s 
 
 • 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 ^ > 
 
 
 ALIFORNIA 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 .^^gS^^v ^V^ .^^^^. 
 
 € 
 
 g 
 
th; university of- California 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
^iy-oucu^y. 
 
THE IDYLLS 
 
 OP 
 
 THEOCRITUS, Bffl, AND MOSCHUS, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 WAE-SONGS OF TTRT^US. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. J. BANKS, M. A, 
 
 METRICAL VERSIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 J. M. C ETA J? MAN, M. A.; 
 
 LONDON: GEOKGE BELL AND SONS, YOKE STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1878. 
 
 ... ""^"e XX 
 
 OF THE ^ 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PBINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 
 STAMFOUD STREET AND CHABWG CHOSS. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE Or THEOCRITUS 
 
 BION 
 
 MOSCHUS 
 
 TYRT^US . 
 
 TAflK 
 
 y 
 
 vii 
 
 xviii 
 
 XX 
 
 xxi 
 
 itt^ns of Cfjeoctitue. 
 
 IDYLL PROSE. VERSK 
 
 .,«^. THYRSIS THE SHEPHERD, AND THE GOATHERD 1 205 
 
 n. THE SORCERESS 9 209 
 
 /mt THE GOATHERD, OB AMARYLLIS, OR THE SERE- 
 
 •""'^ NADER 18 215 
 
 IV. THE HERDSMEN; OR BATTUS AND CORYDON . 21 217 
 
 V. THE WAYFARERS, OR COMPOSERS OF PASTORALS 25 219 
 
 VI. THE SINGERS OF PASTORALS . . . . 34 225 
 
 VII. THE THALYSIA ^ ^H 226 
 
 VIII. THE SINGERS OF PASTORALS ... 45 231 
 
 IX. THE. PASTOR, OR THE HERDSMEN ... 50 234 
 
 X. THE WORKMEN, OR REAPERS ... 53 235 
 
 XI. THE CYCLOPS . 57 238 
 
 . XII. AiTES 62 240 
 
 XIII. HYLAS 65 241 
 
 XIV. THE LOVE OF CYNISCA, OR THYONICHUS . 70 244 
 XV. THE SYRACUSAN WOMEN; OR, ADONIAZUS^ . 74 247 
 
 XVI. THE graces; OR, HIERO .... 83 253 
 
 XVII. THE PRAISE OF PTOLEMY 90 256 
 
 XVIII. THE EPITHALAMIUM OF HELEN ... 97 260^ 
 
 XIX. THE STEALER OF HONEY-COMBS . • . 102 262 
 
 XX. THE HERDSMAN 103 263 
 
 XXI. THE FISHERMEN 106 264 
 
 XXII. THE DIOSCURI 110 266 
 
 XXIII. THE lover; OR, LOVE-SICK .... 122 273 
 
 XXIV. THE LITTLE HERCULES 125 275 
 
 XXV. HERCULES THE LION-SLAYER, OR, THE WEALTH 
 
 OF AUGEAS 132 279 
 
 XXVK THE BACCHANALS 144 .287 
 
 XXVII. THE FOND DISCOURSE OF DAPHNIS AND THE 
 
 DAMSEL . 146 288 
 
 « (^ O * c 
 
IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 IDYLL 
 
 XXVIIl. THE DISTAFF 
 
 XXIX. LOVES 
 
 ..^XXX. THE DEATH OF ADONIS. 
 
 A FRAGMENT FROM THE BERENICE 
 EPIGRAMS 
 
 PROSE. TERSE. 
 
 150 29^- 
 
 151 293 
 153 294 
 
 155 
 156 
 
 295 
 ib. 
 
 i^^lU of 33 ton. 
 
 O THE EPITAPH OF ADONIS 166 301 
 
 II. EROS AND THE FOWLER .... 170 304 
 
 III. THE TEACHER TAUGHT 171 lb. 
 
 IV. THE POWER OF LOVE 172 305 
 
 V. LIFE TO BE ENJOYED 173 ib. 
 
 VI. CLEODAMUS AND MYRSON . . . . 174 306 
 
 VII. ON HYACINTHUS . . . . . . 175 307 
 
 VIII. FRIENDSHIP ib. ib. 
 
 IX.-XIV. FRAGMENTS 176 ib. 
 
 XV. THE EPITHALAMIUM OF ACHILLES AND DEIDAMIA 177 308 
 
 XVI. TO THE EVENING STAR 179 309 
 
 XVII. LOVE RESISTLESS ib. 310 
 
 aEXicUs of iHogc!)tt0. 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 i. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 VII. 
 
 LOVE A RUNAWAY 
 
 EUROPA 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF BION, A LOVING HERDSMAN 
 MEGARA, THE WIFE OF HERCULES 
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 "love THEM THAT I.OVE YOU*' . 
 ALPHEUS ... * . 
 
 AN EPIGRAM . . . • < 
 
 FRAGMENT ... . • 
 
 180 
 
 310 
 
 181 
 
 311 
 
 188 
 
 316 
 
 194 
 
 319 
 
 199 
 
 323 
 
 ib. 
 
 ib. 
 
 200 
 
 ib. 
 
 ib. 
 
 324 
 
 201 
 
 ib. 
 
 THE WAR-80NGS OF TYRT^US.. 
 
 325 337 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 In the following translation of Theocritus, Bion, aud 
 Moschus, the text of Kiessling has been mainly adopted. But 
 where a passage appeared obscure or corrupt, the trans- 
 lator has used his own judgment in deciding between the 
 readings suggested by Heindorf, in 1810, Briggs, in 1821, 
 and Wordsworth, in 1844; and has either recorded in notes, 
 or admitted into the body of the translation, whichever he 
 deemed preferable. He has also had recourse to the Poetae 
 Grseci Minores, of Gaisford ; to " Theocritus Sacram Scrip- 
 turam illustrans," by Chr. Porschberger, Lipsiag, 1744 ; and 
 to the several metrical translations of Theocritus, &c., by 
 Creech, Fawkes, Polwhele, and Chapman, the latter of which 
 is appended to this volume. And he has given, in the form 
 of notes, much information derived from these, and from 
 scattered criticisms in the Classical Museum and elsewhere, 
 including Smith's Dictionaries of Greek and Roman Anti- 
 quities, and Biography. This labour has been undertaken 
 and completed in the hope that it may be useful to those who 
 have not leisure to search for themselves, and yet would fain 
 refresh their memory with the sweet strains of the Doric min- 
 strelsy, as well as to those who require assistance towards 
 mastering these confessedly difficult poets. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Whatever the labour, the translator is aware that the credit 
 attaching to a prose translation is by no means large. Yet 
 he believes that, properly applied, such a work may be of 
 great advantage : and though a resolute opponent of the in- 
 discriminate use of a " crib," he is not the less persuaded that 
 there are many hard-working tyros, as well as advanced 
 students, to whom it may be a great boon, and whose progress 
 in classical knowledge it will assist rather than impede. He 
 has taken up the work " con amore ; " inasmuch as the taste 
 for the Bucolic Poets, which he imbibed under one who had 
 a keen appreciation of their beauties, — and who, in his too 
 brief tenure of the head-mastership of one of our principal 
 schools, manifested singular felicity in inspiring his pupils 
 with a zest for their song, — has grown into an ardent desire to 
 do somewhat towards their more extended study. He rejoices 
 to hear that there is hope of a fresh edition of the Greek Bucolic 
 Poets from the University of Cambridge, the promise of 
 which is not likely to be imperfectly fulfilled, considering the 
 hand from which it is to come. Meanwhile, if through this 
 unpretending translation, which, without being servile in its 
 literality, is, the translator hopes, sufficiently close, a score more 
 men within the next two years shall be induced to place Theo- 
 critus on their list for the public examinations at Oxford, he 
 will not regret the labour bestowed upon rendering into bare 
 a bard whose lays are so full of poetry. 
 « 
 
 J. B. 
 
 Grammar Scliool of King Edward VI. t 
 Ludlow. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 CF 
 
 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 B. c. 284—280. 
 
 For the biography of the foremost of Bucolic minstrels, the 
 pastoral poet Theocritus, unfortunately few materials exist. 
 Indeed the little which is known is inferred either from the 
 actual poems of Theocritus himself, or from such as have 
 been published under his name. Of the latter class is the 22nd 
 epigram, from which we gather his parentage and birth-place, 
 and which is generally held to have been the work of Ar- 
 temidorus the grammarian. Evidently written with a view 
 to distinguishing between our poet and his Chian namesake, 
 an orator and sophist, it fixes for his native place Syracuse, 
 and for his parents Praxagoras and Philinna. With this 
 account Suidas substantially agrees, though he adds that 
 some make Theocritus the son of Simichus, or Simichidas, and 
 holds that, being originally a native of Cos, he had become a 
 metaech or foreign settler at Syracuse. Now if we compare 
 this notion with the Scholia on the 7th Idyll, vs. 21, (where it 
 is suggested by some that the name is an assumed one, derived 
 from crifiog, flat-nosed,) as well as with the QeoKpirov yivoQ, it 
 seems that a confusion has arisen with regard to the identity of 
 Theocritus with Simichidas, into whose mouth the 7th Idyll is 
 put. It does not seem to have occurred to those who make Simi- 
 chus the father of the Syracusan poet, that bards are wont to 
 shadow forth their own words, thoughts, and acts, under ficti- 
 tious names and unreal characters, and that Theocritus might 
 really have described what happened to himself in the "Thaly- 
 sia," and yet not have used the name of Simichidas, otherwise 
 than Virgil uses that of Tityrus Nor is there any reason to 
 
Till BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 suppose that tlie claims of Cos to the honour of his birth and 
 early training rest on stronger grounds than that he studied 
 under Philetus of Cos, whom he mentions in Idyll vii. 40, whe- 
 ther at Cos itself or in Alexandria is not clear. Of Philetus,. 
 and Asclepiades, of whom he speaks as tov tadXov 'SniceXidav 
 Tov IK Sa/zw, (Idyll vii. 40,) it is known that they were dis- 
 tinguished poets of the Alexandrian school, whom Theocritus 
 professedly admired, and of the former of whom he was pro- 
 bably a pupil. 
 
 There is internal evidence in the Idylls of the poet, that ] 
 resided for some space at Alexandria, and afterwards au 
 Syracuse, whilst the 7th Idyll shows such a knowledge of 
 the localities of Cos, as could hardly, one should think, 
 have been obtained without a personal acquaintance with 
 the island. Here may have arisen his intimacy with Ni- 
 cias of Miletus, the physician to whom he dedicated the 
 11th and 13th Idylls, and to whose wife, Theugenis, he wrote 
 a pleasing ditty, (28th,) with a silver distaff. But this is 
 mere conjecture, arising probably out of the nearness of Cos 
 to Miletus. To Alexandria Theocritus was no doubt at- 
 tracted by the fame of its library, founded by Ptolemy 
 Soter, and raised to its highest point of eminence by his son 
 Philadelphus, under whose care it became the resort of tht 
 most distinguished literati of the day, Zenodotus, Callimachus, 
 Hegesias, Euclid, Aratus. To the last of these, the astro- 
 nomer and poet, who was the author of the Phsenomena, 
 he addressed his 6th Idyll, and his name occurs again in the 
 Idyll following. Association with such a man would not be 
 without its advantages, and we here and there discover trace? 
 of his having imbibed from his friend some acquaintance 
 with astronomical matters. But it was probably at Alex- 
 andria, too, that he found access to the pages of the Septua- 
 gint, itself a lasting monument of the Egyptian monarch's zeal 
 in the collection of literary treasures. No one can read the 
 16th, 18th, 20th, and 23rd Idylls without being struck by the 
 similarity of thought and expression of passages in each, to 
 portions of the Psalms of David, the Book of Job, the Song 
 of Solomon, and the Prophecies of Isaiah. The parallels have 
 been pointed out in the notes to the present translation : but 
 the strength of internal evidence to the supposition that Theo- 
 critus availed himself of the access, which he might undoubt- 
 
OF THEOCRITUS. ix 
 
 .;dly have had, to the Septuagint, receives additional force in the 
 comparison of the whole scene of altercation between Pollux 
 and Amycus with the historical record of the encountei* be- 
 tween David and Goliath in the First Book of Samuel. It can 
 hardly be doubted that Theocritus composed the 14th, 15th, 
 and 17th Idylls at Alexandria : he could not have enjoyed 
 6ven the passing favour and brief notice of Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus, without becoming interested in the law and records 
 of that strange race, the Jews of many wanderings ; one hun- 
 
 Ved and twenty thousand of whom had been liberated by that 
 "monarch from the slavery in which Ptolemy Soter had bound 
 them. Josephus (Antiq. xii. 2) writes at length respecting 
 the interest shown by Ptolemy Philadelphus in obtaining for 
 his vast library an accurate translation of the Books of the 
 Old Testament. We find from him how the monarch strove 
 to purchase the good will of the nation by sending splendid 
 gifts to the God of Israel :. how he valued the translators 
 and their translations : and how he conversed with his 
 librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, on the deep meaning and 
 superior wisdom of the Jewish law. And we know enough 
 of the tide of fashion, especially if it is royal taste that lifts 
 the floodgate, which carries onward successful literature 
 of any class, to feel sure that a scholar could hardly have 
 tarried even for a brief space at Alexandria without inspect- 
 ing that volume, which even to heathens was a work of 
 wonder, fostered by reflecting credit upon one of the fore- 
 most of the then rulers of the world. A poet likewise, im- 
 bued, as was Theocritus, with a sense of the charm of natural 
 gimplicity, and having withal, as some of his poems show, no 
 mean appreciation of the glorious epic, could never have been 
 content with a transient glance at a collection of such infinite 
 graces, simplicity, grandeur, natural colouring, and noble 
 imagery, as the translation of the Seventy elders, inferior 
 though it be in diction to the original. No ! like others, he 
 dipped often into that well of wisdom, albeit he knew not the 
 spell which renders it sweeter to the taste than all other 
 waters. Hovering around those sacred pages, he caught the 
 scent of flowers of poesy, which he has transferred into his 
 Idylls, and we have the gratification of an involuntary testi- 
 ^nony from a heathen poet to the charms of composition and 
 
 .. vterial, with which the sacred volume is so richly fraught. 
 
 b 
 
X- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 Our taste will be wilfully dull, if it acknowledge not the 
 extreme probability that the Syracusan saw the Septuagint, 
 and there need be no stumbling-block in the argument that he 
 no where mentions the Jews. He di^ed for pearls of poesy, 
 leaving unexplored the buried treasures of history and reli- 
 gion. Without satisfactory data for any certain conclusion, 
 we can at least give the benefit of probabilities in favour of 
 our poet's acquaintance with the Septuagint. From this we 
 pass on to other matter. 
 
 Theocritus, while at Alexandria, was allowed, we presume, 
 to dedicate his 17th Idyll to Ptolemy Philadelphus ; and we 
 have reason to suppose that the 14th and 15th were com- 
 posed there also. But it is clear that he did not find the 
 monarch and his capital such kindly fosterers of his Muse 
 as he might have expected: for very soon we find him 
 hymning at Syracuse the praises (considerably qualified by 
 doubts of his open-handedness) of King Hiero the Second. 
 That monarch had ascended the throne b. c. 270 : and the 
 Idyll to which reference has been made, appears to have 
 been written during the 1st Punic War, if we may judge 
 from the allusion which he makes to the failing Carthagi- 
 nians, and Hiero's alliance with their implacable foe. This 
 would fix the date of the Idyll as 263 b. c. ; when a treaty 
 between Hiero and the Romans was concluded. But the 
 rays of courtly favour must have .been here also any thing 
 but warm, the atmosphere chilly, when a poet was to be cher- 
 ished, or creative genius to be saved from starvation and blight. 
 Hiero's munificence was bestowed rather on kingdoms and 
 potentates, than on minstrels and their songs. Perhaps Theo- 
 critus discovered at this point the mistake of trusting in princes 
 for the advancement of poetic excellence : at any rate, the 
 greater portion of his Idylls show him to have sought in 
 the calm tranquillity of country life and pastoral scenery, that 
 independent self-reliance, wbich, after all, is the safest nurse 
 of the lovely rhyme. Though when he rises to heroics, as in 
 the encomiums on Ptolemy and Hiero, and in the 22nd, 24th, 
 and 25th Idylls, he fully sustains his reputation, and no where 
 falls into poverty of language, or mediocrity of conception ; 
 yet it is on the first eleven Idylls, the 14th, 15 th, and 21st, 
 that his title to the fame, which has been universally ac- 
 corded to him, is most really and justly based. Bion and 
 
OF THEOCRITUS. . Xl 
 
 Mosclius are pretty conceit-weavers : they sometimes delight 
 U8^ with passages unrivalled for warmth of colouring and ten- 
 derness of pathos : — but for simple rural life, accurately and 
 tastefully depicted, for the thorough appreciation of nature, 
 and reliance thereupon for the staple of his song, Theocritus 
 ranks immeasurably above them. He stands alone, with a 
 crowd of imitators at a wide interval of merit. Virgil's Ec- 
 logues have no inherent stamp of reality about them. We 
 lack the shepherd's account of his own life among his sheep. 
 There is more of polish than of nature. We have the cour- 
 tier drawing smooth pictures from fancy ; not the passion- 
 ate lover of the country deriving his materials from the real 
 landscapes on which he is actually looking out. To borrow 
 an apt expression, Virgil's Eclogues are pictures of a polished 
 mind playing at shepherd. 
 
 And as to our own pastoral writers, Spenser, Pope, Gay, 
 Lyttleton, and Shenstone, none reach to half the height of 
 Bucolic minstrelsy, to which their great model undeniably 
 attained. Spenser's dialect and metre are unfavourable to his 
 subject ; and" he can lay no claim to be a true bard of nature ; 
 while it is matter of fact that beneath his rural images there is 
 an under-current of allusion to matters of religion. Who can 
 enjoy with true zest the pastoral, where the shepherd Roffin 
 symbolizes a bishop of Rochester, and the watch-dog Lowder, 
 one of his chaplains ? (See Shepherd's Calendar, Eel. ix.) 
 And as for Pope, whose pretensions rank next, his pastorals 
 deserve credit only because they were written by a boy of 
 sixteen ; it were an insult to compare them with the mature 
 productions of Theocritus. For smoothness of versification, 
 they have indeed won praise from Macaulay and the Earl of 
 Carlisle; but these two most capable judges assign to them 
 no higher meed. Indeed, had Pope's pastorals alone survived 
 their author, we may well question whether his name would 
 have even been remembered. As for the rest, they claim 
 still less right to tread the same ground, to rank in the same 
 '^rder with Theocritus, in that portion of the temple of fame 
 which good taste will always assign to the Pastoral or Bu- 
 colic poets. 
 
 Coarse though the Syracusan bard be here and there, he is 
 indeed, as Quinctilian calls him, " admirabilis in suo genere," 
 -lor is it any detraction from his well-won laurels that the 
 
 b 2 
 
Xll BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 same critic goes on to say, "sed musa ilia rustica et pastoralis 
 non forum modo, verum ipsara etiam urbem reformidat." (Inst. 
 Orator, x. 1.) It must be borne in mind, when we stumble 
 on grave objections against the poems of Theocritus, that his 
 f idea of simplicity is not a transcendental, but a natural one. 
 He has no model Arcadia in view : his eye is all the while 
 upon the woods and vales and river pastures of his native 
 Sicily ; taking his shepherds as he found them there, mak- 
 ing them speak what they did speak, not what they ought to 
 have spoken.) There are blemishes to his Idylls, which cer- 
 tainly render an expurgated edition of them a desideratum : 
 but these affect more or less all the chief writers of antiquity. 
 The question however which is just now dividing the educa- 
 tional world of France, seems to us to admit of but one soIut 
 tion. What is true of most of the Greek and Latin Classics, 
 is of course true of Theocritus, as one of them. We cannot] 
 forego the charms of the whole, because our delicacy is of- 
 fended, our purity shocked, by one or two Idylls, which, while 
 they illustrate the darkest traits in the life of a heathen, only 
 make us the more thankful that Christianity has at least gone 
 far to banish one of the worst forms of human guilt and 
 degradation. •' But upon the whole, the poems of Theocritus, 
 without aiming at any deep moral lesson, are eminently calcu- 
 lated to nourish in us a growth of that keen taste for rural 
 scenery, which is one of the purest and finest of earthly yearn- 
 ings : whilst in liveliness, variety, and rhythm they certainly 
 surpass anything of their kind, ancient or modernM And this 
 must have arisen from the familiarity in which, we^nfer, The- 
 ocritus passed his latter years with rural scenes and characters. 
 It is seldom that we have no notice, at any rate no tradition, 
 respecting the death of the poets of the ancient world. Of 
 Hesiod, Simonides, ^schylus, Sophocles, Callimachus, Apol- 
 lonius, Rhodius, (and these are but a few names taken hap-ha- 
 zard,) we find some story at least, vague though it be, of their 
 death or their burial-place. But Theocritus seems to have 
 vanished from before the eyes of men, after he had lamented 
 at Syracuse the small account in which bards of his day were 
 held of tyrants. May he not have ended his days unnoticed 
 in some quiet spot, to rise long after into fame by his depic- 
 tion of it, while his bones lay sepulchred on one of the head- 
 lands which he puts before us so vividly ? Did he not fall . 
 
OF THEOCRITUS. .Xlll 
 
 asleep afar from the din of cities, bewept, like his fabled 
 DaplMiis, by universal nature ? Ovid, we can hardly doubt, 
 was in his Ibis confusing the poet with his Chian namesake, 
 where he says, 
 
 Utque Syracosio prsestrict^ fauce poetse 
 
 Sic animffi laqueo sit via clausa tibi. Lib. in Ibim, 554. 
 
 In a note upon this passage in the Delphin. edition, it is ob- 
 served, that the old interpreters understood this to mean that 
 Theocritus was hung by the son of Hiero, king of Sicily, 
 on account of his invectives against him. But this only 
 proves the fear of him, who wrote the epigram before alluded 
 to, as distinguishing the name-sakes of Syracuse and Chios, to 
 have been a well-grounded fear. Ovid, if, by the Syracusan 
 poet, he means Theocritus, seems to have stumbled on the 
 rock of which that epigram might have warned him. The 
 fate of the Chian seems to have been transferred in his mind 
 to the Syracusan, as will be seen by the following extract from 
 Macrobius, Saturnalia, lib. vii. c. 3. 
 
 " King Antigonus put to death the Chian Theocritus, al- 
 though he was bound by an oath to spare him, on account of 
 an unfortunate joke of that individual at his expense. For 
 when he was being dragged before Antigonus as if to receive 
 punishment, and his friends were comforting him, and afford- 
 ing hopes 'that he would experience the royal clemency, 
 when once he had come before the eyes of the king ; Then,' 
 observed he, ' the hope you hold out of safety is a vain one.' 
 For the king had lost one eye. So the ill-timed witticism 
 cost the prisoner his life." 
 
 Now if we thus clear away this very apparent confusion 
 between the two, we have no account of the death of the 
 pastoral poet ; no, nor the vaguest allusion to it. But the works 
 which survive him are evid-ence that he has not all died : 
 while taste survives, he must hold undisputed supremacy in 
 his own branch of the poetic art. 
 
 Of the origin and nature of that species of poetry which 
 dates its ascendency from Theocritus, there is little which 
 has not been said again and again. The student who 
 desires to arrive at the results of older lucubrations on this 
 subject, must wade through subtle distinctions and learned 
 disquisitions respecting pastoral and heroic poetry. He will 
 
X1V^ BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 find that the birth-place of the former is contended by some 
 to have been Sicily, by others Arcadia. And while one and 
 another ascribe its first authorship to various poets of more 
 or less historical periods, some have been fain to date it from 
 the golden age. Now, when we gain experience of the difii- 
 culties which arise in reconciling so many and diverse state- 
 ments, and find that the more effort we make, the further we 
 drift into a sea of troubles, our natural inclination coincides 
 with some sort of likelihood, which is in favour of that last 
 opinion. The truth may be that some kind of pastoral was 
 the first form of poetry. What more natural, when we reflect 
 that the eldest of the human race reckoned their superiority 
 by their flocks and herds. Men were all shepherds : and 
 so little of shame was there connected with an occupation 
 now so lowly, that no higher or more expressive title for a 
 mighty ruler was sought than that of " shepherd of his 
 peoples." Of course, under these circumstances, the pastoral 
 was likely to be an early form of poetry, and withal one 
 not likely to be despised. Indeed, among those who practised 
 it at an early date were Moses and Miriam, Deborah and 
 Barak, as well as the sweet Psalmist of Israel. 
 
 When therefore we discuss the age of its invention, we can 
 but say that it was of every age. The first up-rising of it was, 
 we may conclude, in that primaeval condition of men, when 
 the system of concentration into towns and fenced cities had 
 not yet begun : but when men led a nomad life, and whiled 
 their hours afield by alternate strains, whilst they were pastur- 
 ing their flocks. It was the song of nature, little polished per- 
 haps, but still not without its inspiration, because it flowed 
 directly from the shrines of her, whom he that worships most 
 is ever the truest and most accepted poet. The rustling of 
 the trees, the vocal pine, the murmurings of rivulets, the very 
 notes of birds, were so many of nature's hints to man to create 
 for himself a harmony more excellent in proportion as the 
 gift of speech excels all inarticulate sounds. And when we 
 add to this the influence of a sunny sky, a genial atmosphere, 
 a mind unruffled with the cares and sins which harass and 
 pollute the life of crowded cities, the wonder would be if 
 song had not arisen ; and that song, in common gratitude, of 
 such a kind as should depict and hold up to imitation the 
 life which was so singularly blessed. Gratitude, too, led 
 
OF THEOCRITUS. XT 
 
 ^them no doubt to celebrate the festivals of their gods, the 
 tutelar deities of light and shade, of cattle and of fruits — 
 Apollo, Diana, Pan, and Ceres. Prizes offered for such strains 
 at these holy seasons would kindle a rivalry promotive of 
 advancement, and render easier the steps by which they should 
 pass into an art. This is probably the key to the mythical 
 ascription of pastoral poetry to Apollo Nomius, the herds- 
 man whilome in the halls of Admetus. Diomus, Daphnis, 
 and Stesiehorus, all of them Sicilian, may have been its first 
 promoters upon Dorian soil ; and as Theocritus seems to have 
 been the first who applied a highly cultivated mind to the task 
 of infusing into Ameeboean strains the grace and beauty which 
 he has wrought into his Idylls, his country Sicily stands justly 
 foremost as the birth-place of Bucolic minstrelsy. The Dorian 
 character, too, was apter than that of other races to this kind 
 of poetry : mimetic art had its eminent representative in the 
 Sicilian Sophron : and among them mimetic and comic dia- 
 logue, as well as pastoral, arose in some measure out of the 
 unstudied repartees of the Lydiastse and Bucolistae, or of some 
 such performers. These gave a basis, whereon the more 
 studied Idyll might take its stand, and the great master of 
 whom we are treating, was not slow to apply all his varied 
 knowledge of nature and of art to this lively form of poetry, 
 so calculated to keep the interest from flagging, the hearer or 
 reader from becoming wearied. He first moulded these rude 
 strains into grace and beauty. He smoothed the ruggednesses 
 of verse. He inspired the picture with novel life ; and, whilst 
 he preserved the guise of nature throughout, evinced that 
 master power which is most teeming with the perfection of 
 art, when its creations look likest nature. 
 
 It remains that we should attempt a classification of the 
 various poems of Theocritus which have come down to us. 
 The arguments to each of these have been prefixed in the 
 body of the translation. Of the thirty Idylls extant, ten are 
 properly Bucolics, the 1st, the 3rd, and all up to the 12th. 
 The 2nd Idyll can scarcely come under this head, though the 
 wider term eidri, or eldyXKia, pictures, that is, of common every- 
 day life, may embrace that as well as the 14th, 15th, the 
 21st, and perhaps some others. Some, however, claim the 
 2nd and 15th for a separate class under the head of mimetic 
 Idylls. The 12th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 23rd, 27th, and 29tli, 
 
itVl BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 are erotic: the 16th and 17th, encomiastic: the 22n(I, 24tli, 
 25th, and 26th, belong to the epic class ; whilst the 28th is 
 epistolary, and the 30th Anacreontic. Of those classed as 
 erotic, the manner and form is various, as the reader will ob- 
 serve. The genuineness of all the Idylls after the 18th has 
 be«i much questioned : this however is not a matter either 
 likely to repay great research, or calculated to interest the 
 general reader. They are for the most part in hexameter 
 verse : the thirty-two epigrams are some of them elegiac, 
 some epodic. 
 
