastoral joys_. _The idyl +contains some allusions to Simonides_, _the old lyric poet_, _and to his +relations with the famous Hiero tyrant of Syracuse_. + + * * * * * + +EVER is this the care of the maidens of Zeus, ever the care of minstrels, +to sing the Immortals, to sing the praises of noble men. The Muses, lo, +are Goddesses, of Gods the Goddesses sing, but we on earth are mortal +men; let us mortals sing of mortals. Ah, who of all them that dwell +beneath the grey morning, will open his door and gladly receive our +Graces within his house? who is there that will not send them back again +without a gift? And they with looks askance, and naked feet come +homewards, and sorely they upbraid me when they have gone on a vain +journey, and listless again in the bottom of their empty coffer, they +dwell with heads bowed over their chilly knees, where is their drear +abode, when gainless they return. + +Where is there such an one, among men to-day? Where is he that will +befriend him that speaks his praises? I know not, for now no longer, as +of old, are men eager to win the renown of noble deeds, nay, they are the +slaves of gain! Each man clasps his hands below the purse-fold of his +gown, and looks about to spy whence he may get him money: the very rust +is too precious to be rubbed off for a gift. Nay, each has his ready +saw; _the shin is further than the knee_; _first let me get my own_! +_’Tis the Gods’ affair to honour minstrels_! _Homer is enough for every +one_, _who wants to hear any other_? _He is the best of bards who takes +nothing that is mine_. + +O foolish men, in the store of gold uncounted, what gain have ye? Not in +this do the wise find the true enjoyment of wealth, but in that they can +indulge their own desires, and something bestow on one of the minstrels, +and do good deeds to many of their kin, and to many another man; and +always give altar-rites to the Gods, nor ever play the churlish host, but +kindly entreat the guest at table, and speed him when he would be gone. +And this, above all, to honour the holy interpreters of the Muses, that +so thou mayest have a goodly fame, even when hidden in Hades, nor ever +moan without renown by the chill water of Acheron, like one whose palms +the spade has hardened, some landless man bewailing the poverty that is +all his heritage. + +Many were the thralls that in the palace of Antiochus, and of king Aleuas +drew out their monthly dole, many the calves that were driven to the +penns of the Scopiadae, and lowed with the horned kine: countless on the +Crannonian plain did shepherds pasture beneath the sky the choicest sheep +of the hospitable Creondae, yet from all this they had no joy, when once +into the wide raft of hateful Acheron they had breathed sweet life away! +Yea, unremembered (though they had left all that rich store), for ages +long would they have lain among the dead forlorn, if a name among later +men the skilled Ceian minstrel had spared to bestow, singing his bright +songs to a harp of many strings. Honour too was won by the swift steeds +that came home to them crowned from the sacred contests. + +And who would ever have known the Lycian champions of time past, who +Priam’s long-haired sons, and Cycnus, white of skin as a maiden, if +minstrels had not chanted of the war cries of the old heroes? Nor would +Odysseus have won his lasting glory, for all his ten years wandering +among all folks; and despite the visit he paid, he a living man, to +inmost Hades, and for all his escape from the murderous Cyclops’s +cave,—unheard too were the names of the swineherd Eumaeus, and of +Philoetius, busy with the kine of the herds; yea, and even of Laertes, +high of heart; if the songs of the Ionian man had not kept them in +renown. + +From the Muses comes a goodly report to men, but the living heirs devour +the possessions of the dead. But, lo, it is as light labour to count the +waves upon the beach, as many as wind and grey sea-tide roll upon the +shore, or in violet-hued water to cleanse away the stain from a potsherd, +as to win favour from a man that is smitten with the greed of gain. +Good-day to such an one, and countless be his coin, and ever may he be +possessed by a longing desire for more! But I for my part would choose +honour and the loving-kindness of men, far before wealth in mules and +horses. + +I am seeking to what mortal I may come, a welcome guest, with the help of +the Muses, for hard indeed do minstrels find the ways, who go +uncompanioned by the daughters of deep-counselling Zeus. Not yet is the +heaven aweary of rolling the months onwards, and the years, and many a +horse shall yet whirl the chariot wheels, and the man shall yet be found, +who will take me for his minstrel; a man of deeds like those that great +Achilles wrought, or puissant Aias, in the plain of Simois, where is the +tomb of Phrygian Ilus. + +Even now the Phoenicians that dwell beneath the setting sun on the spur +of Libya, shudder for dread, even now the Syracusans poise lances in +rest, and their arms are burdened by the linden shields. Among them +Hiero, like the mighty men of old, girds himself for fight, and the +horse-hair crest is shadowing his helmet. Ah, Zeus, our father renowned, +and ah, lady Athene, and O thou Maiden that with the Mother dost possess +the great burg of the rich Ephyreans, by the water of Lusimeleia, {89} +would that dire necessity may drive our foemen from the isle, along the +Sardinian wave, to tell the doom of their friends to children and to +wives—messengers easy to number out of so many warriors! But as for our +cities may they again be held by their ancient masters,—all the cities +that hostile hands have utterly spoiled. May our people till the +flowering fields, and may thousands of sheep unnumbered fatten ’mid the +herbage, and bleat along the plain, while the kine as they come in droves +to the stalls warn the belated traveller to hasten on his way. May the +fallows be broken for the seed-time, while the cicala, watching the +shepherds as they toil in the sun, in the shade of the trees doth sing on +the topmost sprays. May spiders weave their delicate webs over martial +gear, may none any more so much as name the cry of onset! + +But the fame of Hiero may minstrels bear aloft, across the Scythian sea, +and where Semiramis reigned, that built the mighty wall, and made it fast +with slime for mortar. I am but one of many that are loved by the +daughters of Zeus, and they all are fain to sing of Sicilian Arethusa, +with the people of the isle, and the warrior Hiero. O Graces, ye +Goddesses, adored of Eteocles, ye that love Orchomenos of the Minyae, the +ancient enemy of Thebes, when no man bids me, let me abide at home, but +to the houses of such as bid me, boldly let me come with my Muses. Nay, +neither the Muses nor you Graces will I leave behind, for without the +Graces what have men that is desirable? with the Graces of song may I +dwell for ever! + + + + +IDYL XVII + + +_The poet praises Ptolemy Philadelphus in a strain of almost religious +adoration_. _Hauler_, _in his Life of Theocritus_, _dates the poem +about_ 259 B.C., _but it may have been many years earlier_. + + * * * * * + +FROM Zeus let us begin, and with Zeus make end, ye Muses, whensoever we +chant in songs the chiefest of immortals! But of men, again, let Ptolemy +be named, among the foremost, and last, and in the midmost place, for of +men he hath the pre-eminence. The heroes that in old days were begotten +of the demigods, wrought noble deeds, and chanced on minstrels skilled, +but I, with what skill I have in song, would fain make my hymn of +Ptolemy, and hymns are the glorious meed, yea, of the very immortals. + +When the feller hath come up to wooded Ida, he glances around, so many +are the trees, to see whence he should begin his labour. Where first +shall _I_ begin the tale, for there are countless things ready for the +telling, wherewith the Gods have graced the most excellent of kings? + +Even by virtue of his sires, how mighty was he to accomplish some great +work,—Ptolemy son of Lagus,—when he had stored in his mind such a design, +as no other man was able even to devise! Him hath the Father stablished +in the same honour as the blessed immortals, and for him a golden mansion +in the house of Zeus is builded; beside him is throned Alexander, that +dearly loves him, Alexander, a grievous god to the white-turbaned +Persians. + +And over against them is set the throne of Heracles, the slayer of the +Bull, wrought of stubborn adamant. There holds he festival with the rest +of the heavenly host, rejoicing exceedingly in his far-off children’s +children, for that the son of Cronos hath taken old age clean away from +their limbs, and they are called immortals, being his offspring. For the +strong son of Heracles is ancestor of the twain, I and both are reckoned +to Heracles, on the utmost of the lineage. + +Therefore when he hath now had his fill of fragrant nectar, and is going +from the feast to the bower of his bed-fellow dear, to one of his +children he gives his bow, and the quiver that swings beneath his elbow, +to the other his knotted mace of iron. Then they to the ambrosial bower +of white-ankled Hera, convey the weapons and the bearded son of Zeus. + +Again, how shone renowned Berenice among the wise of womankind, how great +a boon was she to them that begat her! Yea, in her fragrant breast did +the Lady of Cyprus, the queenly daughter of Dione, lay her slender hands, +wherefore they say that never any woman brought man such delight as came +from the love borne to his wife by Ptolemy. And verily he was loved +again with far greater love, and in such a wedlock a man may well trust +all his house to his children, whensoever he goes to the bed of one that +loves him as he loves her. But the mind of a woman that loves not is set +ever on a stranger, and she hath children at her desire, but they are +never like the father. + +O thou that amongst the Goddesses hast the prize of beauty, O Lady +Aphrodite, thy care was she, and by thy favour the lovely Berenice +crossed not Acheron, the river of mourning, but thou didst catch her +away, ere she came to the dark water, and to the still-detested ferryman +of souls outworn, and in thy temple didst thou instal her, and gavest her +a share of thy worship. Kindly is she to all mortals, and she breathes +into them soft desires, and she lightens the cares of him that is in +longing. + +O dark-browed lady of Argos, {93} in wedlock with Tydeus didst thou bear +slaying Diomede, a hero of Calydon, and, again, deep-bosomed Thetis to +Peleus, son of Aeacus, bare the spearman Achilles. But thee, O warrior +Ptolemy, to Ptolemy the warrior bare the glorious Berenice! And Cos did +foster thee, when thou wert still a child new-born, and received thee at +thy mother’s hand, when thou saw’st thy first dawning. For there she +called aloud on Eilithyia, loosener of the girdle; she called, the +daughter of Antigone, when heavy on her came the pangs of childbirth. +And Eilithyia was present to help her, and so poured over all her limbs +release from pain. Then the beloved child was born, his father’s very +counterpart. And Cos brake forth into a cry, when she beheld it, and +touching the child with kind hands, she said: + +‘Blessed, O child, mayst thou be, and me mayst thou honour even as +Phoebus Apollo honours Delos of the azure crown, yea, stablish in the +same renown the Triopean hill, and allot such glory to the Dorians +dwelling nigh, as that wherewithal Prince Apollo favours Rhenaea.’ + +Lo, thus spake the Isle, but far aloft under the clouds a great eagle +screamed thrice aloud, the ominous bird of Zeus. This sign, methinks, +was of Zeus; Zeus, the son of Cronos, in his care hath awful kings, but +he is above all, whom Zeus loved from the first, even from his birth. +Great fortune goes with him, and much land he rules, and wide sea. + +Countless are the lands, and tribes of men innumerable win increase of +the soil that waxeth under the rain of Zeus, but no land brings forth so +much as low-lying Egypt, when Nile wells up and breaks the sodden soil. +Nor is there any land that hath so many towns of men skilled in +handiwork; therein are three centuries of cities builded, and thousands +three, and to these three myriads, and cities twice three, and beside +these, three times nine, and over them all high-hearted Ptolemy is king. + +Yea, and he taketh him a portion of Phoenicia, and of Arabia, and of +Syria, and of Libya, and the black Aethiopians. And he is lord of all +the Pamphylians, and the Cilician warriors, and the Lycians, and the +Carians, that joy in battle, and lord of the isles of the Cyclades,—since +his are the best of ships that sail over the deep,—yea, all the sea, and +land and the sounding rivers are ruled by Ptolemy. Many are his +horsemen, and many his targeteers that go clanging in harness of shining +bronze. And in weight of wealth he surpasses all kings; such treasure +comes day by day from every side to his rich palace, while the people are +busy about their labours in peace. For never hath a foeman marched up +the bank of teaming Nile, and raised the cry of war in villages not his +own, nor hath any cuirassed enemy leaped ashore from his swift ship, to +harry the kine of Egypt. So mighty a hero hath his throne established in +the broad plains, even Ptolemy of the fair hair, a spearman skilled, +whose care is above all, as a good king’s should be, to keep all the +heritage of his fathers, and yet more he himself doth win. Nay, nor +useless in _his_ wealthy house, is the gold, like piled stores of the +still toilsome ants, but the glorious temples of the gods have their rich +share, for constant first-fruits he renders, with many another due, and +much is lavished on mighty kings, much on cities, much on faithful +friends. And never to the sacred contests of Dionysus comes any man that +is skilled to raise the shrill sweet song, but Ptolemy gives him a +guerdon worthy of his art. And the interpreters of the Muses sing of +Ptolemy, in return for his favours. Nay, what fairer thing might befall +a wealthy man, than to win a goodly renown among mortals? + +This abides even by the sons of Atreus, but all those countless treasures +that they won, when they took the mighty house of Priam, are hidden away +in the mist, whence there is no returning. + +Ptolemy alone presses his own feet in the footmarks, yet glowing in the +dust, of his fathers that were before him. To his mother dear, and his +father he hath stablished fragrant temples; therein has he set their +images, splendid with gold and ivory, to succour all earthly men. And +many fat thighs of kine doth he burn on the empurpled altars, as the +months roll by, he and his stately wife; no nobler lady did ever embrace +a bridegroom in the halls, who loves, with her whole heart, her brother, +her lord. On this wise was the holy bridal of the Immortals, too, +accomplished, even of the pair that great Rhea bore, the rulers of +Olympus; and one bed for the slumber of Zeus and of Hera doth Iris strew, +with myrrh-anointed hands, the virgin Iris. + +Prince Ptolemy, farewell, and of thee will I make mention, even as of the +other demigods; and a word methinks I will utter not to be rejected of +men yet unborn,—excellence, howbeit, thou shalt gain from Zeus. + + + +IDYL XVIII + + +_This epithalamium may have been written for the wedding of a friend of +the poet’s_. _The idea is said to have been borrowed from an old poem by +Stesichorus_. _The epithalamium was chanted at night by a chorus of +girls_, _outside the bridal chamber_. _Compare the conclusion of the +hymn of Adonis_, _in the fifteenth Idyl_. + + * * * * * + +IN Sparta, once, to the house of fair-haired Menelaus, came maidens with +the blooming hyacinth in their hair, and before the new painted chamber +arrayed their dance,—twelve maidens, the first in the city, the glory of +Laconian girls,—what time the younger Atrides had wooed and won Helen, +and closed the door of the bridal-bower on the beloved daughter of +Tyndarus. Then sang they all in harmony, beating time with woven paces, +and the house rang round with the bridal song. + + _The Chorus_. + +Thus early art thou sleeping, dear bridegroom, say are thy limbs heavy +with slumber, or art thou all too fond of sleep, or hadst thou perchance +drunken over well, ere thou didst fling thee to thy rest? Thou shouldst +have slept betimes, and alone, if thou wert so fain of sleep; thou +shouldst have left the maiden with maidens beside her mother dear, to +play till deep in the dawn, for to-morrow, and next day, and for all the +years, Menelaus, she is thy bride. + +O happy bridegroom, some good spirit sneezed out on thee a blessing, as +thou wert approaching Sparta whither went the other princes, that so thou +mightst win thy desire! Alone among the demigods shalt thou have Zeus +for father! Yea, and the daughter of Zeus has come beneath one coverlet +with thee, so fair a lady, peerless among all Achaean women that walk the +earth. Surely a wondrous child would she bear thee, if she bore one like +the mother! + +For lo, we maidens are all of like age with her, and one course we were +wont to run, anointed in manly fashion, by the baths of Eurotas. Four +times sixty girls were we, the maiden flower of the land, {98} but of us +all not one was faultless, when matched with Helen. + +As the rising Dawn shows forth her fairer face than thine, O Night, or as +the bright Spring, when Winter relaxes his hold, even so amongst us still +she shone, the golden Helen. Even as the crops spring up, the glory of +the rich plough land; or, as is the cypress in the garden; or, in a +chariot, a horse of Thessalian breed, even so is rose-red Helen the glory +of Lacedaemon. No other in her basket of wool winds forth such goodly +work, and none cuts out, from between the mighty beams, a closer warp +than that her shuttle weaves in the carven loom. Yea, and of a truth +none other smites the lyre, hymning Artemis and broad-breasted Athene, +with such skill as Helen, within whose eyes dwell all the Loves. + +O fair, O gracious damsel, even now art thou a wedded wife; but we will +go forth right early to the course we ran, and to the grassy meadows, to +gather sweet-breathing coronals of flowers, thinking often upon thee, +Helen, even as youngling lambs that miss the teats of the mother-ewe. +For thee first will we twine a wreath of lotus flowers that lowly grow, +and hang it on a shadowy plane tree, for thee first will we take soft oil +from the silver phial, and drop it beneath a shadowy plane tree, and +letters will we grave on the bark, in Dorian wise, so that the wayfarer +may read: + + WORSHIP ME, I AM THE TREE OF HELEN. + +Good night, thou bride, good night, thou groom that hast won a mighty +sire! May Leto, Leto, the nurse of noble offspring, give you the +blessing of children; and may Cypris, divine Cypris, grant you equal +love, to cherish each the other; and may Zeus, even Zeus the son of +Cronos, give you wealth imperishable, to be handed down from generation +to generation of the princes. + +Sleep ye, breathing love and desire each into the other’s breast, but +forget not to wake in the dawning, and at dawn we too will come, when the +earliest cock shrills from his perch, and raises his feathered neck. + +_Hymen_, _O Hymenae_, _rejoice thou in this bridal_. + + + +IDYL XIX + + +_This little piece is but doubtfully ascribed to Theocritus_. _The motif +is that of a well-known Anacreontic Ode_. _The idyl has been translated +by Ronsard_. + + * * * * * + +THE thievish Love,—a cruel bee once stung him, as he was rifling honey +from the hives, and pricked his finger-tips all; then he was in pain, and +blew upon his hand, and leaped, and stamped the ground. And then he +showed his hurt to Aphrodite, and made much complaint, how that the bee +is a tiny creature, and yet what wounds it deals! And his mother laughed +out, and said, ‘Art thou not even such a creature as the bees, for tiny +art thou, but what wounds thou dealest!’ + + + +IDYL XX + + +_A herdsman_, _who had been contemptuously rejected by Eunica_, _a girl +of the town_, _protests that he is beautiful_, _and that Eunica is +prouder than Cybele_, _Selene_, _and Aphrodite_, _all of whom loved +mortal herdsmen_. _For grammatical and other reasons_, _some critics +consider this idyl apocryphal_. + + * * * * * + +EUNICA laughed out at me when sweetly I would have kissed her, and +taunting me, thus she spoke: ‘Get thee gone from me! Wouldst thou kiss +me, wretch; thou—a neatherd? I never learned to kiss in country fashion, +but to press lips with city gentlefolks. Never hope to kiss my lovely +mouth, nay, not even in a dream. How thou dost look, what chatter is +thine, how countrified thy tricks are, how delicate thy talk, how easy +thy tattle! And then thy beard—so soft! thy elegant hair! Why, thy lips +are like some sick man’s, thy hands are black, and thou art of evil +savour. Away with thee, lest thy presence soil me!’ These taunts she +mouthed, and thrice spat in the breast of her gown, and stared at me all +over from head to feet; shooting out her lips, and glancing with +half-shut eyes, writhing her beautiful body, and so sneered, and laughed +me to scorn. And instantly my blood boiled, and I grew red under the +sting, as a rose with dew. And she went off and left me, but I bear +angry pride deep in my heart, that I, the handsome shepherd, should have +been mocked by a wretched light-o’-love. + +Shepherds, tell me the very truth; am I not beautiful? Has some God +changed me suddenly to another man? Surely a sweet grace ever blossomed +round me, till this hour, like ivy round a tree, and covered my chin, and +about my temples fell my locks, like curling parsley-leaves, and white +shone my forehead above my dark eyebrows. Mine eyes were brighter far +than the glance of the grey-eyed Athene, my mouth than even pressed milk +was sweeter, and from my lips my voice flowed sweeter than honey from the +honeycomb. Sweet too, is my music, whether I make melody on pipe, or +discourse on the flute, or reed, or flageolet. And all the +mountain-maidens call me beautiful, and they would kiss me, all of them. +But the city girl did not kiss me, but ran past me, because I am a +neatherd, and she never heard how fair Dionysus in the dells doth drive +the calves, and knows not that Cypris was wild with love for a herdsman, +and drove afield in the mountains of Phrygia; ay, and Adonis himself,—in +the oakwood she kissed, in the oakwood she bewailed him. And what was +Endymion? was he not a neatherd? whom nevertheless as he watched his +herds Selene saw and loved, and from Olympus descending she came to the +Latmian glade, and lay in one couch with the boy; and thou, Rhea, dust +weep for thy herdsman. + +And didst not thou, too, Son of Cronos, take the shape of a wandering +bird, and all for a cowherd boy? + +But Eunica alone would not kiss the herdsman; Eunica, she that is greater +than Cybele, and Cypris, and Selene! + +Well, Cypris, never mayst thou, in city or on hillside, kiss thy darling, +{104} and lonely all the long night mayst thou sleep! + + + +IDYL XXI + + +_After some verses addressed to Diophantus_, _a friend about whom nothing +is known_, _the poet describes the toilsome life of two old fishermen_. +_One of them has dreamed of catching a golden fish_, _and has sworn_, _in +his dream_, _never again to tempt the sea_. _The other reminds him that +his oath is as empty as his vision_, _and that he must angle for common +fish_, _if he would not starve among his golden dreams_. _The idyl is_, +_unfortunately_, _corrupt beyond hope of certain correction_. + + * * * * * + +’TIS Poverty alone, Diophantus, that awakens the arts; Poverty, the very +teacher of labour. Nay, not even sleep is permitted, by weary cares, to +men that live by toil, and if, for a little while, one close his eyes +{105} in the night, cares throng about him, and suddenly disquiet his +slumber. + +Two fishers, on a time, two old men, together lay and slept; they had +strown the dry sea-moss for a bed in their wattled cabin, and there they +lay against the leafy wall. Beside them were strewn the instruments of +their toilsome hands, the fishing-creels, the rods of reed, the hooks, +the sails bedraggled with sea-spoil, {106a} the lines, the weds, the +lobster pots woven of rushes, the seines, two oars, {106b} and an old +coble upon props. Beneath their heads was a scanty matting, their +clothes, their sailor’s caps. Here was all their toil, here all their +wealth. The threshold had never a door, nor a watch-dog; {106c} all +things, all, to them seemed superfluity, for Poverty was their sentinel. +They had no neighbour by them, but ever against their narrow cabin gently +floated up the sea. + +The chariot of the moon had not yet reached the mid-point of her course, +but their familiar toil awakened the fishermen; from their eyelids they +cast out slumber, and roused their souls with speech. {106d} + +_Asphalion_. They lie all, my friend, who say that the nights wane short +in summer, when Zeus brings the long days. Already have I seen ten +thousand dreams, and the dawn is not yet. Am I wrong, what ails them, +the nights are surely long? + +_The Friend_. Asphalion, thou blamest the beautiful summer! It is not +that the season hath wilfully passed his natural course, but care, +breaking thy sleep, makes night seem long to thee. + +_Asphalion_. Didst ever learn to interpret dreams? for good dreams have +I beheld. I would not have thee to go without thy share in my vision; +even as we go shares in the fish we catch, so share all my dreams! Sure, +thou art not to be surpassed in wisdom; and he is the best interpreter of +dreams that hath wisdom for his teacher. Moreover, we have time to idle +in, for what could a man find to do, lying on a leafy bed beside the wave +and slumbering not? Nay, the ass is among the thorns, the lantern in the +town hall, for, they say, it is always sleepless. {107} + +_The Friend_. Tell me, then, the vision of the night; nay, tell all to +thy friend. + +_Asphalion_. As I was sleeping late, amid the labours of the salt sea +(and truly not too full-fed, for we supped early if thou dost remember, +and did not overtax our bellies), I saw myself busy on a rock, and there +I sat and watched the fishes, and kept spinning the bait with the rods. +And one of the fish nibbled, a fat one, for in sleep dogs dream of bread, +and of fish dream I. Well, he was tightly hooked, and the blood was +running, and the rod I grasped was bent with his struggle. So with both +hands I strained, and had a sore tussle for the monster. How was I ever +to land so big a fish with hooks all too slim? Then just to remind him +he was hooked, I gently pricked him, {108a} pricked, and slackened, and, +as he did not run, I took in line. My toil was ended with the sight of +my prize; I drew up a golden fish, lo you, a fish all plated thick with +gold! Then fear took hold of me, lest he might be some fish beloved of +Posidon, or perchance some jewel of the sea-grey Amphitrite. Gently I +unhooked him, lest ever the hooks should retain some of the gold of his +mouth. Then I dragged him on shore with the ropes, {108b} and swore that +never again would I set foot on sea, but abide on land, and lord it over +the gold. + +This was even what wakened me, but, for the rest, set thy mind to it, my +friend, for I am in dismay about the oath I swore. + +_The Friend_. Nay, never fear, thou art no more sworn than thou hast +found the golden fish of thy vision; dreams are but lies. But if thou +wilt search these waters, wide awake, and not asleep, there is some hope +in thy slumbers; seek the fish of flesh, lest thou die of famine with all +thy dreams of gold! + + + +IDYL XXII +THE DIOSCURI + + +_This is a hymn_, _in the Homeric manner_, _to Castor and Polydeuces_. +_Compare the life and truth of the descriptions of nature_, _and of the +boxing-match_, _with the frigid manner of Apollonius +Rhodius_.—Argonautica, II. I. _seq._ + + * * * * * + +WE hymn the children twain of Leda, and of aegis-bearing Zeus,—Castor, +and Pollux, the boxer dread, when he hath harnessed his knuckles in +thongs of ox-hide. Twice hymn we, and thrice the stalwart sons of the +daughter of Thestias, the two brethren of Lacedaemon. Succourers are +they of men in the very thick of peril, and of horses maddened in the +bloody press of battle, and of ships that, defying the stars that set and +rise in heaven, have encountered the perilous breath of storms. The +winds raise huge billows about their stern, yea, or from the prow, or +even as each wind wills, and cast them into the hold of the ship, and +shatter both bulwarks, while with the sail hangs all the gear confused +and broken, and the storm-rain falls from heaven as night creeps on, and +the wide sea rings, being lashed by the gusts, and by showers of iron +hail. + +Yet even so do ye draw forth the ships from the abyss, with their sailors +that looked immediately to die; and instantly the winds are still, and +there is an oily calm along the sea, and the clouds flee apart, this way +and that, also the _Bears_ appear, and in the midst, dimly seen, the +_Asses’ manger_, declaring that all is smooth for sailing. + +O ye twain that aid all mortals, O beloved pair, ye knights, ye harpers, +ye wrestlers, ye minstrels, of Castor, or of Polydeuces first shall I +begin to sing? Of both of you will I make my hymn, but first will I sing +of Polydeuces. + +Even already had Argo fled forth from the Clashing Rocks, and the dread +jaws of snowy Pontus, and was come to the land of the Bebryces, with her +crew, dear children of the gods. There all the heroes disembarked, down +one ladder, from both sides of the ship of Iason. When they had landed +on the deep seashore and a sea-bank sheltered from the wind, they strewed +their beds, and their hands were busy with firewood. {111} + +Then Castor of the swift steeds, and swart Polydeuces, these twain went +wandering alone, apart from their fellows, and marvelling at all the +various wildwood on the mountain. Beneath a smooth cliff they found an +ever-flowing spring filled with the purest water, and the pebbles below +shone like crystal or silver from the deep. Tall fir trees grew thereby, +and white poplars, and planes, and cypresses with their lofty tufts of +leaves, and there bloomed all fragrant flowers that fill the meadows when +early summer is waning—dear work-steads of the hairy bees. But there a +monstrous man was sitting in the sun, terrible of aspect; the bruisers’ +hard fists had crushed his ears, and his mighty breast and his broad back +were domed with iron flesh, like some huge statue of hammered iron. The +muscles on his brawny arms, close by the shoulder, stood out like rounded +rocks, that the winter torrent has rolled, and worn smooth, in the great +swirling stream, but about his back and neck was draped a lion’s skin, +hung by the claws. Him first accosted the champion, Polydeuces. + +_Polydeuces_. Good luck to thee, stranger, whosoe’er thou art! What men +are they that possess this land? + +_Amycus_. What sort of luck, when I see men that I never saw before? + +_Polydeuces_. Fear not! Be sure that those thou look’st on are neither +evil, nor the children of evil men. + +_Amycus_. No fear have I, and it is not for thee to teach me that +lesson. + +_Polydeuces_. Art thou a savage, resenting all address, or some +vainglorious man? + +_Amycus_. I am that thou see’st, and on thy land, at least, I trespass +not. + +_Polydeuces_. Come, and with kindly gifts return homeward again! + +_Amycus_. Gift me no gifts, none such have I ready for thee. + +_Polydeuces_. Nay, wilt thou not even grant us leave to taste this +spring? + +_Amycus_. That shalt thou learn when thirst has parched thy shrivelled +lips. + +_Polydeuces_. Will silver buy the boon, or with what price, prithee, may +we gain thy leave? + +_Amycus_. Put up thy hands and stand in single combat, man to man. + +_Polydeuces_. A boxing-match, or is kicking fair, when we meet eye to +eye? + +_Amycus_. Do thy best with thy fists and spare not thy skill! + +_Polydeuces_. And who is the man on whom I am to lay my hands and +gloves? + +_Amycus_. Thou see’st him close enough, the boxer will not prove a +maiden! + +_Polydeuces_. And is the prize ready, for which we two must fight? + +_Amycus_. Thy man shall I be called (shouldst thou win), or thou mine, +if I be victor. + +_Polydeuces_. On such terms fight the red-crested birds of the game. + +_Amycus_. Well, be we like birds or lions, we shall fight for no other +stake. + +So Amycus spoke, and seized and blew his hollow shell, and speedily the +long-haired Bebryces gathered beneath the shadowy planes, at the blowing +of the shell. And in likewise did Castor, eminent in war, go forth and +summon all the heroes from the Magnesian ship. And the champions, when +they had strengthened their fists with the stout ox-skin gloves, and +bound long leathern thongs about their arms, stepped into the ring, +breathing slaughter against each other. Then had they much ado, in that +assault,—which should have the sun’s light at his back. But by thy +skill, Polydeuces, thou didst outwit the giant, and the sun’s rays fell +full on the face of Amycus. Then came he eagerly on in great wrath and +heat, making play with his fists, but the son of Tyndarus smote him on +the chin as he charged, maddening him even more, and the giant confused +the fighting, laying on with all his weight, and going in with his head +down. The Bebryces cheered their man, and on the other side the heroes +still encouraged stout Polydeuces, for they feared lest the giant’s +weight, a match for Tityus, might crush their champion in the narrow +lists. But the son of Zeus stood to him, shifting his ground again and +again, and kept smiting him, right and left, and somewhat checked the +rush of the son of Posidon, for all his monstrous strength. Then he +stood reeling like a drunken man under the blows, and spat out the red +blood, while all the heroes together raised a cheer, as they marked the +woful bruises about his mouth and jaws, and how, as his face swelled up, +his eyes were half closed. Next, the prince teased him, feinting on +every side but seeing now that the giant was all abroad, he planted his +fist just above the middle of the nose, beneath the eyebrows, and skinned +all the brow to the bone. Thus smitten, Amycus lay stretched on his +back, among the flowers and grasses. There was fierce fighting when he +arose again, and they bruised each other well, laying on with the hard +weighted gloves; but the champion of the Bebryces was always playing on +the chest, and outside the neck, while unconquered Polydeuces kept +smashing his foeman’s face with ugly blows. The giant’s flesh was +melting away in his sweat, till from a huge mass he soon became small +enough, but the limbs of the other waxed always stronger, and his colour +better, as he warmed to his work. + +How then, at last, did the son of Zeus lay low the glutton? say goddess, +for thou knowest, but I, who am but the interpreter of others, will speak +all that thou wilt, and in such wise as pleases thee. + +Now behold the giant was keen to do some great feat, so with his left +hand he grasped the left of Polydeuces, stooping slantwise from his +onset, while with his other hand he made his effort, and drove a huge +fist up from his right haunch. Had his blow come home, he would have +harmed the King of Amyclae, but he slipped his head out of the way, and +then with his strong hand struck Amycus on the left temple, putting his +shoulder into the blow. Quick gushed the black blood from the gaping +temple, while Polydeuces smote the giant’s mouth with his left, and the +close-set teeth rattled. And still he punished his face with +quick-repeated blows, till the cheeks were fairly pounded. Then Amycus +lay stretched all on the ground, fainting, and held out both his hands, +to show that he declined the fight, for he was near to death. + +There then, despite thy victory, didst thou work him no insensate wrong, +O boxer Polydeuces, but to thee he swore a mighty oath, calling his sire +Posidon from the deep, that assuredly never again would he be violent to +strangers. + +Thee have I hymned, my prince; but thee now, Castor, will I sing, O son +of Tyndarus, O lord of the swift steeds, O wielder of the spear, thou +that wearest the corselet of bronze. + +Now these twain, the sons of Zeus, had seized and were bearing away the +two daughters of Lycippus, and eagerly in sooth these two other brethren +were pursuing them, the sons of Aphareus, even they that should soon have +been the bridegrooms,—Lynceus and mighty Idas. But when they were come +to the tomb of the dead Aphareus, then forth from their chariots they all +sprang together, and set upon each other, under the weight of their +spears and hollow shields. But Lynceus again spake, and shouted loud +from under his vizor:— + +‘Sirs, wherefore desire ye battle, and how are ye thus violent to win the +brides of others with naked swords in your hands. To us, behold, did +Leucippus betroth these his daughters long before; to us this bridal is +by oath confirmed. And ye did not well, in that to win the wives of +others ye perverted him with gifts of oxen, and mules, and other wealth, +and so won wedlock by bribes. Lo many a time, in face of both of you, I +have spoken thus, I that am not a man of many words, saying,—“Not thus, +dear friends, does it become heroes to woo their wives, wives that +already have bridegrooms betrothed. Lo Sparta is wide, and wide is Elis, +a land of chariots and horses, and Arcadia rich in sheep, and there are +the citadels of the Achaeans, and Messenia, and Argos, and all the +sea-coast of Sisyphus. There be maidens by their parents nurtured, +maidens countless, that lack not aught in wisdom or in comeliness. Of +these ye may easily win such as ye will, for many are willing to be the +fathers-in-law of noble youths, and ye are the very choice of heroes all, +as your fathers were, and all your father’s kin, and all your blood from +of old. But, friends, let this our bridal find its due conclusion, and +for you let all of us seek out another marriage.” + +‘Many such words I would speak, but the wind’s breath bare them away to +the wet wave of the sea, and no favour followed with my words. For ye +twain are hard and ruthless,—nay, but even now do ye listen, for ye are +our cousins, and kin by the father’s side. But if your heart yet lusts +for war, and with blood we must break up the kindred strife, and end the +feud, {118} then Idas and his cousin, mighty Polydeuces, shall hold their +hands and abstain from battle, but let us twain, Castor and I, the +younger born, try the ordeal of war! Let us not leave the heaviest of +grief to our fathers! Enough is one slain man from a house, but the +others will make festival for all their friends, and will be bridegrooms, +not slain men, and will wed these maidens. Lo, it is fitting with light +loss to end a great dispute.’ + +So he spake, and these words the gods were not to make vain. For the +elder pair laid down their harness from their shoulders on the ground, +but Lynceus stepped into the midst, swaying his mighty spear beneath the +outer rim of his shield, and even so did Castor sway his spear-points, +and the plumes were nodding above the crests of each. With the sharp +spears long they laboured and tilted at each other, if perchance they +might anywhere spy a part of the flesh unarmed. But ere either was +wounded the spear-points were broken, fast stuck in the linden shields. +Then both drew their swords from the sheaths, and again devised each the +other’s slaying, and there was no truce in the fight. Many a time did +Castor smite on broad shield and horse-hair crest, and many a time the +keen-sighted Lynceus smote upon his shield, and his blade just shore the +scarlet plume. Then, as he aimed the sharp sword at the left knee, +Castor drew back with his left foot, and hacked the fingers off the hand +of Lynceus. Then he being smitten cast away his sword, and turned +swiftly to flee to the tomb of his father, where mighty Idas lay, and +watched this strife of kinsmen. But the son of Tyndarus sped after him, +and drove the broad sword through bowels and navel, and instantly the +bronze cleft all in twain, and Lynceus bowed, and on his face he lay +fallen on the ground, and forthwith heavy sleep rushed down upon his +eyelids. + +Nay, nor that other of her children did Laocoosa see, by the hearth of +his fathers, after he had fulfilled a happy marriage. For lo, Messenian +Idas did swiftly break away the standing stone from the tomb of his +father Aphareus, and now he would have smitten the slayer of his brother, +but Zeus defended him and drave the polished stone from the hands of +Idas, and utterly consumed him with a flaming thunderbolt. + +Thus it is no light labour to war with the sons of Tyndarus, for a mighty +pair are they, and mighty is he that begat them. + +Farewell, ye children of Leda, and all goodly renown send ye ever to our +singing. Dear are all minstrels to the sons of Tyndarus, and to Helen, +and to the other heroes that sacked Troy in aid of Menelaus. + +For you, O princes, the bard of Chios wrought renown, when he sang the +city of Priam, and the ships of the Achaeans, and the Ilian war, and +Achilles, a tower of battle. And to you, in my turn, the charms of the +clear-voiced Muses, even all that they can give, and all that my house +has in store, these do I bring. The fairest meed of the gods is song. + + + +IDYL XXIII +THE VENGEANCE OF LOVE + + +_A lover hangs himself at the gate of his obdurate darling who_, _in +turn_, _is slain by a statue of Love_. + +_This poem is not attributed with much certainty to Theocritus_, _and is +found in but a small proportion of manuscripts_. + + * * * * * + +A LOVE-SICK youth pined for an unkind love, beautiful in form, but fair +no more in mood. The beloved hated the lover, and had for him no +gentleness at all, and knew not Love, how mighty a God is he, and what a +bow his hands do wield, and what bitter arrows he dealeth at the young. +Yea, in all things ever, in speech and in all approaches, was the beloved +unyielding. Never was there any assuagement of Love’s fires, never was +there a smile of the lips, nor a bright glance of the eyes, never a +blushing cheek, nor a word, nor a kiss that lightens the burden of +desire. Nay, as a beast of the wild wood hath the hunters in watchful +dread, even so did the beloved in all things regard the man, with angered +lips, and eyes that had the dreadful glance of fate, and the whole face +was answerable to this wrath, the colour fled from it, sicklied o’er with +wrathful pride. Yet even thus was the loved one beautiful, and the lover +was the more moved by this haughtiness. At length he could no more +endure so fierce a flame of the Cytherean, but drew near and wept by the +hateful dwelling, and kissed the lintel of the door, and thus he lifted +up his voice: + +‘O cruel child, and hateful, thou nursling of some fierce lioness, O +child all of stone unworthy of love; I have come with these my latest +gifts to thee, even this halter of mine; for, child, I would no longer +anger thee and work thee pain. Nay, I am going where thou hast condemned +me to fare, where, as men say, is the path, and there the common remedy +of lovers, the River of Forgetfulness. Nay, but were I to take and drain +with my lips all the waters thereof, not even so shall I quench my +yearning desire. And now I bid my farewell to these gates of thine. + +‘Behold I know the thing that is to be. + +‘Yea, the rose is beautiful, and Time he withers it; and fair is the +violet in spring, and swiftly it waxes old; white is the lily, it fadeth +when it falleth; and snow is white, and melteth after it hath been +frozen. And the beauty of youth is fair, but lives only for a little +season. + +‘That time will come when thou too shalt love, when thy heart shall burn, +and thou shalt weep salt tears. + +‘But, child, do me even this last favour; when thou comest forth, and +see’st me hanging in thy gateway,—pass me not careless by, thy hapless +lover, but stand, and weep a little while; and when thou hast made this +libation of thy tears, then loose me from the rope, and cast over me some +garment from thine own limbs, and so cover me from sight; but first kiss +me for that latest time of all, and grant the dead this grace of thy +lips. + +‘Fear me not, I cannot live again, no, not though thou shouldst be +reconciled to me, and kiss me. A tomb for me do thou hollow, to be the +hiding-place of my love, and if thou departest, cry thrice above me,— + + _O friend_, _thou liest low_! + +And if thou wilt, add this also,— + + _Alas_, _my true friend is dead_! + +‘And this legend do thou write, that I will scratch on thy walls,— + + _This man Love slew_! _Wayfarer_, _pass not heedless by_, + _But stand_, _and say_, “_he had a cruel darling_.”’ + +Therewith he seized a stone, and laid it against the wall, as high as the +middle of the doorposts, a dreadful stone, and from the lintel he +fastened the slender halter, and cast the noose about his neck, and +kicked away the support from under his foot, and there was he hanged +dead. + +But the beloved opened the door, and saw the dead man hanging there in +the court, unmoved of heart, and tearless for the strange, woful death; +but on the dead man were all the garments of youth defiled. Then forth +went the beloved to the contests of the wrestlers, and there was +heart-set on the delightful bathing-places, and even thereby encountered +the very God dishonoured, for Love stood on a pedestal of stone above the +waters. {124} And lo, the statue leaped, and slew that cruel one, and +the water was red with blood, but the voice of the slain kept floating to +the brim. + +_Rejoice_, _ye lovers_, _for he that hated is slain_. _Love_, _all ye +beloved_, _for the God knoweth how to deal righteous judgment_. + + + +IDYL XXIV +THE INFANT HERACLES + + +_This poem describes the earliest feat of Heracles_, _the slaying of the +snakes sent against him by Hera_, _and gives an account of the hero’s +training_. _The vivacity and tenderness of the pictures of domestic +life_, _and the minute knowledge of expiatory ceremonies seem to stamp +this idyl as the work of Theocritus_. _As the following poem also deals +with an adventure of Heracles_, _it seems not impossible that Theocritus +wrote_, _or contemplated writing_, _a Heraclean epic_, _in a series of +idyls_. + + * * * * * + +WHEN Heracles was but ten months old, the lady of Midea, even Alcmena, +took him, on a time, and Iphicles his brother, younger by one night, and +gave them both their bath, and their fill of milk, then laid them down in +the buckler of bronze, that goodly piece whereof Amphitryon had strippen +the fallen Pterelaus. And then the lady stroked her children’s heads, +and spoke, saying:— + +‘Sleep, my little ones, a light delicious sleep; sleep, soul of mine, two +brothers, babes unharmed; blessed be your sleep, and blessed may ye come +to the dawn.’ + +So speaking she rocked the huge shield, and in a moment sleep laid hold +on them. + +But when the _Bear_ at midnight wheels westward over against _Orion_ that +shows his mighty shoulder, even then did crafty Hera send forth two +monstrous things, two snakes bristling up their coils of azure; against +the broad threshold, where are the hollow pillars of the house-door she +urged them; with intent that they should devour the young child Heracles. +Then these twain crawled forth, writhing their ravenous bellies along the +ground, and still from their eyes a baleful fire was shining as they +came, and they spat out their deadly venom. But when with their +flickering tongues they were drawing near the children, then Alcmena’s +dear babes wakened, by the will of Zeus that knows all things, and there +was a bright light in the chamber. Then truly one child, even Iphicles, +screamed out straightway, when he beheld the hideous monsters above the +hollow shield, and saw their pitiless fangs, and he kicked off the +woollen coverlet with his feet, in his eagerness to flee. But Heracles +set his force against them, and grasped them with his hands, binding them +both in a grievous bond, having got them by the throat, wherein lies the +evil venom of baleful snakes, the venom detested even by the gods. Then +the serpents, in their turn, wound with their coils about the young +child, the child unweaned, that wept never in his nursling days; but +again they relaxed their spines in stress, of pain, and strove to find +some issue from the grasp of iron. + +Now Alcmena heard the cry, and wakened first,— + +‘Arise, Amphitryon, for numbing fear lays hold of me: arise, nor stay to +put shoon beneath thy feet! Hearest thou not how loud the younger child +is wailing? Mark’st thou not that though it is the depth of the night, +the walls are all plain to see as in the clear dawn? {127} There is some +strange thing I trow within the house, there is, my dearest lord!’ + +Thus she spake, and at his wife’s bidding he stepped down out of his bed, +and made for his richly dight sword that he kept always hanging on its +pin above his bed of cedar. Verily he was reaching out for his new-woven +belt, lifting with the other hand the mighty sheath, a work of lotus +wood, when lo, the wide chamber was filled again with night. Then he +cried aloud on his thralls, who were drawing the deep breath of sleep,— + +‘Lights! Bring lights as quick as may be from the hearth, my thralls, +and thrust back the strong bolts of the doors. Arise, ye serving-men, +stout of heart, ’tis the master calls.’ + +Then quick the serving-men came speeding with torches burning, and the +house waxed full as each man hasted along. Then truly when they saw the +young child Heracles clutching the snakes twain in his tender grasp, they +all cried out and smote their hands together. But he kept showing the +creeping things to his father, Amphitryon, and leaped on high in his +childish glee, and laughing, at his father’s feet he laid them down, the +dread monsters fallen on the sleep of death. Then Alcmena in her own +bosom took and laid Iphicles, dry-eyed and wan with fear; {128} but +Amphitryon, placing the other child beneath a lamb’s-wool coverlet, +betook himself again to his bed, and gat him to his rest. + +The cocks were now but singing their third welcome to the earliest dawn, +when Alcmena called forth Tiresias, the seer that cannot lie, and told +him of the new portent, and bade him declare what things should come to +pass. + +‘Nay, and even if the gods devise some mischief, conceal it not from me +in ruth and pity; and how that mortals may not escape the doom that Fate +speeds from her spindle, O soothsayer Euerides, I am teaching thee, that +thyself knowest it right well.’ + +Thus spake the Queen, and thus he answered her: + +‘Be of good cheer, daughter of Perseus, woman that hast borne the noblest +of children [and lay up in thy heart the better of the things that are to +be]. For by the sweet light that long hath left mine eyes, I swear that +many Achaean women, as they card the soft wool about their knees, shall +sing at eventide, of Alcmena’s name, and thou shalt be honourable among +the women of Argos. Such a man, even this thy son, shall mount to the +starry firmament, the hero broad of breast, the master of all wild +beasts, and of all mankind. Twelve labours is he fated to accomplish, +and thereafter to dwell in the house of Zeus, but all his mortal part a +Trachinian pyre shall possess. + +‘And the son of the Immortals, by virtue of his bride, shall he be +called, even of them that urged forth these snakes from their dens to +destroy the child. Verily that day shall come when the ravening wolf, +beholding the fawn in his lair, will not seek to work him harm. + +‘But lady, see that thou hast fire at hand, beneath the embers, and let +make ready dry fuel of gorse, or thorn, or bramble, or pear boughs dried +with the wind’s buffeting, and on the wild fire burn these serpents +twain, at midnight, even at the hour when they would have slain thy +child. But at dawn let one of thy maidens gather the dust of the fire, +and bear and cast it all, every grain, over the river from the brow of +the broken cliff, {129} beyond the march of your land, and return again +without looking behind. Then cleanse your house with the fire of unmixed +sulphur first, and then, as is ordained, with a filleted bough sprinkle +holy water over all, mingled with salt. {130} And to Zeus supreme, +moreover, do ye sacrifice a young boar, that ye may ever have the mastery +over all your enemies.’ + +So spake he, and thrust back his ivory chair, and departed, even +Tiresias, despite the weight of all his many years. + +But Heracles was reared under his mother’s care, like some young sapling +in a garden close, being called the son of Amphitryon of Argos. And the +lad was taught his letters by the ancient Linus, Apollo’s son, a tutor +ever watchful. And to draw the bow, and send the arrow to the mark did +Eurytus teach him, Eurytus rich in wide ancestral lands. And Eumolpus, +son of Philammon, made the lad a minstrel, and formed his hands to the +boxwood lyre. And all the tricks wherewith the nimble Argive +cross-buttockers give each other the fall, and all the wiles of boxers +skilled with the gloves, and all the art that the rough and tumble +fighters have sought out to aid their science, all these did Heracles +learn from Harpalacus of Phanes, the son of Hermes. Him no man that +beheld, even from afar, would have confidently met as a wrestler in the +lists, so grim a brow overhung his dreadful face. And to drive forth his +horses ’neath the chariot, and safely to guide them round the goals, with +the naves of the wheels unharmed, Amphitryon taught his son in his +loving-kindness, Amphitryon himself, for many a prize had he borne away +from the fleet races in Argos, pasture-land of steeds, and unbroken were +the chariots that he mounted, till time loosened their leathern thongs. + +But to charge with spear in rest, against a foe, guarding, meanwhile, his +back with the shield, to bide the biting swords, to order a company, and +to measure, in his onslaught, the ambush of foemen, and to give horsemen +the word of command, he was taught by knightly Castor. An outlaw came +Castor out of Argos, when Tydeus was holding all the land and all the +wide vineyards, having received Argos, a land of steeds, from the hand of +Adrastus. No peer in war among the demigods had Castor, till age wore +down his youth. + +Thus did his dear mother let train Heracles, and the child’s bed was made +hard by his father’s; a lion’s skin was the coverlet he loved; his dinner +was roast meat, and a great Dorian loaf in a basket, a meal to satisfy a +delving hind. At the close of day he would take a meagre supper that +needed no fire to the cooking, and his plain kirtle fell no lower than +the middle of his shin. + + + +IDYL XXV +HERACLES THE LION-SLAYER + + +_This is another idyl of the epic sort_. _The poet’s interest in the +details of the rural life_, _and in the description of the herds of King +Augeas_, _seem to mark it as the work of Theocritus_. _It has_, +_however_, _been attributed by learned conjecture to various writers of +an older age_. _The idyl_, _or fragment_, _is incomplete_. _Heracles +visits the herds of Augeas_ (_to clean their stalls was one of his +labours_), _and_, _after an encounter with a bull_, _describes to the +king’s son his battle with the lion of Nemea_. + +. . . Him answered the old man, a husbandman that had the care of the +tillage, ceasing a moment from the work that lay betwixt his hands—‘Right +readily will I tell thee, stranger, concerning the things whereof thou +inquirest, for I revere the awful wrath of Hermes of the roadside. Yea +he, they say, is of all the heavenly Gods the most in anger, if any deny +the wayfarer that asks eagerly for the way. + +‘The fleecy flocks of the king Augeas feed not all on one pasture, nor in +one place, but some there be that graze by the river-banks round Elisus, +and some by the sacred stream of divine Alpheius, and some by Buprasium +rich in clusters of the vine, and some even in this place. And behold, +the pens for each herd after its kind are builded apart. Nay, but for +all the herds of Augeas, overflowing as they be, these pasture lands are +ever fresh and flowering, around the great marsh of Peneus, for with +herbage honey-sweet the dewy water-meadows are ever blossoming +abundantly, and this fodder it is that feeds the strength of horned kine. +And this their steading, on thy right hand stands all plain to view, +beyond the running river, there, where the plane-trees grow luxuriant, +and the green wild olive, a sacred grove, O stranger, of Apollo of the +pastures, a God most gracious unto prayer. Next thereto are builded long +rows of huts for the country folk, even for us that do zealously guard +the great and marvellous wealth of the king; casting in season the seed +in fallow lands, thrice, ay, and four times broken by the plough. As for +the marches, truly, the ditchers know them, men of many toils, who throng +to the wine-press at the coming of high summer tide. For, behold, all +this plain is held by gracious Augeas, and the wheat-bearing plough-land, +and the orchards with their trees, as far as the upland farm of the +ridge, whence the fountains spring; over all which lands we go labouring, +the whole day long, as is the wont of thralls that live their lives among +the fields. + +‘But, prithee, tell thou me, in thy turn (and for thine own gain it will +be), whom comest thou hither to seek; in quest, perchance, of Augeas, or +one of his servants? Of all these things, behold, I have knowledge, and +could tell thee plainly, for methinks that thou, for thy part, comest of +no churlish stock, nay, nor hath thy shape aught of the churl, so +excellent in might shows thy form. Lo, now, even such are the children +of the immortal Gods among mortal men.’ Then the mighty son of Zeus +answered him, saying— + +‘Yea, old man, I fain would see Augeas, prince of the Epeans, for truly +’twas need of him that brought me hither. If he abides at the town with +his citizens, caring for his people, and settling the pleas, do thou, old +man, bid one of the servants to guide me on the way, a head-man of the +more honourable sort in these fields, to whom I may both tell my desire, +and learn in turn what I would, for God has made all men dependent, each +on each.’ + +Then the old man, the worthy husbandman, answered him again— + +‘By the guidance of some one of the immortals hast thou come hither, +stranger, for verily all that thou requirest hath quickly been fulfilled. +For hither hath come Augeas, the dear son of Helios, with his own son, +the strong and princely Phyleus. But yesterday he came hither from the +city, to be overseeing after many days his substance, that he hath +uncounted in the fields. Thus do even kings in their inmost hearts +believe that the eye of the master makes the house more prosperous. Nay +come, let us hasten to him, and I will lead thee to our dwelling, where +methinks we shall find the king.’ + +So he spake, and began to lead the way, but in his mind, as he marked the +lion’s hide, and the club that filled the stranger’s fist, the old man +was deeply pondering as to whence he came, and ever he was eager to +inquire of him. But back again he kept catching the word as it rose to +his lips, in fear lest he should speak somewhat out of season (his +companion being in haste) for hard it is to know another’s mood. + +Now as they began to draw nigh, the dogs from afar were instantly aware +of them, both by the scent, and by the sound of footsteps, and, yelling +furiously, they charged from all sides against Heracles, son of +Amphitryon, while with faint yelping, on the other side, they greeted the +old man, and fawned around him. But he just lifted stones from the +ground, {135} and scared them away, and, raising his voice, he right +roughly chid them all, and made them cease from their yelping, being glad +in his heart withal for that they guarded his dwelling, even when he was +afar. Then thus he spake— + +‘Lo, what a comrade for men have the Gods, the lords of all, made in this +creature, how mindful is he! If he had but so much wit within him as to +know against whom he should rage, and with whom he should forbear, no +beast in the world could vie with his deserts. But now he is something +over-fierce and blindly furious.’ + +So he spake, and they hastened, and came even to that dwelling whither +they were faring. + +Now Helios had turned his steeds to the west, bringing the late day, and +the fatted sheep came up from the pastures to the pens and folds. Next +thereafter the kine approaching, ten thousand upon ten thousand, showed +for multitude even like the watery clouds that roll forward in heaven +under the stress of the South Wind, or the Thracian North (and countless +are they, and ceaseless in their airy passage, for the wind’s might rolls +up the rear as numerous as the van, and hosts upon hosts again are moving +in infinite array), even so many did herds upon herds of kine move ever +forwards. And, lo, the whole plain was filled, and all the ways, as the +cattle fared onwards, and the rich fields could not contain their lowing, +and the stalls were lightly filled with kine of trailing feet, and the +sheep were being penned in the folds. + +There no man, for lack of labour, stood idle by the cattle, though +countless men were there, but one was fastening guards of wood, with +shapely thongs, about the feet of the kine, that he might draw near and +stand by, and milk them. And another beneath their mothers kind was +placing the calves right eager to drink of the sweet milk. Yet another +held a milking pail, while his fellow was fixing the rich cheese, and +another led in the bulls apart from the cows. Meanwhile Augeas was going +round all the stalls, and marking the care his herdsmen bestowed upon all +that was his. And the king’s son, and the mighty, deep-pondering +Heracles, went along with the king, as he passed through his great +possessions. Then though he bore a stout spirit in his heart, and a mind +stablished always imperturbable, yet the son of Amphitryon still +marvelled out of measure, as he beheld these countless troops of cattle. +Yea none would have deemed or believed that the substance of one man +could be so vast, nay, nor ten men’s wealth, were they the richest in +sheep of all the kings in the world. But Helios to his son gave this +gift pre-eminent, namely to abound in flocks far above all other men, and +Helios himself did ever and always give increase to the cattle, for upon +his herds came no disease, of them that always minish the herdman’s toil. +But always more in number waxed the horned kine, and goodlier, year by +year, for verily they all brought forth exceeding abundantly, and never +cast their young, and chiefly bare heifers. + +With the kine went continually three hundred bulls, white-shanked, and +curved of horn,—and two hundred others, red cattle,—and all these already +were of an age to mate with the kine. Other twelve bulls, again, besides +these, went together in a herd, being sacred to Helios. They were white +as swans, and shone among all the herds of trailing gait. And these +disdaining the herds grazed still on the rich herbage in the pastures, +and they were exceeding high of heart. And whensoever the swift wild +beasts came down from the rough oakwood to the plain, to seek the wilder +cattle, afield went these bulls first to the fight, at the smell of the +savour of the beasts, bellowing fearfully, and glancing slaughter from +their brows. + +Among these bulls was one pre-eminent for strength and might, and for +reckless pride, even the mighty Phaethon, that all the herdsmen still +likened to a star, because he always shone so bright when he went among +the other cattle, and was right easy to be discerned. Now when this bull +beheld the dried skin of the fierce-faced lion, he rushed against the +keen-eyed Heracles himself, to dash his head and stalwart front against +the sides of the hero. Even as he charged, the prince forthwith grasped +him with strong hand by the left horn, and bowed his neck down to the +ground, puissant as he was, and, with the weight of his shoulder, crushed +him backwards, while clear stood out the strained muscle over the sinews +on the hero’s upper arm. Then marvelled the king himself, and his son, +the warlike Phyleus, and the herdsmen that were set over the horned +kine,—when they beheld the exceeding strength of the son of Amphitryon. + +Now these twain, even Phyleus and mighty Heracles, left the fat fields +there, and were making for the city. But just where they entered on the +highway, after quickly speeding over the narrow path that stretched +through the vineyard from the farmhouses, a dim path through the green +wood, thereby the dear son of Augeas bespake the child of supreme Zeus, +who was behind him, slightly turning his head over his right shoulder, + +‘Stranger, long time ago I heard a tale, which, as of late I guess, +surely concerneth thee. For there came hither, in his wayfaring out of +Argos, a certain young Achaean, from Helicé, by the seashore, who verily +told a tale and that among many Epeians here,—how, even in his presence, +a certain Argive slew a wild beast, a lion dread, a curse of evil omen to +the country folk. The monster had its hollow lair by the grove of Nemean +Zeus, but as for him that slew it, I know not surely whether he was a man +of sacred Argos, there, or a dweller in Tiryns city, or in Mycenae, as he +that told the tale declared. By birth, howbeit, he said (if rightly, I +recall it) that the hero was descended from Perseus. Methinks that none +of the Aegialeis had the hardihood for this deed save thyself; nay, the +hide of the beast that covers thy sides doth clearly proclaim the mighty +deed of thy hands. But come now, hero, tell thou me first, that truly I +may know, whether my foreboding be right or wrong,—if thou art that man +of whom the Achaean from Helicé spake in our hearing, and if I read thee +aright. Tell me how single-handed thou didst slay this ruinous pest, and +how it came to the well-watered ground of Nemea, for not in Apis couldst +thou find,—not though thou soughtest after it,—so great a monster. For +the country feeds no such large game, but bears, and boars, and the +pestilent race of wolves. Wherefore all were in amaze that listened to +the story, and there were some who said that the traveller was lying, and +pleasing them that stood by with the words of an idle tongue.’ + +Thus Phyleus spake, and stepped out of the middle of the road, that there +might be space for both to walk abreast, and that so he might hear the +more easily the words of Heracles who now came abreast with him, and +spake thus, + +‘O son of Augeas, concerning that whereof thou first didst ask me, +thyself most easily hast discerned it aright. Nay then, about this +monster I will tell thee all, even how all was done,—since thou art eager +to hear,—save, indeed, as to whence he came, for, many as the Argives be, +not one can tell that clearly. Only we guess that some one of the +Immortals, in wrath for sacrifice unoffered, sent this bane against the +children of Phoroneus. For over all the men of Pisa the lion swept, like +a flood, and still ravaged insatiate, and chiefly spoiled the +Bembinaeans, that were his neighbours, and endured things intolerable. + +‘Now this labour did Eurystheus enjoin on me to fulfil the first of all, +and bade me slay the dreadful monster. So I took my supple bow, and +hollow quiver full of arrows, and set forth; and in my other hand I held +my stout club, well balanced, and wrought, with unstripped bark, from a +shady wild olive-tree, that I myself had found, under sacred Helicon, and +dragged up the whole tree, with the bushy roots. But when I came to the +place whereby the lion abode, even then I grasped my bow and slipped the +string up to the curved tip, and straightway laid thereon the bitter +arrow. Then I cast my eyes on every side, spying for the baneful +monster, if perchance I might see him, or ever he saw me. It was now +midday, and nowhere might I discern the tracks of the monster, nor hear +his roaring. Nay, nor was there one man to be seen with the cattle, and +the tillage through all the furrowed lea, of whom I might inquire, but +wan fear still held them all within the homesteads. Yet I stayed not in +my going, as I quested through the deep-wooded hill, till I beheld him, +and instantly essayed my prowess. Now early in the evening he was making +for his lair, full fed with blood and flesh, and all his bristling mane +was dashed with carnage, and his fierce face, and his breast, and still +with his tongue he kept licking his bearded chin. Then instantly I hid +me in the dark undergrowth, on the wooded hill, awaiting his approach, +and as he came nearer I smote him on the left flank, but all in vain, for +naught did the sharp arrow pierce through his flesh, but leaped back, and +fell on the green grass. Then quickly he raised his tawny head from the +ground, in amaze, glancing all around with his eyes, and with jaws +distent he showed his ravenous teeth. Then I launched against him +another shaft from the string, in wrath that the former flew vainly from +my hand, and I smote him right in the middle of the breast, where the +lung is seated, yet not even so did the cruel arrow sink into his hide, +but fell before his feet, in vain, to no avail. Then for the third time +was I making ready to draw my bow again, in great shame and wrath, but +the furious beast glanced his eyes around, and spied me. With his long +tail he lashed his flanks, and straightway bethought him of battle. His +neck was clothed with wrath, and his tawny hair bristled round his +lowering brow, and his spine was curved like a bow, his whole force being +gathered up from under towards his flanks and loins. And as when a +wainwright, one skilled in many an art, doth bend the saplings of +seasoned fig-tree, having first tempered them in the fire, to make tires +for the axles of his chariot, and even then the fig-tree wood is like to +leap from his hands in the bending, and springs far away at a single +bound, even so the dread lion leaped on me from afar, huddled in a heap, +and keen to glut him with my flesh. Then with one hand I thrust in front +of me my arrows, and the double folded cloak from my shoulder, and with +the other raised the seasoned club above my head, and drove at his crest, +and even on the shaggy scalp of the insatiate beast brake my grievous +cudgel of wild olive-tree. Then or ever he reached me, he fell from his +flight, on to the ground, and stood on trembling feet, with wagging head, +for darkness gathered about both his eyes, his brain being shaken in his +skull with the violence of the blow. Then when I marked how he was +distraught with the grievous torment, or ever he could turn and gain +breath again, I fell on him, and seized him by the column of his stubborn +neck. To earth I cast my bow, and woven quiver, and strangled him with +all my force, gripping him with stubborn clasp from the rear, lest he +should rend my flesh with his claws, and I sprang on him and kept firmly +treading his hind feet into the soil with my heels, while I used his +sides to guard my thighs, till I had strained his shoulders utterly, then +lifted him up, all breathless,—and Hell took his monstrous life. + +‘And then at last I took thought how I should strip the rough hide from +the dead beast’s limbs, a right hard labour, for it might not be cut with +steel, when I tried, nor stone, nor with aught else. {143} Thereon one +of the Immortals put into my mind the thought to cleave the lion’s hide +with his own claws. With these I speedily flayed it off, and cast it +about my limbs, for my defence against the brunt of wounding war. + +‘Friend, lo even thus befel the slaying of the Nemean Lion, that +aforetime had brought many a bane on flocks and men.’ + + + +IDYL XXVI + + +_This idyl narrates the murder of Pentheus_, _who was torn to pieces_ +(_after the Dionysiac Ritual_) _by his mother_, _Agave_, _and other +Theban women_, _for having watched the celebration of the mysteries of +Dionysus_. _It is still dangerous for an Australian native to approach +the women of the tribe while they are celebrating their savage rites_. +_The conservatism of Greek religion is well illustrated by Theocritus’s +apology for the truly savage revenge commemorated in the old Theban +legend_. + + * * * * * + +INO, and Autonoe, and Agave of the apple cheeks,—three bands of Maenads +to the mountain-side they led, these ladies three. They stripped the +wild leaves of a rugged oak, and fresh ivy, and asphodel of the upper +earth, and in an open meadow they built twelve altars; for Semele three, +and nine for Dionysus. The mystic cakes {144} from the mystic chest they +had taken in their hands, and in silence had laid them on the altars of +new-stripped boughs; so Dionysus ever taught the rite, and herewith was +he wont to be well pleased. + +Now Pentheus from a lofty cliff was watching all, deep hidden in an +ancient lentisk hush, a plant of that land. Autonoe first beheld him, +and shrieked a dreadful yell, and, rushing suddenly, with her feet dashed +all confused the mystic things of Bacchus the wild. For these are things +unbeholden of men profane. Frenzied was she, and then forthwith the +others too were frenzied. Then Pentheus fled in fear, and they pursued +after him, with raiment kirtled through the belt above the knee. + +This much said Pentheus, ‘Women, what would ye?’ and thus answered +Autonoe, ‘That shalt thou straightway know, ere thou hast heard it.’ + +The mother seized her child’s head, and cried loud, as is the cry of a +lioness over her cubs, while Ino, for her part, set her heel on the body, +and brake asunder the broad shoulder, shoulder-blade and all, and in the +same strain wrought Autonoe. The other women tore the remnants +piecemeal, and to Thebes they came, all bedabbled with blood, from the +mountains bearing not Pentheus but repentance. {145} + +I care for none of these things, nay, nor let another take thought to +make himself the foe of Dionysus, not though one should suffer yet +greater torments than these,—being but a child of nine years old or +entering, perchance, on his tenth year. For me, may I be pure and holy, +and find favour in the eyes of the pure! + +From aegis-bearing Zeus hath this augury all honour, ‘to the children of +the godly the better fortune, but evil befall the offspring of the +ungodly.’ + +‘Hail to Dionysus, whom Zeus supreme brought forth in snowy Dracanus, +when he had unburdened his mighty thigh, and hail to beautiful Semele: +and to her sisters,—Cadmeian ladies honoured of all daughters of +heroes,—who did this deed at the behest of Dionysus, a deed not to be +blamed; let no man blame the actions of the gods.’ + + + +IDYL XXVII +THE WOOING OF DAPHNIS + + +_The authenticity of this idyl has been denied_, _partly because the +Daphnis of the poem is not identical in character with the Daphnis of the +first idyl_. _But the piece is certainly worthy of a place beside the +work of Theocritus_. _The dialogue is here arranged as in the text of +Fritzsche_. + + * * * * * + +_The Maiden_. Helen the wise did Paris, another neatherd, ravish! + +_Daphnis_. ’Tis rather this Helen that kisses her shepherd, even me! +{147} + +_The Maiden_. Boast not, little satyr, for kisses they call an empty +favour. + +_Daphnis_. Nay, even in empty kisses there is a sweet delight. + +_The Maiden_. I wash my lips, I blow away from me thy kisses! + +_Daphnis_. Dost thou wash thy lips? Then give me them again to kiss! + +_The Maiden_. ’Tis for thee to caress thy kine, not a maiden unwed. + +_Daphnis_. Boast not, for swiftly thy youth flits by thee, like a dream. + +_The Maiden_. The grapes turn to raisins, not wholly will the dry rose +perish. + +_Daphnis_. Come hither, beneath the wild olives, that I may tell thee a +tale. + +_The Maiden_. I will not come; ay, ere now with a sweet tale didst thou +beguile me. + +_Daphnis_. Come hither, beneath the elms, to listen to my pipe! + +_The Maiden_. Nay, please thyself, no woful tune delights me. + +_Daphnis_. Ah maiden, see that thou too shun the anger of the Paphian. + +_The Maiden_. Good-bye to the Paphian, let Artemis only be friendly! + +_Daphnis_. Say not so, lest she smite thee, and thou fall into a trap +whence there is no escape. + +_The Maiden_. Let her smite an she will; Artemis again would be my +defender. Lay no hand on me; nay, if thou do more, and touch me with thy +lips, I will bite thee. {148} + +_Daphnis_. From Love thou dost not flee, whom never yet maiden fled. + +_The Maiden_. Escape him, by Pan, I do, but thou dost ever bear his +yoke. + +_Daphnis_. This is ever my fear lest he even give thee to a meaner man. + +_The Maiden_. Many have been my wooers, but none has won my heart. + +_Daphnis_. Yea I, out of many chosen, come here thy wooer. + +_The Maiden_. Dear love, what can I do? Marriage has much annoy. + +_Daphnis_. Nor pain nor sorrow has marriage, but mirth and dancing. + +_The Maiden_. Ay, but they say that women dread their lords. + +_Daphnis_. Nay, rather they always rule them,—whom do women fear? + +_The Maiden_. Travail I dread, and sharp is the shaft of Eilithyia. + +_Daphnis_. But thy queen is Artemis, that lightens labour. + +_The Maiden_. But I fear childbirth, lest, perchance, I lose my beauty. + +_Daphnis_. Nay, if thou bearest dear children thou wilt see the light +revive in thy sons. + +_The Maiden_. And what wedding gift dost thou bring me if I consent? + +_Daphnis_. My whole flock, all my groves, and all my pasture land shall +be thine. + +_The Maiden_. Swear that thou wilt not win me, and then depart and leave +me forlorn. + +_Daphnis_. So help me Pan I would not leave thee, didst thou even choose +to banish me! + +_The Maiden_. Dost thou build me bowers, and a house, and folds for +flocks? + +_Daphnis_. Yea, bowers I build thee, the flocks I tend are fair. + +_The Maiden_. But to my grey old father, what tale, ah what, shall I +tell? + +_Daphnis_. He will approve thy wedlock when he has heard my name. + +_The Maiden_. Prithee, tell me that name of thine; in a name there is +often delight. + +_Daphnis_. Daphnis am I, Lycidas is my father, and Nomaea is my mother. + +_The Maiden_. Thou comest of men well-born, but there I am thy match. + +_Daphnis_. I know it, thou art of high degree, for thy father is +Menalcas. {150a} + +_The Maiden_. Show me thy grove, wherein is thy cattle-stall. + +_Daphnis_. See here, how they bloom, my slender cypress-trees. + +_The Maiden_. Graze on, my goats, I go to learn the herdsman’s labours. + +_Daphnis_. Feed fair, my bulls, while I show my woodlands to my lady! + +_The Maiden_. What dost thou, little satyr; why dost thou touch my +breast? + +_Daphnis_. I will show thee that these earliset apples are ripe. {150b} + +_The Maiden_. By Pan, I swoon; away, take back thy hand. + +_Daphnis_. Courage, dear girl, why fearest thou me, thou art over +fearful! + +_The Maiden_. Thou makest me lie down by the water-course, defiling my +fair raiment! + +_Daphnis_. Nay, see, ’neath thy raiment fair I am throwing this soft +fleece. + +_The Maiden_. Ah, ah, thou hast snatched my girdle too; why hast thou +loosed my girdle? + +_Daphnis_. These first-fruits I offer, a gift to the Paphian. + +_The Maiden_. Stay, wretch, hark; surely a stranger cometh; nay, I hear +a sound. + +_Daphnis_. The cypresses do but whisper to each other of thy wedding. + +_The Maiden_. Thou hast torn my mantle, and unclad am I. + +_Daphnis_. Another mantle I will give thee, and an ampler far than +thine. + +_The Maiden_. Thou dost promise all things, but soon thou wilt not give +me even a grain of salt. + +_Daphnis_. Ah, would that I could give thee my very life. + +_The Maiden_. Artemis, be not wrathful, thy votary breaks her vow. + +_Daphnis_. I will slay a calf for Love, and for Aphrodite herself a +heifer. + +_The Maiden_. A maiden I came hither, a woman shall I go homeward. + +_Daphnis_. Nay, a wife and a mother of children shalt thou be, no more a +maiden. + +So, each to each, in the joy of their young fresh limbs they were +murmuring: it was the hour of secret love. Then she arose, and stole to +herd her sheep; with shamefast eyes she went, but her heart was comforted +within her. And he went to his herds of kine, rejoicing in his wedlock. + + + +IDYL XXVIII + + +_This little piece of Aeolic verse accompanied the present of a distaff +which Theocritus brought from Syracuse to Theugenis_, _the wife of his +friend Nicias_, _the physician of Miletus_. _On the margin of a +translation by Longepierre_ (_the famous book-collector_), _Louis XIV +wrote that this idyl is a model of honourable gallantry_. + + * * * * * + +O DISTAFF, thou friend of them that spin, gift of grey-eyed Athene to +dames whose hearts are set on housewifery; come, boldly come with me to +the bright city of Neleus, where the shrine of the Cyprian is green +’neath its roof of delicate rushes. Thither I pray that we may win fair +voyage and favourable breeze from Zeus, that so I may gladden mine eyes +with the sight of Nicias my friend, and be greeted of him in turn;—a +sacred scion is he of the sweet-voiced Graces. And thee, distaff, thou +child of fair carven ivory, I will give into the hands of the wife of +Nicias: with her shalt thou fashion many a thing, garments for men, and +much rippling raiment that women wear. For the mothers of lambs in the +meadows might twice be shorn of their wool in the year, with her +goodwill, the dainty-ankled Theugenis, so notable is she, and cares for +all things that wise matrons love. + +Nay, not to houses slatternly or idle would I have given thee, distaff, +seeing that thou art a countryman of mine. For that is thy native city +which Archias out of Ephyre founded, long ago, the very marrow of the +isle of the three capes, a town of honourable men. {153} But now shalt +thou abide in the house of a wise physician, who has learned all the +spells that ward off sore maladies from men, and thou shalt dwell in glad +Miletus with the Ionian people, to this end,—that of all the townsfolk +Theugenis may have the goodliest distaff and that thou mayst keep her +ever mindful of her friend, the lover of song. + +This proverb will each man utter that looks on thee, ‘Surely great grace +goes with a little gift, and all the offerings of friends are precious.’ + + + +IDYL XXIX + + +_This poem_, _like the preceding one_, _is written in the Aeolic +dialect_. _The first line is quoted from Alcaeus_. _The idyl is +attributed to Theocritus on the evidence of the scholiast on the +Symposium of Plato_. + + * * * * * + +‘WINE and truth,’ dear child, says the proverb, and in wine are we, and +the truth we must tell. Yes, I will say to thee all that lies in my +soul’s inmost chamber. Thou dost not care to love me with thy whole +heart! I know, for I live half my life in the sight of thy beauty, but +all the rest is ruined. When thou art kind, my day is like the days of +the Blessed, but when thou art unkind, ’tis deep in darkness. How can it +be right thus to torment thy friend? Nay, if thou wilt listen at all, +child, to me, that am thine elder, happier thereby wilt thou be, and some +day thou wilt thank me. Build one nest in one tree, where no fierce +snake can come; for now thou dost perch on one branch to-day, and on +another to-morrow, always seeking what is new. And if a stranger see and +praise thy pretty face, instantly to him thou art more than a friend of +three years’ standing, while him that loved thee first thou holdest no +higher than a friend of three days. Thou savourest, methinks, of the +love of some great one; nay, choose rather all thy life ever to keep the +love of one that is thy peer. If this thou dost thou wilt be well spoken +of by thy townsmen, and Love will never be hard to thee, Love that +lightly vanquishes the minds of men, and has wrought to tenderness my +heart that was of steel. Nay, by thy delicate mouth I approach and +beseech thee, remember that thou wert younger yesteryear, and that we wax +grey and wrinkled, or ever we can avert it; and none may recapture his +youth again, for the shoulders of youth are winged, and we are all too +slow to catch such flying pinions. + +Mindful of this thou shouldst be gentler, and love me without guile as I +love thee, so that, when thou hast a manly beard, we may be such friends +as were Achilles and Patroclus! + +But, if thou dost cast all I say to the winds to waft afar, and cry, in +anger, ‘Why, why, dost thou torment me?’ then I,—that now for thy sake +would go to fetch the golden apples, or to bring thee Cerberus, the +watcher of the dead,—would not go forth, didst thou stand at the +court-doors and call me. I should have rest from my cruel love. + + +FRAGMENT OF THE BERENICE. + + +_Athenaeus_ (_vii._ 284 _A_) _quotes this fragment_, _which probably was +part of a panegyric on Berenice_, _the mother of Ptolemy Philadelphus_. + + * * * * * + +AND if any man that hath his livelihood from the salt sea, and whose nets +serve him for ploughs, prays for wealth, and luck in fishing, let him +sacrifice, at midnight, to this goddess, the sacred fish that they call +‘silver white,’ for that it is brightest of sheen of all,—then let the +fisher set his nets, and he shall draw them full from the sea. + + + +IDYL XXX +THE DEAD ADONIS + + +_This idyl is usually printed with the poems of Theocritus_, _but almost +certainly is by another hand_. _I have therefore ventured to imitate the +metre of the original_. + + * * * * * + + WHEN Cypris saw Adonis, + In death already lying + With all his locks dishevelled, + And cheeks turned wan and ghastly, + She bade the Loves attendant + To bring the boar before her. + + And lo, the winged ones, fleetly + They scoured through all the wild wood; + The wretched boar they tracked him, + And bound and doubly bound him. + One fixed on him a halter, + And dragged him on, a captive, + Another drave him onward, + And smote him with his arrows. + But terror-struck the beast came, + For much he feared Cythere. + To him spake Aphrodite,— + ‘Of wild beasts all the vilest, + This thigh, by thee was ’t wounded? + Was ’t thou that smote my lover?’ + To her the beast made answer— + ‘I swear to thee, Cythere, + By thee, and by thy lover, + Yea, and by these my fetters, + And them that do pursue me,— + Thy lord, thy lovely lover + I never willed to wound him; + I saw him, like a statue, + And could not bide the burning, + Nay, for his thigh was naked, + And mad was I to kiss it, + And thus my tusk it harmed him. + Take these my tusks, O Cypris, + And break them, and chastise them, + For wherefore should I wear them, + These passionate defences? + If this doth not suffice thee, + Then cut my lips out also, + Why dared they try to kiss him?’ + + Then Cypris had compassion; + She bade the Loves attendant + To loose the bonds that bound him. + From that day her he follows, + And flees not to the wild wood + But joins the Loves, and always + He bears Love’s flame unflinching. + + + +EPIGRAMS + + +_The Epigrams of Theocritus are_, _for the most part_, _either +inscriptions for tombs or cenotaphs_, _or for the pedestals of statues_, +_or_ (_as the third epigram_) _are short occasional pieces_. _Several of +them are but doubtfully ascribed to the poet of the Idyls_. _The Greek +has little but brevity in common with the modern epigram_. + + +I +_For a rustic Altar_. + + +THESE dew-drenched roses and that tufted thyme are offered to the ladies +of Helicon. And the dark-leaved laurels are thine, O Pythian Paean, +since the rock of Delphi bare this leafage to thine honour. The altar +this white-horned goat shall stain with blood, this goat that browses on +the tips of the terebinth boughs. + + +II +_For a Herdsman’s Offering_. + + +DAPHNIS, the white-limbed Daphnis, that pipes on his fair flute the +pastoral strains offered to Pan these gifts,—his pierced reed-pipes, his +crook, a javelin keen, a fawn-skin, and the scrip wherein he was wont, on +a time, to carry the apples of Love. + + +III +_For a Picture_. + + +THOU sleepest on the leaf-strewn ground, O Daphnis, resting thy weary +limbs, and the stakes of thy nets are newly fastened on the hills. But +Pan is on thy track, and Priapus, with the golden ivy wreath twined round +his winsome head,—both are leaping at one bound into thy cavern. Nay, +flee them, flee, shake off thy slumber, shake off the heavy sleep that is +falling upon thee. + + +IV +_Priapus_. + + +WHEN thou hast turned yonder lane, goatherd, where the oak-trees are, +thou wilt find an image of fig-tree wood, newly carven; three-legged it +is, the bark still covers it, and it is earless withal, yet meet for the +arts of Cypris. A right holy precinct runs round it, and a ceaseless +stream that falleth from the rocks on every side is green with laurels, +and myrtles, and fragrant cypress. And all around the place that child +of the grape, the vine, doth flourish with its tendrils, and the merles +in spring with their sweet songs utter their wood-notes wild, and the +brown nightingales reply with their complaints, pouring from their bills +the honey-sweet song. There, prithee, sit down and pray to gracious +Priapus, that I may be delivered from my love of Daphnis, and say that +instantly thereon I will sacrifice a fair kid. But if he refuse, ah +then, should I win Daphnis’s love, I would fain sacrifice three +victims,—and offer a calf, a shaggy he-goat, and a lamb that I keep in +the stall, and oh that graciously the god may hear my prayer. + + +V +_The rural Concert_. + + +AH, in the Muses’ name, wilt thou play me some sweet air on the double +flute, and I will take up the harp, and touch a note, and the neatherd +Daphnis will charm us the while, breathing music into his wax-bound pipe. +And beside this rugged oak behind the cave will we stand, and rob the +goat-foot Pan of his repose. + + +VI +_The Dead are beyond hope_. + + +AH hapless Thyrsis, where is thy gain, shouldst thou lament till thy two +eyes are consumed with tears? She has passed away,—the kid, the +youngling beautiful,—she has passed away to Hades. Yea, the jaws of the +fierce wolf have closed on her, and now the hounds are baying, but what +avail they when nor bone nor cinder is left of her that is departed? + + +VII +_For a statue of Asclepius_. + + +EVEN to Miletus he hath come, the son of Paeon, to dwell with one that is +a healer of all sickness, with Nicias, who even approaches him day by day +with sacrifices, and hath let carve this statue out of fragrant +cedar-wood; and to Eetion he promised a high guerdon for his skill of +hand: on this work Eetion has put forth all his craft. + + +VIII +_Orthon’s Grave_. + + +STRANGER, the Syracusan Orthon lays this behest on thee; go never abroad +in thy cups on a night of storm. For thus did I come by my end, and far +from my rich fatherland I lie, clothed on with alien soil. + + +IX +_The Death of Cleonicus_. + + +MAN, husband thy life, nor go voyaging out of season, for brief are the +days of men! Unhappy Cleonicus, thou wert eager to win rich Thasus, from +Coelo-Syria sailing with thy merchandise,—with thy merchandise, O +Cleonicus, at the setting of the Pleiades didst thou cross the sea,—and +didst sink with the sinking Pleiades! + + +X +_A Group of the Muses_. + + +FOR your delight, all ye Goddesses Nine, did Xenocles offer this statue +of marble, Xenocles that hath music in his soul, as none will deny. And +inasmuch as for his skill in this art he wins renown, he forgets not to +give their due to the Muses. + + +XI +_The Grave of Eusthenes_. + + +THIS is the memorial stone of Eusthenes, the sage; a physiognomist was +he, and skilled to read the very spirit in the eyes. Nobly have his +friends buried him—a stranger in a strange land—and most dear was he, +yea, to the makers of song. All his dues in death has the sage, and, +though he was no great one, ’tis plain he had friends to care for him. + + +XII +_The Offering of Demoteles_. + + +’TWAS Demoteles the choregus, O Dionysus, who dedicated this tripod, and +this statue of thee, the dearest of the blessed gods. No great fame he +won when he gave a chorus of boys, but with a chorus of men he bore off +the victory, for he knew what was fair and what was seemly. + + +XIII +_For a statue of Aphrodite_. + + +THIS is Cypris,—not she of the people; nay, venerate the goddess by her +name—the Heavenly Aphrodite. The statue is the offering of chaste +Chrysogone, even in the house of Amphicles, whose children and whose life +were hers! And always year by year went well with them, who began each +year with thy worship, Lady, for mortals who care for the Immortals have +themselves thereby the better fortune. + + +XIV +_The Grave of Euryrnedon_. + + +AN infant son didst thou leave behind, and in the flower of thine own age +didst die, Eurymedon, and win this tomb. For thee a throne is set among +men made perfect, but thy son the citizens will hold in honour, +remembering the excellence of his father. + + +XV +_The Grave of Eurymedon_. + + +WAYFARER, I shall know whether thou dost reverence the good, or whether +the coward is held by thee in the same esteem. ‘Hail to this tomb,’ thou +wilt say, for light it lies above the holy head of Eurymedon. + + +XVI +_For a statue of Anacreon_. + + +MARK well this statue, stranger, and say, when thou hast returned to thy +home, ‘In Teos I beheld the statue of Anacreon, who surely excelled all +the singers of times past.’ And if thou dost add that he delighted in +the young, thou wilt truly paint all the man. + + +XVII +_For a statue of Epicharmus_. + + +DORIAN is the strain, and Dorian the man we sing; he that first devised +Comedy, even Epicharmus. O Bacchus, here in bronze (as the man is now no +more) they have erected his statue, the colonists {165} that dwell in +Syracuse, to the honour of one that was their fellow-citizen. Yea, for a +gift he gave, wherefore we should be mindful thereof and pay him what +wage we may, for many maxims he spoke that were serviceable to the life +of all men. Great thanks be his. + + +XVIII +_The Grave of Cleita_. + + +THE little Medeus has raised this tomb by the wayside to the memory of +his Thracian nurse, and has added the inscription— + + HERE LIES CLEITA. + +THE woman will have this recompense for all her careful nurture of the +boy,—and why?—because she was serviceable even to the end. + + +XIX +_The statue of Archilochus_. + + +STAY, and behold Archilochus, him of old time, the maker of iambics, +whose myriad fame has passed westward, alike, and towards the dawning +day. Surely the Muses loved him, yea, and the Delian Apollo, so +practised and so skilled he grew in forging song, and chanting to the +lyre. + + +XX +_The statue of Pisander_. + + +THIS man, behold, Pisander of Corinth, of all the ancient makers was the +first who wrote of the son of Zeus, the lion-slayer, the ready of hand, +and spake of all the adventures that with toil he achieved. Know this +therefore, that the people set him here, a statue of bronze, when many +months had gone by and many years. + + +XXI +_The Grave of Hipponax_. + + +HERE lies the poet Hipponax! If thou art a sinner draw not near this +tomb, but if thou art a true man, and the son of righteous sires, sit +boldly down here, yea, and sleep if thou wilt. + + +XXII +_For the Bank of Caicus_. + + +TO citizens and strangers alike this counter deals justice. If thou hast +deposited aught, draw out thy money when the balance-sheet is cast up. +Let others make false excuse, but Caicus tells back money lent, ay, even +if one wish it after nightfall. + + +XXIII +_On his own Poems_. {167} + + +THE Chian is another man, but I, Theocritus, who wrote these songs, am a +Syracusan, a man of the people, being the son of Praxagoras and renowned +Philinna. Never laid I claim to any Muse but mine own. + + + + +BION + + + Πίδακος έξ ίερης ολίγη λιβας ακρον αωτον.—_Callimachus_. + +BION was born at Smyrna, one of the towns which claimed the honour of +being Homer’s birthplace. On the evidence of a detached verse (94) of +the dirge by Moschus, some have thought that Theocritus survived Bion. +In that case Theocritus must have been a preternaturally aged man. The +same dirge tells us that Bion was poisoned by certain enemies, and that +while he left to others his wealth, to Moschus he left his minstrelsy. + + + +I +THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS + + +_This poem was probably intended to be sung at one of the spring +celebrations of the festival of Adonis_, _like that described by +Theocritus in his fifteenth idyl_. + + * * * * * + +WOE, woe for Adonis, he hath perished, the beauteous Adonis, dead is the +beauteous Adonis, the Loves join in the lament. No more in thy purple +raiment, Cypris, do thou sleep; arise, thou wretched one, sable-stoled, +and beat thy breasts, and say to all, ‘He hath perished, the lovely +Adonis!’ + +_Woe_, _woe for Adonis_, _the Loves join in the lament_! + +Low on the hills is lying the lovely Adonis, and his thigh with the +boar’s tusk, his white thigh with the boar’s tusk is wounded, and sorrow +on Cypris he brings, as softly he breathes his life away. + +His dark blood drips down his skin of snow, beneath his brows his eyes +wax heavy and dim, and the rose flees from his lip, and thereon the very +kiss is dying, the kiss that Cypris will never forego. + +To Cypris his kiss is dear, though he lives no longer, but Adonis knew +not that she kissed him as he died. + +_Woe_, _woe for Adonis_, _the Loves join in the lament_! + +A cruel, cruel wound on his thigh hath Adonis, but a deeper wound in her +heart doth Cytherea bear. About him his dear hounds are loudly baying, +and the nymphs of the wild wood wail him; but Aphrodite with unbound +locks through the glades goes wandering,—wretched, with hair unbraided, +with feet unsandaled, and the thorns as she passes wound her and pluck +the blossom of her sacred blood. Shrill she wails as down the long +woodlands she is borne, lamenting her Assyrian lord, and again calling +him, and again. But round his navel the dark blood leapt forth, with +blood from his thighs his chest was scarlet, and beneath Adonis’s breast, +the spaces that afore were snow-white, were purple with blood. + +_Woe_, _woe for Cytherea_, _the Loves join in the lament_! + +She hath lost her lovely lord, with him she hath lost her sacred beauty. +Fair was the form of Cypris, while Adonis was living, but her beauty has +died with Adonis! _Woe_, _woe for Cypris_, the mountains all are saying, +and the oak-trees answer, _Woe for Adonis_. And the rivers bewail the +sorrows of Aphrodite, and the wells are weeping Adonis on the mountains. +The flowers flush red for anguish, and Cytherea through all the +mountain-knees, through every dell doth shrill the piteous dirge. + +_Woe_, _woe for Cytherea_, _he hath perished_, _the lovely Adonis_! + +And Echo cried in answer, _He hath perished_, _the lovely Adonis_. Nay, +who but would have lamented the grievous love of Cypris? When she saw, +when she marked the unstaunched wound of Adonis, when she saw the bright +red blood about his languid thigh, she cast her arms abroad and moaned, +‘Abide with me, Adonis, hapless Adonis abide, that this last time of all +I may possess thee, that I may cast myself about thee, and lips with lips +may mingle. Awake Adonis, for a little while, and kiss me yet again, the +latest kiss! Nay kiss me but a moment, but the lifetime of a kiss, till +from thine inmost soul into my lips, into my heart, thy life-breath ebb, +and till I drain thy sweet love-philtre, and drink down all thy love. +This kiss will I treasure, even as thyself; Adonis, since, ah ill-fated, +thou art fleeing me, thou art fleeing far, Adonis, and art faring to +Acheron, to that hateful king and cruel, while wretched I yet live, being +a goddess, and may not follow thee! Persephone, take thou my lover, my +lord, for thy self art stronger than I, and all lovely things drift down +to thee. But I am all ill-fated, inconsolable is my anguish, and I +lament mine Adonis, dead to me, and I have no rest for sorrow. + +‘Thou diest, O thrice-desired, and my desire hath flown away as a dream. +Nay, widowed is Cytherea, and idle are the Loves along the halls! With +thee has the girdle of my beauty perished. For why, ah overbold, didst +thou follow the chase, and being so fair, why wert thou thus overhardy to +fight with beasts?’ + +So Cypris bewailed her, the Loves join in the lament: + +_Woe_, _woe for Cytherea_, _he hath perished the lovely Adonis_! + +A tear the Paphian sheds for each blood-drop of Adonis, and tears and +blood on the earth are turned to flowers. The blood brings forth the +rose, the tears, the wind-flower. + +_Woe_, _woe for Adonis_, _he hath perished_; _the lovely Adonis_! + +No more in the oak-woods, Cypris, lament thy lord. It is no fair couch +for Adonis, the lonely bed of leaves! Thine own bed, Cytherea, let him +now possess,—the dead Adonis. Ah, even in death he is beautiful, +beautiful in death, as one that hath fallen on sleep. Now lay him down +to sleep in his own soft coverlets, wherein with thee through the night +he shared the holy slumber in a couch all of gold, that yearns for +Adonis, though sad is he to look upon. Cast on him garlands and +blossoms: all things have perished in his death, yea all the flowers are +faded. Sprinkle him with ointments of Syria, sprinkle him with unguents +of myrrh. Nay, perish all perfumes, for Adonis, who was thy perfume, +hath perished. + +He reclines, the delicate Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and around +him the Loves are weeping, and groaning aloud, clipping their locks for +Adonis. And one upon his shafts, another on his bow is treading, and one +hath loosed the sandal of Adonis, and another hath broken his own +feathered quiver, and one in a golden vessel bears water, and another +laves the wound, and another from behind him with his wings is fanning +Adonis. + +_Woe_, _woe for Cytherea_, _the Loves join in the lament_! + +Every torch on the lintels of the door has Hymenaeus quenched, and hath +torn to shreds the bridal crown, and _Hymen_ no more, _Hymen_ no more is +the song, but a new song is sung of wailing. + +‘_Woe_, _woe for Adonis_,’ rather than the nuptial song the Graces are +shrilling, lamenting the son of Cinyras, and one to the other declaring, +_He hath perished_, _the lovely Adonis_. + +And _woe_, _woe for Adonis_, shrilly cry the Muses, neglecting Paeon, and +they lament Adonis aloud, and songs they chant to him, but he does not +heed them, not that he is loth to hear, but that the Maiden of Hades doth +not let him go. + +Cease, Cytherea, from thy lamentations, to-day refrain from thy dirges. +Thou must again bewail him, again must weep for him another year. + + + +II +THE LOVE OF ACHILLES + + +_Lycidas sings to Myrson a fragment about the loves of Achilles and +Deidamia_. + + * * * * * + +_Myrson_. Wilt thou be pleased now, Lycidas, to sing me sweetly some +sweet Sicilian song, some wistful strain delectable, some lay of love, +such as the Cyclops Polyphemus sang on the sea-banks to Galatea? + +_Lycidas_. Yes, Myrson, and I too fain would pipe, but what shall I +sing? + +_Myrson_. A song of Scyra, Lycidas, is my desire,—a sweet +love-story,—the stolen kisses of the son of Peleus, the stolen bed of +love how he, that was a boy, did on the weeds of women, and how he belied +his form, and how among the heedless daughters of Lycomedes, Deidamia +cherished Achilles in her bower. {176} + +_Lycidas_. The herdsman bore off Helen, upon a time, and carried her to +Ida, sore sorrow to Œnone. And Lacedaemon waxed wroth, and gathered +together all the Achaean folk; there was never a Hellene, not one of the +Mycenaeans, nor any man of Elis, nor of the Laconians, that tarried in +his house, and shunned the cruel Ares. + +But Achilles alone lay hid among the daughters of Lycomedes, and was +trained to work in wools, in place of arms, and in his white hand held +the bough of maidenhood, in semblance a maiden. For he put on women’s +ways, like them, and a bloom like theirs blushed on his cheek of snow, +and he walked with maiden gait, and covered his locks with the snood. +But the heart of a man had he, and the love of a man. From dawn to dark +he would sit by Deidamia, and anon would kiss her hand, and oft would +lift the beautiful warp of her loom and praise the sweet threads, having +no such joy in any other girl of her company. Yea, all things he +essayed, and all for one end, that they twain might share an undivided +sleep. + +Now he once even spake to her, saying— + +‘With one another other sisters sleep, but I lie alone, and alone, +maiden, dost thou lie, both being girls unwedded of like age, both fair, +and single both in bed do we sleep. The wicked Nysa, the crafty nurse it +is that cruelly severs me from thee. For not of thee have I . . . ’ + + + +III +THE SEASONS + + +_Cleodamus and Myrson discuss the charms of the seasons_, _and give the +palm to a southern spring_. + + * * * * * + +_Cleodamus_. Which is sweetest, to thee, Myrson, spring, or winter or +the late autumn or the summer; of which dost thou most desire the coming? +Summer, when all are ended, the toils whereat we labour, or the sweet +autumn, when hunger weighs lightest on men, or even idle winter, for even +in winter many sit warm by the fire, and are lulled in rest and +indolence. Or has beautiful spring more delight for thee? Say, which +does thy heart choose? For our leisure lends us time to gossip. + +_Myrson_. It beseems not mortals to judge the works of God; for sacred +are all these things, and all are sweet, yet for thy sake I will speak +out, Cleodamus, and declare what is sweeter to me than the rest. I would +not have summer here, for then the sun doth scorch me, and autumn I would +not choose, for the ripe fruits breed disease. The ruinous winter, +bearing snow and frost, I dread. But spring, the thrice desirable, be +with me the whole year through, when there is neither frost, nor is the +sun so heavy upon us. In springtime all is fruitful, all sweet things +blossom in spring, and night and dawn are evenly meted to men. + + + +IV +THE BOY AND LOVE + + +A fowler, while yet a boy, was hunting birds in a woodland glade, and +there he saw the winged Love, perched on a box-tree bough. And when he +beheld him, he rejoiced, so big the bird seemed to him, and he put +together all his rods at once, and lay in wait for Love, that kept +hopping, now here, now there. And the boy, being angered that his toil +was endless, cast down his fowling gear, and went to the old husbandman, +that had taught him his art, and told him all, and showed him Love on his +perch. But the old man, smiling, shook his head, and answered the lad, +‘Pursue this chase no longer, and go not after this bird. Nay, flee far +from him. ’Tis an evil creature. Thou wilt be happy, so long as thou +dost not catch him, but if thou comest to the measure of manhood, this +bird that flees thee now, and hops away, will come uncalled, and of a +sudden, and settle on thy head.’ + + + +V +THE TUTOR OF LOVE + + +Great Cypris stood beside me, while still I slumbered, and with her +beautiful hand she led the child Love, whose head was earthward bowed. +This word she spake to me, ‘Dear herdsman, prithee, take Love, and teach +him to sing.’ So said she, and departed, and I—my store of pastoral song +I taught to Love, in my innocence, as if he had been fain to learn. I +taught him how the cross-flute was invented by Pan, and the flute by +Athene, and by Hermes the tortoise-shell lyre, and the harp by sweet +Apollo. All these things I taught him as best I might; but he, not +heeding my words, himself would sing me ditties of love, and taught me +the desires of mortals and immortals, and all the deeds of his mother. +And I clean forgot the lore I was teaching to Love, but what Love taught +me, and his love ditties, I learned them all. + + + +VI +LOVE AND THE MUSES + + +The Muses do not fear the wild Love, but heartily they cherish, and +fleetly follow him. Yea, and if any man sing that hath a loveless heart, +him do they flee, and do not choose to teach him. But if the mind of any +be swayed by Love, and sweetly he sings, to him the Muses all run +eagerly. A witness hereto am I, that this saying is wholly true, for if +I sing of any other, mortal or immortal, then falters my tongue, and +sings no longer as of old, but if again to Love, and Lycidas I sing, then +gladly from my lips flows forth the voice of song. + + + +FRAGMENTS + + +VII + + +I know not the way, nor is it fitting to labour at what we have not +learned. + + +VIII + + +If my ditties be fair, lo these alone will win me glory, these that the +Muse aforetime gave to me. And if these be not sweet, what gain is it to +me to labour longer? + + +IX + + +Ah, if a double term of life were given us by Zeus, the son of Cronos, or +by changeful Fate, ah, could we spend one life in joy and merriment, and +one in labour, then perchance a man might toil, and in some later time +might win his reward. But if the gods have willed that man enters into +life but once (and that life brief, and too short to hold all we desire), +then, wretched men and weary that we are, how sorely we toil, how greatly +we cast our souls away on gain, and laborious arts, continually coveting +yet more wealth! Surely we have all forgotten that we are men condemned +to die, and how short in the hour, that to us is allotted by Fate. {181} + + +X + + +Happy are they that love, when with equal love they are rewarded. Happy +was Theseus, when Pirithous was by his side, yea, though he went down to +the house of implacable Hades. Happy among hard men and inhospitable was +Orestes, for that Pylades chose to share his wanderings. And _he_ was +happy, Achilles Æacides, while his darling lived,—happy was he in his +death, because he avenged the dread fate of Patroclus. + + +XI + + +Hesperus, golden lamp of the lovely daughter of the foam, dear Hesperus, +sacred jewel of the deep blue night, dimmer as much than the moon, as +thou art among the stars pre-eminent, hail, friend, and as I lead the +revel to the shepherd’s hut, in place of the moonlight lend me thine, for +to-day the moon began her course, and too early she sank. I go not +free-booting, nor to lie in wait for the benighted traveller, but a lover +am I, and ’tis well to favour lovers. + + +XII + + +Mild goddess, in Cyprus born,—thou child, not of the sea, but of +Zeus,—why art thou thus vexed with mortals and immortals? Nay, my word +is too weak, why wert thou thus bitterly wroth, yea, even with thyself, +as to bring forth Love, so mighty a bane to all,—cruel and heartless +Love, whose spirit is all unlike his beauty? And wherefore didst thou +furnish him with wings, and give him skill to shoot so far, that, child +as he is, we never may escape the bitterness of Love. + + +XIII + + +Mute was Phoebus in this grievous anguish. All herbs he sought, and +strove to win some wise healing art, and he anointed all the wound with +nectar and ambrosia, but remedeless are all the wounds of Fate. + + +XIV + + +But I will go my way to yon sloping hill; by the sand and the sea-banks +murmuring my song, and praying to the cruel Galatea. But of my sweet +hope never will I leave hold, till I reach the uttermost limit of old +age. + + +XV + + +It is not well, my friend, to run to the craftsman, whatever may befall, +nor in every matter to need another’s aid, nay, fashion a pipe thyself, +and to thee the task is easy. + + +XVI + + +May Love call to him the Muses, may the Muses bring with them Love. Ever +may the Muses give song to me that yearn for it,—sweet song,—than song +there is no sweeter charm. + + +XVII + + +The constant dropping of water, says the proverb, it wears a hole in a +stone. + + +XVIII + + +Nay, leave me not unrewarded, for even Phoebus sang for his reward. And +the meed of honour betters everything. + + +XIX + + +Beauty is the glory of womankind, and strength of men. + + +XX + + +All things, god-willing, all things may be achieved by mortals. From the +hands of the blessed come tasks most easy, and that find their +accomplishment. + + + + +MOSCHUS + + +OUR only certain information about Moschus is contained in his own Dirge +for Bion. He speaks of his verse as ‘Ausonian song,’ and of himself as +Mion’s pupil and successor. It is plain that he was acquainted with the +poems of Theocritus. + + + +IDYL I +LOVE THE RUNAWAY + + +CYPRIS was raising the hue and cry for Love, her child,—‘Who, where the +three ways meet, has seen Love wandering? He is my runaway, whosoever +has aught to tell of him shall win his reward. His prize is the kiss of +Cypris, but if thou bringest him, not the bare kiss, O stranger, but yet +more shalt thou win. The child is most notable, thou couldst tell him +among twenty together, his skin is not white, but flame coloured, his +eyes are keen and burning, an evil heart and a sweet tongue has he, for +his speech and his mind are at variance. Like honey is his voice, but +his heart of gall, all tameless is he, and deceitful, the truth is not in +him, a wily brat, and cruel in his pastime. The locks of his hair are +lovely, but his brow is impudent, and tiny are his little hands, yet far +he shoots his arrows, shoots even to Acheron, and to the King of Hades. + +‘The body of Love is naked, but well is his spirit hidden, and winged +like a bird he flits and descends, now here, now there, upon men and +women, and nestles in their inmost hearts. He hath a little bow, and an +arrow always on the string, tiny is the shaft, but it carries as high as +heaven. A golden quiver on his back he bears, and within it his bitter +arrows, wherewith full many a time he wounds even me. + +‘Cruel are all these instruments of his, but more cruel by far the little +torch, his very own, wherewith he lights up the sun himself. + +‘And if thou catch Love, bind him, and bring him, and have no pity, and +if thou see him weeping, take heed lest he give thee the slip; and if he +laugh, hale him along. + +‘Yea, and if he wish to kiss thee, beware, for evil is his kiss, and his +lips enchanted. + +‘And should he say, “Take these, I give thee in free gift all my +armoury,” touch not at all his treacherous gifts, for they all are dipped +in fire.’ + + + +IDYL II +EUROPA AND THE BULL + + +TO Europa, once on a time, a sweet dream was sent by Cypris, when the +third watch of the night sets in, and near is the dawning; when sleep +more sweet than honey rests on the eyelids, limb-loosening sleep, that +binds the eyes with his soft bond, when the flock of truthful dreams +fares wandering. + +At that hour she was sleeping, beneath the roof-tree of her home, Europa, +the daughter of Phoenix, being still a maid unwed. Then she beheld two +Continents at strife for her sake, Asia, and the farther shore, both in +the shape of women. Of these one had the guise of a stranger, the other +of a lady of that land, and closer still she clung about her maiden, and +kept saying how ‘she was her mother, and herself had nursed Europa.’ But +that other with mighty hands, and forcefully, kept haling the maiden, +nothing loth; declaring that, by the will of Ægis-bearing Zeus, Europa +was destined to be her prize. + +But Europa leaped forth from her strown bed in terror, with beating +heart, in such clear vision had she beheld the dream. Then she sat upon +her bed, and long was silent, still beholding the two women, albeit with +waking eyes; and at last the maiden raised her timorous voice + +‘Who of the gods of heaven has sent forth to me these phantoms? What +manner of dreams have scared me when right sweetly slumbering on my +strown bed, within my bower? Ah, and who was the alien woman that I +beheld in my sleep? How strange a longing for her seized my heart, yea, +and how graciously she herself did welcome me, and regard me as it had +been her own child. + +‘Ye blessed gods, I pray you, prosper the fulfilment of the dream.’ + +Therewith she arose, and began to seek the dear maidens of her company, +girls of like age with herself, born in the same year, beloved of her +heart, the daughters of noble sires, with whom she was always wont to +sport, when she was arrayed for the dance, or when she would bathe her +bright body at the mouths of the rivers, or would gather fragrant lilies +on the leas. + +And soon she found them, each bearing in her hand a basket to fill with +flowers, and to the meadows near the salt sea they set forth, where +always they were wont to gather in their company, delighting in the +roses, and the sound of the waves. But Europa herself bore a basket of +gold, a marvel well worth gazing on, a choice work of Hephaestus. He +gave it to Libya, for a bridal-gift, when she approached the bed of the +Shaker of the Earth, and Libya gave it to beautiful Telephassa, who was +of her own blood; and to Europa, still an unwedded maid, her mother, +Telephassa, gave the splendid gift. + +Many bright and cunning things were wrought in the basket: therein was +Io, daughter of Inachus, fashioned in gold; still in the shape of a +heifer she was, and had not her woman’s shape, and wildly wandering she +fared upon the salt sea-ways, like one in act to swim; and the sea was +wrought in blue steel. And aloft upon the double brow of the shore, two +men were standing together and watching the heifer’s sea-faring. There +too was Zeus, son of Cronos, lightly touching with his divine hand the +cow of the line of Inachus, and her, by Nile of the seven streams, he was +changing again, from a horned heifer to a woman. Silver was the stream +of Nile, and the heifer of bronze and Zeus himself was fashioned in gold. +And all about, beneath the rim of the rounded basket, was the story of +Hermes graven, and near him lay stretched out Argus, notable for his +sleepless eyes. And from the red blood of Argus was springing a bird +that rejoiced in the flower-bright colour of his feathers, and spreading +abroad his tail, even as some swift ship on the sea doth spread all +canvas, was covering with his plumes the lips of the golden vessel. Even +thus was wrought the basket of the lovely Europa. + +Now the girls, so soon as they were come to the flowering meadows, took +great delight in various sorts of flowers, whereof one would pluck +sweet-breathed narcissus, another the hyacinth, another the violet, a +fourth the creeping thyme, and on the ground there fell many petals of +the meadows rich with spring. Others again were emulously gathering the +fragrant tresses of the yellow crocus; but in the midst of them all the +princess culled with her hand the splendour of the crimson rose, and +shone pre-eminent among them all like the foam-born goddess among the +Graces. Verily she was not for long to set her heart’s delight upon the +flowers, nay, nor long to keep untouched her maiden girdle. For of a +truth, the son of Cronos, so soon as he beheld her, was troubled, and his +heart was subdued by the sudden shafts of Cypris, who alone can conquer +even Zeus. Therefore, both to avoid the wrath of jealous Hera, and being +eager to beguile the maiden’s tender heart, he concealed his godhead, and +changed his shape, and became a bull. Not such an one as feeds in the +stall nor such as cleaves the furrow, and drags the curved plough, nor +such as grazes on the grass, nor such a bull as is subdued beneath the +yoke, and draws the burdened wain. Nay, but while all the rest of his +body was bright chestnut, a silver circle shone between his brows, and +his eyes gleamed softly, and ever sent forth lightning of desire. From +his brow branched horns of even length, like the crescent of the horned +moon, when her disk is cloven in twain. He came into the meadow, and his +coming terrified not the maidens, nay, within them all wakened desire to +draw nigh the lovely bull, and to touch him, and his heavenly fragrance +was scattered afar, exceeding even the sweet perfume of the meadows. And +he stood before the feet of fair Europa, and kept licking her neck, and +cast his spell over the maiden. And she still caressed him, and gently +with her hands she wiped away the deep foam from his lips, and kissed the +bull. Then he lowed so gently, ye would think ye heard the Mygdonian +flute uttering a dulcet sound. + +He bowed himself before her feet, and, bending back his neck, he gazed on +Europa, and showed her his broad back. Then she spake among her +deep-tressed maidens, saying— + +‘Come, dear playmates, maidens of like age with me, let us mount the bull +here and take our pastime, for truly, he will bear us on his back, and +carry all of us; and how mild he is, and dear, and gentle to behold, and +no whit like other bulls. A mind as honest as a man’s possesses him, and +he lacks nothing but speech.’ + +So she spake, and smiling, she sat down on the back of the bull, and the +others were about to follow her. But the bull leaped up immediately, now +he had gotten her that he desired, and swiftly he sped to the deep. The +maiden turned, and called again and again to her dear playmates, +stretching out her hands, but they could not reach her. The strand he +gained, and forward he sped like a dolphin, faring with unwetted hooves +over the wide waves. And the sea, as he came, grew smooth, and the +sea-monsters gambolled around, before the feet of Zeus, and the dolphin +rejoiced, and rising from the deeps, he tumbled on the swell of the sea. +The Nereids arose out of the salt water, and all of them came on in +orderly array, riding on the backs of sea-beasts. And himself, the +thund’rous Shaker of the World, appeared above the sea, and made smooth +the wave, and guided his brother on the salt sea path; and round him were +gathered the Tritons, these hoarse trumpeters of the deep, blowing from +their long conches a bridal melody. + +Meanwhile Europa, riding on the back of the divine bull, with one hand +clasped the beast’s great horn, and with the other caught up the purple +fold of her garment, lest it might trail and be wet in the hoar sea’s +infinite spray. And her deep robe was swelled out by the winds, like the +sail of a ship, and lightly still did waft the maiden onward. But when +she was now far off from her own country, and neither sea-beat headland +nor steep hill could now be seen, but above, the air, and beneath, the +limitless deep, timidly she looked around, and uttered her voice, saying— + +‘Whither bearest thou me, bull-god? What art thou? how dost thou fare on +thy feet through the path of the sea-beasts, nor fearest the sea? The +sea is a path meet for swift ships that traverse the brine, but bulls +dread the salt sea-ways. What drink is sweet to thee, what food shalt +thou find from the deep? Nay, art thou then some god, for godlike are +these deeds of thine? Lo, neither do dolphins of the brine fare on land, +nor bulls on the deep, but dreadless dost thou rush o’er land and sea +alike, thy hooves serving thee for oars. + +‘Nay, perchance thou wilt rise above the grey air, and flee on high, like +the swift birds. Alas for me, and alas again, for mine exceeding evil +fortune, alas for me that have left my father’s house, and following this +bull, on a strange sea-faring I go, and wander lonely. But I pray thee +that rulest the grey salt sea, thou Shaker of the Earth, propitious meet +me, and methinks I see thee smoothing this path of mine before me. For +surely it is not without a god to aid, that I pass through these paths of +the waters!’ + +So spake she, and the horned bull made answer to her again— + +‘Take courage, maiden, and dread not the swell of the deep. Behold I am +Zeus, even I, though, closely beheld, I wear the form of a bull, for I +can put on the semblance of what thing I will. But ’tis love of thee +that has compelled me to measure out so great a space of the salt sea, in +a bull’s shape. Lo, Crete shall presently receive thee, Crete that was +mine own foster-mother, where thy bridal chamber shall be. Yea, and from +me shalt thou bear glorious sons, to be sceptre-swaying kings over +earthly men. + +So spake he, and all he spake was fulfilled. And verily Crete appeared, +and Zeus took his own shape again, and he loosed her girdle, and the +Hours arrayed their bridal bed. She that before was a maiden straightway +became the bride of Zeus, and she bare children to Zeus, yea, anon she +was a mother. + + + +IDYL III +THE LAMENT FOR BION + + +WAIL, let me hear you wail, ye woodland glades, and thou Dorian water; +and weep ye rivers, for Bion, the well beloved! Now all ye green things +mourn, and now ye groves lament him, ye flowers now in sad clusters +breathe yourselves away. Now redden ye roses in your sorrow, and now wax +red ye wind-flowers, now thou hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee +graven, and add a deeper _ai ai_ to thy petals; he is dead, the beautiful +singer. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Ye nightingales that lament among the thick leaves of the trees, tell ye +to the Sicilian waters of Arethusa the tidings that Bion the herdsman is +dead, and that with Bion song too has died, and perished hath the Dorian +minstrelsy. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Ye Strymonian swans, sadly wail ye by the waters, and chant with +melancholy notes the dolorous song, even such a song as in his time with +voice like yours he was wont to sing. And tell again to the Œagrian +maidens, tell to all the Nymphs Bistonian, how that he hath perished, the +Dorian Orpheus. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +No more to his herds he sings, that beloved herdsman, no more ’neath the +lonely oaks he sits and sings, nay, but by Pluteus’s side he chants a +refrain of oblivion. The mountains too are voiceless: and the heifers +that wander by the bulls lament and refuse their pasture. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Thy sudden doom, O Bion, Apollo himself lamented, and the Satyrs mourned +thee, and the Priapi in sable raiment, and the Panes sorrow for thy song, +and the fountain fairies in the wood made moan, and their tears turned to +rivers of waters. And Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, +and no more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the trees +cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded. From the ewes +hath flowed no fair milk, nor honey from the hives, nay, it hath perished +for mere sorrow in the wax, for now hath thy honey perished, and no more +it behoves men to gather the honey of the bees. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Not so much did the dolphin mourn beside the sea-banks, nor ever sang so +sweet the nightingale on the cliffs, nor so much lamented the swallow on +the long ranges of the hills, nor shrilled so loud the halcyon o’er his +sorrows; + +(_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.) + +Nor so much, by the grey sea-waves, did ever the sea-bird sing, nor so +much in the dells of dawn did the bird of Memnon bewail the son of the +Morning, fluttering around his tomb, as they lamented for Bion dead. + +Nightingales, and all the swallows that once he was wont to delight, that +he would teach to speak, they sat over against each other on the boughs +and kept moaning, and the birds sang in answer, ‘Wail, ye wretched ones, +even ye!’ + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Who, ah who will ever make music on thy pipe, O thrice desired Bion, and +who will put his mouth to the reeds of thine instrument? who is so bold? + +For still thy lips and still thy breath survive, and Echo, among the +reeds, doth still feed upon thy songs. To Pan shall I bear the pipe? +Nay, perchance even he would fear to set his mouth to it, lest, after +thee, he should win but the second prize. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Yea, and Galatea laments thy song, she whom once thou wouldst delight, as +with thee she sat by the sea-banks. For not like the Cyclops didst thou +sing—him fair Galatea ever fled, but on thee she still looked more kindly +than on the salt water. And now hath she forgotten the wave, and sits on +the lonely sands, but still she keeps thy kine. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +All the gifts of the Muses, herdsman, have died with thee, the delightful +kisses of maidens, the lips of boys; and woful round thy tomb the loves +are weeping. But Cypris loves thee far more than the kiss wherewith she +kissed the dying Adonis. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +This, O most musical of rivers, is thy second sorrow, this, Meles, thy +new woe. Of old didst thou lose Homer, that sweet mouth of Calliope, and +men say thou didst bewail thy goodly son with streams of many tears, and +didst fill all the salt sea with the voice of thy lamentation—now again +another son thou weepest, and in a new sorrow art thou wasting away. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Both were beloved of the fountains, and one ever drank of the Pegasean +fount, but the other would drain a draught of Arethusa. And the one sang +the fair daughter of Tyndarus, and the mighty son of Thetis, and Menelaus +Atreus’s son, but that other,—not of wars, not of tears, but of Pan, +would he sing, and of herdsmen would he chant, and so singing, he tended +the herds. And pipes he would fashion, and would milk the sweet heifer, +and taught lads how to kiss, and Love he cherished in his bosom and woke +the passion of Aphrodite. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Every famous city laments thee, Bion, and all the towns. Ascra laments +thee far more than her Hesiod, and Pindar is less regretted by the +forests of Boeotia. Nor so much did pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcaeus, +nor did the Teian town so greatly bewail her poet, while for thee more +than for Archilochus doth Paros yearn, and not for Sappho, but still for +thee doth Mytilene wail her musical lament; + + [_Here seven verses are lost_.] + +And in Syracuse Theocritus; but I sing thee the dirge of an Ausonian +sorrow, I that am no stranger to the pastoral song, but heir of the Doric +Muse which thou didst teach thy pupils. This was thy gift to me; to +others didst thou leave thy wealth, to me thy minstrelsy. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Ah me, when the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and +the curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and +spring in another year; but we men, we, the great and mighty, or wise, +when once we have died, in hollow earth we sleep, gone down into silence; +a right long, and endless, and unawakening sleep. And thou too, in the +earth wilt be lapped in silence, but the nymphs have thought good that +the frog should eternally sing. Nay, him I would not envy, for ’tis no +sweet song he singeth. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth, thou didst know poison. To such lips as +thine did it come, and was not sweetened? What mortal was so cruel that +could mix poison for thee, or who could give thee the venom that heard +thy voice? surely he had no music in his soul. + +_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_. + +But justice hath overtaken them all. Still for this sorrow I weep, and +bewail thy ruin. But ah, if I might have gone down like Orpheus to +Tartarus, or as once Odysseus, or Alcides of yore, I too would speedily +have come to the house of Pluteus, that thee perchance I might behold, +and if thou singest to Pluteus, that I might hear what is thy song. Nay, +sing to the Maiden some strain of Sicily, sing some sweet pastoral lay. + +And she too is Sicilian, and on the shores by Aetna she was wont to play, +and she knew the Dorian strain. Not unrewarded will the singing be; and +as once to Orpheus’s sweet minstrelsy she gave Eurydice to return with +him, even so will she send thee too, Bion, to the hills. But if I, even +I, and my piping had aught availed, before Pluteus I too would have sung. + + + +IDYL IV + + +_A sad dialogue between Megara the wife and Alcmena the mother of the +wandering Heracles_. _Megara had seen her own children slain by her +lord_, _in his frenzy_, _while Alcmena was constantly disquieted by +ominous dreams_. + + * * * * * + +MY mother, wherefore art thou thus smitten in thy soul with exceeding +sorrow, and the rose is no longer firm in thy cheeks as of yore? why, +tell me, art thou thus disquieted? Is it because thy glorious son is +suffering pains unnumbered in bondage to a man of naught, as it were a +lion in bondage to a fawn? Woe is me, why, ah why have the immortal gods +thus brought on me so great dishonour, and wherefore did my parents get +me for so ill a doom? Wretched woman that I am, who came to the bed of a +man without reproach and ever held him honourable and dear as mine own +eyes,—ay and still worship and hold him sacred in my heart—yet none other +of men living hath had more evil hap or tasted in his soul so many +griefs. In madness once, with the bow Apollo’s self had given him—dread +weapon of some Fury or spirit of Death—he struck down his own children, +and took their dear life away, as his frenzy raged through the house till +it swam in blood. With mine own eyes, I saw them smitten, woe is me, by +their father’s arrows—a thing none else hath suffered even in dreams. +Nor could I aid them as they cried ever on their mother; the evil that +was upon them was past help. As a bird mourneth for her perishing little +ones, devoured in the thicket by some terrible serpent while as yet they +are fledglings, and the kind mother flutters round them making most +shrill lament, but cannot help her nestlings, yea, and herself hath great +fear to approach the cruel monster; so I unhappy mother, wailing for my +brood, with frenzied feet went wandering through the house. Would that +by my children’s side I had died myself, and were lying with the +envenomed arrow through my heart. Would that this had been, O Artemis, +thou that art queen chief of power to womankind. Then would our parents +have embraced and wept for us and with ample obsequies have laid us on +one common pyre, and have gathered the bones of all of us into one golden +urn, and buried them in the place where first we came to be. But now +they dwell in Thebes, fair nurse of youth, ploughing the deep soil of the +Aonian plain, while I in Tiryns, rocky city of Hera, am ever thus wounded +at heart with many sorrows, nor is any respite to me from tears. My +husband I behold but a little time in our house, for he hath many labours +at his hand, whereat he laboureth in wanderings by land and sea, with his +soul strong as rock or steel within his breast. But thy grief is as the +running waters, as thou lamentest through the nights and all the days of +Zeus. + +Nor is there any one of my kinsfolk nigh at hand to cheer me: for it is +not the house wall that severs them, but they all dwell far beyond the +pine-clad Isthmus, nor is there any to whom, as a woman all hapless, I +may look up and refresh my heart, save only my sister Pyrrha; nay, but +she herself grieves yet more for her husband Iphicles thy son: for +methinks ’tis thou that hast borne the most luckless children of all, to +a God, and a mortal man. {205} + +Thus spake she, and ever warmer the tears were pouring from her eyes into +her sweet bosom, as she bethought her of her children and next of her own +parents. And in like manner Alcmena bedewed her pale cheeks with tears, +and deeply sighing from her very heart she thus bespoke her dear daughter +with thick-coming words: + +‘Dear child, what is this that hath come into the thoughts of thy heart? +How art thou fain to disquiet us both with the tale of griefs that cannot +be forgotten? Not for the first time are these woes wept for now. Are +they not enough, the woes that possess us from our birth continually to +our day of death? In love with sorrow surely would he be that should +have the heart to count up our woes; such destiny have we received from +God. Thyself, dear child, I behold vext by endless pains, and thy grief +I can pardon, yea, for even of joy there is satiety. And exceedingly do +I mourn over and pity thee, for that thou hast partaken of our cruel lot, +the burden whereof is hung above our heads. For so witness Persephone +and fair-robed Demeter (by whom the enemy that wilfully forswears +himself, lies to his own hurt), that I love thee no less in my heart than +if thou hadst been born of my womb, and wert the maiden darling of my +house: nay, and methinks that thou knowest this well. Therefore say +never, my flower, that I heed thee not, not even though I wail more +ceaselessly than Niobe of the lovely locks. No shame it is for a mother +to make moan for the affliction of her son: for ten months I went +heavily, even before I saw him, while I bare him under my girdle, and he +brought me near the gates of the warden of Hell; so fierce the pangs I +endured in my sore travail of him. And now my son is gone from me in a +strange land to accomplish some new labour; nor know I in my sorrow +whether I shall again receive him returning here or no. Moreover in +sweet sleep a dreadful dream hath fluttered me; and I exceedingly fear +for the ill-omened vision that I have seen, lest something that I would +not be coming on my children. + +It seemed to me that my son, the might of Heracles, held in both hands a +well-wrought spade, wherewith, as one labouring for hire, he was digging +a ditch at the edge of a fruitful field, stripped of his cloak and belted +tunic. And when he had come to the end of all his work and his labours +at the stout defence of the vine-filled close, he was about to lean his +shovel against the upstanding mound and don the clothes he had worn. But +suddenly blazed up above the deep trench a quenchless fire, and a +marvellous great flame encompassed him. But he kept ever giving back +with hurried feet, striving to flee the deadly bolt of Hephaestus; and +ever before his body he kept his spade as it were a shield; and this way +and that he glared around him with his eyes, lest the angry fire should +consume him. Then brave Iphicles, eager, methought, to help him, +stumbled and fell to earth ere he might reach him, nor could he stand +upright again, but lay helpless, like a weak old man, whom joyless age +constrains to fall when he would not; so he lieth on the ground as he +fell, till one passing by lift him up by the hand, regarding the ancient +reverence for his hoary beard. Thus lay on the earth Iphicles, wielder +of the shield. But I kept wailing as I beheld my sons in their sore +plight, until deep sleep quite fled from my eyes, and straightway came +bright morn. Such dreams, beloved, flitted through my mind all night; +may they all turn against Eurystheus nor come nigh our dwelling, and to +his hurt be my soul prophetic, nor may fate bring aught otherwise to +pass. + + + +IDYL V + + +WHEN the wind on the grey salt sea blows softly, then my weary spirits +rise, and the land no longer pleases me, and far more doth the calm +allure me. {208} But when the hoary deep is roaring, and the sea is +broken up in foam, and the waves rage high, then lift I mine eyes unto +the earth and trees, and fly the sea, and the land is welcome, and the +shady wood well pleasing in my sight, where even if the wind blow high +the pine-tree sings her song. Surely an evil life lives the fisherman, +whose home is his ship, and his labours are in the sea, and fishes +thereof are his wandering spoil. Nay, sweet to me is sleep beneath the +broad-leaved plane-tree; let me love to listen to the murmur of the brook +hard by, soothing, not troubling the husbandman with its sound. + + + +IDYL VI + + + PAN loved his neighbour Echo; Echo loved + A gamesome Satyr; he, by her unmoved, + Loved only Lyde; thus through Echo, Pan, + Lyde, and Satyr, Love his circle ran. + Thus all, while their true lovers’ hearts they grieved, + Were scorned in turn, and what they gave received. + O all Love’s scorners, learn this lesson true; + Be kind to Love, that he be kind to you. + + + +IDYL VII + + +ALPHEUS, when he leaves Pisa and makes his way through beneath the deep, +travels on to Arethusa with his waters that the wild olives drank, +bearing her bridal gifts, fair leaves and flowers and sacred soil. Deep +in the waves he plunges, and runs beneath the sea, and the salt water +mingles not with the sweet. Nought knows the sea as the river journeys +through. Thus hath the knavish boy, the maker of mischief, the teacher +of strange ways—thus hath Love by his spell taught even a river to dive. + + + +IDYL VIII + + + LEAVING his torch and his arrows, a wallet strung on his back, + One day came the mischievous Love-god to follow the plough-share’s + track: + And he chose him a staff for his driving, and yoked him a sturdy + steer, + And sowed in the furrows the grain to the Mother of Earth most dear. + Then he said, looking up to the sky: ‘Father Zeus, to my harvest be + good, + Lest I yoke that bull to my plough that Europa once rode through the + flood!’ + + + +IDYL IX + + + WOULD that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep, + For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep, + Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep. {210} + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{0a} This fragment is from the collection of M. Fauriel; _Chants +Populaires de le Grèce_. + +{0b} _Empedocles on Etna_. + +{0c} Ballet des Arts, dansé par sa Majesté; le 8 janvier, 1663. A +Paris, par Robert Ballard, MDCLXIII. + +{0d} These and the following ditties are from the modern Greek ballads +collected by MM. Fauriel and Legrand. + +{0e} See Couat, _La Poesie Alexandrine_, p. 68 _et seq._, Paris 1882. + +{0f} See Couat, _op. cit._ p. 395. + +{0g} Couat, p. 434. + +{0h} See Helbig, _Campenische Wandmalerie_, and Brunn, _Die griechischen +Bukoliker und die Bildende Kunst_. + +{0i} The _Hecale_ of Callimachus, or Theseus and the Marathonian Bull, +seems to have been rather a heroic idyl than an epic. + +{6} Or reading Αίολικόν=Aeolian, cf. Thucyd. iii. 102. + +{9} These are places famous in the oldest legends of Arcadia. + +{11} Reading, καταδήσομαι. Cf. Fritzsche’s note and Harpocration, s.v. + +{13} On the word ραμβος, see Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ p. 700; and ‘The Bull +Roarer,’ in the translator’s _Custom and Myth_. + +{19} Reading καταδήσομαι. Cf. line 3, and note. + +{21} He refers to a piece of folk-lore. + +{24} The shovel was used for tossing the sand of the lists; the sheep +were food for Aegon’s great appetite. + +{26} Reading έρίσδεις. + +{34} Melanthius was the treacherous goatherd put to a cruel death by +Odysseus. + +{36} Ameis and Fritzsche take νιν (as here) to be the dog, not Galatea. +The sex of the Cyclops’s sheep-dog makes the meaning obscure. + +{40} Or, δόμον Ώρομέδοντος. Hermann renders this _domum Oromedonteam_ a +gigantic house.’ Oromedon or Eurymedon was the king of the Gigantes, +mentioned in Odyssey vii. 58. + +{41} έσχατα. This is taken by some to mean _algam infimam_, ‘the bottom +weeds of the deepest seas’, by others, the sea-weed highest on the shore, +at high watermark. + +{42} Comatas was a goatherd who devoutly served the Muses, and +sacrificed to them his masters goats. His master therefore shut him up +in a cedar chest, opening which at the year’s end he found Comatas alive, +by miracle, the bees having fed him with honey. Thus, in a mediaeval +legend, the Blessed Virgin took the place, for a year, of the frail nun +who had devoutly served her. + +{43} Sneezing in Sicily, as in most countries, was a happy omen. + +{50} A superfluous and apocryphal line is here omitted. + +{53} An allusion to the common superstition (cf. Idyl xii. 24) that +perjurers and liars were punished by pimples and blotches. The old Irish +held that blotches showed themselves on the faces of Brehons who gave +unjust judgments. + +{54} Spring in the south, like Night in the tropics, comes ‘at one +stride’; but Wordsworth finds the rendering distasteful ‘neque sic +redditum valde placet.’ + +{57} ‘Quant à ta manière, je ne puis la rendre.’—SAINTE-BEUVE. + +{61} Reading μηνοφόρως. + +{70} Cf. Wordsworth’s proposed conjecture— + + μετάρσι’, έτων παρεόντων. + +Meineke observes ‘tota haec carminis pars luxata et foedissime depravata +est’. There seems to be a rude early pun in lines 73, 74. + +{72} The reading— + +ού φθεγξη; λύκον εΐδες; επαιξέ τις, ως σοφός, εΐπε,—makes good sense. ως +σοφός is put in the mouth of the girl, and would mean ‘a good guess’! +The allusion of a guest to the superstition that the wolf struck people +dumb is taken by Cynisca for a reference to young Wolf, her secret lover. + +{73} Or, as Wordsworth suggests, reading δάκρυσι, ‘for him your cheeks +are wet with tears.’ + +{74a} Shaving in the bronze, and still more, of course, in the stone +age, was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and +barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like +Aeschines, with his long gnawed moustache. + +{74b} The Megarians having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their +rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not +in the reckoning at all. + +{77} Our Lady, here, is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old +as well as for the new religion of Sicily. The dialogue is here arranged +as in Fritzsche’s text, and in line 8 his punctuation is followed. + +{78a} If cats are meant, the proverb is probably Alexandrian. Common as +cats were in Egypt, they were late comers in Greece. + +{78b} Most of the dialogue has been distributed as in the text of +Fritzsche. + +{82} Reading πέρυσιν. + +{89} _I.e._ Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The +Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter. + +{93} Deipyle, daughter of Adrastus. + +{98} Reading—πιείρα ατε λαον ανέδραμε κόσμος αρούρα. See also +Wordsworth’s note on line 26. + +{104} For αδέα Wordsworth and Hermann conjecture Ἄρεα. The sense would +be that Eunica, who thinks herself another Cypris, or Aphrodite is, in +turn, to be rejected by her Ares, her soldier-lover, as she has rejected +the herdsman. + +{105} Reading επιμύσσησι. + +{106a} Reading τα φυκιοέντα τε λαίφη. + +{106b} κώπα. + +{106c} ουδος δ’ ουχι θύραν εΐχ’, and in the next line ά γαρ πενία σφας +ετήρει. + +{106d} αυδάν. + +{107} Reading, with Fritzsche— + + αλλ’ όνος εν ράμνω, το τε λύχνιον εν πρυτανείω + + φαντι γαρ αγρυπνίαν τόδ’ εχειν + +The lines seem to contain two popular saws, of which it is difficult to +guess the meaning. The first saw appears to express helplessness; the +second, to hint that such comforts as lamps lit all night long exist in +towns, but are out of the reach of poor fishermen. + +{108a} Reading ηρέμ’ ενυξα και νύξας εχάλαξα. Asphalion first hooked +his fish, which ran gamely, and nearly doubled up the rod. Then the fish +sulked, and the angler half despaired of landing him. To stir the sullen +fish, he reminded him of his wound, probably, as we do now, by keeping a +tight line, and tapping the butt of the rod. Then he slackened, giving +the fish line in case of a sudden rush; but as there was no such rush, he +took in line, or perhaps only showed his fish the butt (for it is not +probable that Asphalion had a reel), and so landed him. The +Mediterranean fishers generally toss the fish to land with no display of +science, but Asphalion’s imaginary capture was a monster. + +{108b} It is difficult to understand this proceeding. Perhaps Asphalion +had some small net fastened with strings to his boat, in which he towed +fish to shore, that the contact with the water might keep them fresher +than they were likely to be in the bottom of the coble. On the other +hand, Asphalion was fishing from a rock. His dream may have been +confused. + +{111} πυρεΐα appear to have been ‘fire sticks,’ by rubbing which +together the heroes struck a light. + +{118} Or εγχεα λοΰσαι, ‘wash the spears,’ as in the Zulu idiom. + +{124} In line 57 for τηλε read Wordsworth’s conjecture τηδε = ενταΰθα. + +{127} Odyssey. xix. 36 seq. (Reading απερ not ατερ.) ‘Father, surely a +great marvel is this that I behold with mine eyes meseems, at least, that +the walls of the hall . . . are bright as it were with flaming fire’ . . . +‘Lo! this is the wont of the gods that hold Olympus.’ + +{128} ξηρον, _prae timore non lacrymantem_ (Paley). + +{129} Reading, after Fritzsche, ρωγάδος εκ πέτρας. We should have +expected the accursed ashes (like those of Wyclif) to be thrown _into_ +the river; cf. Virgil, Ecl. viii. 101, ‘Fer cineres, Amarylli, foras, +rivoque fluenti transque caput lace nec respexeris.’ Virgil’s knowledge +of these observances was not inferior to that of Theocritus. + +{130} Reading εστεμμένω. If εστεμμνον is read, the phrase will mean +‘pure brimming water.’ + +{135} Reading οσσον. + +{143} Reading αλλη, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, instead of υλη. + +{144} Reading ποπανεύματα. + +{145} Πένθημα και ου πενθηα, a play on words difficult to retain in +English. Compare Idyl xiii. line 74. + +{147} The conjecture εμα δ’ gives a good sense, _mea vero Helena me +potius ultra petit_. + +{148} Reading, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, μη ’πιβάλης ταν χεΐρα, και +ει γ’ ετι χεΐλος, αμύξω. + +{150a} Reading οΐδ’, ακρατιμίη εσσι, with Fritzsche. Compare the +conjecture of Wordsworth, Ὀύδ’ ακρα τι μη εσσι. + +{150b} See Wordsworth’s explanation. + +{153} Syracuse. + +{165} Reading, πεδοικισται (that is, the Corinthian founders of +Syracuse), and following Wordsworth’s other conjectures. + +{167} This epigram may have been added by the first editor of +Theocritus, Artemidorus the Grammarian. + +{176} This conjecture of Meineke’s offers, at least, a meaning. + +{181} _Les hommes sont tous condamnés à mort_, _avec des sursis +indéfinis_.—VICTOR HUGO. + +{205} Alcmena bore Iphicles to Amphictyon, Hercules to Zeus. + +{208} Reading, with Weise, ποτάγει δε πολυ πλεον αμμε γαλάνα. + +{210} For the translations into verse I have to thank Mr. Ernest Myers. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEOCRITUS, BION AND MOSCHUS*** + + +******* This file should be named 4775-0.txt or 4775-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/7/7/4775 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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