 It is difficult to fix upon one beauty beyond another in these 
 matchless pastorals, by singling out which one may send 
 the uninitiated reader with a whetted appetite to the whole 
 volume. A thousand charms of poesy press forward, each 
 claiming foremost commemoration. In the first Idyll we 
 linger long over the sorrows of Daphnis, which Virgil has 
 transfused into his Eclogues, over the immortal lines (66 — 
 69) which have lost none of their pristine sweetness, when, 
 having passed the ordeal of transplantation, they bloom anew 
 in the Lycidas of Milton, (Lycidas, 1. 50,) 
 
 " Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep," &c. ; 
 
 or yet again in the same Idyll, over that (to the translator's 
 taste at least) most enviable epitaph, (140, 141,) 
 
 X<if ^a^viQ i[3a poov' t/cXwcrt Siva 
 Tov Muxraig <pi\ov avdpa, rbv ov l^vfxcpaicnv arrexOr}. 
 
 In the second Idyll, we view the fierceness of disappointed 
 love, in the raging passion of Simsetha : in the sixth, a more 
 rustic and clownish, yet not less touching, hopelessness, at- 
 tributed to the Cyclops in the song of Damagtas. Or if 
 pretty picturings of ^enery are more the object of our search, 
 what translation can-do justice to the 13th Idyll, the Hylas, 
 the charming jural scene in the end of the 7th, or the 25th 
 Idyll from the 34th to the 50th line ? There are passages in 
 the Hylas unsurpassed by any poet of whatever age or clime ; 
 as, for instance, fn)m the 35th to the 60th line, where the 
 capture of the youth by the enamoured Naiads is depicted. 
 The Gossips of Theocritus are such a life-like picture, so 
 capitally drawn, that it were a work of supererogation to 
 point it out, or to commend it. It is nature itself, not as it 
 was seen in Sicily, or in Alexandria, but as it ever has been 
 
^ OF THEOCRITUS. XVll 
 
 throughout the world. The Epithalamium of Helen (18th) 
 and the Infant Hercules (24th) are excellent in their kinds ; 
 and the Honey-stealer (19th) won the notice and translating 
 hand of the poet Moore, by its Anacreontic savour. And 
 by no means must any reader pass by the fishermen of the 
 21st Idyll. Their wattled cabin is an old favourite of 
 every lover of Theocritus : and there is untold humour in 
 Asphalion's dream, and his sage comrade's advice thereupon. 
 But it is invidious to mention these. The beauties uncom- 
 memorated may with ease be proved to eclipse the few which 
 we have instanced. The touch of Theocritus left no subject 
 without some impress of native grace and liveliness. " Nihil, 
 quod tetigit, non ornavit." 
 
 Of the Epigrams, the 6th, " on the loss of the kid," the 14th, 
 an epitaph on Eurymedon, and the 15th, another on the same, 
 are very beautiful. The Epigram on the Bank of Caicus, (23rd,) 
 might fitly stand translated over the doors of the safest estab- 
 lishments of a like nature in modern days ; whilst, on the 
 principle of keeping the best till last, we are bound to set 
 before all, as praise the noblest in the aim, the most glorious 
 in the acquisition, the conclusion of the Epigram on the Sici- 
 lian Epicharmus (Epigr. xvii.) : 
 
 TToXXd yap TTox' Tav Xoc^i^ toIi ttuKtIu elira ^pijarifxa. 
 MtydXa X"P'* auTw* 
 Full many a rule of life he drew, 
 Still pointing to the fair, the true, 
 The youthful mind : High favour crowns the bard. (Polwhcle.) 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 OF 
 
 BIO N. 
 
 If materials are scanty for a Life of Theocritus, they are 
 much more so for those of his first imitators, Bion and Moschus. 
 An Elegy of the latter is the only faint glimmer of light, 
 by which we can guess at, we cannot say discern, aught of 
 history of the former. Yet it would interest us if we could 
 know how far Bion professedly reverenced Theocritus, what 
 value he set upon simplicity in Pastorals, whether he aimed at 
 a new school of that branch of the poetic art, and whether he 
 would account as an improvement that over-refined sentiment- 
 ality which robs his Muse of all claim to be a child of nature. 
 
 But, except the 3rd Idyll of Moschus, no data for his life 
 exist — unless we take upon the authority of Suidas that he 
 was born beside that river, which by tradition is reputed to 
 have reared on its banks the greatest of poets, the immortal 
 Homer, the river Meles, at Phlossa in the neighbourhood of 
 Smyrna. ^ 
 
 From the Elegy above referred to, we assume that Bion 
 left his native country for Sicily, and spent at least his latter 
 days in cultivating the Bucolic minstrelsy, so thoroughly 
 identified with that pastoral isle. It seems hardly safe how- 
 ever to lay it down, with some, on the faith of the words 
 in Moschus, (Id. iii. 17, &c.,) that Bion visited Thrace and 
 Macedonia ; because the sense of the passage does not neces- 
 sarily imply more than that Strymonian swans and ^agrian 
 nymphs might well mourn and weep afresh, since a Dorian, 
 equal to their native Orpheus, had ceased to breathe forth 
 his lovely lays. One fact, however, stands out distinctly, 
 namely, that the poet came to an untimely death by poison. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF BION. xix 
 
 which was administered to him by more than one individual, 
 and that the murderers, whosoever they were, paid the penalty 
 of their crime. The age of Bion can be determined only by 
 the statement of Moschus, (iii. 100 — 105,) that he was one 
 of his disciples, and that Theocritus mourned his loss. Grant - 
 ing this, we must take his date as 280 b. c. 
 
 As has been before observed in the Life of Theocritus, the 
 poems of Bion which have come down to us are vastly inferior 
 in pastoral beauty, in natural simplicity, and inherent truthful- 
 ness, to the works of the Syracusan master. But here and 
 there we chance upon a passage of eminent loveliness. Every 
 where the Asiatic softness seems to add luxurious grace to his 
 tuneful songs ; though this is but a poor substitute for the 
 vigorous and healthy freshness of the Father of Pastorals. Bion 
 standing alone would soon fade from our memories. He is 
 fortunate in being preserved with his pupil and elegiast to 
 complete the volume of Greek Pastoral Poets, which is, alas I 
 our sole legacy in this kind from the Alexandrian school. 
 His versification is very elegant ; his language, Doric, with 
 some few lonicisms and Atticisms. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 MOSCHUS. 
 
 The poet Moschus seems to have found no kindred spirit 
 to embalm his memory in harmonious numbers : or if he 
 had that fortune, it has not survived the oblivion which so 
 remorselessly overwhelms the rest of his personal history. 
 We reckon him a Syracusan, whose day was about the close 
 of the third century before Christ. And he must have been con- 
 temporaneous with Bion, probably in age somewhat younger. 
 He does not reach the excellence of his friend and teacher, 
 far less that of Theocritus. Indeed there lies over all his 
 pieces a clothing of affectation, and study of ornament, which 
 makes them read as forced and unnatural compositions. Still 
 many passages might be quoted which are highly poetic, none 
 more so perhaps than that exquisite passage in the third Idyll, 
 (105 — 114,) where, in a lament over the briefness of this mor- 
 tal life, the mighty of the earth are contrasted with the flowers 
 of the field in such an earnest tone of pathos, as shows the 
 enlightened heathen dissatisfied with prevailing religions, 
 whilst it teaches our own higher privileges, to us who have, 
 held out and within our grasp, " the sure and certain hope of 
 the resurrection to eternal life." 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 OF 
 
 TYRTJiUS/ 
 
 B. c. 660 ? 
 
 The elegiac poet, Tyrtasus, whose remains, in an English 
 garb, close the present volume, follows immediately in his 
 branch of the poetic art, the founder of Greek elegy, Callinus. 
 An elegy, according to the Greek notion, is a poem composed 
 of a combination of hexameters and pentameters. It seems 
 often to have been of the nature of a dirge or lament, and the 
 word 'iXeyog has no distinct reference to metrical form, though 
 iXeyeia has. Its origin was undoubtedly Asiatic. Crossing the 
 ^gean, it found one of its most eminent cultivators in Tyr- 
 ta3us, the poet whom tradition has handed down to us as the 
 Athenian present to their hereditary enemies the Spartans, 
 when they had been directed by the Delphic oracle to seek a 
 leader from Athens for the second Messenian war. The 
 story runs, that Athens, never hearty towards Sparta, save in 
 her hatred, sent her the worst selection that, according to ap- 
 pearances, could be made, — a lame schoolmaster and composer 
 of verses, who dwelt at Aphidnae, a village of Attica : and 
 that this Ionian inspired the Dorian warriors who adopted 
 him, with such spirit thro'Ugh his fiery strains, that victory 
 crowned their prowess. The second Messenian war is placed 
 by Pausanias between 01. 23, 4 and 28, 1, that is, between 
 B. c. 685 and 668 : but this date is considered by the latest 
 authorities too high, and indeed, as Callinus probably flour- 
 ished about B. c. 660, and we are led to believe that Tyrtseus 
 
XXll BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 was but a few years junior to him, this would seem to be the 
 more probable date. 
 
 The main features of the popular tradition, however pleas- 
 ing to our school-day notions of history, must of course be 
 taken only as containing the germ of certain truths, and not 
 as being themselves broad historical truths. Castor and Pol- 
 lux, according to old legends, had been adopted by Aphidnus, 
 the hero from whom Aphidnae was named : and as the Dios- 
 curi were Spartan, the Aphidnaeans may have been moved 
 by some feelings or ties of kindred, and not by the will of 
 Athens, to send Tyrtaeus to the aid of Laconia. This would 
 crush the fable of intentional insult on the part of Athens. 
 And then as to the origin of Tyrtaeus, it cannot be doubted 
 that he was of Ionian stock, (whether a native of Attica, or a 
 settler in it from one of her Asiatic colonies, as Suidas states,, 
 it matters not, for the inventions of the colonies would sooi 
 find their way to their polished metropolis:) because w 
 know that the branch of poetry in which he excelled was pe- 
 culiarly Ionian ; and not such as can claim any early vigour 
 or native success among the Dorians. Whether he came fro. 
 Miletus to Aphidnae, or was born at the latter place, we nee 
 not inquire ; there is no ground at any rate for the supposi- 
 tion that he was a Lacedaemonian by birth, as Strabo and 
 Athenaeus have stated on the authority of Philochorus and 
 Callisthenes. Surely his elegiac strains disprove this. With 
 regard to his lameness, and his supposed office of village school- 
 master at Aphidn^, the truth to be evolved from these state- 
 ments is probably that he wrote uneven couplets, and, like 
 other early poets, taught the art, of which he was so skilful a 
 master. If he was either by birth or by sojourn an Aphid- 
 nsean, there is no wonder in his interest for Sparta, nor, on the 
 other hand, any difficulty in understanding why, coming from 
 Attica, he yet became a favourite with the Lacedaemonians. 
 And, certain it is, that whatever may have been his bodily defects, 
 whatever his inexperience in generalship, his martial strains 
 and wise counsels achieved much, in which a skilful general 
 might have failed without them. As a bard, he was no mean 
 leader of his adopted countrymen : for ages afterwards, their 
 evening meal on their campaigns closed with the recitation of 
 his spirit-stirring war-songs : and when the foe was vanquish- 
 
THEOCRITUS. 
 
 IDYLL L 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The Poet, proposing to celebrate the end of Daphnis, the hero of 
 Sicilian shepherds, finds an opening of his subject in a dialogue be- 
 tween a goatherd and a shepherd named Thyrsis. The latter begs the 
 former to sing with the accompaniment of his pipe. This he de- 
 clines, for fear of awakening Pan, and strives to prevail upon Thyrsis, 
 by the offer of a goat and a most highly wrought drinking-cup, to 
 sing of the death of Daphnis. Thyrsis accordingly begins by invok- 
 ing the Nymphs : describes the grief of the brute creation at the 
 sorrows of Daphnis : the sympathy of Pan and Mercury, as well as 
 the shepherds . their worshippers : the bitterness of Daphnis towards 
 Venus, who had caused his sorrows, but is now inclined to relent. 
 The song^conCludes with the farewell of Daphnis to all the objects of 
 his former ^oys. After which performance, the goatherd presents 
 Thyrsis with the meed^f his song. 
 
 THYRSIS THE SHEPHERD, AND THE GOATHERD. 
 
 Thyrsis. ^ Of a sweet nature, goatherd, is the murmur-^; 
 ing of yon pine, which tunefully rustles by the fountains : X' 
 and sweetly too do you play on the pipe : .next to Pan you 
 shall carry off the second prize. If he shall have taken the 
 horned he-goat, you shall receive the she-goat : and if he 
 
 > Compare Pope, Past. iv. 80, , 
 
 • In some still evening when the whispering breeze 
 
 Pants on the leaves, and dies among the trees. 
 And again in the same Pastoral, 
 
 Thyrsis, the music of that murmuring spring, 
 
 Is not so mournful as the strains you sing. " 
 Add to these Virg. Eel. viii. 22. to ^i9vpi<Tfia kuI a tt'itvq, is an instance 
 of the figure hendiadys, so common in Greek and Latin poets. The 
 " Pateris libamus et auro," of Virgil, for " pateris libamus auratis," will 
 serve for an illustration. So Bion, Fragm, xii. 2, -ipafiaOov /cat i^'iova 
 for ^afxaObv ri'iovoQ. 
 
2 THEOCRITUS. 5—24 
 
 shall have received as a gift of honour the she-goat, ^the 
 yearling falls to your share : and the flesh of the yearling-kid 
 is good, until you shall have milked it. 
 
 Goatherd. ^ Sweeter, good shepherd, is thy melody, than 
 yon resounding water pours down from the rock above. If 
 the Muses bear-off for themselves the sheep as a gift, you 
 shall receive as your prize the '* young lamb: but should it 
 please them to receive the lamb, then you shall afterwards 
 bear away the sheep. 
 
 Thyrs. Are you willing, I ask you by the Nymphs, are 
 you willing, goatherd, to take your seat here at this sloping 
 mound, ^ where the tamarisks are, and to play upon your 
 pipe ? And I meanwhile will tend your she-goats. 
 
 Goath. It is not right, good Shepherd, it is not right for 
 us to pipe at mid-daj: ^we are afraid of Pan; for in truth 
 it is thennie reposes wearied from the chase : and he is 
 crabbed, and sharp anger ever reste upon his nostril. But 
 (since you in fact, Thyrsis, have ^eeii the sorrows of Daphnis, 
 and have arrived at the summit of Bucolic minstrelsy) come, 
 let us sit under the elm, opposite to the statue of Priapus, 
 and the fountain-nymphs, even where that pastoral seat is, 
 and the oaks. And if you shall have sung, as of old you 
 sang, when contending against Chromis from Libya, I will 
 
 * The yearling falls, &c.] Compare Horat. i. Od. xxYiii. 28, Tibi 
 defluat aequo ab Jove, &c. Compare also Bion, i. 55. 
 
 V 3 Virgil, Eel. V. 45—47, 
 
 Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine Poeta, 
 Quale sopor fessis, &c. 
 And ibid. 83, 84, Nee percussa juvant fluctu tam littora, nee quae 
 
 Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles. 
 Pope, Past, iv., Nor rivers vsrinding through the vales below, 
 So sweetly warble, or so sweetly flow. 
 
 * The young lamb.] aaKirav. Literally, stall-fed : hence young and 
 tender. 
 
 ^ Virg. Eel. iv. 2, Non omnes arbusta juvant, humilesque myricae. 
 « This habit of the gods sleeping in the mid-day heat, is introduced 
 by Virgil, Georg. iv. 401, 
 
 Ipsa ego te, medios cum Sol accenderit aestus, 
 In secreta ducam senis, quo fessus ab undis 
 Se recipit. 
 Warton quotes I Kings xviii. 27, "And it came to pass at noon, that 
 Elijah mocked them, and said. Cry aloud : for he is a god ; either he is 
 talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he 
 •ieepeth, and must be awaked." 
 
f5— 48. rOTLL T. 3 
 
 give you both a she-goat, "^that suckles twins, to milk thrice a 
 day, which though it has two kids will give milk to fill two 
 pails, and a deep drinking-cup of ivy wood, rubbed with sweet 
 wax, with two handles, fresh made, still smacking of the 
 graving tool: around whose lips ivy twines on ®high, ivy 
 interspersed with marigold ; and the helix winds round 
 about it rejoicing in the yellow fruit. But on the inner sur- 
 face, a woman, a cunning kind of work of divine art, has , 
 been wrought, decked out in a flowing robe, and ^a coif / 
 of-net-work, and, beside her, men with-beautifully-long-hair I 
 are contending with words, alternately, one from one side, / 
 another from another: yet the words are not reaching her 
 heart: but one while she is glancing with a smile towards 
 that man, and at another time she is again casting her 
 thoughts on this: whilst they by reason of love straining 
 their eyes for a long time, are labouring to no purpose. 
 And ^^ besides these, an old fisherman and a rugged rock 
 have beai wrought, over which the old man is busily drag- 
 ging a huge net for a cast, ^Uike a man toiling with all his 
 might. You would say that he was fishing with the whole 
 strength of his limbs, to such a degree are the sinews swelling 
 every where about his neck, even though he is grey-headed: 
 Yet his powers are worthy of youth. ^^ ^^d at a little dis- 
 tance from the sea-worn old man, a vineyard is beautifully 
 laden with ripe clusters : which a little boy is watching, as 
 he sits at the hedge-rows : and around him two foxes, ^^one 
 
 ^ Yirg. Eel, iii. 30, Bis venit ad mulctram, binos alit ^ere foetus. -" 
 kg dvo TTsWag, i. e. two pails full. 
 \ * Compare Pope's Past. i. 25, 
 
 And I this bowl where wanton ivy twines, 
 And swelling clusters bend the curling vines. 
 ^ And Virg. Eel. iii. 38—45. 
 • ^ dfiTTv^, reticulum, a head-band or snood, for binding up women's 
 front hair. Just above, for t^vToaQtv, compare Virg. Eel. iii. 40, In 
 medio duo signa. 
 
 '<> Besides these.] For this use oi fxkra with a dative, compare Idyll 
 xvii. 84 and xxv. 129, 
 
 " The full expression here would be /card Toaov aOsvog, cxrov yviwv 
 IffTiv, or rather, perhaps, ToaovTov oaov laH yvliav cB'tvog, omnibus 
 membrorum viribus. 
 
 ^" tvtQov d' oaaov^ "non procul." Schol. toctovtov ^icKyrrj^a oaov 
 oXiyov, Virg. Eel. vi. 16, (Heyne,) Serta. procul tantum capiti sublapsa 
 jacebant. 
 
 ^2 Compare Canticles or Song of Solomon ii. 15, "Take us the 
 B 2 
 
4 THEOCRITUS. 49—66. 
 
 is roaming up and down the rows, spoiling the ripe grapes, 
 while the other, preparing all his subtlety for the hoy's wallet, 
 is vowing he will not leave the lad, before that ^"^he shall / 
 have brought him to beggary, as being without his breakfast.-^ 
 But he in sooth is weaving a fine locust-trap with asphodel 
 stalks, fitting them on rushes : and neither is he at all con- 
 cerned for his wallet, nor for the fruits, so much as he is 
 delighting about his platting. But all about the cup clusters 
 the moist ^^ bear's-foot, a kind of jEolian sight : the marvel 
 would astonish your senses. As the price of it, I gave to 
 the Calydonian boatman, a goat and a large cheese cake of 
 Avhite milk, nor has it at all anywise reached ^^ my lip, but it 
 still lies untouched. With this I would right willingly 
 gratify you, if you would sing me, friend, that lovely hymn. 
 And I do not envy you at all. Come, good sir ! for by no 
 means shall ^'^you ever hoard your song, at any rate for 
 Hades that bringeth forgetfulness. ^. 
 
 Thyrs. ^^ Begin, dear Muses, begiiTthe pastoral strain. 
 
 Here am I, Thyrsis from .^tna, and this is the voice of 
 Thyrsis. ^^ Wherever, I wonder, wherever were ye. Nymphs, 
 
 foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines ; for our vines have tender 
 grapes. " 
 
 V " sTTt %r\^6lQ KaOiZeiv riva. To run one aground ; hring to a nonplus ; 
 ruin utterly. Wordsworth shows that KaOi^eiv often has the sense of 
 reducing to a certain state, and leaving in it (redigendi et destituendi). 
 Xenoph. Sympos. iii. 11. Plat. Theset. p. 146, a. Thuc. i. 109. So! 
 Ovid. Fast. iii. 52, In sicca -pueri destituuntur %.nmo. For dvapwrrov, 
 breakfast-less, "Wordsworth proposes Trpdrtorov, i. q. wparov. 
 
 *^ Moist bear's foot.] Virg. Eel. iii. 45, Et molli circum est ansas 
 amplexus acantho. Virg. Georg. iv. 123, Flexi vimen acanthi. Plin. 
 Ep. V. 6, 16, Acanthus in piano mollis, et poene dixerim lubricus. 
 16 Virg. Eel. iii. 43, Necdum illis labra admovi sed condita servo. 
 •' Horn. II. ii. 600. Moschus Epitaph. Bion, 21, 'AXXd Trapd UXovrrj'i 
 fikXoQ XaOalov deiSsi. Above tov e<pifi£pov vfxvov diiayq. So Psalm xlv. 
 is called, " a song of the Loves." 
 
 " Compare this with Virg. Eel. viii. Incipe Maenalios mecum, mea 
 tibia, versus. Pope, Pastoral iii.. 
 
 Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains. 
 " Virg. Eel. x. 9—12, 
 
 Quae nemora aut qui vos saltus habuere, puellae 
 Naiades, indigno cum Gallus amore periret % 
 Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga, nam neque Pindi 
 Ulla moram fecere, nee Aonia Aganippe. 
 Compare too the lines of Milton's Lycidas, beginning, 
 
66—85. IDYLL I. 5 
 
 when DapLnis pined away ? were ye along the fair vales 
 of the ^° Feneus, or along those of Pindus ? for ye were 
 not occupying, I ween, the broad stream of Anapus at 
 any rate, nor the height of JEtnsi, nor the sacred wave of 
 Acis. 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 Him indeed the panthers, him the wolves bewailed. For 
 him, when dead, even the lion from the thicket wept aloud. 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 At his feet many cows, ay and many bulls, and again 
 many young heifers and steers lamented. 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 Foremost came Hermes from the mountain, and said, 'Daph- 
 ^is, who wastes thee away ? of whom, my good friend, art 
 ^■ou so enamoured ? * 
 ^^ Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 21 The herdsmen came, the shepherds, the goatherds came. 
 
 All kept asking, what harm had befallen him. Priapus 
 
 came and said, ' Wret ched i^phnis, why pinest thou ? And 
 
 the maiden too is MMttTAvcj^ past all the fountains along 
 
 4a\. the groves — ' '^BKi^ ' 
 
 #Begin, dear Muses, Degjfl the pastoral strain. 
 
 22 'Seeking — Surely .thou art of a, very lovesick nature, and 
 
 JL « 
 
 Where wer^ ye, I^^ymphs, when the remorseless deep, &c. 
 Pope and Lor^ LyUleto«3^'e imitated this passage, 
 
 20 Peneus, ,'a ri^r, PJot^'^, a mountain and river, of Thessaly. 
 Anapus and Acis, rivers of Sicily. Anapus is mentioned. Id. vii. 151, 
 and Axis by ^liu^ Italicus, i. 14, 
 
 Quisle per ^tnseos Acis petit aequora fines 
 Et du^ ci gEa fetam Xereida perluit xindk. 
 For the 72nd veiwpfcompare Virg. Eel. v. 27, ^ 
 
 Daphni TOum Pgenos etiam ingemuisse leones 
 Interitum montesque feri silvseque loquuntur. 
 
 21 Virg. Eel. X. 19, 
 
 Venit et upilio, tardi venere bubulci. 
 
 Omnes, unde amor iste, rogant tibi. Venit Apollo. 
 
 Galle quid insanis inquitl tua cura Lycoris 
 
 Perque nives alium, perque horrida castra secuta est. 
 Pope Past. iii. 81, 
 
 Pan came and ask'd, "what magic caused my smart, 
 
 And what ill eyes malignant glances dart 1 
 ** Respecting this line there is endless difficulty ; for ^arevc there 
 are various emendations, of which Hermann's ZaTSv (** quin qugere earn," 
 "nay, but seek her") seems the best. Bindemann is at a loss to see 
 
6 THEOCRITUS. 86—105. 
 
 beyond-help. Thou wast called indeed a herdsman, but now- 
 art thou like a ^^ goat-feeder ' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 'And thou too, when thou behotdest the maidens, how 
 they smile, wastest away in thine eyes, because thou dancest 
 not with them.' But to these the herdsman answered no- 
 thing ; but kept going-on-with his own bitter love, and 
 kept going-on-with it to the end of destiny. 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 Ay and there came indeed sweetly, even Yenus smiling, 
 2'* smiling indeed secretly — but cherishing severe anger ; and 
 said she, ' Thou indeed, Daphnis, didst boast that thou 
 ^•^wouldst bend Love! Hast not thou, in thine own person, 
 been bent by grievous love ? ' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 And Daphnis, I wot, answered her thus, * Harsh Venus, 
 Venus to be dreaded, Venus hateful to mortals : — for at 
 length all things declare that my sun is setting : ^^ Daphnis 
 even in the shades will be a bitter grief of Love.' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 27 'As to Venus, is not — the herdsman said — Away to 
 
 why Daphnis should pine away, if she whom he loved was at such pains 
 to find him out. From Virgil's imitation, (Eel. x. 20, 21,) one would 
 imagine she was following another. If so, we may perhaps explain the 
 present reading, hy supposing Priapus to see that the subject is distaste- 
 ful, and so to break oif at the word ZaTeva — a dvaspibg, &c. 
 
 2^ 'QrroXog — tyevTo, two lines sensu obscoeno. Caprarias quando videt 
 capras, ut inscenduntur, tabescit oculis quod non hi^-cus ipse natus est. 
 Chapman renders them, 
 
 The goatherd, when he sees his goats at play, 
 Envies their wanton sport, and pines away. 
 For line 91, compare Horat. Epod. v. 39, 
 
 Cum semel fixse cibo 
 Intabuissent pupulae. 
 
 2* XdOpia fxev. "Wordsworth reconciles the difficulties of this passage, 
 by reading dOprjv for dOpelv, smiling to look upon, which certainly suits 
 the sense better. 
 
 2^ XvyiKrjv, IXvyixOrjQ. A term taken from wrestling, which here 
 means, to master or overthrow. 
 
 26 i. e. ♦' But, even should I, Daphnis, die, my very shade shall 
 sorely trouble the god of love." Compare Bion, Idyll viii. 10, OeVwvj 
 KUKOV dXyoQ. 
 
 2^ This is an instance of aposiopesis, a figure common in Greek and 
 Latin poets. Compare Virg. Eel. iii. 8, Novimus et qui te, transversa 
 tuentibus hircis, et quo — sed faciles nymphse risere — sacello. Also see 
 
106—125. IDYLL I. 7 
 
 Ida. Go to Anchises. There {in Ida) are sheltering oaks, 
 here only marsh plants. Here bees buzz sweetly at the 
 hives.' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 28 'Adonis too in the prime of youth, since he too tends 
 sheep, botTi strikes down hares, and hunts all wild beasts.' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 2^ * See thou go take thy stand again in close combat with 
 Diomed, and say, I conquer the herdsman Daphnis, come 
 contend with me.' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 ' Ye wolves, ye lynxes, ye bears lurking-in-dens along the 
 mountains, farewell ! For you no more is the herdsman 
 Daphnis along the wood: no more up and down the oak- 
 coppices or the groves. Farewell3_Arethusa ; and ye rivers, 
 that pour beautiful water down ^^ Thymbris.' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 'Here am I, that Daphnis, who tend heifers hereabouts : 
 ^^ Daphnis, who lead the bulls and calves to water in these 
 parts.' 
 
 Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral strain. 
 
 'O Pan, Pan, if thou art on the long mountain ranges 
 of Lycseus, or if thou art engaged on ^^ great Maenalus, come 
 thou to the Sicilian isle, and leave the foreland ^^ of Helice, 
 
 Mn. i. 135, Quos ego-^ed motos praestat componere fluctus. -^n. ii. 
 100; V. 195; and a similar instance in the Book of Exodus, xxxii. 32. 
 It is an abrupt breaking off in the midst of a sentence. Here Yenus 
 is taunted with her intrigue with Anchises. Compare Homer Hymn to 
 Venus, 53. 
 
 28 Virg. Eel. X. 10, Et formosus oves ad flumina pavit Adonis. The 
 poet is making Daphnis defend a pastoral life. 
 
 29 Compare Homer Iliad v. 336, for this encounter, and understand 
 in construction oga before '6tt(i)q. See ^sch. Prom. v. 68, ottioq fxrj 
 aavTov oiKTiuq ttotL 
 
 ^ Thymbris, a mountain of Sicily, according to Toup and Valkenaer. 
 Servius, at Virgil ^n. iii. 500, says, that about Syracuse there was a 
 dyke called Thybris, mentioned by Theocritus. He seems to allude to 
 this passage. 
 
 31 See Virg. Eel. v. 41, Daphnis ego in silvis hinc usque ad sidera 
 notus, &c. 
 
 ** Compare Virg. Georg. i. 16, Tua si tibi Msenala curje. Georg. iii. 
 314, Summa Lycaei. 
 
 ^ piov seems to mean any promontorj', headland, foreland. See 
 Idyll XXV. 228. Helice was a city of Achaia, but from the connexion 
 
<n 8 THEOCRITUS. 126—140. 
 
 I ' and that lofty tomb of the son of Lycaon, which is admirable 
 j^ even to the blest immortals.^ 
 
 ^^ Cease, Muses, come cease the pastoral strain. 
 Jf ' Come, O king, and bear off this beautiful pipe sweetly 
 
 -^ smelling from the well-fastened wax, curved about the mouth- 
 j piece ; for in truth I am by Love dragged to Hades at last.' 
 y) Cease, Muses, come cease the pastoral strain. 
 
 ^CZ? \ *Now may ye brambles bear violets, and may ye thorns 
 ^ ijear them ; and may ^^ the beautiful narcissus flower on the 
 3^ junipers : and may all things become changed, and the pine 
 bear pears, since Daphnis dies : and may the stag trail the 
 dogs, and the owls from the mountains contend-in-song with 
 nightingales.' 
 
 Cease, Muses, come cease the pastoral strain. 
 
 And he indeed having said thus much, made an end : and 
 
 Aphrodite was willing to raise him up : but all the threads, 
 
 I ween, had been exhausted by the Fates: and Daphnis 
 
 crossed the ^^ stream. The eddy washed away the man 
 
 of the name here with the son of Lycaon it would seem that we must 
 rather take it for an Arcadian city, Lycaon and his son being connected 
 with that country. Tombs are held as great land-marks among the 
 Pastoral poets. Yirg. Eel, ix. 60, Namque sepulchrum Incipit adparere 
 Bianoris, 
 
 ** Desine Maenalios jam desine tibia versus. Virg. Eel. viii. 61. 
 35 Yirg. Eel. V. 38, 
 
 Pro moUi viol&, pro purpureo narcisso 
 Carduus, et spinis surgit paliurus acutis. 
 And for an elegant imitation of this passage compare Eel. viii. 27, 28, 
 and 52, &c., 
 
 Jungentur jam gryphes equis, eevoque sequent! 
 Cum canibus timidi venient ad pocula damae. 
 
 Nunc et oves ultro fugiat lupus : aurea durse 
 Mala ferant quercus : narcisso floreat alnus : 
 
 Certent et cycnis ululae. 
 Virgil, however, in his Georgics, ii. 71, declares art to have achieved 
 what seemed to Theocrit. i. 134, an impossibility : Ornusque incanuit 
 albo Flore pyri. Travra d' evaWa. Ovid. Met,, Omnia naturae contraria 
 legibus ibunt. Virg, Eel, iii. 58, Omnia vel medium fiant mare. Elms- 
 ley thinks that Virgil here, having the passage of Theocritus in view, 
 translated it, as if the reading Avere evaXa. 
 
 Pope Past, iii.. Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, 
 
 And liquid amber drop from every thorn. 
 
 2* EK fioipav. Virg. Mn. x. 814, Extremaque Lauso Parcae fila legunt. 
 poov, the stream, that is, of Acheron. 
 
141—152. IDYLL 1. 9 
 
 who was dear to the Muses, who was not odious to the 
 Nymphs. 
 
 Cease, Muses, come cease the pastoral strain. 
 
 And give thou me the she-goat and the cup, that I may 
 milk her, and offer a libation to the Muses : O hail, hail 
 oftentimes, ye Muses : and I to you will also at a future time 
 sing more sweetly. 
 
 Goatherd. May thy lovely mouth, Thyrsis, be full of 
 honey, ay full of honey-combs, ^'^and mayest thou eat sweet 
 dried-figs from JEgilus, since thou, for thy part, singest 
 better than a "cicala."' Lo ! here is the cup for thee : observe, 
 my friend, how beautifully it smells. You will think that 
 it has been washed in ^^ the fountains of the Hours. Come 
 hither, Cimsetha: and do you milk her. And, ye she- 
 goats, skip not, lest the he-goat mount you. 
 
 IDYLL II. 
 
 THE SORCERESS. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Simaetha, a maid of Syracuse, of middle rank, (70 — 74,) seeing herself 
 slighted by Delphis, of whom she is enamoured, becomes suspicious 
 and jealous, and strives to regain his love by charms and philtei^. 
 At night, by the light of the moon, she holds a magic rite, to which 
 chosen attendants are admitted. The object of these is, that the per- 
 son on whom the charm is designed to work, may suiFer the same as 
 the inanimate objects used in the ceremonial. The rite being over, 
 and Thestylis gone, Simaetha details the rise and progress of her love, 
 and her suspicions of the faithlessness of Delphis, addressing herself 
 to the Moon, as presiding over the solemnity. Lastly, she threatens 
 
 ^ The goatherd wishes Thyrsis, besides other good things, Attic 
 dried figs from the canton (drjfiog) JEgilus ; from which the best fruit ol 
 this kind came. Valkenaer and Warton think cltt' AiyiXw iaxaSa is the 
 same as AlyiXida iaxada. 
 
 38 This line is a periphrasis for a very beautiful cup. It is a constant 
 usage with Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, to introduce the Hours 
 adding grace and elegance to every thing which comes beneath their 
 influence. Compare Theocr. Idyll, xv. 105, which see, and Mosch. ii. 160, 
 Kal 01 X^x^^i" tvTvvov bipai. 
 
 
n- 
 
 10 THEOCRITUS. 1— 14.V 
 
 heavy doom to the faithless youth, if he return not to his love for her. 
 This Idyll with others, the 15th and 28th, treat of town, not country 
 life. Virgil, in the 8th Eclogue, has borrowed from it largely. 
 
 Where, prythee, are my laurels ? Bring them, Thestylis. 
 And where the love -charms ? Crown the pail ^ with choicest 
 purple wool ! that I may ^ overpower b?/ magic the lover who 
 is cruel to me, for, wretch that he is, ^'tis twelve days since 
 he has ever been to see me : neither knows he whether I am 
 dead or ^ alive, nor has he knocked-furiously at the doors, 
 being untoward: surely Eros has gone off with his fickle 
 heart elsewhere, and Aphrodite. I will go to-morrow to the 
 palaestra of Timagetus, that I may see him, and reproach 
 him for the way in which he treats me. But now I will 
 compel him to love by magic rites. However, ^0 Moon, 
 shine brightly, for to thee will I sing softly, O goddess, and to 
 infernal Hecate, at whom even whelps tremble, as she goeth 
 along the tombs and the dark gore of the corpses. Hail ! 
 ^ frightful Hecate, and be thou with me to the end, making 
 
 * awry, the flower, the best of its kind. Cf. Idyll xiii. 27, and con- 
 sult Butmann's Lexilogus on the word. II. xiii. 599. 
 
 2 Virg. Eel. viii. 64—66, 
 
 EfFer aquam, et molli cinge hsec altaria vitta : 
 Yerbenasque adole pingues et mascula thura : 
 Conjugis ut magicis sanos avertere sacris 
 Experiar sensus. 
 ^ AojS SKaraTog. This form of speech for SCjSeKa rjfikpai dtri occurs 
 also at vs. 157. Compare Matthis, Gr. Gr. § 446, 8, respecting adjec- 
 tives in aiog chiefly derived from ordinal numerals. 
 
 * See Matth. Gr. Gr. § 436, 4, a. here also on the use of the plur. 
 masc. by a woman speaking of herself. 
 
 ^ The Moon and Hecate are special goddesses invoked by witches. 
 So Ben Jonson, (quoted by Chapman,) *' Sad shepherd." 
 "When our dame Hecate 
 Made it her gaing night over the kirk-yard, 
 "With all the barking parish-tikes set at her, 
 While I sat whirling of my brazen spindle. 
 See TibuUus, i. 2, 52, 
 
 Sola tenere malas Medese dicitur herbas, 
 Sola feros HecatEe perdomuisse canes. 
 YLrg. Eel. viii. 69, Carmina vel ccelo possunt deducere Lunam. 
 
 So our own Shakspeare introduces Hecate in the witch-scene of 
 Macbeth. 
 
 * Horace, Epod. v. 51, Nox et Diana quse silentium regis 
 
15-33. IDYLL n. 11 
 
 these potions nowise inferior either to those of ^ Circ^, or of 
 Medea, or the yellow-haired Perimede. 
 
 ^ Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 ^ Meal, look you, is first consumed in the fire : nay, 
 sprinkle it over, Thestylis ; wretched girl, whither hast thou 
 flown in wits ? Is it really so then, that I have become, you 
 loathsome creature, an object of malignant joy even to you? 
 Sprinkle, and say these words withal, I sprinkle the bones of 
 Delphis. 
 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 ^° Delphis has grieved me : and I burn the laurel over 
 Delphis: and as it cracks loudly, when it has caught fire, 
 and is suddenly in a blaze, and not even its ashes do we see ; 
 even so may Delphis too waste in flame as to his flesh. 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house ! 
 ^^ As I melt this wax by the help of the goddess, so may 
 Myndian Delphis be presently wasted by love : and as this 
 brazen wheel is whirled round, so may that man be whirled 
 about by the influence of Aphrodite at my doors. 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house ! 
 Now will I sacrifice the bran, and thou, Artemis, might- 
 Arcana cum fiunt sacra, 
 Nunc num adeste. 
 ^ Tibull. i. 2, 51, above quoted, and Propertius, ii. 4, 7, 
 Non hie herba valet, non hie nocturna Cytgeis, 
 Non Perimedea gramina cocta manu. 
 The scholiast says Perimede is the witch whom Homer calls Agamede. 
 
 * ivy^, first the ' wry-neck,' s(o called from its cry. It came to signify 
 the wheel to which wizards and witches bound this bird, believing that 
 they drew along with it men's souls as by a charm. See Liddell and 
 Scott, Greek Lex. at the word. 
 
 For the intercalary verse, see Virg. Eel. viii., 
 
 Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnim. 
 ^ Sparge molam, &c. Virg. Eel. viii. 83. 
 
 10 Virg. Eel. viii. 82, 83, 
 
 Fragiles incende bitumine lauros, 
 
 Daphnis me malus urit : ego banc in Daphnide laurum. 
 Compare Propert. ii. 28, 35. Lucret. vi. 153. 
 
 11 Virg. Eel. viii. 80, 
 
 Limus ut hie durescit et heec ut cera liquescit, 
 Uno eodemque igni, sic nostro Daphnis amore. 
 See Ovid. Met. iii. 487, Sed ut intabescere flavae 
 
 Igne levi cerje, matutinseve pruinse 
 
 Sole tepente solent, sic attenuatus amore 
 
 Liquitur. 
 
12 THEOCRITUS. 34—55. 
 
 est move the Adamantine god in Hades, and even whatever 
 else is stedfast-in-purpose. Thestylis, the bitches are howl- 
 ing for us up and down the city. ^^ The goddess is in the 
 cross-roads : sound the brass with all speed. 
 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 
 ^^ Behold, the sea is still, and the breezes are still, yet my 
 grief is not still within my bosom : but I am all on fire for 
 him, who has made wretched me to be base and unmaidenly, 
 instead of a wife. 
 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 
 ^^ Thrice I offer a libation, and thrice say I these words, 
 O venerable goddess ! ' Whether woman lies beside him, or 
 even man, may as much of oblivion hold him, as, they say, 
 held Theseus of yore, when in ^^ Dia he forgot Ariadne of the 
 beauteous locks.' 
 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 
 ^^ Hippomanes is a plant among the Arcadians : after it all 
 the colts and fleet mares along the mountains are mad. So 
 may I see Delphis also arrive even at this house, like unto a 
 madman, from out the glowing palaestra. 
 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 
 ^"^ Delphis lost this border from his mantle, which I now, 
 tearing in pieces, throw down on the raging fire. Alas, alas, 
 
 "* ava TTTokiv. Virg. Mn. vi., Visseque canes ululare per urbem 
 Adventante Dea. 
 Compare Statius Theb. iv. 429. Of Diana Trivia, see Ovid Trist. 
 iv. 4, 73. 
 
 " The poets loved to represent the winds, waves, and all nature calm 
 and placid at the approach of Deity. See Virg. Eel. ix. 57, 
 Et nunc omne tibi stratum silet aequor, et omnes, 
 Aspice, ventosi ceciderunt murmuris auree. 
 See also the description (^n. iv. 522, &c.) of Nature hushed in sleep, 
 but Dido still awake through cares. 
 
 " Virg. Eel. viii. 73, Terque haec altaria circum effigiem duco, &c. 
 ^^ Naxos, where Theseus left Ariadne, was anciently called Dia. See 
 CatuU. Nupt. Pelei el Thel. Ixiii. 122. 
 
 " Hippomanes.] See Virg. Georg. iii. 280, who disagrees with Theo- 
 critus in the nature of this ingredient in charms. Virg., in ^n. iv. 515, 
 calls it '• Nascentis equi de fronte revulsus Et matri prgereptus amor." 
 »• Virg. Eel. viii. 91, 
 
 Has olim exuvias mihi perfidus ille reliquit 
 Pignora cara sui. 
 See also Mn. iv. 495. 
 
55—75. IDYLL n. 13 
 
 grievous Eros, why hast thou drunk out all the dark blood 
 from my flesh, clinging like a leech from the marsh ? ^^ 
 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 
 '^For thee, Delphis, having bruised a lizard, to-morrow 1 
 will bring a baneful potion. But now, Thestylis, take you 
 these drugs and smear them above that man's door-post, to 
 which, ay even now, I am bound in affection, (yet he takes 
 no account of me !) and ^*^say as you spit upon it, I smear the 
 bones of Delphis. 
 
 Wheel, draw thou that man to my house. 
 
 Now then, being alone, from what source shall I bewail 
 my love ? Whence shall I begin ? Who brought this evil 
 upon me? Anaxo, the daughter of Eubulus, came to me, 
 2^ bearing a basket to the grove of Artemis : and for her in 
 truth then many other wild beasts were going in procession 
 round about, and among them a lioness. 
 
 2^ Observe my love, whence it arose, O Lady Moon ! 
 
 And Theucharila, the Thracian nurse of blessed memory, 
 dwelling near my doors, begged and prayed me to go and 
 view the procession, and I, all wretched as I am, followed 
 her, 23 trailing a fair tunic of fine-linen, ^4 and having clad 
 myself in the fine robe-and-train of Clearista. 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, Lady Moon ! 
 
 '* Horace, Ars Poetica, 476, 
 
 Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo. 
 
 '^ A favourite ingredient for hell-broths. See Macbeth, act iv. so. 1, 
 Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing. 
 For a charm of powerful trouble, 
 Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
 
 20 Tibull. Ter cane, ter dictis despue carminibus. L ii. 56. 
 
 '^ Kava(p6Q0Q. The basket-bearer, a maiden at Athens, who carried 
 on her head a basket at the festivals of Demeter, Bacchus, and Athena. 
 See Liddell and Scott, Gr. Lex. ad voc. Diet. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. 
 (Smith) p. 193. Cf. Idyll xxvi. 7. Callimach. Hymn to Ceres, vs. 1. 
 The festival of Diana, the goddess of chastity, was the great time of 
 match-making, when maidens about to marry deprecated the wrath of the 
 goddess, carrying torches, baskets of flowers, and pans of incense, and 
 leading animals in procession. 
 
 ^ TTOTva, generally supposed to be the feminine of noaigy " Lord," as 
 dsffTTOiva of StcnroTrjg. 
 
 ^^ (3v(JC7oio. See article " Byssus," in Diet. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. 
 p. 169. 
 
 2* Having clad myself,] i. e. having borrowed it for the occasion. The 
 poorer classes used to hire fine dresses for festivals. Juvenal, vi. 364, 
 Ut spectet ludos, conducit Ogulnia vestem. Cf. Eurip. Electr. 190. 
 
14 THEOCRITUS. 76—102. 
 
 2-5 And when I was now about the middle of the road, 
 where Lycon's house is, I beheld Daphnis and Eudamippus 
 walking together: and their beards were yellower indeed 
 than the marigold ^^ while their breasts shone far more than 
 thou, Moon, since they had but just left the noble toil of 
 the palaestra. 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, Lady Moon ! 
 
 27 And as I looked, how I maddened, how my heart, wretch- 
 ed woman that I am, was smitten through : my beauty too 
 wasted away, and neither did I at all regard that procession, 
 nor did I know how I returned home : but a disorder of a 
 burning nature exhausted me ; and I lay on my couch ten 
 days and ten nights. 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, Lady Moon ! 
 
 And my skin indeed became like oftentimes to ^^ box- wood : 
 and all my hair fell from my head : and only skin and bones 
 were left any longer : and to whose house did I not go ? Or the 
 home of what old woman, that used incantations, did I ^^miss ? 
 But there was no relief : and time kept passing fleetly. 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, O Lady Moon ! 
 
 And so I told my slave the true statement. * Come now, 
 Thestylis, devise me some remedy for sore disorder. The 
 Myndian possesses me wholly, wretched woman that I am. 
 Go then, and watch at the palaestra of Timagetus, for thither 
 he resorts, and there it is pleasant to him to sit.' 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, O Lady Moon ! 
 
 'And whensoever you shall have learnt that he is alone, 
 beckon quietly, and say that Sim£etha bids thee, and lead 
 him hither.' Thus spoke I. And she went and brought to 
 
 25 Virg. Eel. ix. 59, Hinc adeo nobis media est via. 
 
 2« See Theocr. Idyll, xviii. 26, and TibuU. iii. 4, 29, Candor erat, 
 qualem prsefert Latonia Luna, 
 
 " Eel. viii. 41, Ut vidi, ut peril, ut me malus abstulit error. See 
 Horn, II. xiv. 294. Theocr. iii. 42. 
 
 "^^ 6d\p(f). According to the Scholiast, this was a plant brought from 
 the island of Thapsus, of a yellowish colour, used for dyeing wool, and 
 the hair. Hor. Od. x. 14, Book iii. Tinctus viola pallor amantium. 
 Ovid. Met. iv. 134, Oraque buxo Pallidiora gerens exhorruit. Hers, 
 says Chapman, was a green and yellow melancholy. 
 
 ^ eXiTTov — XtiTTSiv often signifies praetermittere, as " relinquere " is 
 sometimes used in Latin. Yirg. JEu. vi. 509, Nihil, O, tibi amice re- 
 lictum. Cicero, Verr. iii. 44, Prietereo et relinquo. Eurip, Androm. 
 299, Tiv ovK STT^XOe ; ttoIov ovk iXiauiro Aa/xoytpovTiov. 
 
103—124. IDYLL II. 15 
 
 my house the sleek-skinned Delphis. But, when I beheld 
 him just crossing with light foot the threshold of the door ; 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, O Lady Moon ; 
 
 30 1 became more chilled than snow all over, and from my 
 brow perspiration began to stream down, like the southern, 
 dews. Neither was I able to say any thing, not even as much 
 as children in sleep murmur forth, calling to their dear mo- 
 ther; but I became stiff in my fair body, all over, like a 
 plaster ^^ doll. 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, Lady Moon ! 
 
 And when he had looked on me, the cruel man, having 
 fixed his eyes on the ground, sate upon the couch, and as he 
 sate spake thus ! ' Surely, Simaetha, thou hast ^^ been as 
 much beforehand with me, inasmuch as thou invitedst me to 
 thy house before that I arrived there, as I in sooth some time 
 ago was beforehand with graceful Philinus in the race.' 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, O Lady Moon ! 
 
 ' For I too would have come, yea, by sweet Eros I would 
 have come, with ^^two or three friends immediately at night- 
 fall, keeping in my bosom the apples ^"^ indeed of Bacchus, 
 and having on my head a wreath of poplar, sacred shoot of 
 3^ Hercules, twined all round with purple ribbons.' 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, O Lady Moon ! 
 
 *And if indeed ye should have received me, this would 
 
 '* ^n. iii. 308, Diriguit visu in medio : calor ossa reliquit. Com- 
 pare Sappho, Od. ix. Propert. ii. 18, 12. Apollon. Rhod. iii. 954, &c., 
 the meeting of Medea and Jason. 
 
 ^^ dayvQ, a wax doll used in magic rites ; a puppet, called by Calli- 
 mach. in Cerer. 91, TrXayyiov, from TrXdaaio, and by the Attics, (see 
 Schol. at this place,) jcopa. Briggs suggests that one of the meanings of 
 dayvg is " coral." 
 
 ^2 The construction is tcpOaaag KoXiaana, rj fiiiraptivai, Toaov oaov 
 tcpQaaa. There is no need to understand Ttgiv ; the force of which is 
 contained in eipQacraQ. 
 
 ^^ rpiTog r]e TSTaprog swv (piXog — *' Cum duobus aut tribus aliis amator- 
 ibus," i. e. I would have come myself the third or fourth. A com- 
 mon phrase in Greek poets and prose writers. Cf. Hom. Odyss. xx. 
 185. — avTiKCL vvKTog, (understand ytvofi'sviig,) " Simul ac nox ap- 
 petisset." 
 
 3* Apples, as lovers' presents, are mentioned, iii. 10; xi. 10. Soma 
 say the apples of Bacchus mean pomegranates. 
 
 35 Virg, Eel. vii. 61, Populus Alcidae gratissima. Georg. ii. 66, Her« 
 culeseque arbos umbrosa coronas. iEn. viii. 286, Populeis adsunt eviucti 
 tempera ramig. 
 
16 THEOCRITUS. 124—147. 
 
 have been agreeable, for I am called active and beautiful 
 among all the youths. And I should have been ^^Sit rest, if 
 only I had kissed thy beauteous mouth. But if ye repelled 
 me to some other quarter, and the door was held by a bar, by 
 all means then axes ^^and torches should have come against 
 you.' 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, O Lady Moon ! 
 
 *But now I declare that I owe thanks indeed to Venus 
 first, and after Venus, thou in the second place hast plucked 
 me, maiden, from the fire, by having invited me to this thine 
 house, when I was absolutely half consumed. For Eros in 
 sooth ofttimes kindles a hotter blaze than even Liparaean 
 Vulcan.' 
 
 Observe my love, whence it arose, Lady Moon ! 
 
 * And, by the aid of baneful phrensy, he is wont to hurry 
 away both the virgin from her woman's chamber, and the 
 wedded wife having just deserted the warm bed of her hus^ 
 band.^^' Thus he indeed spoke. But I, too-credulous woman., 
 having seized his. hand, made him recline on the soft couch. 
 
 And quickly body was warmed by body, and our faces 
 grew hotter than before : and we were whispering sweetly. 
 And that I may not prate to thee too long, dear Moon, great- 
 est things took place, and we both reached the object of our 
 desire. And neither at all did that man find fault with me 
 up to yesterday, nor I on the other hand with him : but there 
 came to me to-day ^^the mother of Philista, her, I mean, who 
 is my flute-player, and of Melixo, to-day^ even when the 
 
 ^ See Sophocl. Fragm. 563. Evdoinry (ppsvi, a mind at rest, listless. 
 Tibullus uses "securus" in the same sense, I. i.. 48. So "dormire." 
 Horat. Sat. ii. 1, 6, Peream male si non 
 
 Optimum erat, verum nequeo dormire, 
 Juvenal i. 77, Quem patitur dormire nurus corrupter avarse. 
 37 TibuU. i. 1, 73, 
 
 Nunc levis est tractanda Venus, dum frangere postes 
 Non pudet et rixas inseruisse juvat. 
 Horat. i. Od. 25, Parcius junctas quatiunt fenestras, 
 
 , Ictibus crebris juvenes protervi. 
 Compare Horat. Od. iii. 26, 7. 
 '* Supply no wonder then if he overcomes you. 
 
 39 The mother of Philista and Melixo, the former a flute-player, the 
 latter probably a dancer, (for the flute-player and dancer were usual 
 accompaniments of Greek feasts,) was present with her daughters at • 
 banquet, where she learned the faithlessness of Delphis. 
 
147—166. IDYLL n. 17 
 
 Steeds were coursing up to heaven, bearing the rosy-armec^ 
 d^wn from the ocean. And she told me much else, indeed, 
 and that in sooth Delphis is in love : but whether again love 
 for a woman possesses him, or for a man, she said that she 
 knows not accurately: but only thus much, that he '^^was 
 pouring forth of unmixed wine to Eros, and at last went 
 hurriedly ^^ away : and she said that he was going to cover 
 that house of his love with wreaths. These things my friend 
 has told me : and she is truthful. For certainly at other times 
 he was wont to resort to me thrice and four times a day: and 
 often would leave with me the Dorian oil-flask : but pow-'tis 
 even twelve days since I have ever seen him. Ha^ he not 
 then some other delight, and has he not forgotten me ? Now 
 indeed I will compel him by love-charms ; and if he should 
 still vex me also, by the Fates / swear he shall knock at the 
 gate of Hades. Such baneful drugs I affirm that I am keep- 
 ing ^2 for him in a box, having learned them, O Queen, from 
 an Assyrian stranger. But fare thou well, and turn thy 
 steeds, dread Lady, toward ocean. And I will bear my trou- 
 ble, even as I have undertaken. Farewell, bright complex- 
 ioned "^^Moon, and farewell, ye other stars, attendants on the 
 chariot of stilly night. 
 
 ^^ See xiv. 18. To drink of unmixed wine as a toast to any one. 
 STrix^TaQai. ovvsku is for oOovvsKa or oti — aKpccTov depends on n 
 understood, and eptJTog is another genitive case of the person pledged. 
 See Aristoph. Eq. 106, arrovSrjv Xaj3e drj, Kai aTrelrxov, ayaQov daifiovog. 
 Callimach. Epig. xxxi, tyx^i kuI TrdXiv eirrs, AioKXeog. Meleag, Ep. 98, 
 t' £1 Kai TTaXiv eiTTS irdXiv, ttccXiv, 'HXiodcJpag. 
 
 •Vordsworth seems to prefer to make aKpario agree with epujTog, In- 
 f debat de liquore meraco Amoris. As he observes, '* Amore ebrius," 
 is f" frequent idea of Theocritus and other poets. Catullus, xlv. 11, speaka 
 o' '^ ebrios ocellos," with reference to a lover. 
 ^i Lucret. iv. 1171, 
 i ' At lacrumans exclusus amator limina ssepe 
 
 Floribus et sertis operit, posteisque superbos" 
 ' Unguit amaracino, et foribus miser oscula figit. 
 *2 See Virg. Eel. viii. 95, / 
 
 Has herbas atque haec Ponto mihi lecta venena 
 Ipse dedit Mgeris, nascuntur plurima Ponto. 
 TibuU. i. V. 15, Ipse ego velatus filo, tunicaque recenti 
 Vota novem Triviae nocto silente dedi. 
 « Tibull. ii. 1, 87, 
 
 Jam nox jungit equos, currumque sequuntur 
 Matris lascivo sidera fulva chore. 
 c 
 
/ 
 
 ^ IDYLL IIL 
 
 ^1 THE GOATHERD, OR AMARYLLIS, OR THE SERENADER. 
 
 ^ ABGUMENT. 
 
 — - A goatherd, the care of his flock having heen intrusted to the shepherd 
 
 Tityrus, goes to the cave of his sweet-heart Amaryllis ; and there, 
 
 Q^ after many complaints of her estranged affections, endeavours by gifts, 
 
 Vj entreaties, rage, and threats, to re-awaken her former love for him. 
 
 Then, in hopes she may come nearer, and in order to fix her heart and 
 
 -^ eyes on himself, he sings a sweet melody and recounts the men of old 
 
 !nf whose love Venus has favoured. At last, seeing that she is deaf ever 
 
 \ to this, he gives way to despair. The Scholiast thinks the scene h 
 
 T' laid in the country about Croto ; and that Theocritus introduces him 
 
 i self under the character of the Goatherd. But there seem no suffi- 
 
 ^ cient grounds for the assumption. 
 
 j ^ I GO a-serenading to Amaryllis ; whilst my goats brows 
 
 o) on the mountain, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus, belove i 
 
 ^ by me in the highest degree, feed my she-goats ; and lea 
 
 them to the fountain, Tityrus ; and mind that tawny Libya 
 he-goat, lest he butt thee. 
 
 O graceful Amaryllis, why do you not any longer pe( 
 forth at this cave, and call me, your sweet-heart? Do y( 
 really hate me ? Or is it that, forsooth, when near, I appe 
 to thee, O nymph, to be flat-nosed and long-chinned ? ^ Y* 
 will make me hang myself. ^ Lo, I bring thee ten apple 
 and I plucked them from that tree, from which you ba 
 me pluck them : and to-morrow I will bring thee mo 
 Regard, I pray you, my heart-grieving pain. '*! would 
 could become your buzzing bee, and so enter into your ca 
 penetrating the ivy and the fern, with which you are cove] ' 
 
 ' See how closely Virgil has borrowed this, Eclog. ix. 21 — 25, 
 Vel quae sublegi tacitus tibi carmina nuper, 
 Cum te ad delicias ferras Amaryllida nostras. 
 Tityre, dum redeo, brevis est via, pasce capellas 
 Et potum pastas age, Tityre, et inter agendum 
 Occursare capro, cornu ferit ille, caveto. 
 Comp. Eel. v. 24. TibuU. II. iii. 15. 
 
 2 Virg. Eel. ii. 7, Mori me denique coges. 
 
 3 Eel. iii. 70, Aurea mala decem misi : eras altera mittam, 
 
 * Compare Psalm Iv. 6, " Oh that I had wings like a dove ! for 
 nrould I fly away, and be at rest," &c. 
 
15—33. IDYLL III. 19 
 
 in. ^ Now know I Eros ! cruel god ! Surely he sucked the 
 teat of a lioness, and in a thicket his mother reared him. 
 For it is he who is consuming me, and wounding me even to 
 the bone. O you that look ail-beautifully, and yet are alto- 
 gether stone, ^ O dark-browed nymph, embrace me, your goat- 
 herd, that so I may kiss you. There is sweet delight even in 
 "— kJ sseS' You will make me" immTe^Hely^pliick into 
 
 small pieces the wreath which I am keeping for you, dear 
 Amaryllis, of ivy leaves^ having interwoven it with '^rose- 
 buds and sweet-scented parsley. O woe is me! what will 
 become of me ? What ^ of me, lost man that I am ! Do you 
 not hear me ? Throwing off my coat of ^ skins, I will leap 
 into the waves yonder, where Olpis the fisherman is watch- 
 ing for the tunnies. And even if I shall not have perished, 
 thy pleasure at all events has been done. I learned my fate 
 but lately, when upon my bethinking me whether you loved 
 rae, ^^not even did the poppy leaf coming in contact make a 
 sound, but withered away just so upon my soft arm. Agraeo 
 too, the prophetess of the sieve, who was lately going beside 
 the reapers, and sheaving up the corn, told me the true tale, 
 that I indeed am wholly devoted to you ; but you take no 
 
 * Eel. viii. 43, Nunc scio quid sit Amor. Comp. ^n. iv. 365 — 367, 
 and Pope Past. iii. 88, 
 
 I know thee, Love ; on foreign mountains bred, 
 Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers bred. 
 CatuU. 1. and Ixiii. 154. 
 
 * Chapman here quotes Spenser, 
 
 A thousand graces on her eyelids sate, 
 Under the shadow «f her even brows. 
 ' Virg. Eel. viii. 43, Floribus atque apio crines ornatus amaro. 
 
 * Eel. ii. 58, Heu heu quid volui misero mihi. 
 
 ^ Pope Past. iii. 95, One leap from yonder cliff shall end my pains. 
 Virg. Eel. viii. 59, 60, 
 
 Prseteps aerii specultt de montis in undas, 
 Deferar : extremum hoc morientis munus habeto. 
 This was Sappho's remedy for love. See Wordsworth's note on this pass- 
 age. The tunny fishing is fully described by Oppian, Halieut. iii. 637, 
 and Herodotus, bk. i. chap. 62. 
 
 '" Lovers were wont to guess by the poppy leaf, or anemon^, placed 
 between forefinger and thumb of the left hand, and then struck by the 
 right, whether their love was reciprocated. TroTifia^dfievov, in a middle 
 sense; mordicus adhaerens. Wordsworth. The other mode of divination 
 was common in this country in the days of witchcraft. See Ben Jon- 
 Bon's Alchymist, •' Seeking for things lost through a sieve and shears." 
 
 c 2 
 
 
 
 (A 
 
#^ 
 
 y^ 
 
 20 THEOCRITUS. 34— 4^> 
 
 ^^' account of me. In truth I am keeping ^^ for you a white she- 
 
 .» goat with two kids, which also the dark-skinned Erithacis, 
 
 daughter of Mermnon, has been begging of me : and I will 
 
 ; give it to her, since you play the coquet with me. ^2;^^^. 
 
 1 right eye throbs ! I wonder whether I shall see her ? I will 
 
 sing, having reclined here beside the pine. And haply she 
 
 ,\inay regard me, since she is not made of adamant. ^^ Hippo- 
 
 menes, when in truth he was desirous to wed the maiden, 
 
 took apples in his hands and accomplished the race: and 
 
 when Atalanta beheld him, how she maddened, how she leapt 
 
 into the depths of love ! ^^ The prophet Melampus too drove 
 
 the herd from Othrys to Pylos : but she, the graceful mother 
 
 of sensible Alphesibaea, reclined in the arms of Bias. And 
 
 did not Adonis, tending his sheep on the mountains, drive 
 
 the lovely Venus to such an excess of phrensy, that not 
 
 even when he is dead, does she deprive him of her bosom ? 
 
 Enviable indeed to me is ^^Endymion, who enjoys his change- 
 
 " Virg. Eel. ii. 40—44, 
 
 Prseterea duo, nee tut^ mihi valle reperti, 
 Capreoli, sparsis etiam nunc pellibus albo ; 
 Bina die siceant ovis ubera, quos tibi servo. 
 Jampridem a me illos abducere Thestylis orat 
 Et faciet : quoniam sordent tibi munera nostra. 
 '^ aXXerai, k. t. X. This the Greeks and Egyptians deemed a good 
 omen. The goatherd hopes from it that he shall see his love. Casaubon 
 quotes here Plautus, Pseudol. I. i. 105, 
 
 Ca. At id futurum unde % Ps. Unde 1 unde dicam 1 Nescio 
 Nisi, quik futurum sit ! ita supercilium salit. 
 ^' Hippomenes, son of Megareus, by aid of the golden apples given to 
 him by Venus, won the raee against Atalanta, daughter of Jasus and 
 Clymene. Vid. Ovid. Met. x. 560—700. And Virg. Eel. vi. 61, Turn 
 canit Hesperidum miratam mala puellam, &c. 
 
 '* Pero, the mother of Alphesibaea, was so beautiful, that her father 
 Neleus promised her to him alone Avho should steal the bulls from Iphi- 
 clus. Melampus, to win the bride for his brother Bias, ran the risk, and 
 was eaptured in the attempt by the herdsmen of Iphiclus. He was freed 
 from prison through his art of Divination, and having received the oxen 
 and delivered them to Neleus, he gained Pero in marriage for his brother. 
 Propert. ii. 3, 51, Turpia perpessus vates est vincla Melampus, 
 Cognitus Iphicli surripuisse boves. 
 Quem non lucra, magis Pero formosa coegit, 
 Mox Amithaoni^, nupta futura domo. 
 Comp. Hom. Odyss. xvi. 226, 
 
 *^ Upon Endymion, the lover of Luna, Jove sent eternal sleep, because 
 Juno had been smitten with love of him. An. Rhod. iv. 57. Theocr. 
 Id XX. 37. 
 
49—54. IDYLL III. r-^-^^*^ M 
 
 less sleep: and I count happy, dear maiden, ^^Jasion, who 
 obtained so many favours, as ye, that are uninitiated, shall not 
 hear. My head is in pain. But you do not care. No more do 
 I sing ; but I will fall and lie low, and here the wolves shall 
 eat me : that this may be as sweet honey down your throat. 
 
 IDYLL IV. 
 
 THE HERDSMEN ; OR, BATTUS AND CORYDON. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Idyll is wholly of a Bucolic and mimic character. Two hireling 
 herdsmen chat together without any fixed subject of conversation. Z 
 The one, Corydon, is tending the herds of ^gon, who has become a ^ 
 wrestler and gone with Milo to the Olympic games. The other, Bat- 
 tus, is a man of a sarcastic turn, and keeps annoying his fellow with ^ 
 various sharp sayings; above all, predicting death to the ill-tended - 
 herds of ^gon. Corydon, being easy and good-tempered, answers , 
 him mildly. "While they are chatting, the calves bark the straying 2 
 olive branches, and Battus, driving them off, is pricked by a thorn. ^ 
 While Corydon is tending his wound, they spy the old father of jEgon, 
 and get into a smart talk about his wanton way of living. This Idyll 
 abounds in pictures of pastoral life and manners. Its scene is laid in 
 the country, at the foot of an olive-clad hill. Virgil imitates it in 
 his third Eclogue, together with the next Idyll. 
 
 Battus. ^ Tell me, Corydon, whose are these heifers ? Are 
 they the property of Philondas ? 
 
 Corydon. No ! but of -^gon ! and he gave them to me to 
 tend. 
 
 '^ Ceres came to Jasion while he slept. She became the mother of Pluio 
 by him. Her mysteries were withheld from the common herd of men. 
 Ovid Amor. HI. x. 25, 
 
 Viderat lasium Cretsea Diva sub Id^ 
 Figentem certa terga ferina manu, 
 Viderat : ut tenerae flammam rapuere medullae 
 
 (Hinc pudor, ex alia parte trahebat amor) 
 Victus amore pudor. 
 Virg. Eel. iii. 1, 2, 
 
 Die mihi, Damaeta, cujum pecusl An Melibceil 
 Non, verum iEgonis ; nuper mihi traiiidit iEgon. 
 
22 THEOCRITUS. 3—13. 
 
 Batt. 2 Do you happen any where to mUk them all by stealth 
 at even ? 
 
 Coryd. Nay, the old man puts the calves to their dams to 
 suck, and watches me. 
 
 Batt. And to what quarter has the cowherd himself dis- 
 appeared ? 
 
 Cori/d. Have you not heard ? Milo has gone off with him 
 to the ^Alpheus. 
 
 Batt. * Why, when has that fellow seen oil with his eyes ? 
 
 Coryd. They say that in strength and force he vies with 
 Hercules. 
 
 Batt. And so my mother said that I was better than Pollux. 
 
 Coryd. ^And he is gone off with a hoe, and twenty sheep 
 from hence. 
 
 Batt. ^Milo, methinks, would persuade the wolves too to 
 rave straightway. 
 
 Coryd. 'But the young heifers here show their loss of him, 
 by lowing. 
 
 Batt. ^A.j, wretched are they ! How bad a cowherd they 
 have found ! 
 
 Coryd. ^ Why yes, in very truth they are wretched: and 
 they no longer care to feed. 
 
 ^ ^e here is Doric for (T0t, or <T(t)taQ, as \piv for c^ij/ elsewhere. For the 
 idea compare Virg. Eel. iii. 6, Et succus pecori, et lac subducitur agnis. 
 
 3 The Alpheus was the chief river of the Pelc^ponnese, in Elis. It flow- 
 ed past Olympia, where the games were held, into the Ionian Sea. 
 Milo is represented to have taken -^gon with him to the games. 
 
 * A homely phrase, significative of the herdsman's wonder at an unex- 
 perienced and untrained man like his master, aspiring to the Olympic 
 crown. 
 
 * A hoe.] This was used by athletes for exercise, for thirty days 
 previous. The " twenty sheep," show that ^gon was up to the mark 
 of ancient wrestlers, at least in his powers of stomach. 
 
 ^ Various readings have been suggested to make sense of this line, 
 ■which, as it stands, lacks point. Eichstadt for auri/ca would read d^ivi^a^ 
 and for /cat tojq Xvkoq, kolt tw XvKb). Another reading is Xaybg (i. e. 
 Xayovg) for Xvkoq. Dahl thinks the common reading will stand if we 
 take Tojg for £jq, and construe *' tojq XvKog like wolves, ' luporum instar.' " 
 It -will then be, " Milo would persuade him {JEgon) to be rabid like a 
 wolf;" in allusion to his going off with twenty sheep. Battus seems to 
 mean that Milo has no hard task to persuade one so wolf-like as ^g6n, 
 to a savage occupation. 
 
 ^ Virg. Eel. i. 36, Tityrus hinc aberat, &c. 
 
 * Virg. Eel. iii. 3, Infelix, O semper oves pecus. 
 
 * Not unlike this is Pope's Past. iv. 37, 
 
15—31. IDYLL IV. 23 
 
 Batt. ^° Now of yon calf look you there is nothing but the 
 bones left. Does she *^ feed on dew-drops, like the cicada ? 
 
 Coryd. No ! by earth. Sometimes I put her to graze near 
 the 12-^sarus, and give her a nice wisp of soft grass; and 
 at other times she frolics in the neighbourhood of shady 
 Latymnus. 
 
 Batt. Lean too is yon red bull? I would the members 
 of the ^^Lamprian deme, look you, might light on such an 
 one, when they sacrifice to Juno : for the deme is ^^ in bad 
 case. 
 
 Coryd. ^^ And yet he is driven to the salt-water lake, and 
 to the ground about Physcus, and to the river Neaethus, where 
 all beautiful plants grow, cammock, and ^^ flea-bane, and 
 sweet-smelling baulm. 
 
 Batt. Fie, fie ! these heifers also, O wretched ^gon, will 
 go to Hades, since you too have become enamoured of an evil 
 victory ; and the pans-pipe, which you formerly put together, 
 is besprinkled with mould. 
 
 Coryd. ^"^ Nay, not it ! no, by the Nymphs : since as he was 
 going off for Pisa, he left it to me for a gift : and I am ^^ some- 
 what of a minstrel. And well indeed do I play the prelude 
 
 For her the flocks refuse their verdant food ; 
 The thirsty heifers shun the gliding flood. 
 Add to these, Mosch. Idyll iii. 7 and 23. 
 
 1" Eel. iii. 102, Vix ossibus hserent. 
 
 " Eel. V. 77, Dum rore cicadge. Compare Plin. N. H. ii. 26, Habent 
 in pectore fistuloso quiddam aculeatum — eo rorem lambunt, &c. 
 
 ^2 iEsarus a river, and Latymnus a mountain, in that part of Italy 
 called Magna Greecia, near to Croton. Livy xxiv. 3. 
 
 ^' Lampra was a deme at Athens. The Sicilians were fond of quiz- 
 zing the Athenians, ob tenuem victum. Battus wishes evil to his 
 enemies : a lean bull to a poor deme. For the line above, see Virg. Eel, 
 iii. 100, Eheu quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in ervo, 
 
 '* For KaKoxpoL<T[ji(i)v some read KaKo^pdaficjV) "of evil counsel." 
 
 '^ (TTOfidXifivov. Salt-water lake. According to Casaubon on a passage 
 of Strabo, locum prope mare, qui ipsum mare suo ostio ingrediatur, 
 D, Heinsius thought a certain spot in the district of Croto, the scene of 
 the Idyll, was meant. 
 
 Physcus was a mountain near Croto. Neaethus, a river to the north 
 of -Croto, Ovid Met. xv. 51, Salentinumque Neaethum, 
 
 " Kvv^g,, i, q. Kovv^a, flea-bane, cf, vii. 68. neXirtia, i. q. fitXifftro 
 ^oravov, apiastrum, baulm. 
 
 " Virg, ^n. ix. 208, Equidem de te nil tale verebar : nee fas ; non. 
 
 ^' Tig, aliquis insignis, no mean minstrel. Compare Idyll xi. 79, 
 
24 ■ THEOCRITUS. 32—50. 
 
 to the songs of ^^ Glauca, and well to those of Pyrrhus. I 
 celebrate Croton also : and a fair city is Zacynthus too : and 
 / celebrate ^^ Lacinium which looks eastward, where the boxer 
 JEgon devoured, all alone, eighty cheese-cakes : and there he 
 seized by the hoof and brought from the mountain the bull, 
 and gave it to Amaryllis : and the women cried out loudly, 
 whilst the herdsman laughed aloud. 
 
 Batt. O graceful Amaryllis, of thee alone, not even though 
 thou art dead, shall we be forgetful : ^i (Jear as are my goats 
 to me, so wast thou dear who hast died. Alas, alas for the 
 exceeding hard fate which has possessed itself of me ! 
 
 Coryd. One ought to take heart, friend Battus : perchance 
 'twill be better to-morrow. 22 Hopes are among the living : 
 and the dead are beyond hope. And Jove is one while indeed 
 fair, whilst at another time he rains. 
 
 Batt. I take heart. ^^ Drive down yon calves : for the 
 wretched creatures are nibbling the young shoots of the olive. 
 St ! away, you white-skin ! 
 
 Coryd. Away, Cymaetha, to the hillock. Don't you hear 
 me ? I will come, yes, by Pan, and soon make a bad end to 
 you, if you do not get away from that ! See, she is stealing 
 back again thither. I would I had my crooked staff, that ^ 
 might strike thee. 
 
 Batt. Look at me, Corydon, I pray you ^4 bj Jove. For 
 
 19 Glauca— Pyrrhus.] The former was a Chian musician, in the time 
 of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The latter, a composer of melodies, and na- 
 tive of Erythra or Lesbos. 
 
 20 Lacinium, a promontory of the Bruttii, now Capo della Colonne. 
 Zacynthus, a city of the island so called, near to ^tolia, mentioned by 
 Livy, xxvi. 24, now called Zante. Croton, now Cotrone. 
 
 ^' The full construction would be, o<yov ai aiysg tfioi (piXai elai, 
 roaovro <rv (piXrj elg, i] aTrk(T^i]Q, i. e. dirkdavtg. oaoQ — oaoQ and roaog — 
 ToaoQ stand promiscuously for tantus— quantus in the Pastoral Poets. 
 Propertius in a like vein says, 
 
 Tam multa ilia raeo divisa est millia lecto 
 
 Quantum Hypanis Veneto dissidet Eridano. I. xii. 3. 
 
 22 Tibullus, ii. 7, 1, 2, Credula vitara 
 
 Spes fovet, et fore eras semper ait melius. 
 Comp, Eurip. Troad. 628, 
 
 ov TaxjTov ui iraX tco jSXeVeh/ to KaTdavslv, 
 TO fiev yap ovSkv, tco d' 'ivEicnv IXttISes. 
 
 23 Drive down,] i. e. by throwing his crook among them. Cf. Hom. II 
 xxiii. 845. Virg. Eel. iii. 96, Tityre pascentes a flumiua reice capellas. 
 
 2^ By Jove.] Compare Idyll v. 74 ; xv. 70. 
 
50—63. IDYLL IV. 25 
 
 the thorn has ^-^just struck me here under the ancle : and how 
 deep these ^^ thistles are. A plague upon the heifer. I was 
 wounded in gaping after her. Pray do you see it ? 
 
 Coryd. Yes, yes, and I have it in my nails : and here it is. 
 
 Batt. How slight is the wound ! and how great a man it 
 brings low ! 
 
 Coryd. When you go to the mountain, come not unshod, 
 Battus : for on the mountain flourish both ^^^ prickly shrubs 
 and white thorns. 
 
 Batt. Come tell me, Corydon, does the little old man still 
 court that dark-eyebrowed love of his, with whom he was 
 formerl}^ smitten ? 
 
 Coryd. Ay to the full, O wretch. Only lately at any 
 rate I mysellj having come upon him, surprised him by the 
 fold when he was at work. 
 
 Batt. Well done, lecher ! thy race in sooth closely rivals 
 either the Satyrs or the thin-shanked Pans. 
 
 IDYLL V. 
 
 THE WAYFARERS, OR COMPOSERS OF PASTORALS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Two hirelings, one of Eumaras, a goatherd of Sybaris, the other of a shep- 
 herd of Thurium, meeting each other with their flocks, mutually pro- 
 voke a conflict of words. At last, after many recriminations, the one 
 challenges the other to a contest in singing : and when they have 
 disputed much about the prize for the victor, and the spot for the trial, 
 they fetch one Morson, a woodcutter, for umpire. They engage in an 
 
 " apfioX, a Syracusan or Doric word : which is explained to be the 
 same as dpriwc or veuiari. 
 
 2^ drpaKTvXXig. Carthamus lanatus. Linnaeus. 
 
 2' Aspalathus, the rose of Jerusalem, a very prickly shrub. Rhamnus, 
 a kind of thorny shrub, perhaps " gorse 1 " 
 
 Calpurnius Siculus had this psssage in view, when he Avrote Eel. iii. 4, 
 Duris ego perdita ruscis 
 Jamdudum, et nullis dubitabam crura rubetis 
 Scindere. 
 
26 THEOCRITUS. 1—13. 
 
 Amaebajan or alternate strain, in which, with no fixt subject, they 
 wander through various topics, supplied either by the condition of the 
 singers, the nature of the country and spot, the memory of the past, or 
 by their very anger and inclination. At last Morson adjudges the prize 
 to Comatas ; who, on receiving it, brags of it proudly, and promises to 
 offer a victim to the Nymphs. Much of this Idyll, though not to the 
 taste of our more refined age, is yet eminent for its poetic power and 
 lively colouring of rustic manners. Its scene is a glade near Sybaris 
 in Lower Italy. Virgil has gathered from the Idyll many of the verses, 
 as well as the plan, of his third Eclogue. 
 
 COMATAS AND LACON. 
 
 Comatas. My slie-^oats, shun yon shepherd of ^ Sybartas, 
 Lacon : yesterday he stole my goat-skin. 
 
 Lacon. ^ St ! Won't you be off from the fountain, my 
 lambkins ? Do you not spy Comatas, that lately stole my 
 pipe .'' 
 
 Com. What sort of pipe, pray? Why, when did you, slave 
 of Sybartas, get possession of a pipe? ^And why are you no 
 longer content to have a pipe of straw, and to hiss on it, 
 with Corydon ? 
 
 Lac. 'Tis one which Lycon gave me, ^ my gentleman ! but 
 what sort of goat-skin in the world have I, Lacon, stolen 
 from you and gone off with ? Tell me, Comatas : for not 
 even had your master Eusoaxas one to sleep on. 
 
 Com. That which Crocylus gave me, the spotted one, when 
 he had sacrificed the she-goat to the Nymphs : ^but you, rascal, 
 were even then wasting yourself away with envy, ^ and now 
 at last you have stripped me of it. 
 
 ' We seem obliged, for sense, to adopt Hermann's reading, rov^t 
 Ev^dpra, sc. dovXov, For we gather from vss. 72 — 74, that Comatas, the 
 goatherd, was slave to Eumaras of Sybaris, and Lacon, a shepherd, slave to 
 Sybartas of Thurium. Both these cities were of Magna Graecia, in the 
 south of Italy. 
 
 2 ovK cnrb. See verse 102. Aristoph. Acharn. 864, oi <T^rJK€Q ovk cnrc 
 Tiov 9vpijjv. 
 
 ' Virg. Eel. iii. 25, Non tu in triviis, indocte, solebas 
 
 Stridenti miserum stipula disperdere carmen. 
 Whence in Milton's Lycidas — 
 
 Theix lean and flashy songs, 
 Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw. 
 
 ♦ & IXsvOepe seems to be spoken ironically, a retort called forth bj 
 Comatas, who had called Lacon ^w\e. 
 
 5 Yirg. Eel. iii. 14, Et cum vidisti puero donata dolebas. 
 
 • (SaaKaivojv, envying, (from (SdffKu) or t^d^(t!,) the verb signifies— 
 
1 4— 31. IDYLL V. 27 
 
 Lac. Nay, in truth, nay, by Pan who frequents the shore, 
 I, Lacon, the son of ^Caloethis, have not robbed you, at any 
 rate of your goat-skin: or else, my man, may I leap down 
 yon rock madly into the Crathis.^ 
 
 Com. No, in truth, no, by these Nymphs of the marsh, my 
 good sir : and may they be both propitious and benevolent to 
 me ! I, Comatas, did not secretly steal your pipe. 
 
 Lac. Could I believe you, I would undertake the sorrows 
 of Daphnis. But however, if you choose to stake_a^kid, ^ (for 
 'tis nothing wonderful !) why then I will go on contending 
 with you in song, until you shall have cried " enough." 
 
 Com. ^^ The sow sjrove a strife with Minerva ! See, there 
 lies the kid : " but come, do you match against it the well-fed 
 lamb. 
 
 Lac. And pray how, thou shameface ; will these terms be 
 fair between us ? Whoever sheared for himself hair instead 
 of wool ? and who, when a goat that has borne her first young 
 is at hand, ^^ prefers to milk a filthy bitch ? 
 ^,<!^ Com. Whosoever is confident, as you are, that he shall 
 surpass his neighbour, a buzzing wasp against a cicala. But 
 however the kid is no equal stake to thee : do you contend ; 
 for lo, here is the he-goat. 
 ^^ .Lac. Be in no hurry : ^^for you are not scorched by fire : 
 
 1st, to slander ; 2nd, to bewitch, fascinare, in which sense it is used at 
 Theocr. vi. 39, and at St. Paul's Ep. to Galat. iii. 1 ; and, 3rd, to envy. 
 
 ' 6 Ys^aXaiQi^oQ. This naming of his mother instead of his father, seems 
 to mark the low rank of this slave. 
 
 ® Kpa^tv, a river of Magna Grsecia, flowing near Sybaris, and having 
 a temple of Pan near its banks, ^schyl. (Pers. 454, Blomf.) shows that 
 Pan was wont to haunt the shores. 
 
 ^ Est quidem nihil magnum cantu te vincere. A proverb arising, so 
 says the Scholiast, from Hercules' s scorn at finding worship paid to 
 Adonis at Dium of Macedonia. *' A cat may look at a king," is some- 
 thing similar. 
 
 ^*^ A proverb significative of a contest between the wise and foolish. 
 Such comparisons occur at Idyll i. 136; v. 136. Yirg. Eel. ix. 36, 
 Argutos inter strepere anser olores. Cf. Eel. viii. 55. 
 
 " epei^f, the regular Greek word, for staking any prize, which the La- 
 tins call " deponere." See Virg. Eel. iii. 31 ; ix. 62, Hie hsedos depone. 
 
 *2 driXsTai, a Doric form for jSovXsTai. ArjXeaQai, OkXeiv, ^ovXiaQai. 
 Hesychius. Two lines above we have adopted Wordsworth's reading, 
 u) KivaSog (TV — 
 
 '3 A proverb dissuasive of hurry ; for the next verse, compare Yirg 
 Eel. X. 42, 43, 
 
28 THEOCRITUS. 31 — 46. 
 
 / you will sing more sweetly, when you have taken your seat 
 here under the wild olive and these groves : there cool water 
 flows down : here springs herbage, and here is a bed of grass, 
 and the locusts chirp here.'^ 
 
 Com. Nay, I do not hurry at all ! but I am greatly annoy- 
 ed, since you, whom once, when you were yet a boy, I used 
 to teach, dare now to look me ^^ straight in the face. See to 
 what the favour comes ! Rear even wolf's ^^ whelps, rear dogs, 
 that they may eat you. 
 
 Lac. And when do I remember to have learned or even 
 heard from you aught good, O you envious and absolutely 
 disgraceful mannikin ? 
 
 Com. ^^ ********** 
 
 * * * * * * *,* 
 
 Lac. ****** 
 
 But however come, come hither, and you shall sing pas- 
 torals for the last time ? 
 
 Com. 18 1 will not approach thither ! here are oaks : here 
 is ^ galingale :' ^^ here bees buzz sweetly at their hives. Here 
 
 Hie gelidi fontes, hie mollia prata, Lyeori, 
 Hie nemus. 
 Compare Calpurnius, Eel. i. 8, &e., 
 
 Hoc potius, frater Corydon, nemus, ista petaraus 
 Antra patris Fauni, graciles ubi pinea densat 
 Silva comas. 
 
 For KOI ToXaea, Wordsworth reads neatly kutt dv9ea, under the flower- 
 ing shrubs. 
 
 " aKpiSeg, the locusts, whatever they were, are constantly mentioned 
 by Theocritus in terms of praise for their song, 
 
 '^ Cf. Horat. i. 3, 18, Qui siccis oeulis monstra natantia, &c. 
 
 18 For a most graphic illustration of this sentiment, compare ^sch. 
 Agamemnon, 717—734, Dindorf. Compare too St. Matth. vii. 6, 
 " Neither east ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them un- 
 der their feet, and turn again and rend you." 
 
 " Sensu obscceno. 
 
 Com. Quum paedieabam te tuque dolebas — capellje autem 
 
 Istae b^labant ; et caper eas terebrabat. 
 Lac. Ne profundius ilia paedicatione, O gibbose, sepeliaris. 
 
 '* KVTreipog, a sweet-smelling marsh plant, probably 'galingal.' Horn 
 Hymn to Merc. 107. 
 
 1* Virg. Eclog. vii. 13, Eque sacra resonant examina quercu. 
 
 Chapman has enriched his notes to his admirable translation with many 
 gems of English poetry ; and in no place more so than on this passage, 
 upon which he quotes Ben Jonson's Faithful Shepherdess ; and Shak- 
 
47—72. IDYLL V. 29 
 
 Are two fountains of cool water, and the birds on the trees are 
 chirping : and the shade is nowise like that with you : but the 
 pine also showers down cones from above. 
 
 Lac. 2^ In good truth here you shall tread upon lamb-skins 
 and wool, if you shall have come, softer than slumber : where- 
 as the goat-skins that are beside you smell stronger than even 
 you smell : ^^ and I will set up a great bowl of white milk in 
 honour of the Nymphs : and I will set also another of sweet oil. 
 
 Com. Bat if you shall come, too, here you shall tread soft 
 fern, and flowering ^2 penny-royal : and underneath shall be 
 skins of kids, four times as soft as your lambs. And I will 
 set up to Pan eight pails of milk, and eight bowls of honey 
 having full combs. 
 
 Lac. Contend with me there : and there sing your pastoral. 
 Treading your own ground keep to the oaks. ^^ But who, who 
 shall judge us? Would that by hap the herdsman Lycopas 
 would come hither. 
 
 Com. I want nothing of him. But if you will, we will call 
 in the oak-cutter who is gathering the heather there beside 
 you. And it is Morson. 
 
 I^ac. Let us shout. 
 
 Com. Call you him. 
 
 Lac. Come, friend, come hither and listen a little, for we 
 are contending which is the better pastoral minstrel. But do 
 not you, good Morson, either decide on me by favour, nor on 
 the other hand, help this man as far as you are concerned. 
 
 Com. Yes, by the Nymphs, dear Morson, neither assign the 
 advantage to Comatas : nor do you for your part favour this 
 man here. This, look you, is the flock of Sybartas of Thu- 
 
 speare's Midsummer Night's Dream ; and the Merchant of Venice, act v. 
 sc. 1. These will requite a reference. 
 
 2* Compare Idyll xv. 125, 7rop<pvpeoide raVj^rce dvio, fxaXaKbJTspot 
 vTTVb). Virg. Eel. Tii. 45, Somno mollior herba. Pope, seemingly 
 borrowing from Antipater, has the line, 
 
 " The sleepy eye that told the melting soul." 
 
 21 Compare Virg. Eel. v. 67, Craterasque duo statuam tibi pinguis 
 olivi. 
 
 ^ yXdxiovy pulegium, 'penny-royal.' Polwhele translates it the 
 horned-poppy. 
 
 23 Yirg. Eel. iii. 50, Audiat haec tantum vel qui venit, ecce Palaemon. 
 And ibid. 53, Tantum, ^icine Palaemon, 
 
 Sensibus hsec imis, res est non parva, reponaa. 
 
30 THEOCRITUS. 73 — 85. 
 
 rium, and you see, friend, the goats of Eumaras, the Sy- 
 barite. 
 ^ Lac. Did any one ask you, by Jove, whether 'tis the flock 
 I of Sybartas or my own, most worthless fellow ? how babbling 
 you are ! 
 
 Com. My most worthy sir, I indeed am declaring the 
 whole truth, and am not bragging at all : but you are too 
 fond of jeering. 
 
 Lac. ^^ Come, say on, if you have aught to say ! and let 
 the stranger off ^^ again with his life to the city. O Paean, 
 surely thou wert a talkative fellow, Comatas ! 
 
 Com. 2^ The Muses love me far more than the minstrel 
 Daphnis : and I sacrificed to them two kids but very lately. 
 
 Lac. Well! Apollo loves me greatly: and I am feeding a 
 fine ram for him. But the ^^ Carneian festival is even now 
 coming on. 
 
 Com. I am milking the rest of the she-goats with twins 
 except two: and the damsel beholding me says. Wretched 
 man, do you milk by yourself ? 
 
 ^* Xkynv here signifies ** canere," as " dicere " often among the Latin 
 poets, Dicite, quandoquidem in molli consedimus herba, Virg. Eel. iii, 
 55. For the like form of speech, see Virg. Eel. iii. 52, Quin age, si- 
 quid habes. 
 
 2^ Z,u}VT d(peg, a proverb relating to garrulous persons. Plautus. Miles 
 gloriosus, iv. 2, 29, Jamjam sat, amabo, est, sinite abeam, si possum 
 viva a vobis, 
 
 ^ " Of these Amaebseic songs as existing a century before Theocritus, 
 Livy has left a remarkable notice, in which he shows that they were 
 produced extemporaneously by the respective candidates, the art being 
 evidently of Tuscan origin. Liv. vii. 401, Imitari deinde eos juventus 
 simul inconditis inter se jocularia fundentes versibus ccepere. Incom- 
 positum temere ac rudem alternis jaciebant." E. Pocoeke on Gr. Pas- 
 toral Poetry, in the Encyclopaedia Metropolit. All nations seem to have 
 known this custom ; something of a very similar nature forms, I be- 
 lieve, a portion of the Welsh Eisteddvods. 
 
 27 Yirg. Eel. iii. 62, 
 
 Et me Phoebus amat : Phoebo sua semper apud me 
 Munera sunt. 
 
 The Carneian festival was observed by the Spartans and Doric race in 
 early winter, on the 7th day of the month, (thence called Carneian,) in 
 honour of Apollo, whose priest Carnus was slain by Aletas, one of 
 the Heraclids. Vid. Callimach. H. in Apollinem, 71, 78, 85. 
 ''H /o' £X"P'J» M^'7« '^oi^o?, oTE ^wo-TTJpEs 'Evvous 
 'Avtpss a)p')(^n(TavTO /xe-ra ^avdijarL AL^vararTJs 
 Tid/jLiai euTi. (T(piv KapvaiaSEi IjXvdov copai. 
 See Spanheim, at that passage. 
 
86—109. IDYLL V. 31 
 
 Lac. Alas, alas, Lacon fills, look you, nearly twenty baskets 
 with cheese : and caresses the beardless boy amid the flowers. 
 
 Com. 28Clearista too pelts the goatherd with apples, as he 
 drives his goats past : and cries ' hist ' after a sweet fashion. 
 
 Lac. Why me too the shepherd, smooth Cratidas, maddens, 
 as he meets me : ^^ and about his neck waves glossy hair. 
 
 Com. But ^° sweet brier and anemone are not to be com- 
 pared with roses, beds of which grow beside the hedge-rows. - 
 
 Lac. Why no, nor are wild-apples with acorns. The latter 
 jndeed have a thin soft bark from the holm-oak ; but the for- 
 mer are sweet as honey. 
 
 Com. And I indeed will give presently to the maiden a 
 ring-dove, having taken it from the juniper — for there it 
 broods. 
 
 Lac. ^^ But I will present to Cratidas, myself, a soft-fleece 
 for a cloak, whensoever I shall have shorn the dusky sheep. 
 
 Com. St ! Off from yon wild olive, ye bleating ones : feed 
 here, at this sloping hillock, where the tamarisks are. 
 
 Lac. Won't you be off there from the oak, you, Comarus ! 
 and you, Cynsetha ? Ye shall feed here to the east, as Pha- 
 larus does. 
 
 Com. But I have a pail of cypress-wood, and I have a gob- 
 let, the work of Praxiteles : and I am keeping these for my 
 maiden. 
 
 Lac. And I have a dog fond of the flock, which throttles the 
 wolves : and I am keeping him for the lad, to chase all wild 
 beasts. 
 
 Com. Ye locusts, that overleap my fence, do not spoil my 
 vines, ^^for they are young. 
 
 28 Apples were sacred to Venus, Idyll iii. 40. Virg. copies this pas- 
 sage, Eel, iii. 64, Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella. 
 
 23 Horat. III. XX. 14, Sparsum odoratis humerum capillis. In the 
 preceding line, Wordsworth suggests a\iibz for Xflog, comparing Virg. 
 Eel. i. 56. 
 
 3" Kvvba^aToq, dog-thorn, rubus caninus, L. and S. 
 31 Virg. Eel. iii. 68, 69, 
 
 Parta meae Veneri sunt munera : namque notavi, 
 Ipse locum, aerise quo congessere palumbes. 
 Shenstone, — I have found out a gift for my fair, 
 
 I have found where the wood-pigeons breed. 
 2' a^ai^ h. e. ^(Suxrai Kai aKiidlovaai. Virg. Georg. iii. 126, Pubentes 
 herbae. Wordsw. would read ^nai, unripe. Cf. Theocr xi. 21, ofitpaKOQ 
 
 bifXaQ. 
 
32 THEOCRITUS. 1 10—126. 
 
 Lac. Ye cicalas, see how I vex the goatherd ! So ye too, 
 in truth, vex the reapers. 
 
 Com. I hate the bush-tailed foxes, which are ever going 
 and 33 gathering the grapes of Mi con at evening. 
 
 Lac. And so do I hate the may-bugs, which devour the 
 figs of Philondas, and are borne off with the wind. 
 
 Com. Don't you remember when I beat you, and you, 
 showing your teeth, ^4 wriggled famously, and clung to yon 
 oak ? 
 
 Lac. This indeed I do not recollect ! When however once 
 upon a time Eumaras bound you here, and ^5 dusted your 
 jacket, that at all events I know very well. 
 
 Com. At length, Morson, some one is growing angry : 
 Have you not slightly perceived it ? Go and pluck old squilla 
 forthwith from the tomb. 
 
 Lac. I too, Morson, am vexing some one ! ay, and you 
 perceive it. Go then to ^^the Hales, and dig up the sow- 
 bread. 
 
 Com. May the 37Himera flow with milk instead of water ! 
 and mayest thou too, Crathis, grow purple with wine ! ^s and 
 may the yellow-water cresses, look you, bear fruit ! 
 
 Lac. And for my sake may the fountain of Sybaris flow 
 
 ^' payi(TdovTai, gather grapes, from pa'l, a grape. In the following 
 verses, the one seems to hint at the other's thievish propensities. 
 
 ^* ev iroreKLyKkiaSeVt Dor. for 7rpo(T£Kty/c\t^ou, from Trpotr/ciyKXt'^w, to 
 move to and fro, and wag the tail at, from KiyKXog, a wagtail. 
 
 ^ EKdOrjps, *' purgavit te," a metaphor to which Plautus, Menaechm. 915, 
 has a parallel, i. e. Pecte pugnis, *' dress 'em well with your fists." Cf. 
 Terent. Heaut. v. i. 78, depexum. Plant. Capt. 823, Fusti pectito. 
 Peenul. 227, Ne tu hunc pugnis pectas. Rud. 564, Leno pugnis 
 pectitur — ttXwj^eiv, viTTTeiv, (Tfiiixtiv, XsTrtiv, are similar euphemisms for 
 giving a man a beating. 
 
 2® Hales, a river of Lucania in Italy. KVKXd^ivog, cyclamen or sow- 
 bread, a tuberous-rooted plant with a fragrant flower used in garlands. 
 (Liddell and Scott.) It appears to have been used to cure madness. 
 
 37 'Ifiepa, a river in the west of Sicily (now Fiume di Termini). 
 Crathis, a river of Lucania, flowing into the Gulf of Tarentum, near the 
 town of Sybaris. Compare Eurip. Bacch. 142, pel ds yaXuKTi ttsSov 
 Add Ovid. Met. I. iii., 
 
 Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris ibant, 
 
 Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella. 
 And Numbers xvi. 13, '* A land flowing with milk and honey." 
 
 peiroj ydXa. Several intransitive verbs are used by poets as transitive, 
 with an accusative of the object. Math. Gr. Gr. § 423. Eurip. Hec. 531 
 
 38 Yirg. Eel. iii. 89, Mella fluant illi, ferat et rubus asper amomum. 
 
126—148. IDYLL V. 35 
 
 with honey ! and, towards dawn, may the maiden in her 
 pitcher ^^ draw combs instead of water ! 
 
 Com. My goats indeed eat hadder and segilus, and tread on 
 mastich-twigs, and lie among arbute-trees ! 
 
 Lac. But my sheep have at hand baulm to browse, and the 
 wild eglantine, too, blooms in abundance, like roses. 
 
 Com. I love not Alcippe, for but lately she did not kiss me, 
 having caught me "^^ by the ears ; what time I gave her the 
 ring-dove. 
 
 Lac. But I love Eumedes vastly : for when I held out the 
 pipe to him, he kissed me in a very sweet manner. 
 
 Com. 'Tis not right, Lacon, that jays should contend with 
 a nightingale, or "^^ hoopoos with the swans : but you, wretch- 
 ed man, are prone to strife. 
 
 Morson. I bid the shepherd cease ! And to thee, Comatas, 
 Morson presents the lamb : and so do you sacrifice to the 
 Nymphsy and presently send a fine portion of meat to Morson. 
 
 Com. I will send it, yes, by Pan. Wanton now, all my 
 herd of he-goats ! For see how great is the laugh that I also 
 shall raise against this Lacon the shepherd, ^^ because at last 
 I have gained the lamb : I will leap for you to heaven. Be 
 of good cheer, my horned she-goats : ^^ to-morrow I will wash 
 you all in the fountain of Sybaris. You, sir, the white goat, 
 ^^ that butt-with-the-horn, if you molest any of the she goats, I 
 will beat you, yes, before I sacrifice the ewe-lamb to the 
 
 '* Pd\pai, " to dip," here used for "to draw," apvtraaQai. Eurip. Hipp. 
 121, ^uTTTav iraydv. Eurip. Hecub. 605, (Sd'ipaa' evtyKs Stvpo Trovriag 
 d\6g. Four lines below this Wordsw. would read for tag poda KiarTog, 
 K. r. X., TToXXoe Se (Sdrujv poda KKrabg tTravGsT. Hedera corymbos 
 fundit super ruborum rosas. 
 
 *^ A kiss, which Suidas calls ^wrpov, (the pot,) when the person was 
 taken by both ears, is meant in this verse. It was afterwards called the 
 Florentine. Tibullus mentions it, ii. 5, 92, 
 Gnatusque parent! 
 Oscula comprensis auribus eripiet. 
 So Plaut. Psenul., Sine te exorem, sine te prendam auriculis, sine dem 
 suavium 
 
 '" Virg. Eel. viii. 55, Certent et cycnis ululsB 
 
 ^^ dwcrdfiav rbv d^vov, mihi confeci, lucratus sum. Idyll xriii. 17, 
 bjg dvvaaio, ut (nuptias) consequerere. Cf. Aristoph. Pint. 196. Add. 
 Propert. I. viii. 43, Nunc mihi summa licet contingere siclera plantis. 
 
 ** Virg. Eel. iii., Ipse, ubi tempus erit, omnes in fonte lavabo. 
 
 ** 6 JcopuTrnXoc, coruupeta. Eel. ix. 25, Cornu ferit iUe. 
 
34 rHEOCRITUS. '^ 149, 150. 
 
 Nymphs. Yet lie is at it again. Well, may I become ^^ Melan* 
 thius, instead of Comatas, if I don't beat you. 
 
 IDYLL VI. 
 
 THE SINGERS OF PASTORALS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Damaetas and Daphnis, having driven their herds to water, while away 
 the time in Amaebsean strains. The youths picture Polyphemus seated 
 on a rock overlooking the sea ; and Galatea, his love, on the other hand, 
 sporting in the waves at no great distance from the shore. Daphnis 
 begins, directing his song to the Cyclops : and Damsetas responds un- 
 der the character of Polyphemus. The performance is ended by mu- 
 tual presents between the swains. The Idyll is commended by the 
 manner in which the character and temper of the Cyclops is shadowed 
 forth. Its subject is the same as that of Idyll xi. Compare also 
 Moschus, Idyll iii. 59—63. 
 
 Dam^tas and Daphnis, the herdsman, once drove the herd 
 to one spot, ^ O Aratus : now one of them was reddish in 
 beard, and the other had but half a one : and both of them, 
 taking their seats at a certain fountain, in summer-time at 
 mid-day, began to sing as follows. And Daphnis struck up 
 first, since he too was first to challenge. 
 
 Daphnis. ^ Galatea, Polyphemus, pelts your flock with 
 apples, calling you the goat -herd inaccessible-to-love : and 
 you do not regard her, wretched, wretched man, but sit play- 
 ing sweetly on your pipe. See again, she is pelting the bitch, 
 
 ** Melanthius, a suitor of Penelope, w^hose punishment by order of 
 Ulysses is recorded by Homer, Odyss. xxii. 474 — 477. 
 
 * Aratus. This was the author of the Phsenomena, a friend of our poet, 
 and a native of Cilicia. H.e is the poet whom St. Paul quotes, Acts 
 xvii. 28, Tow yap Koi ykvoQ ((rfxtv. He is again mentioned Idyll vii. 
 98, 102, 122. See Virg. Eel. vii. 2, Compulerantque greges Corydon 
 et Thyrsis in unum. Also Eel. vii. 47. 
 
 Pope Past. ii. 84, 85, 
 
 But see the shepherds shun the noon-day heat. 
 The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat, 
 
 2 Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella. Virg. Eel. iii. 64. 
 
10—28. IDYLL VI. 35 
 
 which follows you as sheep-watch : but it is barking, looking 
 toward the sea ; and the fair wav^s, as they gently plash, 
 ^show it running on the shore. Take care, lest it rush 
 against the legs of the damsel, as she comes forth from the 
 brine, and tear her beauteous flesh. Yet she, even on the 
 spur of the moment, coquets, like the dried down from a 
 thistle, when the fine summer parches: and ^she flies you, 
 if you love her, and if you love her not, pursues you ; and 
 ^ moves the stone from the line : for surely, Polyphemus, oft- 
 times to love what isjai)liJkir^_^eenisJkir. 
 
 And after him Damaetas struck up to sing sweetly. 
 
 Damcetas. I saw her, yes, by Pan, when she was pelting my 
 flock, and she escaped not my notice, no, by my one sweet eye, 
 with which I look till the end of my days ; ^ but may the pro- 
 phet, Telemus, declaring hostile things, "^ carry off to his 
 home what is hostile, that he may lay it up for his children. 
 However, I myself too, attempting to vex her, do not regard 
 her in turn ; but say, that some other woman possesses me : 
 and she, when she hears it, is jealous of me, Paean, and pines 
 away : ® and she runs wild, peering forth from the sea toward 
 
 ^ Ka-)(\a(S^ovTa. Compare Hippol. Eurip. 1210, Trtpt'^ atppov ttoXvv 
 Kax^aZov. Kax^dZ^iv, according to the Scholiast, is the same as \l/0(pilv, 
 to plash against the pehbles of the beach. 
 
 * Terence has a similar notion of the coquettishness of woman-kind. 
 Eunuch, iv. 7, 43, Nolunt ubi velis : ubi nolis, cupiunt ultro. Compare 
 B. Jonson, " Follow a shadow, it still flies ye," as quoted by Cliapman. 
 
 * ypanfirj, was a mid-line on a board, like our draught-board, also 
 called r/ ttpa. Hence the proverb tov airb ypapLfiiiQ kivuv \i6ov, to 
 move one's man from this line, " to try one's last chance." (Liddell and 
 Scott, Lex.) The meaning is, " She confounds the law of love, that it 
 be reciprocated." rj yap tpcori. So Horat. Serm. I. iii. 38, 
 
 Illuc prgevertamur, amatorera quod amicee 
 Turpia decipiunt caecum vitia, aut etiam ipsa hsec 
 Delectant. 
 
 * Telemus, son of Eurymus, had predicted to Polyphemus, whose 
 character Damaetas here sustains, that Ulysses Avould rob him of his 
 single eye. Compare Odyss. ix. 509. Ov. Met. xiii. 772, 773, 
 
 Telemus Eurymides quem nulla fefellerat ales 
 Terribilem Polyphemon adit : lumenque, quod unum 
 Fronte geris medi&, rapiet tibi, dixit, Ulysses. 
 ' Similar imprecations occur Hom. Od. ii. 178. Virg. Mr), xi. 390, 
 
 Capiti cane talia, demens, Dardanio rebusque tuis. Hom. II. i. 106 — 108, 
 
 2 Chron. xviii. 7. 
 
 * She runs wild.] oiVrosT. Maddened as by a gad-ny. Comp. Eur 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THEOCRITUS. 28—46. 
 
 my caves, and toward my flocks. And I bade my dog 
 bark at her : for when I was enamoured of her, it used to 
 whine, keeping its nose to her hips. Now perhaps when she 
 sees me doing this frequently, she will send a messenger. 
 But I shall shut my doors, until she shall have sworn that she 
 will herself strew for me a beautiful couch ^ on this island. 
 For i^in truth neither have I so ugly a form as they say / 
 have. For surely hut lately I was looking into the sea (and 
 it was a calm) : and beautiful indeed my beard, and beautiful 
 my solitary eyeball, (as it has been determined by my judg- 
 ment,) appeared ; ^^ and it reflected a brightness of teeth, 
 whiter than Parian marble. And that I might not be be- 
 witched, ^2 I spat thrice upon my breast : for thus the old 
 woman ^^ Cotyttaris instructed me to do, who of late used to 
 sing to the reapers in the fields of Hippocoon. 
 
 Having sung thus much, Damaetas kissed Daphnis ; and 
 the latter gave the former a pipe, and he a beautiful flute to 
 the latter. Damaetas was playing the flute, and the herdsman 
 Daphnis the pipes. Forthwith the calves were leaping on 
 soft herbage. However neither one conquered, but they were 
 unsurpassed. 
 
 Iph. Aul. 77, 'O (5£ KaQ' 'EXXdo' olarTpricra^. In the next line, for aiya 
 we may adopt with Briggs and Wordsworth dira. 
 ' This island, i. e. Sicily, 
 i« Virg. Eel. ii. 25, 
 
 Nee sum adeo informis, nuper me in littore vidi 
 Cum placiJum ventis staret mare : non ego Daphnira 
 Jndice te metuam, si nunquam fallit imago. 
 Compare Ov. Met. xiii. 840, 
 
 Jam, Galatea, veni nee munera despice nostra, 
 Certe ego me novi, liquidseque in imagine vidi — 
 ^ Nuper aquae : placuitque mihi mea forma videnti. 
 
 '1 Horat. i. 19, 5, Urit me Glycerse nitor 
 
 Splendentis Pario marmore puriiis. 
 " I spat thrice.] Compare with this, Idyll ii. 43—62; vii. 127. Tibull. 
 I. ii. 100, Despuit in niolles et sibi quisque sinus. Add Idyll xx. 12. 
 
 ^^ Some suppose Cotyttaris to be the old woman's name, whilst others 
 refer it to the orgies of the goddess Cotytto, and the witches connected 
 therej*vith. See Hor. Epod. xvii. 56, 
 
 Inultus ut tu riseris Cotyttia 
 Yulgata, sacrum liberi cupidinis. 
 ^* oh d' aXXoQ, here the same with ovS' erepog. rbv aWov for rbv 
 sTepov, occurs in Idyll xxiv. 61. For a parallel to the verse see Virgil, 
 Eel. iii. 108. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites 
 Et vituta tu dignus, et hie. 
 
lUYXL VII. 
 
 THE THALYSIA. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 in this Idyll, one Simichidas is represented describing a celebration of 
 the festival in honour of De meter after harvest, in which he himself 
 and some friends had been engaged at the house of Phrasidamus and 
 Antigenes, on the banks of the Hales. The former part of the Idyll 
 is a narration of the journey to the feast ; the latter, a description of 
 the feast itself. On their road, Simichidas and his friends fall in with 
 a goatherd, Lycidas, of great poetic talent, whom they invite to while 
 the length of the way by his song. He accordingly sings. his love for 
 the boy Ageanax. After which, Simichidas in turn celebrates the pas- 
 sion of Aratus for the lad Philinus. The songs being ended, Lycidas 
 presents Simichidas with a crook, and turns off on another route. The 
 rest go forward to their proposed destination, where beside the mur- 
 muring fountain, in a most delightful spot, they indulge in wine and 
 good cheer. The scene, according to the Scholiast, is laid in Cos ; 
 though Heinsius maintains that Sicily is represented. Theocritus is 
 known to have stayed some time at Cos to hear Philetas, which 
 makes for the Scholiast's view. It has been supposed that the poet 
 describes himself under the character of Simichidas, and a Cydonian 
 poet of his own day under the name of Lycidas. Virgil has planned 
 his ninth Eclogue somewhat on the model of this Idyll. 
 
 % 
 ' It was the time when I and Eucritus were sauntering from 
 the city to the Hales, and with us a third, Amyntas. For to 
 Ceres both Thrasidamus and Antigenes, two sons of Lycopeus, 
 were preparing the Thalysia ; worthy men, if aught is worthy 
 that springs from the good men of old, being descended both 
 from ^Clytia and Chalcon himself ; ^he who by his foot raised 
 the fountain Burinna, having planted strongly his knee against 
 
 * The festival to which our travellers were going, was one to Ceres, or 
 Demeter, held in autumn after harvest, to thank her for her benefits to 
 man. Compare Callimach. Hymn to Demeter, 20. Hom. II. ix. 529. 
 
 The scene lies in Cos. Hales was a river of the island ; and the city 
 mentioned, vs. 2, was the chief city of the island, also named Cos. 
 
 2 Clytia and Chalcon.] Clytia was the daughter of Merops, wife of 
 Eurypylus, (who is mentioned by Homer, Iliad ii. 677,) king of Cos, 
 and the mother of Chalcon. Scholiast. For £t tI Trfp eaOXbv, see Ovid. 
 Amor. iii. El. xv. Si quid id est, usque a proavis vetus ordinis haeres. 
 
 3 Genu fortiter in rupem innixus pedis ictu fontem excitavit. Yal- 
 kenaer. Ik irodogt ictu pedis, cf. Bion. iv. 2. 
 
38 THEOCRITUS. 8—24. 
 
 the rock : and beside it, ^tlie poplars and elms were yielding 
 a grove of shade, ^ overhanging, as they waved, with green 
 foliage. 
 
 ^ Nor yet had we finished half our way, nor did the tomb 
 of Brasilas yet come in sight to us, when we fell in with 
 a wayfarer, "^a favourite with the Muses, a man of Cydon, 
 whose name was Lyjcidas ; he was a goatherd, nor could 
 any one that looked upon him have mistaken him, for he was 
 exceedingly like a goatherd. For on his shoulders he wore a 
 ^ tawny skin of a shaggy thick-haired goat, smelling of new 
 rennet : an old cloak was fastened by a broad belt about his 
 breast ; whilst in his right hand he held a crooked club of 
 wild-olive : and grinning, he said to me softly with a smiling 
 eye (and laughter played upon his lip) : ^ ' Simichidas, where, 
 prythee, art thou dragging thy steps at mid-day? when in 
 sooth even ^*^the green lizard sleeps on the fences, and the 
 crested larks roam not abroad ? Art invited and hastening 
 
 * Horat. i. 21, 5, Vos laetam fluviis, et nemorum com^, &c. 
 ■^ /En. i. 164, Silvis scena coruscis 
 
 Desuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbrS,. 
 Eel. ix. 41, Hie Candida populus anlro 
 
 Imminet, et lentPD texunt umbracula vitcs. 
 ^ Compare Virg. Eel. ix. 59, 
 
 Hinc adeo nobis media est via ; namque sepulchrum 
 Incipit apparere Bianoris. 
 And see Theocr. Idyll i. 125, 126. 
 
 ' (jvv MoiaaKTi kaOXbv. Benefieio Musarum bonum. Compare Idyll 
 ii. 28, avv dai[iovi. A Cydonian. Cydon was a city of Crete, whence 
 Lyeidas is supposed to have come. 
 
 * Virgil in his " Moretum," vs. 22, has ♦' Cinctus villosee tergore 
 caprse." Ovid. Met. ii. 680, 
 
 lUud erat tempus, quo te pastorea pellis 
 Texit, onusque fuit dextrae silvestris oliva. 
 ^ Simichidas.] A patronymic which seems to have been used without 
 any change for father and son alike. Theocritus is said to have been the 
 son of Simichus or Simichidas, and to have called himself Simichidas 
 patronymically. Amyntas and Amyntichus, in this Idyll, stand for one 
 and the same person, and there is clearly some ground for supposing the 
 . patronymic was used by both father and son. But the obscurity may be 
 solved by supposing, as we may safely do, that Simichidas is a feigned 
 name, like Virgil's Tityrus. 
 
 '" aavQcg. Vid. Idyll ii. 58. Comp. Virg. Eel. ii. 9, Nunc viridea 
 etiam occultant spineia lacertos. Nemesian. iv. 38, 
 Toto non squamea traetu 
 Signat humum serpens. 
 
25 — 45. IDYLL VII. 39 
 
 to a banquet ? or art for storming the wine-vats of some cittf? 
 since as thou footest it along, every stone rings, as it strikes 
 against ^^thy half-boots.' Then I answered him, 'Friend 
 Lycidas, all say you are a pifier greatly distinguished both 
 among herdsmen and among reapers : which in truth vastly 
 delights my mind ; yet in my fancy, I hope to ris^l you. 
 Now this is our way to the ^^ Thalysia : for our friends 
 in sooth are making a feast to Demeter of the beautiful 
 robe, offering the first-fruits of their abundance : since for 
 them, in very bounteous measure, the goddess hath piled the 
 threshing-floor ^^ with barley. But come now, (for our road 
 is in common, and the day is alike ours,) let us sing pas- 
 torals ; perhaps the one will gratify the other. For I ^'^ too 
 am a clear voice of the Muses, and all men call me an ex- 
 cellent minstrel ; but I am one not of easy persuasion. No ! 
 by earth ! for not yet, to my own fancy, do I surpass in 
 singing either the good ^^ Sicelidas from Samos, or Philetas, 
 but strive u'ifh them, like a frog among locusts.' 
 
 So spake I, on purpose : but the goatherd smiling plea- 
 santly, ' I give you this ^^ club,' quoth he, ' because you are a 
 scion of Jove, fashioned altogether for sincerity. ^^ For as the 
 architect is odious to me, who attempts to build a house 
 
 " apfSvXig, a half-boot used by hunters and rustics, ^schyl. Ag. 944» 
 vrrai rig apfSyXag Avoi. Euripides calls it Mycenaean. 
 12 Compare Horn. II. ix. 529, 
 
 Kal yap, Tolai KaKov xpvcrodpovoi "ApTs/^is wpas 
 'X^cocrafXBvf], ot ol ovtl daXi'iaia yovvw aXwij^ 
 O'lvEVS pf^\ aXXoL Se QioL daivvvd' iKaTOfxjSa^. 
 '^ The construction is d Saifjiwv dvsTrXvpoocrEV dXwdv {oacyre t'Lvai,) tvKpiQoi/, 
 (so that it should be,) full of barley. Cf. "Virg. Georg. i. 49, Illius im- 
 mense ruperunt horrea messe&. In the next line duig is used for r/ixspa, 
 as in Bion. vi. 18. J. Wordsworth quotes at this passage the Excursion, 
 Book iii, p. 109, 
 
 With hearts at ease, and knowledge in our hearts, 
 That all the day and all the gro\e was ours. 
 1* Yirg. Eel. ix. 32—36, Et me fecere poetam 
 
 Pierides : sunt et mihi carmina : me quoque vatem 
 Dicunt pastores, sed ego non credulus illis. 
 Nam neque adhuc Varo videor, nee dicere Cinna 
 Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores. 
 '5 Sicelidas, or Asclepiades, a poet of Samos. Philetas, an Elegiac 
 poet of Cos, under whom Theocritus studied. His date is about 290 B. C. 
 16 Virg. Eel. V. 88, At tu sume pedum. Such meeds of song and ex- 
 temporized gifts are common among pastoral poets and their swains. 
 '7 See an opposite idea, Idyll xv. 49, k'i airaTCLQ Kf/cporj?/ifcvo( avSpig, 
 
40 THEOCRITUS. 46—66. 
 
 equal to the top of Mount ^^Oromedon, so are birds of the 
 Muses, as many as, crowing against the Chian minstrel, toil to 
 no purpose. But come, let us commence at once the pastoral 
 strain, Simichidas : as I will — see now, friend, if this ditty, 
 which I erst finished off on the mountain, suits your taste.' 
 
 ' Ageanax shall have a fair voyage to Mitylene, when the 
 south wind chases the moist waves ^^ in the season of the Kids 
 at-their-setting, and when ^o Orion rests his feet on the ocean, 
 if haply he shall have rescued Lycidas scorched by Aphro- 
 dite : for ardent love of him consumes me. And halcyons shall 
 21 smooth the waves, and the sea, and the south-west wind, 
 and the south-east, which stirs the remotest seaweeds: hal- 
 cyons, which have been beloved most of birds, whose prey is 
 on the sea, by the green Nereids. May all things be season- 
 able to Ageanax, seeking a fair wind for Mitylene : and may 
 he reach the harbour after a favourable voyage. ^^ And I, on 
 that day, crowning my head with a chaplet of dill, or of roses, 
 or even of white ^^ violets, will drain from the bowl the ^'^ Pte- 
 leatic wine, as I recline beside the fire : and one shall roast 
 
 '8 Oromedon, a mountain in Cos. Hermann says a giant. Cf. Propert. 
 iii. 9, 48. The verses (45—48) mean nothing less than "I hate quacks." 
 Theocritus compares vain boasters to architects trying to overtop the 
 mountains, and poets (fioirrav oqvix^q) labouring to equal Homer, ioq 
 in line 45 is " nam." kuI re/croiv — Kai opvixtQ are the same as wg reKrwv 
 OVTOjg opvixEQ. 
 
 '^ The Kids.] The time indicated was probably December. Virg. 
 ^n. ix. G68, Quantus ab occasu veniens pluvialibus haedis 
 Verberat imber humum. 
 
 20 Orion, a constellation whose setting was attended with violent storms 
 at the end of autumn, the time of the equinoctial gales. Hbrat. Od. i. 
 28, 21, Devexi rapidus comes Orionis. Comp. Virg. ^En. i. 535; iii. 
 517 ; iv. 52. 
 
 21 Virg. Eel. ix, 57, Et nunc tibi stratum silet sequor. According to 
 the Scholiast, the sea is calm in winter fourteen days : seven before the 
 halcyon produces her eggs, and seven more while she sits on them, float- 
 ing in the nest on the surface of the sea. 
 
 ^^ evirXooQ (Graef. Schaef. Kiessl.) seems far preferable to svirXoov, 
 since the word refers rather to the sailor than to the port to which he 
 sails. 
 
 2' Virg. Eel. ii. 47, Pallentes violas. 
 
 ^* Pteleatic wine.] So called from Ptelea, a place in Cos. VirgU 
 imitates this passage. Eel. v. 69, 
 
 Et multo imprimis hilarans convivia Baccho 
 Ante focum, si frigus erit, si messis, in umbr& 
 Vina novum fundam calathis Ariusia nectar. 
 
66—86. IDYLL Vn. 41 
 
 me a bean in the flame, and the bed of leaves shall be covered- 
 thickly elbow-deep with flea-bane, and asphodel and curling 
 parsley. ^^ Then freely will I drink, in memory of Ageanax, 
 pressing my lip to the very cup even to the dregs. ^^ And 
 there shall pipe for me two shepherds, one an Acharnian, and 
 one from Lycope : and near them Tityrus shall sing, how once 
 the herdsman Daphnis loved the foreign maid, and how he 
 traversed the mountain, and how the oaks bewailed him which 
 grow beside the banks of the river ^7 Himeras : when he wasted 
 away, as any snow on lofty Haemus, or Athos, or Rhodope, or 
 remotest Caucasus : he shall sing too how once a wide chest 
 received the goatherd yet living, ^^ through the baneful vio- 
 lence of his master ; and how the flat-nosed bees coming from 
 the meadows to the sweet cedar, were wont to feed him on 
 soft flowers, because the Muses had poured down his throat 
 pleasant nectar. O fortunate Comatas, thou in sooth hast 
 experienced these delights, and thou hast been enclosed in a 
 chest, and thou, being fed on the combs of bees, ^^hast com- 
 pleted the spring of the year. ^^ Would that in my day 
 thou hadst been numbered among the living, since I would 
 
 ^^ IxaXaKCJQ, carelessly, easily. Scholiast. 
 
 ^ Virg. Eel. V. 72, Cantabunt mihi Damaetas et Lyctius ^gon. 
 
 'Axapvevg. Attic, from the deme so called. AvKiOTriTag. JEtolian, 
 from a city named Lycope. 
 
 2' Himeras. Compare Idyll- v. 124. Haemus, Athos, Rhodope, moun- 
 tains of Thrace. Caucasus, the eastern barrier of Asia Minor. For the 
 sentiment, see Callimach. H. to Ceres, 92. 'Qg de MifiavTi X'<^^> ^^' 
 And Job xxiv. 19, "Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so 
 doth the grave those that have sinned." Ovid. Ep. ex Pont. I. i. 67, 
 Nil igitur mirum, si mens mihi tabida facta 
 De nive manantis more liquescit aquae. 
 
 ^ The Scholiast explains this of a goatherd named Comatas or Men- 
 alcas, who, while engaged in tending his master's herds, was wont to 
 Bacrifice to the Muses. To try whether they would preserve him, his 
 master caused him to be shut up in a chest, which, after some months, he 
 found, upon opening it, full of honey-combs, and his prisoner alive. 
 
 2* (Tog ijpiov, *trimestre tempus exegisti.' Steph. Totum annum 
 exegisti. Crispinus. The Scholiast seems to consider the words to de- 
 signate " the spring." The three months of spring in which the flowers, 
 &c., mentioned just before, would bloom chiefly, wpa signifies specially 
 TO tap, which Homer calls commonly iiprj eiapivt]. See Lex. Doric. JE,. 
 Porti, at the word &piog. 
 
 30 Comp. Virg. Eel. x. 35, 
 
 Atque utinam ex vobis unus, vestrique fuissem 
 
 Aut custos gregis, aut maturse vinitor uvse, &c. .1 
 
42 THEOCRITUS. 87 — 107. 
 
 then have tended for thee thy beautiful she-goats, along the 
 mountains, while listening to thy voice : and thou, divine 
 Comatas, shouldst have reclined under the oaks or under the 
 pines, sweetly singing.' 
 
 And Lycidas having sung thus much, made an end : but 
 to him in turn I also spoke as follows : ' Many other good 
 things, friend Lycidas, have the Nymphs taught me too, as 
 I tend my herd along the mountains : things which ^^ haply 
 fame hath carried even to the throne of Jove. But this at any 
 rate is far pre-eminent beyond all, with which I will proceed to 
 favour you. Hearken then, since you are a friend to the Muses.' 
 
 ^^ ' On Simichidas indeed the Loves have sneezed : for of a 
 truth the luckless wight is as much in love with Myrto, as the 
 she-goats love spring. But Aratus, who is in the highest 
 degree beloved by that man, cherishes at heart a yearning 
 for a lad. ^^Aristis, a worthy man, and highly excellent, 
 (whose singing with the accompaniment of the lyre not even 
 Phoebus himself beside his tripods would refuse,) knows that 
 by a lad Aratus, is consumed to the very bone with love. Him 
 I pray thee, Pan, who hast obtained for thy portion the 
 lovely surface of ^^Homole, mayest thou place unbidden in 
 the dear hands of that man, whether it is in sooth the tender 
 Philinus, or some other. And if indeed thou shouldst do 
 thus, O dear Pan, then may ^'^ Arcadian boys in no wise 
 
 31 Yirg. Eel. iii. 73, Partem aliquam, ventl, divom referatis ad aures. 
 Eel. V. 73, Hinc usque ad sidera notus. 
 
 32 One of the various omens which the Greeks drew from themselves 
 was the TrrapfioQ, or sneezing, referred to here, and Xenoph. Exped. Cyr. 
 iii. 2, 9. Propert. Eleg. ii. 3, 23, 
 
 Num tibi nascenti primis, mea vita, diebus 
 Aureus argutum sternuit omen amor 1 
 Catull. xlv. 9, Amor sinistram ut ante, 
 
 Dextram sternuit approbationem. 
 Compai-e also Idyll xviii. 16. 
 
 23 "ApicFTig — fity' dpiffTog, a play on words, which cannot be rendered 
 faithfully, Theocritus affects it ; see Idyll xv, 26, TrsvBrjfxa Kal ov UtvOrja. 
 Shaksp. Of Hotspur, cold-spur. This is Rome and room enough. Not 
 on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, thou makest thy knife keen. 
 For jueya used adverbially see Monk, Alcest. 758, Horn. II. ii. 32. 
 
 ** Homole, a mountain of Thessaly. It is mentioned by Euripides, 
 Here, Fur. 371, crvyxoproi 9' 'OfioXag tvavXoi. 
 
 Virg, iEn. vii. 675, Homolen Othrynque nivalem 
 
 Linquentes rapido cursu. 
 ^ aKi\\ai<riv, comp. Idyll v. 121, The poet alludes to a feast of Pan, 
 
107—124. IDYLL Vn. 43 
 
 scourge thee with squills on ribs and shoulders, at such times 
 as scanty feasts are provided : but shouldst thou have decided 
 otherwise, mayest thou be scratched all over thy flesh by the 
 nails, and mayest thou sleep among nettles : and in mid-winter 
 mayest thou be on the ^^mountains of the Edonians, beside the 
 river Hebrus, facing towards and nigh to the north ; and in 
 summer mayest thou tend herds among the extremest Ethi- 
 opians, ^"^ under the rock of the Blemyes, whence the Nile is 
 no longer to be seen. But do ye, having left the sweet water 
 of ^^Hyetis and Byblis, and dwelling in the lofty ^^seat of 
 golden-haired Dione, ^^ O Loves like unto ruddy apples, strike, 
 I pray you, with your arrows, the lovdy Philinus : strike, for 
 the wretched youth pities not my guest. And yet he is 
 more over-ripe than a pear, and the women say, Alas, alas, 
 Philinus, thy beauty's bloom wastes away. No longer, look 
 you, Aratus, let us keep watch at the vestibules, nor wear out 
 our feet, but let the early cock consign ^^ another, a« he crows, 
 
 in Arcadia, where it was the custom to scourge his image, if the Choragi 
 had offered a mean sacrifice. Scholiast. 
 
 '•^ Edones, a nation of Thrace. Hebrus, a river of the same. Virg. 
 Eel. X. 63, Nee si frigoribus mediis Hebramque bibamus. Some com- 
 mentators have wondered that Theocr. places the Edones and the river 
 Hebrus near each other. But Wordsworth shows that Greek and La- 
 tin poets, (as Lucan, Ovid, Horace,) were ignorant of the geography oi 
 Macedon, Thrace, and Northern Greece, which they deemed Barbarian. 
 This passage supports, as "Wordsworth shows, Bentley's emendation, 
 " Edonis," for " ex somnis," at Horat. Od. iii. 25, 9, 
 Non secus in jugis, 
 Edonis stupet Evias 
 Hebrum prospiciens, et r.ive candidam 
 Lustratam Rhodopen. 
 ^ Blemyes, a nation of Ethiopia. 
 
 3^ Hyetis and Biblis, mountains and springs of Miletus. See Ovid. 
 Met. ix. 445—665. 
 
 33 f.SoQ aiTTv Aiwvrjg, h. e. Cyprus, the abode of Yenus, who often is 
 called by her mother's name, Dione. 
 *o Tibull. HI. iv. 34, 
 
 Candor erat qualem prsefert Latonia Luna 
 
 Et color in niveo corpore purpureus. 
 Ut juveni primum virgo deducta marito 
 
 Inficitur teneras ore rubente genas ; 
 Ut cum contexunt amaranthis alba puelloe 
 Lilia, ut Autumno Candida mala rubeut. 
 Comp. Idyll xxvi. 1. 
 
 <» Propert. L xvi. 23, 24, 
 
44 THEOCRITUS. 124 — 147. 
 
 to this painful numbness : and let Molon alone, my best of 
 friends, be harassed in this sharp exercise : and to us let both 
 quietness be a care, and an old woman be at hand, who, ^^by 
 spitting, may keep afar oiF what is not good.' 
 
 Thus much I spoke: and he, having smiled sweetly, as 
 before, presented me with his crook to be a friendly gift 
 ^^ arising out of our songs. And he indeed, having ^urned off 
 to the left, proceeded on his way to Pyxa : but I and Eucritus, 
 having bent our steps to the house of Phrasidamus, with the 
 beautiful ^^ Amyntichus, reclined there^ both on deep low- 
 couches of the sweet mastich-tree, and on fresh-cut vine-twigs, 
 rejoicingly. /And, from above, down upon our heads were 
 waving to and fro many poplars and elms ; and the sacred 
 stream hard by kept murmuring, as it flowed down from the 
 cave of the Nymphs. And the fire-coloured cicalas on the 
 shady branches were toiling at chirping ; while, from afar off, 
 in the thick thorn-bushes the thrush was warbling. Tufted 
 larks and ^^gold-finches were singing ; the turtle-dove was 
 cooing ; ^^ tawny bees were humming round about the foun- 
 tains : all things were breathing-the-incense of very plenteous 
 summer, and breathing-the-incense of fruit-time. ^'^ Pears 
 indeed at our feet, and by our sides apples, were rolling for us 
 in abundance ; and the boughs hung-in-profusion, weighed 
 down to the ground, with damsons. ^* Moreover the pitch of 
 
 Me mediae noctes, me sidera prona jacentem 
 Frigidaque (Eoo me videt aura gelu. 
 Horat. Sat. ii. 6, 45, Matutina parum cautos jam frigora csedunt. 
 
 *2 i7n<p9v<TSoi(ra, Idyll ii. 62. TibuU. I. ii. 53, Ter cane, ter dictis 
 despue carminibus. 
 
 *^ Ik ixoiaav. Compare vii. 102, Ik TraiSoc, 55, i^ 'A^poSirag. 
 ** 'AfivvTixog, i. q. 'Afivvrac, vs. 2 ; comp. not. ad vs. 21. And see 
 Wordsworth at this passage, who quotes Lucret. ii. 132, 
 Prostrati gramine moUi 
 ^Propter aqusD rivum sub ramis arboris altSB 
 Non magnis opibus jucunde corpora curant, 
 Praecipue cum tempestas arridet, et anni 
 Tempora conspergunt viridantes floribus herbas. 
 *' AKavOideg, the Acalanthis of Virg, Georg. iii. 338, Littoraque 
 Alcyonem resonant, acalanthida dumi. Cf. Song of Solomon ii. 12. 
 *« Compare Hippol. Eurip. 76, 77 : d\\' aKripa-rov 
 
 fiiXiacra Xel/xiov, rjpLvou tiipy^e-Tai. 
 For TTcpt and a/z^t thus connected, see Horn, II. ii. 305. Odyss. xi. 608 
 *' Virg. Eel. vii. 54, Stratajaccnt passim sua quaeque sub arbore poma. 
 « Hor. Od. III. viii. 9. 
 
1.47—157. IDYLL VII. 45 
 
 four years' date was loosened from the mouth of the wine 
 jars. 
 
 Ye Castalian Nymphs, inhabiting the height of Parnassus, 
 I wonder whether ^^ at all in the rocky cave of Pholus, aged 
 Chiron set up for Hercules a goblet such as this ! I wonder 
 if haply 'twas nectar like this, which induced that shepherd 
 by the Anapus, the strong Polyphemus, who ^^used to hurl 
 crags on the mountain-ranges, to dance about in the sheep- 
 pens ? Such nectar I mean, as, O Nymphs, ye then broached,, 
 beside the altar of Demeter presiding over the threshing-floor : 
 on the heap of which may I again fasten a great winnowing 
 shovel, and may she smile, holding in both hands ^^ wheat 
 sheaves and poppies. 
 
 IDYLL VIII. 
 
 THE SINGERS OF PASTORALS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 In this Idyll two pastors are represented as contending, Daphnis and 
 Menalcas, both skilled in music and in Ameebrean song. A challenge 
 is given, and a prize set up, and a goatherd called in as umpire. They 
 begin the song, so as to answer one another first with four, afterwards 
 with eight verses each. At last the goatherd adjudges the prize to 
 Daphnis — and the poet represents this victory as laying the foundation 
 
 Hie dies, anno redeunte, festus 
 Corticem adstrictum pice dimovebit, &c. 
 Amphorse — 
 Cf. Hor. Od. I. ix. 6. Terent. Heaut. III. i. 51, Relevi dolia omnia, 
 omnes serias. 
 
 ** A poetic digression, touching the cave of the centaur Pholus, and 
 Chiron, who was the instructor of Hercules in astronomy and Apollo in 
 music. Cf. Orph. Argonaut. 419. Juvenal, Sat. xii. 44, Urnae cratera 
 capacem Et dignum sitiente Pholo. 
 
 50 Compare Hom. Odyss. ix. 481. There is no ground for the reading 
 vaag here, with Heinsius and Brunck. 
 
 ^1 Apayjuara. Cf. Callimach. Hymn to Delos, 284, and the note of 
 Th. Graev. at the passage. — A sheaf, as much as a gleaner can bind up 
 together is meant. Tibul. I. x. ad fin.. At nobis, pax alma, veni spi- 
 camque teneto. Demeter's symbols are spikes of corn and poppies. 
 
46 THEOCRITUS. 1—16. 
 
 of all the future fame of Daphnis, in pastoral poetry. The scene is 
 laid in Sicily. Virgil has copied this Idyll much in Eclogues iii. 
 and vii. 
 
 . DAPHNIS. MENALCAS. A GOATHERD. 
 
 Menalcas, ^ as they say, whilst tending his sheep along the 
 high mountains, fell in with the graceful Daphnis a-driving 
 his herd. ^Now both of them were ^red-haired, both lads : 
 each skilled in playing on the pipes, each in singing. And 
 first then Menalcas, gazing at Daphnis, addressed him. 
 
 Menalcas. Daphnis, watcher of the lowing oxen, wilt thou 
 sing with me ? I maintain that I will beat you at singing, to 
 my heart's content. 
 
 And him, I ween, Daphnis answered in speech like the 
 following. 
 
 Daphnis. Shepherd of woolly sheep, piper Menalcas, you 
 at all events shall never beat me in singing, no, not if you 
 should die for it. 
 
 Men. ^Are you desirous then to see into it? Are you 
 desirous to stake a prize ? 
 
 Daph. I do desire to see into this. I am desirous to stake 
 a prize. 
 
 Men. Well what shall we stake, that would be of sufficient 
 value for us ? 
 
 Daph. I will stake a jcalf : and do you stake on your part 
 ^a Ixmab like its mother. 
 
 Men. ^I will never stake a lamb, for both my father is 
 strict, and my mother, and they count all the sheep at evening. 
 
 1 Pierson reads Ato^atrf for wq (pavri : taking the idea from the com- 
 mencement of Idyll xxi., v/hich Theocritus dedicates to Diophantus. 
 
 2 Yirg. Eel. vii. 4, 
 
 Ambo florentes setatibus, Arcades ambo 
 Et cantare pares, et respondere parati. 
 
 3 TrvppoTpixio. Pohvhele, in his version, finds here the original o( 
 Collins's expression, "the fiery-tressed Dane." 
 
 4 Yirg. Eel. iii. 28, 
 
 Vis ergo inter nos quid possit uterque vicissim 
 Experiamur, ego banc vitulam, ne forte recuses, 
 Depono : tu die mecum quo pignore certes. 
 Virg. Mn. ix. 628, 
 
 Et statuam ante aras aurata fronte juvencum 
 Candentem, pariterque caput cum matre gerentem. 
 • Virg. Eel. iii. 32, 
 
^7-— 36. IDYLL VIII. 47 
 
 Daph. Well then, what will you stake? And what shall 
 be the advantage the winner shall have ? 
 
 Men, "^ A shepherd!scpipe, which I made beautiful with nine 
 notes, and having white wax about it^ equal below, equal 
 above. This I would stake : but my father's property I will 
 not stake. ^ 
 
 Daph. In truth I too, look you, have a pipe with nine notes, 
 having white wax about it, equal below, equal above. I lately- 
 fastened it together. Even still I have a pain in this finger, 
 since the reed, i'fegs, split and cut me. But who shall try us? 
 Who shall be our listener ? 
 
 Men. How if we should call hither yon goatherd, whose 
 dog ^ with-the-white-spot, is barking near the kids. 
 
 And the youths indeed shouted to him^ and the goatherd 
 came, having heard them. And the youths on their part be- 
 gan to sing, and the goatherd was willing to be umpire. So 
 then first the ^ piper Menalcas proceeded to sing, having ob- 
 tained precedence by lot. And then Daphnis took up the 
 alternate pastoral strain. And thus began Menalcas first. 
 
 Men. Ye dells and rivers, *°a divine progeny, if haply ever 
 the piper Menalcas has sung a pleasant melody, may ye feed 
 my lambkins ^^ to my heart's content : and should Daphnis 
 ever chance to have come with his calves, may he find nothing 
 less. 
 
 De grege non ausim quicquam deponere tecum, 
 Est mihi namque domi pater, est injusta noverca. 
 Bisque die numerant ambo pecus, alter.et heedos, 
 
 ' Eel. ii, 37, 38, Est mihi disparibus septem compacta cicutis 
 Fistula. 
 Ibid. 32, Pan primus calamos cera conjungere plures 
 
 Instituit. 
 Wordsworth refers, for the modern use of this pipe by Greek shepherds, 
 to G. M. Leake's Northern Greece, i. p, 290. 
 
 ^ (paXapbg, ' white spot,' a name given to a ram, in Idyll v. 104. 
 
 * ivKTO., i. e. 6 avpiKTrjg, 6 Xtyv(p9oyyovg. The termination a was 
 iEolic. Homer has Qveara. iJ,T]risra — ve^eXijyepEra, ivpvo-na. iTnroTa. 
 Hence the Latin Cometa ' planeta ' poeta, from KOfiTjTriQ TrXavrjTTjg, &c., 
 and the Latins generally turned the Greek names in ag into a. The 
 Greeks did just the reverse, adding s to Latin names in 'a.' See Matt. 
 Gr. Gr. § 68, 8. (Edit. 1832.) For the order of singing, see Yirg. Eel. 
 vii. 18. 
 
 ^^ 9f.~iov ykvog, because every river with the Greeks, and every fountain, 
 was a god or goddess. Denique coelesti sumus omnes semine nati. Lucret. 
 
 " 6K tl/vxag, exanimi mei sententia. Though Graefius understands 
 ^vxo-Q of the rivers, as gods Qhov ysvovg. 
 
48 THEOCRITUS. 37—51. 
 
 Daph. Ye springs, and herbage, a pleasant growth, if so 
 be that Daphnis warbles like the nightingales, fatten ye this 
 herd ! And if Menalcas shall have driven any stock hither, 
 tnay he, to his satisfaction, pasture all in plenty. 
 
 Men. ^^ Every where it is spring, and every where are pas- 
 tures : and every where udders are full of milk, and the young 
 are suckled, where the fair maiden approaches: but if she 
 should depart, both the shepherd is withered there, and the 
 herbage too. 
 
 Daph. Sheep are there, she-goats with twins are there, 
 bees fill their hives there, and the oaks are loftier, wherever 
 the handsome Milo sets foot ; ^^ but should he depart, both he 
 who feeds the heifers, and the heifers themselves, are the more 
 dried up. 
 
 Men. he-goat, husband of the white she-goats ! '* where 
 
 there is endless depth of foliage, O ye flat-nosed kids, come 
 
 hither to the water. For in that place is he ! Go, stump-horn, 
 
 and say to Milo, that ^^ Proteus, even though a god, used 
 
 .to feed sea-calves. 
 
 »2 Compare Virg. Eel. vii. 59, 60, 
 
 Phillidis adventu nostras nemus omne virebit 
 Jupiter et leeto descendet plurimus imbri. 
 Ibid. 55, Omnia nunc rident ; at si formosus Alexis 
 
 Montibus his abeat, videas et fiumina sicca. 
 Pope Past. i. 69, 
 
 All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers, 
 ' Hush'd are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers ; 
 If Delia smile, the flowers begin to spring, 
 The skies to brighten, and the birds to sing. 
 '* Virg. Eel. iii. 100, 
 
 Eheu quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in ervo ! 
 Idem amor exitium pecori, pecorisque raagistro. 
 '* The common reading here was w (iaOog, O profunditas, which 
 Casaubon, Reiske, Warton, &c. have altered to w, ubi, so that we must 
 supply dtvpo, and refer it, I suppose, to vdojp in the next line. Werns- 
 dorf supposes ai (3d9og vXag [xvpiov to the " Horrida siccae Silva comae," 
 of the he-goat, (cf. Juvenal ix. 13,) and perhaps there is some foundation 
 for this conjecture, to which however the simpler mode of translation 
 above stated seems preferable. For the parallel to the former part of the 
 line, see Virg. Eel. vii. 7, Vir gregis ipse caper deeraverat. 
 1* Horat. Od. i. 2, 7, Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos 
 Visere montes. 
 Cf. Virg. Georg. iv. 395. Hom. Odyss. iv. 448. "Wordsworth pro- 
 poses here to read, Kai Xsye — MiXojv, 
 
 'O UpcjTevg <pu)Kag k. 9. (a. svtfie. 
 
53—76. IDYLL Vlll. 49 
 
 Daph. Not mine be it to possess the land of Pelops, nor 
 mine to own golden talents, or to outstrip the winds : but I - 
 will sing under this rock, holding thee in my arms, ^•'looking 
 upon my sheep feeding together, and towards the Sicilian sea. 
 
 Men. To trees indeed winter is a dreadful evil, and to 
 waters drought, and to birds the snare, and to wild beasts 
 nets : but to man the yearning for a tender maiden. O Sire, 
 O Jove, not I alone have been in love. ^^ Thou too art a lover 
 of women. 
 
 These strains indeed then the youths sang alternately : and 
 Menalcas thus commenced his concluding song. 
 
 Men. Spare my kids, spare, wolf, my she-goats with young, 
 and do not hurt me, because, small though I am, I tend many. 
 ^^0 dog Lampurus, does so deep a sleep hold you ? You ought 
 not to sleep soundly while tending sheep with a lad. And, ye 
 sheep, neither do you shrink from filling yourselves with the 
 tender herbage. Ye shall be nowise tired of it, when this 
 springs up again. St ! feed on, feed on, and, all of you, fill 
 your udders, that the lambs may have a part, and I may lay 
 up the rest in cheese baskets. 
 
 Next in turn, Daphnis struck up to sing sweetly. 
 
 Daph. ^^ Me too, a maiden with meeting eye-brows, having 
 seen yesterday from her cave, as I drove past it my heifers, 
 kept declaring to be beautiful, beautiful. Nor indeed did I 
 even answer her a rude word, but kept trudging on my way, 
 looking downwards. ^^ Sweet is the voice of the heifer, sweet 
 
 '^ Graef. reads (rvvvofis MTXov, oputv tclv 'S.iKtkav eg uka. But Kiessling 
 thinks, with reason, that a much slighter alteration will render the pass- 
 age clear, viz. rav StKcXav re oka. Or we may understand, as Reiske 
 suggests, Iq in the sense of Trpog or Trapd. " Apud Siculum mare." 
 " Compare the 56th Epigram of Callimachus, ed. Ernesti, i. 324. 
 '* AdfXTTovpe, ^^jfire-tail.** 
 
 ^^ Meeting eyebrows were considered a beauty among the ancienl? 
 Compare Anacreon xxvii. ad pictorem. Ov. Art. A^mat. iii. 201, 
 
 Arte supercilii confinia nuda replentes. 
 And Juvenal Sat. ii. 93, , 
 
 lUe supercilium madida fuligine tactum 
 Obliqua producit acu, J. W. 
 
 2° TO irvivfia, the breath of the pipe. So Idyll ix. 7, 8, and Theocr. 
 Epigr. V. 4, KupoSsTii) irvevfiCTi. Warton, says Polwhele, thinks Milton 
 had Theocritus in view, when he wrote those lines of Paradise Lost, 
 Book iv. Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising aweet 
 With charm of earliest birds, &c, 
 
 E 
 
60 THEOCRITUS. 76—93. 
 
 the breath of the pipe; and sweetly too the calf lows, and 
 sweetly also the cow : and sweet is it 2' in summer-time to 
 sleep in the open air beside running water. ^2 Xhe acorns are 
 an ornament to the oak, apples to the apple-tree, and to the 
 cows the calf, the cows themselves to the herdsman. 
 
 Thus sang the youths, but the goatherd addressed them as 
 follows : 
 
 Goatherd. Something sweet is thy mouth, and lovely thy 
 voice, O Daphnis. 'Tis better to hear thee sing than ^sto 
 sip honey. Take the pipe, for thou hast won in singing. 
 And if at all you desire to teach me too to sing, while I feed 
 my goats along with you, I will give you, as the price of your 
 teaching, yon hornless she-goat, which always fills the milk- 
 pail above the brim. 
 
 As then the youth was delighted, and leapt up, and shouted 
 as victorious ; so would a fawn leap upon its dam. And as 
 the other smouldered away, and was cast down in heart by 
 chagrin, so also would a nymph grieve, ^when betrothed. 
 And from this time, Daphnis became first among shepherds, 
 and, while yet in earliest youth, wedded a Naiad nymph. 
 
 IDYLL IX. 
 
 THE PASTOR, OR THE HERDSMEN, 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The scene is laid in Sicily. Daphnis and Menalcas are challenged by a 
 companion shepherd to contend with Q ne3 nother>in singing. They 
 sing in alternate strains, and each carries off a prize ; Daphnis a crook, 
 
 *' Virg. Eel. V. 46, Quale sopor fessis in gramine, &c. 
 ^ Ibid. 32, Vitis ut arboribus decori est, ut vitibus uvae, 
 Ut gregibus tauri, segetes ut pinguibus arvis, 
 Tu decus omne tuis. 
 ^ Than to sip honey.] Polwhele compares Septuagint Cantic. iv. 11, 
 Krjpiov aTroaTa^ovcn X^'-^V <fou, r/u/i<^?j. fiiXi Kal yaXa i/ird Ttjv yXwtrcrav <rov. 
 ** yafitOtifff desponsata. Her grief must be supposed to arise from the 
 impending loss of girlish freedom. Comp. Trach. Sophoc. 144, 
 Httjs Txs avTi Trapdtvov yuvfj 
 
 tcXijd^, Xd^JJ T'cf VUKTt (ppOVTlSwV fltpOS. 
 
1—18. IDYLL IX. 51 
 
 and Menalcas a muscle-shell. It seems clear that the whole Idyll is 
 put in the mouth of a shepherd, who narrates the alternate strains of 
 Daphnis and Menalcas, just as Melibaeus (Virg. Eel. vii.) those of 
 Corydon and Thyrsis. Warton observes that Menalcas in his song 
 assumes the character of the Cyclops. 
 
 DAPHNIS. MENALCAS. 
 
 Sing a pastoral strain, Daphnis, and do you first begin the 
 song ; begin you the ^ song first, and let Menalcas follow after, 
 when you have put the calves to the heifers, and the bulls to 
 the barren cows. And let them feed together, and stray 
 among the foliage, ^not at all forsaking the herd : but do you 
 sing me a bucolic strain in the first place ; and in the next, 
 in turn let Menalcas answer. 
 
 Daphnis. Sweetly indeed the calf lows, and sweetly too 
 does the heifer ; and sweetly also the pipe sounds, and the 
 herdsman, and sweetly I too. And by the cool water-side I 
 have a couch of leaves ; and on it have been strown beautiful 
 skins from white heifers, all of which, to my sorrow, as they 
 nibbled the ^ arbute-tree, the south-west wind dashed from 
 
 Thus sang Daphnis to me. And Menalcas thus. ' 
 
 Menalcas. JEtna is my mother, and I inhabit a fair cave in 
 the hollow rocks : and I have in sooth whatever things appear 
 in a dream, ^ many sheep and many goats ; of which the skins 
 
 * For instances of this figure, called by the Latins ** Iteratio," see Virgil 
 Eel. V. 51. Milton Lycidas, 37, 
 
 But oh the heavy change now thou art gone, 
 Now thou art gone, and never must return. 
 Virg. Eel. iii. 58, Incipe Damaeta ; tu deinde sequere, Menalca. 
 
 ^ ctTiiiaytkevvTtq ; a cognate word, dTifiaykXrig, " neglecting the herd, 
 feeding alone," occurs, Idyll xxv, 132. 
 
 ^ KonapoQ, the strawberry or arbute tree. Comp. v. 128. 
 
 * A similar boast of indifference occurs, Eel. vii. 51, 
 
 Hie tantum Borea2 curaraus frigora, quantum • 
 
 Aut numerum lupus, aut torrentia flumina ripas. 
 Wordsworth reads with two MSS. tpwv to, i. e. Quantum amans curat 
 audire patris aut matris monita. But Toup's conjecture, tpwj/rf, which 
 we have followed, is generally received. 
 
 * Virg. Eel, ii., Mille meae Siculis errant in montibus agnae. 
 Two lines below compare Virg. Eel. vii. 49, 
 
 Hie focus et taedae pingues, hie plurimus ignio 
 Semper. 
 
 £ 2 
 r 
 
 the mountain peak. And I care as much for the parching 
 summer ^ as lovers care to hear the words of a father or mother. 
 
52 THEOCRITUS. 19—33. 
 
 lie at my head, and beside my feet. And on a fire of oak- 
 boughs entrails are boiling, and on the fire are dry beech - 
 fagots when it is oyinter ; and in truth not even have I a care 
 for winter, as much as a toothless person has for nuts, when 
 ^fine meal is at hand. 
 
 These indeed I applauded ; and straightway gave as a pre- 
 sent, to Daphnis on one hand a crook, which a field of my 
 father's had raised for me, self sprung, and such as not even 
 perhaps a carpenter would have found fault with ; and to the 
 other ^ a beautiful spiral^cockle- shell, the flesh of which I my- 
 self had eaten, after I had ^ lain in wait for it on the Icarian 
 rocks, having divided ^ five shares for five of us j and he J[Men- 
 alcas) blew upon the shell. 
 
 Pastoral Muses, all hail ! and bring to light the song, which 
 formerly I sang in the presence of those herdsmen. [}^ Never 
 raise a pimple upon the tip of your tongue. ^^ Cicala is dear to 
 cicala, and ant to ant, and hawks to hawks : but to me the 
 Muse and song : of which, I pray, may all my house be full, 
 
 ^ afxvXoio, sc. apTov, a cake of not ground, i. e. the finest meal. 
 Aristoph. Pax, 1195. Chapman indicates "pap," as the fare of thig 
 toothless individual. 
 
 ' Lucretius, quoted by Polwhele, 
 
 Concharumque genus parili ratione videraus 
 Pingere telluris gremium, qua mollibus undis 
 Littoris incurvi bibulam pavit aequor arenam. 
 8 Icaria, one of the Sporades, north-east of Myconos, and south-west 
 of Samos, in the ^gean Sea. Now Nicaria. 
 
 ^ TrkvTS Tafiuw, for dg Trkvrt fisprj TUfxthv — 6 S' iyKavaxh^aro. Cf. 
 Idyll xxii. 75, where Amycus kox^ov IXujv fivKacraTo koTXov. 
 
 I'' The sense is, '< It is no untruth, nor need you fear lest pimples 
 should rise on your tongue to convict you of falsehood." This was as 
 common a superstition, as it is now, with the ancients. Pimples on the 
 nose or tongue were supposed to indicate falsehood. Compare Idyll 
 xii. 23, 
 
 lyu) Sa <r£ tov koXov alvicav 
 xl/suSsa plvos virtpdev apai^s ovk ava(pvcrui. 
 Horace alludes to such marks, in Od. ii. 8, 1, 
 Ulla si juris tibi pejerati 
 Poena, Barine, nocuisset unquam, 
 Dente si nigro fieres, vel uno 
 Turpior ungui. 
 " A common proverb. Aristot. Eth. N. koXoioq -nori koXoiov, '« Birds 
 of a feather flock together." Ecclesiasticus xiii. 16, <' All flesh consort- 
 etli according to kind, and a man will cleave to his like." xxvii, lb. 
 ** The birds will return to their like." Cf. Juvenal xv. 163. 
 
iX. 33— X. 2. IDYLL IX. 53 
 
 for neither '^ sleep, nor spring on a sudden, is more sweet, nor 
 flowers to bees, than are the Muses dear to me : for whomso- 
 ever they behold with pleasure, such hath ^^ Circe never at all 
 hurt with her drauo-ht. 
 
 IDYLL X. 
 
 THE WORKMEN, OR REAPERS. 
 * ARGUMENT. 
 
 In this Idyll, which is strictly pastoral, Milo and Battus, two reapers, 
 converse over their work. Now Battus, being enamoured of a female 
 flute-player, Bombyce, the daughter of Polybutas, or as some suppose 
 his handmaiden, works but slackly in consequence. Whereupon 
 Milo asks him why he reaps so lazily, and Battus confesses to him his 
 love ; and recites a ditty composed for his mistress. Milo then opposes 
 to this song, another of his own, containing precepts on the art of 
 reaping, having first applauded Battus for the fitness and beauty of his 
 composition. 
 
 MILO AND BATTUS. 
 
 You labouring ploughman, what has befallen you now, 
 wretched man ? Neither can you ^ draw the swathe straight, 
 
 ^"^ Pope Past., Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain, 
 Not balmy sleep to labourers faint with pain, 
 Not showers to larks, or sunshine to the bee, 
 Are half so charming as thy sight to me. 
 our* tap i^airivag — "Wordsw., seeing that the sense requires a dative here, 
 instead of e^awivag conjectures ev^afiEVoig vald6 exoptantibus, and com- 
 pares with the reading Theocr. x. 2, and Bion vi. 1, which see. 
 
 '^ The draughts of Circe, or spells of unlawful pleasure, are mentioned 
 by Horace, Epist. I. ii. 23, •* Sirenum voces et Circse pocula nosti ;" 
 and chiefly in the Odyssey, lib. x. Milton introduces her as the mother 
 of Comus, in his Masque so named. The sentiment here expressed with 
 regard to the favourites of the Muses, is fully worked out by Horace, 
 Od. iv. 3, Quern tu, Melpomene, &c. 
 
 ' oyfiov, says the Scholiast, was properly said of reapers who, as they 
 advance one after another in long order, while they reap, draw, as it 
 were, a furrow, which is called elsewhere avXa^. The root is dyoj, (cf. 
 Butm. Lexilog. under the word 6xOfj(rai, L. and S.) the verb dyfisvu) is 
 used in a metaphor from this sense of oyfiog, in Sophocl. Philoct. 163. 
 Two lines below the reader may compare Virgil Georg. iii. 466, who, 
 describing a sickening sheep, says, 
 
54 THEOCRITUS. 2—16. 
 
 as of old you used to draw it ; nor do you reap in a line with 
 your neighbour, but are left behind, as a sheep, whose foot a 
 thorn has wounded, is left by the flock. A fine sort of reaper 
 you will be, won't you, at evening, and after mid-day, seeing that 
 now, when you begin, ^ you do not make a gap in the swathe ? 
 
 Battus. Milo, you who reap till late at even, fragment of 
 stubborn rock, did it never befall you to long after one of the 
 absent ? 
 
 Milo. Never ! And what business has a labouring man 
 with longing after those that are without ? 
 
 Bait. Did it never then chance to you to lie awake through 
 love ? 
 
 3Iil. No, and I trust it never may. ^ It's bad to give a 
 dog a taste of guts. 
 
 Batt. Well, but I, Milo, have been in love bard upon eleven 
 days. 
 
 Mil. You evidently draw from the cask ! * but I have not 
 vinegar enough. 
 
 Batt. ^ Therefore all before my doors is uinweeded since 
 sowing time. 
 
 Mil. And which of the damsels is ruining you ? 
 
 Batt. The maiden of Polybotas, ^ who lately used to play to 
 the reapers in the fields of Hippocoon. 
 
 Videris, aut summas carpentem mollius herbas 
 Extremamque sequi, aut medio procumbere campo 
 Pascentem. 
 
 2 apxojttfvog (rov tpyov, sc.) rag avX. aTTOTptJyeiv. So CatuU. xxxiii. 7, 
 Quare, si sapiet, viam Torabit. 
 
 ^ XaXeTTov, &c. One of the proverbs you would expect in a reaping 
 field. Horat. Serm. II. vi. 81, " Ut canis, a corio nunquam absterrebitur 
 uncto." One of our vulgar expressions to the same point is, " Don't 
 let the cat to the cream." 
 
 '• aXig o^og. Some would read o^ovg, but Reiske shows from Apollon. 
 Rhod. ii. 424, Callim. H. in Jovem, 84, that aXig was used with a nom- 
 inative or accusative as well as a genitive. The point of the passage is 
 that Milo, who is heart-Avhole, comically congratulates Battus on his 
 having his fill of love, and deplores his own loveless state, ironically of 
 course. Battus stands by, a very skeleton from sleepless nights and 
 wasting love. He has drawn from a cask with a vengeance. 
 
 ^ Virg. Eel. ii. 70, Semiputata tibi frondosa vitis in ulmo est. Battus 
 answers, that he is so much occupied with love, that he does not even 
 remove the sweepings from the yard of his house. 
 
 ^ This verse occurs before, Idyll vi. 41. 7ro\w/3a)ra, genitivus Doricus, 
 filia Polybotae. Cf. ii. 66, a tCj v^ov\oio. J. W. 
 
i7-^0. IDYLL X. 55 
 
 Mil. ^ The god has found out the sinner ! you have what 
 you have been long wanting. ® The long-legged grasshopper 
 will lie with you all night. 
 
 Batt. You are beginning to jeer at me. But not ^only 
 Plutus is blind, but also the reckless Love. Do not say 
 any thing boastful. 
 
 Mil. I do not boast at all. *® Only do you lay low the crop ; 
 and strike up some loving ditty on the maiden ; so will you 
 work more pleasantly ; and in fact in former times you used 
 to be musical. 
 
 Batt. Pierian Muses, sing with me of the slim damsel : for, 
 O goddesses, ye make all things beautiful, whichsoever ye 
 shall have touched. 
 
 ^' Graceful Bombyce, all call thee Syrian, and shrivelled, 
 and sun-burnt ; but I alone call you ^^ honey-complexioned. 
 The violet too is dark, ^^ and the inscribed hyacinth ; yet still 
 they are gathered the first in garlands. The she-goat follows 
 
 ^ A proverb directed against those who boast, and then fall into the 
 dangers which they have been rejoicing to have escaped. 
 
 8 udvrig — KaXafxaiaf a kind of locust or grasshopper with long thin 
 fore-feet, which are in constant motion. Perhaps, mantis religiosa, or 
 mantis oratoria, Linn., also KaXa^aia and KaXafiirig. ** If you marry," 
 says Milo, ** this old and loquacious damsel, you will have a cicada or 
 locust to disturb you all night." Chapman translates judvrtg, a •* tree- 
 frog." 
 
 » avTOQ, i. q. fiovoQ or loi^. Cf. Matt. Gr. Gr. § 468, 5. 
 
 >» Soph. Ajax, 384, fitj^kv fisy i'nnjg. 
 
 " ^vpav. Syrian— on account of her dark complexion. " Gipsy," 
 perhaps. 
 
 '2 fisXixXiopov, olive, as we call it, " a brunette." On this difference 
 between the world's notion and the lover's, see Lucret. lib. iv. 1153. 
 Horat. Serm. I. iii. 38, 
 
 lUuc prsevertamur, amatorem quod amicae 
 Turpia decipiunt caecum vitia, aut etiam ipsa hsec 
 Delectant. 
 For a parallel to the next line, see Yirg. Eel. x. 38, 
 Quid turn si fuscus Amyntas 
 Sunt nigroe vioiae, sunt et vaccinia nigra. 
 And Theocr. Id. xxiii. 29. 
 
 " Cf. Mosch. Idyll iii. 6. The legend ran that Hyacinthus was acci- 
 dentally slain by Apollo's disc, and that his blood produced a flower, on 
 whose leaves the initial letter of his name was inscribed. Ovid. Met. x. 
 162. Virg. Eel. iii. 106. Georg. iv. 186. Vid. Eel. ii. 18, Alba liguu- 
 tra cadunt : vaccinia nigra leguntur. 
 
56 THEOCRITUS. 30—43 
 
 ''' the cytisus, the wolf the she-goat, and the ^^crane the plough : 
 but I am maddened after you. ^^ I would I had as much as 
 they say Croesus of yore possessed ; then both of us wrought 
 in gold should be dedicated to Aphrodite ; you holding the 
 flute indeed, and either a rose, yes, or an apple ; and I wtar- 
 ing '"^ a new dress, and new Amyclaean shoes on both feet. O 
 graceful Bombyce, ^^thy feet indeed are well turned, and thy 
 voice is soft. Thy manners however I am not able to express. 
 
 Mil. Surely the ploughman has escaped my notice white 
 making beautiful songs ; how well has he measured the form 
 of his harmony ! ^^ Alas me ! for the beard which I have 
 nursed in vain. Consider now also the strains of the divine 
 Lytierses. 
 
 20 O fruitful Demeter, rich in ears of corn, may this field 
 be well tilled, and fruitful in the highest degree. 
 
 1* Cf. Idyll V. 128. Virg. Eel. ii. 63, 
 
 Torva leaena lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam, 
 Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella 
 Te, Corydon, o Alexi : trahit sua quemque voluptas. 
 Compare Georg. ii. 431, Tondentur cytisi. 
 
 '* Cf. Georg. i. 120, StrymouiaBque grues. Hesiod. O. et D. 448, 
 
 '« Cf. Virg. Eel. vii. 31, 32, 
 
 Si proprium hoc fuerit, laevi de marmore tota 
 Puniceo stabis suras evincta eothurno. 
 And Ibid. 36, Nune te marmoreum pro tempore fecimus ; at tu 
 Si fsetura gregem suppleverit, aureus esto. 
 
 '■^ crxrifxa. Dr. Wordsworth proposes to read XHIMA, h. e. Kal sifia, for 
 ff^^jua, unnecessarily, for Gxr^ia may mean a dress as well as ilfia. 
 Aristoph. Aeharn. 64, wKJSaTava tov rrxriixaTOQ. Besides Kal can hardly 
 precede de where fjiev goes before. See a Avriter in the Classical Mu- 
 seum, vol. ii. 294. But Avhy should we not adopt Groefius's explanation of 
 this somewhat difficult passage, and suppose kuivoq to be used doubly 
 with reference to (txVI^(^ and diJiVKXag. a/xyKXai were costly shoes used 
 in Laconia, and so called from Amyclae, the town where their inventor 
 lived ■? 
 
 '* Horat. Od. II. iv. 21, Brachia et vultum, teretesque suras Integer 
 laudo, Solomon's Song vii. 1, How beautiful are thy feet with shoes ! 
 Some think that Bombyces' feet are called darpaydXoi in point of white- 
 ness. Dice were called dorpayaXot. If this were adopted as the true 
 meaning, we have a parallel in Solomon's Song v. 15, His legs are as 
 pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold. 
 
 '^ Compare Idyll xiv. 28, eiQ dvdpa yeveiiov. Hor. ii. Sat. iii. 35, 
 Sapientem pascere barbam. Lytierses was a son of Midas, king of 
 ?hrygia. 
 
 '" Here we have certain invocations of Ceres and reapers' saws strung 
 
44—58. IDYLL X. 57 
 
 Bind up, reapers, the sheaves, lest haply a passer-by should 
 say, 21 good-for-nothing fellows, this hire too is thrown away. 
 
 Let the swathe of your mown-grass look to the north or 
 west : thus the ear fills out. ^^ Threshers of corn should avoid 
 sleeping at mid-day : then, most of all, chaff comes from the 
 stalk. 
 
 Reapers ought to begin at the rising of the crested lark, 
 and to cease when it goes to rest : but to keep holiday during 
 the heat. 
 
 The life of the frog is to be prayed for, my boys. He does 
 not care for one to pour out liquor ; for it is at hand for him 
 in abundance. 
 
 It is better, miserly bailiff, to cook the lentil. ^3 Don't cut 
 your hand in splitting the cummin. 
 
 These couplets it behoves men labouring in the sun to sing : 
 and 'tis meet that you should tell, O rustic, your starved love 
 to your mother lying awake in bed in the morning. 
 
 IDYLL XL 
 
 CYCLOPS. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Idyll commences with a preface to Nicias, a physician of Miletus, 
 (to whom Theocritus inscribes the 13th Idyll, and of whom he makes 
 
 together. Compare Virg. Geor. i. 347, Et Cererem clamore vocent in tecta, 
 &c. Cf. Callim. H. in Cer. ii. 127. H. in Dian. 130. 
 
 2' avKivoi, good for nothing — Men of fig- wood (not worth a fig"?) 
 Aristoph. Acharn. 108, speaks of Trpivtvoi yepovTsg, from irplvog, " hearts 
 of oak." 
 
 " Understand fi'sfivacro or opa in such cases. Matt. Gr. Gr. § 546. 
 Compare at this place Milton's L'AUegro, 
 
 To hear the lark begin his flight 
 And startle, singing, the dull night, 
 From his watch-tower in the skies, 
 Till the dappled dawn doth rise. 
 ^ Misers were called bean-splitters. The cummin seed was too small 
 for even them to split. Our Lord uses the word in rebuking the minute 
 exactness of the Pharisees in matters indifferent, St. Matt, xxiii. 23. 
 
58 THEOCRITUS 1—16. 
 
 favourable mention in Idyll xxviii. 6, and Epigr. vii. 3,) respe(;ting 
 the power of song in relieving the pains of disappointed love. The 
 Cyclops is represented as using this solace for his hopeless passion for 
 Galatea. Polyphemus, sitting on a rock overhanging the sea, beguiles 
 his hours with song. He accuses the fair one of pride, and scorn for 
 his deep devotion to her ; and boasts of the gifts of fortune, which he 
 can show, in lieu of gifts of beauty and personal grace. At last he 
 seems to recover from his infatuation, perceiving the vanity of his 
 hopes. Virgil has had this Idyll in his eye, while writing Eclogues 
 ii. and ix. : and Bion perhaps gathered from it some ideas for the 
 first part of his 15th Idyll. Compare Ovid Met. xiii. 755, &c., and 
 Callimach. Epigr. xlix. p. 316 (Ernesti). 
 
 ^ There is no other remedy for love, O Nicias, either '^in 
 the way of salve, as it seems to me, or of plaster, except 
 the Muses : but this is a light and sweet thing amongst men, 
 yet 'tis not easy to find. But methinks you know it well, as 
 being a physician, and in truth a man especially beloved by 
 the nine Muses. 
 
 Thus, for instance, thQ famous Cyclops our countryman, the 
 ancient Polyphemus, used most easily to pass his time, when-v; 
 he was enamoured of Galatea, just as he was now getting a ^. 
 beard about his mouth and temples. And he was wont to love,-' 
 not at all with roses, or apples, or locks of hair, but with un- 
 done fury : and he held all things secondary to his fury. ^ Oft- " 
 times his sheep went back by themselves to the fold from the* ' 
 green herbage ; whilst he, singing his Galatea, pined away'* 
 there, on the sea-weedy shore, from break of day, having 
 beneath his breast a most hateful wound inflicted by mighty 
 
 * Horat. Od. IV. ii. 35, Minuentur atrae carmine curae. 
 
 2 ovT eyxpKTTov. Compare ^sch. Prom. V. 4S8, (and Pearson on 
 the Creed, Art. ii. p. 89,) ovk riv dXs^rjfi' ovdev, ovde ^pdjaifiov oh 
 XQKTTov, ovde Tnarbv. The Greeks had divers remedies and medicines. 
 XQt-(JTa, unguents, iraaTa. or TrXaara, plasters, Triora or Trortfja, liquids, 
 ^puxTifxa, esculents, and sTry^at, incantations, charms, &c. Pope, Past, ii., 
 calls " Love the sole disease thou canst not cure." 
 
 3 avTai, suk sponte. Virg. Eel. vii. 11, Hue ipsi potum venient per 
 prata juvenci. iv. 21, Ipsae lacte domum referent distenta capellse, Ubera. 
 Pope Past. iii. 78, 
 
 The shepherds cry. Thy flocks are left a prey ! — 
 Ah, what avails it me the flocks to keep, 
 Who lost my heart, while I preserved my sheep ? 
 Uvid. Met. xiii. 62, 
 
 Quid sit amor sentit, nostrique cupidine captug 
 Uritur, oblitus pecorum, antrorumque suoram. 
 
16—34. IDYLL XI. 59 
 
 Venus, * since she had fastened an arrow in his heart. ^ But he 
 found his remedy, and sitting upon a high rock, looking to- 
 wards the sea, he was wont to sing such strains as this. 
 
 'O fair Galatea, why dost thou spurn thy lover? ^More 
 white than cream-cheese to look upon, more tender than a 
 lamb, more frisky than a calf, more sleek than an unripe 
 grape ? And you come hither just so, when sweet sleep pos- 
 sesses me, but you are straightway gone, when sweet sleep 
 leaves me ; ^ and you fly me, like a sheep when it has spied a 
 gray wolf. ^ I for my part became enamoured of you, damsel, 
 when first you came with my mother, desiring to cull from the 
 mountain hyacinthine flowers; and I was acting as your 
 guide. But to stop, when once I had beheld you, and after- 
 wards, and even at present, from that time I am unable. Yet 
 you do not care, no, by Jove, not a whit. I know, graceful 
 maiden, on account of what you avoid me, ^because a shaggy 
 eyebrow stretches all over my forehead, from one ear to 
 another, as one great one ; and one eye is upon m^ brow, 
 and a broad nostril over the lip. 
 
 Yet this same I, being such as you see, ^^feed a thousand 
 
 * KwTTpi^og £fc jwtyaXrtc. Idyll ii. 30, t^ AcppoSirag, and vii. 55, to oi 
 YliraTi : Here we must either, as Jacobs thinks, retain to, supposing it to 
 mean " quoniam," or read to. oi, i, q. a oi, according to the oldest form of 
 the article, toq, to., tov. Matt. Gr. Gr. § 65, 3. See Wordsw. at xiv. 56, 
 
 * Cf. Callimach. Epig. xlix., and Ovid. Met. xiii. 778, 
 
 Prominet in pontum cuneatus acumine longo, 
 Collis : utrumque latus circumfluit aequoris unda. 
 Hue ferus ascendit Cyclops, mediusque resedit. 
 « Cf. Ov. Met. xiii. 789 — 804, where Galatea is called splendidior 
 vitro, tenero lascivior hsedo, &c., and "Virg. Eel. vii. 37, 
 Nerine Galatea, thymo mihi dulcior Hyblae 
 Candidior cycnis, hedera formosior alba. 
 Dvid imitates this and the next line in the verses beginning, 
 MoUior et cycni plumis, et lacte coacto. 
 ^ Hor. Od. i. 15, 29, Quem tu, cervus uti vallis in alter^ 
 
 Yisum parte lupum graminis immemor 
 Sublimi feries mollis anhelitu. 
 » Virg. Eel. viii. 37, 
 
 Sepibus in nostris parvam te roscida mala, 
 Dux ego vester eram, vidi cum matre legentem. 
 » Hirsutumque supercilium, promissaque barba. Virg. Eel. viii. 33, 
 «» Virg. Eel. ii. 21, 
 
 Mille meae Siculis errant in montibus agnae 
 Lac mihi non aestate novum, non frigore defit. 
 Compare Ov. Met. xiii. 821—830. Horn. Odyss. ix. 219, &c. 
 
60 THEOCRITUS 35—54. 
 
 sheep, and from these, milking them, I drink the best milk. 
 And cheese fails me not, either in summer, or in autumn, or 
 in the depth of winter ; but the baskets are always overbur- 
 dened. I am skilled too in playing on the pipes, as no one 
 of the Cyclops here; singing thee, ^^my dear sweet-apple, and 
 myself at the same time, '^ oftentimes early in the night. And 
 I am rearing for you eleven fawns, all of them ^^ wearing collars, 
 and four cubs of a bear. Nay, then, come you to me, and you 
 shall have nothing worse ; and suffer the pale-green sea to roll 
 up to the beach : ^'^you will pass the night with me in my cave 
 more sweetly. ^^ There are laurels and tapering cypresses, 
 there is black ivy, and the vine with its sweet fruit ; there is 
 cool water, which wooded ^'Etna sends forth for me, a divine 
 drink, out of white snow : (who would prefer to these delights 
 to dwell in sea or waves ?) But if in truth I seem to you to 
 be rather shaggy, I have oak-branches near, and unresting 
 fire under the embers. And I could endure to be scorched 
 by you even to my very soul, ^^and that single eye, than which 
 nothing is more dear to me. ^'Woe is me, that my mother 
 
 " yXwKUjuaXov, cf. Callim. H. in Cerer. 29, a term of endearment. 
 '^ vvKTog dojpi, Idyll xxiv. 38, Aristoph. Ecclesiaz. 741 : see Pierson 
 on Moeris, p. 32, who quotes three passages from the Orators, and two 
 from elsewhere, and states that he has met but one example of dwpi not 
 followed by vvktoq or vvKru)v. toI spSsku vtfSpcjg. Cf. Yirg. Eel. ii. 40, 
 Praeterea duo, nee tut&, mihi valle reperti, 
 Capreoli, sparsis etiam nunc pellibus albo. 
 '^ ixavvofopiog, bearing collars, th. fxawog, a necklace. Propert. IV. viii. 
 24, Armillati colla Molossa canes. Others read ixavo(p6p(jjg, i.e. fir}vo^6povg, 
 moon-marked, which Reiske holds to be the true reading. kuI (TKVfiviog, 
 Compare Ovid, Met, xiii. 836, Villosae catulos summis in montibus ursae. 
 " opexdriv — In the parallel passage of Virg. Eel. ix, 44, Bentley reads 
 "incani" for insani, as the literal rendering of yXavKav. Virg. Eel. i. 
 80, Hie tamen banc mecum poteris requiescere noctem. Chapman com- 
 pares with this invitation, Kit Marlow's Shepherd's song, beginning, 
 Come live with me and be my love. 
 And we will all the pleasures prove, &c. 
 " Compare Horn. Odyss. ix, 183— 187, from which Theocr. has taken 
 the ground-work of this passage ; and comp. Odyss. ix. 219, 223, 233, 
 &c, at 51, 52. 
 
 '* CatuU, iii. 5, Quem plus ilia suis oculis amabat. 
 *' Pope, Past. ii. 45, expresses the same kind of sentiment: 
 Oh, were I made, by some transforming power, 
 The captive bird, that sings within thy bower. 
 Then might my voice thy listening ears employ, 
 And I those kisses he receives enjoy. , 
 
54—75. IDYLL XL 61 
 
 did not bring me forth having gills, in which case I should 
 have come down to you, and have kissed your hand, if you 
 would not your lips, and I should be ^^ bringing you either 
 white lilies, or the soft poppy with red petals. But the one 
 springs in summer, and the other in the winter, so that I should 
 not have been able to bring you all these together. 
 
 Now indeed, dear maiden, yes, now on the spot I will learn 
 to swim, if so be ^^ that any foreigner arrive hither, sailing in 
 his ship, that I may learn what possible delight it is to you 
 to dwell in the water-depths. Mayest thou come out, Galatea, 
 and having come forth, forget (as I do now sitting here) to go 
 away home : '^^ and mayest thou wish to feed flocks with me, 
 and to milk along with me, and to press cheese, infusing sharp 
 runnet. My mother '^^ alone wrongs me, and I find fault with 
 her ; not a kind word ever at all has she spoken to you on my 
 behalf, and this too, though she sees me becoming thin day 
 after day. I will say that my head and both my feet are throb- 
 bing, that she may be pained, since I too am pained. 
 
 ^'^ Cyclops, Cyclops, whither hast thou floAvn in reason ? 
 If thou wouldst forthwith weave baskets, and mowing the 
 young shoots, bear them to the lambs, perhaps thou wouldst 
 have thy senses in a far greater degree. ^^Milk the ewe that is 
 
 So Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, Oh that T were a glove upon that 
 hand, «S:c. 
 
 i» Virg. Eel. ii. 45, 46, Tibi lilia plenis 
 
 Ecce ferunt nymphae calathis, tibi Candida Nais 
 Pallentes yioias et summa papavera carpens. 
 
 '^ The Cyclops are represented by Horn. Odyss. ix. 125, as knowing 
 nothing of navigation, oy ydp Ki;KXw7r£(T(Tt a/££f Trdpa jUtXroTrapjjot. Virg. 
 Eel. ix. 39, Hue ades, O Galatea, quis est nam ludus in undis : 
 Hue ades : insani feriant sine littora fluctus. 
 
 20 Virg. Eel. ii. 28, O tantum libeat mecum tibi sordida rura, 
 Atque humiles habitare casas, «&c. 
 ranKTov : coagulum. See Tibull. II. iii. 17, Et miscere novo docuisse 
 coagula lacte. 
 
 ^' fiova, in Wordsworth's judgment, is faulty, because Galatea clearly 
 wronged the Cyclops, and so too did the Cyclops himself, (see 72). 
 Wordsw. suggests Kopa, " o virgo, mater me laedit," and points out the 
 same emendation of an unsound passage in Bion xv. 15, where for Muivoj 
 'AxtXXfi'i;;, read, KuJpog — puer Achilles. 
 
 22 Ibid. 69, Ah ! 'Corydon, Corydon, quae te dementia cepit. 
 
 ^^ Callimach. Epigr. xxxiii. 5, 6, 
 
 X' Ct/XOS £(JtOS TOtOS 8s. TCt /JLtV (ptvyOUTU SlWKtlV 
 
 OiSe, tu d' kv fiia-a-co Ks.ifxtva TrapTTtTa-Tai. 
 Hor. Sat. I. ii. 108, Transvolat' in medio posita, et fugientia captat. 
 
62 THEOCRITUS. xr. 75— xn. 5. 
 
 close at hand ! Why dost pursue the one that flies you ? ^'^ Haply 
 you will find another Galatea even more beautiful. ^^ Many 
 damsels bid me sport with them in the night season, and all 
 of them titter whenever I listen to them. Plainly even I 
 appear to be somebody on the land. 
 
 Thus in sooth Polyphemus used to beguile his love by sing- 
 ing ; and ^6 he passed his days more easily than if he had 
 given money /or a cure. 
 
 IDYLL XIL 
 
 AITES. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Idyll, which is of a lyric, not a Bucolic character, has heen suspect- 
 ed to be not the work of Theocritus. It is an expression of love 
 towards a youth on his return to his friend after three days' absence. 
 The poet goes on to hope that this love may be mutual and perpetual. 
 It is ended with a strain in honour of the Megarensians, on account 
 of their having instituted annual kissing-matches at the tomb of Dio- 
 des. For the different opinions of commentators, &c., on the author- 
 ship of this Idyll, see the edition of Kiessling, London, 1829, at the 
 head of the 12th Idyll. 
 
 Hast thou come, dear youth, after three nights and morn- 
 ings ? Hast thou come ? ^ Yet those who long, grow old 
 in a day. As much as spring is sweeter than winter, as much 
 as the apple than the sloe, as much as a sheep is more woolly 
 than its lambkin, as much as a virgin is better than a thrice- 
 
 Ovid. Met. xiv. 28, Melius sequerere volentem 
 
 Optantemque eadem, parilique cupidine captam. 
 2* Eel. ii. 73, Invenies alium, si te hie fastidit, Alexim. 
 ** Horat. Od. I. ix. 19, Lenesque sub noctem susurri, 
 Composita repetantur hora. 
 At Tiq in the next line, compare Juvenal Sat. i., 
 
 Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris et carcere dignum 
 Si vis esse aliquid. 
 2« 7] for x] £1, which should perhaps be written. 
 
 ' Horn. Od. T. 3G0, al^a -^a^ iv KaKorrjri (Sporoi KaTaytjpdaKOVai. 
 Virg. Eel. vii. 43, Si mihi non hsec lux toto sit longior anno. 
 
6—19. IDYLL XII. 63 
 
 wed wife, as much as a fawn is swifter than a calf, as niuch 
 as a clear-voiced nightingale most musical of all birds toge- 
 ther ; so much have you gladdened me ^ hy having appeared : 
 and I have run to thee, as some traveller runs to the shelter 
 of a shady beech when the sun is scorching. ^ Would that the 
 loves might breathe upon both of us evenly, and we might be- 
 come 'a song ' ^ to all who shall come after. 
 
 ' In truth, a certain pair of men were thus affected one to- 
 ward another ; the one ^a lover (ei(T7rpr)\oQ), as one, who spoke 
 the Amyclaean dialect, would say; and the other again the 
 Thessalian would call thus, ^ ' the beloved' (airav). And " they 
 loved each other with equal yoke. Surely then, I wot, were 
 golden men of yore, when he that was loved requited that 
 love.' Yes, would that this might be, father Jove, would it 
 might be, O undecaying immortals; and ®two hundred gener- 
 ations afterwards some one might bring word to me, unto 
 
 ^ For a similar grouping of similitudes. See Pope Past. iii. 43 — 4.(5, 
 Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain ; 
 Not balmy sleep to labourers faint with pain ; 
 Not showers to larks, nor sunshine to the bee, 
 Are half so charming as thy sight to me. 
 Drummond of Hawthornden, from whom Warton thinks Pope took the 
 idea of this passage, comes very near Theocritus. 
 
 Cool shades to pilgrims, whom hot glances burn, 
 Are not so pleasing as thy safe return. 
 Virg. Eel. V. 16, Lenta salix quantum pallenti cedit olivae, 
 Puniceis humilis quantum saliunca rosetis, 
 Judicio nostro tantum, &c. 
 And for the sentiment of the eighth line, see Horat. Od. iv. 5, 
 Vultus ubi tuus 
 Affulsit populo, gratior it dies 
 Et soles melius nitent. 
 » Tibull. II. i. 80, At ille 
 
 Felix, cui placidus leniter afflat amor. 
 
 * Propert. i. 15, 24, Tu quoque uti fieres nobilis historia. 
 
 * Amyclse was a city of Laconia having a temple of Apollo, south of 
 Sparta. sia7rvt]\oQ, from eicTTrvku), is a Laconic word, used by Callimach. 
 Fragm. 169, p. 505, (Ernesti). 
 
 * dtrT/c, a Thessalian word, which Welcker thinks is a form of i^tOeog. 
 ' l(T({> Kvytp. Pliny Epist. III. ix. 8, Cum uterque pari jugo, non pro 
 
 se, sed pro causa niteretur. -xpiaiioi irdXai dvdptg. Comp. Aristoph, 
 Nub. 1024 ; Horat. Od. I. v. 9, Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea ; and 
 Virg. Georg. ii. 538, Aureus banc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat. 
 
 ^ Virg. JEn. iv. 387, Audiam ; et haec manes veniet mihi fama sub 
 imos. dve^odov. Cf. Virg. ^n. vi. 426, Evaditque celer ripam irre- 
 meabiiis undae. And ibid. 126, 
 
64 THEOCRITUS. 19—37. 
 
 Acheron, whence we return not, 'Thy love and that of thy 
 graceful loved one is eveyi no\^ in the mouths of men, and espe- 
 cially among the youths.' But in truth, of these things indeed 
 the celestials will be arbiters, as they choose ; yet I, in praising 
 thee as the beautiful, ^ shall not breed fib-marks on the top of 
 my nose. For even if you should have pained me at all, you 
 have immediately made the hurt innocent, and doubly gratified 
 me, so I have departed having good measure. 
 
 ^°0 Nisaean Megarensians, excelling at the oars, may ye 
 dwell happily, since ye have ^'honoured especially the Attic 
 stranger Diodes, the lover of youths. Ever about his tomb in 
 crowds, in earliest spring, youths contend to bear off the prize 
 of kisses. And whoso shall have pressed most sweetly lip to 
 lip, goes back to his mother loaded with garlands. Happy 
 he, who is arbiter of those kisses for the lads. Surely, me- 
 thinks, he oft ^^ invokes the gladsome Ganymede, that he may 
 have a mouth like the Lydian stone, by which money-changers 
 try gold, whether it be base or pure. 
 
 Facilis descensus Averni 
 
 Sed revocare gradus, superasque evadere ad auras 
 Hoc opus, hie labor est. 
 
 ' apai^Cj Koehler, Dahl., Kiessling, read oKpairig, Avhich makes a much 
 better sense. Compare Idyll ix. 30, and the passages there quoted, yptvdsa 
 = signa mendacii. Wordsw. would have apaiijg retained, but translated 
 not as " exilis," but ** tenerae." 
 
 ^^ NiscBan, of Nisaea, the sea-port and arsenal of Megara, 
 
 '' Diodes, an Athenian, became a hero of the Megareans, for dying 
 in defence of a youth in battle. See Scholiast. A festival was held in 
 the spring to his memory, and the youth who gave the sweetest kiss 
 received a garland. 
 
 12 He invokes Ganymede, that he may have as serviceable a mouth 
 for testing rival kisses, as the Lydian stone is useful to money-changers, 
 to test pure and alloyed gold. Wordsw., in a long note, suggests the 
 reading ixy tvttov for iTrjTVfiov, i. e. whether it have a false stamp. 
 
IDYLL XIIL 
 
 HYLAS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The poet premising somewhat about the power of love over gods and 
 men, opens the subject of the rape of Hylas with a description of the 
 love and care of Hercules for the lad. When the Argonauts had put 
 to shore at the land of the Cyanians, on the coast of the Propontis, 
 Hylas was sent by Hercules to fetch water. Whilst drawing from the 
 fountain, in a lovely spot, he is drawn in by the Nymphs, who are 
 captivated by the exceeding beauty of the boy. Hercules, suspecting 
 some mishap from the delay of Hylas, sets out in quest of him ; and 
 ">« his fruitless search detains him a long time, he is left behind by the 
 Argonauts, who suppose he has quitted them purposely. The hero 
 goes afoot to Colchis. This Idyll is Epic in its character, but with 
 such a touch of Bucolic sweetness about it as to win it a high place 
 among the Idylls of Theocritus. Note the description of the fountain, 
 TS. 40, and the anxiety of the Nymphs to console the lad, 54 — 59. 
 
 Not for us alone, as we used to suppose, my Nicias, did he 
 beget Eros, to ^ whomsoever of the gods this child was once 
 born : nor to us first, who are mortals, ^ and do not see the 
 morrow, do the things that are beautiful appear to be beauti- 
 ful. But even the ^ brazen-hearted son of Amphitryo, who 
 sustained the attack of the fierce lion, was enamoured of a lad, 
 * the graceful Hylas, that wore the curly locks, and he taught 
 
 ' Compare the lines of Virg. Georg. iii. 242, beginning, Omne adeo 
 genus in terris hominum, &c. The father of Cupid is unknown. Cora- 
 pare Meleager Epigr. xci., 
 
 IlaTpos, 5' oukIt' tX'" 4>p^X>^i-v Tii/os* ouTE yap aWvp 
 Ov ■)(Qu>v <^j]<ri Ti\!U.v Tov dpacrvv ou Trikayoi. 
 
 • Comp. Callim. Epigr. xv. Eurip. Alcest. 783, 
 
 KOVK ECTTLV OU^EIS OtTTlS i^ETTiarTaTai 
 
 Ti]v avpiov fiiWovaau ti /StaxreTai. 
 » Cf. Horn. II. ii. 490. Horat. Od. I. iii. 9, 
 lUi robur et aes triplex 
 Circa pectus erat. 
 Mosch. iv. 44, infr., ttetjotj? oy' txwf vo'oi/ ^t o-i5»7/ooi/ /capT^poi/ Iv <TT0E(r<Ti. 
 
 * Virg. Georg. iii. 6, Cui non dictus Hylas puer 1 Val. Flacc. Argon, 
 iii. 545, seq., who represents him to have been caught while hunting. 
 Propert. I. xx. 15, seq. 45, 
 
 Cujus ut accensee Dryades candore puellse, 
 
 Milratae solitos destituere choros 
 Prolapsum leviter facili traxere liquore : 
 
 Tum sonitum rapto corpore fecit Hylas. 
 Herodot,, vii. 193, says thia happened at Pagasae in the bay of Magneai* 
 
66 THEOCRITUS. 8—22. 
 
 him every thing, as a father would his own child, by having 
 learned which he had himself become good and illustrious : 
 and he was never apart from him, not even if mid-day were 
 rising, nor when the white-horsed chariot of Aurora was 
 mounting to the halls of Jove, nor when the chirping young 
 birds looked to their nest, their mother having fluttered her 
 wings upon her dusky perch : in order that the boy might be 
 ■^ sha,^enivith care according to his mind ; and drawing well with 
 him, might turn out a perfect man. ^ But when Jason, son of 
 ^son, was sailing in quest of the golden fleece, and tlie nobles 
 were following along with him, chosen out of all cities, '^ be- 
 cause there was some help in them, there came also to rich 
 ^lolchos the much-enduring sonofAlcmene, heroine of ^Midea. 
 And with him Hylas went down to the well-benched Argo, 
 which vessel touched ^^ not the jostling Cyanean rocks, but 
 
 * TTETTovafisvoQ, educatus. Matthiae. Eur. Iph. Aul. 207. Dissen : Pindar 
 01. vi. ll.'-J. W. avTip d' sv e\K(ov, a metaphor taken from beasts of 
 burden, and avT(f said as if it were avv avT<^, (Toup.) Hercules is re- 
 presented never leaving the side of Hylas, in order that the boy, drawing 
 the plough straight on, might turn out well. Others read avru), and 
 understand to ^9og, " drawing his morals from him." Koehler reads 
 avTw S' s| sXkujv, i. e. sXkiov kK avrov ab ipso sumens exemplum. 
 Wordsw., ayrw S' t% aiK\(t)v, ejus ex consortio, proprie mensa communi, 
 in virum fortem evaderet. oikKov was the evening meal at Sparta. 
 
 ' Virg. Eel. iv. 34, Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo ' 
 
 Delectos heroas, 
 ^ u)v (xptKoQ Ti, i. e. on, tovtcjv ijv o^eXoq ti. II. xiii. 236, aW oipeXog 
 Ti yevwfJLeQa. 
 
 * lolchos, or Colchis, the seat of government of iEetes, father of Me- 
 dea, situate on the Euxine. 
 
 ® Of Midea, a city of Bceotia, mentioned by Hom. II. (3. 507, in cata- 
 logue of ships, bestowed by Sthenelus on Atreus and Thyestes, uncles of 
 Eurystheus. 
 
 '" Kvavsav—ffvvdpondcojv. Milton Farad. L., 
 Harder beset, 
 And more endangered, than when Argo pass'd 
 Through Bosphorus, betwixt the jostling rocks. 
 The jostling rocks, Kvdvsai, vijaoi, were supposed to close on all who 
 sailed between them. Eurip. Med. 2. Androm. 796. l.vnTrXTjyddac. 
 They were two small islands opposite the Thracian Bosphorus. Ovid. 
 Trist. I. X. 34, Transeat instabiles strenua Cyaneas. — Phasis, a river of 
 Colchis. — Sit^d'i^s — jxeya XaTr/xa. It seems clear in this passage that 
 (3a9vv — ^amv must be taken parenthetically, and fxsya XdiTiJ.a be re- 
 ferred to Su^diKe. Lobeck, at Soph. Ajax, vs. 475, 476, p. 267—209, brings 
 forward several instances of the construction of the verb and its dependent 
 noun being interrupted by an intervening secondary clause. HesicJ. 
 Xheog. 151. Eur. Ion, 700. 
 
23—39. IDYLL XIII. 6T 
 
 shot through, (and ran into deep Phasis :) like an eagle, a 
 great surge, from out which at that time low rocks stood. 
 ^^ And what time the Pleiads rise, and far-away spots are feed- 
 ing the young lamb — spring having now turned — then the 
 '2 godlike flower of heroes began to recollect the voyage, and 
 having taken their seats in the hollow Argo, came to the 
 Hellespont, ^^ at the third day's blowing of the south wind. 
 And they found an anchorage within the Propontis, where 
 oxen widen the furrows of the Cyanians, as they ^'^rub the 
 ploughshare. Having landed then on the shore, they busily 
 prepared a feast *^ at evening by pairs : and many of them 
 strewed for themselves one couch-on-the-ground. For by 
 them lay a broad meadow, suitable for beds of leaves. ^^ Thence 
 they cut for themselves the sharp flowering-rush and low gal- 
 ingal. And the auburn-haired Hylas had gone to fetch water 
 for supper, for both Hercules himself and the staunch Tela- 
 mon, (both which comrades used alwayto ^''feed at one table,) 
 •with a brazen vessel ; — and quickly he spied a fountain in a 
 
 *^ Lambs born mostly in November and December were weaned and 
 sent to feed apart after four months ; this would be about April, and the 
 rising of the Pleiads from April 22nd to May 10th, brought in fine 
 weather commonly. Virg. Georg. iv. 231, 232, 
 
 ■ Taygete simul os terris ostendit honestum 
 Pleias. 
 
 •' dojTog. This word (of. Id. ii. 2) is used for any thing best of its kind. 
 Pindar, 0\. Od. ii., fiovcFiKrjga.b)rov' t'lpdjiov dujTov, Ihid. , arefdvijjv dwTov. 
 Hom. II. ix. 657, 'Xivoio XsTrrbv dojTov. Something like it is ^sch. Prom. 
 V. 7, dvOog TTvpoQ. Virg. (Eel. iv. 34) calls them " delectos heroos." 
 
 *3 v6T(ii—devTi. Dative for genitive. Matt. Gr. Gr. § 562, 2. The 
 dative absolute is used instead of the genitive, as the subject of the par- 
 ticiple may be considered as that in reference to which the action of the 
 verb takes place. Herodot. vi. 21, Thuc. viii. 24. Xenoph. H. Gr. 
 III. ii. 25. 
 
 '* Yirg. Georg. i. 46, Et sulco attritus splendescere vomer. 
 
 '* deuXivoi, at evening. Adject, for adv. Matt. Gr. Gr. § 446, 8. 
 Hom. II. a. 497, rispii]. II. /3. 2, -Travvvxioi. II. a. 423, Zevg x^i^of if3i]. 
 Horat. Epod. xvi. 51, Nee vespertinus circumgemit ursus ovile. 
 
 ^^ jSooTOfiov, " butomus," the flowering rush. Theophr. Kvirsipov, (5, 
 45,) galingal. Fawkes considers the former to be the same with the 
 " carex acuta," mentioned by Virg. Georg. iii. 231. 
 
 '■^ dcdvvvTo rpaTTt^av, a sort of cognate accusative, or blending, as some 
 say, of two ideas, i. e. daivvjievov tx^tv TpaTrer^Sav, and ^aivvaOai. Soph. 
 A^six, 30, irrjddv TreSia. Theoc. Id. xv. 122. Apoll. Khod. gives an 
 account of this, i. 1207 ; and Propert. I. xx. 23, 
 
 At comes invicti juvenis processerat ultr» 
 Raram sepositi quaerere fontis aquam. 
 F 2 
 
68 THEOCRITUS. 40—58. 
 
 low-lying spot ; and around it grew many ruslies, and the 
 pale-blue ^* ' swallow-wort,' and green * maiden-hair,' and 
 blooming parsley, and couch-grass stretching through the 
 marshes : and in the midst of the water, Nymphs were mak- 
 ing ready a dance, sleepless Nymphs, dread goddesses to rus- 
 tics, ^9 Eunica and Malis, and Nychea with a look like spring. 
 In sooth 2° the boy was holding over the fountain an urn that 
 might contain a copious draught, hastening to plunge it ; when 
 they all clung to his hand : for love for the Argive boy had 
 encircled the tender hearts of them all : and 2' he fell sheer 
 into the black water, like as when a ruddy star hath fallen 
 from the sky sheer into the sea, and a sailor has said to his 
 ^^ shipmates, ' Loosen the ship's tackle, my lads, here's a breeze 
 for sailing ! ' The Nymphs indeed holding on their knees the 
 weeping boy, began to console him with gentle words ; ^^ whilst 
 the son of Amphitryon, disturbed about the lad, went, with his 
 well-bent bow ajid arrows ^'^ after the Scythian fashion, and 
 the club which his right hand ever used to hold. Thrice indeed 
 
 " Xi^i^oviov,^ swalloW-wort or celandine. aSiavrov, a water-plant, 
 " capillus Veneris," ♦* maiden-hair." Theophr. dypwaTig, (Odyss. vi. 90,) 
 triticum repens. 
 
 '* Cf. Aves Aristoph. 1169, Trvppixv^ pXe-mov, bellicum intuens. 
 Matt. Gr. Gr. § 409, 2. ^sch. S. c. Theb. 500. Chapman quotes here 
 a rich parallel from Kit Marlow. 
 =0 Comp. Propert. I. xx. 43, 
 
 Tandem haurire parat demissis flumina palmis, 
 Innixus dextro plena trahens humero. 
 2' dOpoog. Virg. Georg, 1. 365, Ssepe Stellas — videbis 
 PrsBcipites ccelo labi. 
 See too Horn. II. S. 45. Ov. Met. ii. 319, 
 
 Volvitur in prasceps, longoque per aera tractu 
 Fertur, ut interdum de coelo stella sereno 
 Etsi non cecidit, potuit cecidisse videri. 
 ^ OTrXa, generally ship's tackle, specially her cordage, cables, &c,, as 
 Ezech. Spanheim shows in Callimach. H. to Delos, 315. It seems in all 
 its senses to resemble ** arma " in Latin. Virg. ^n. iv. 574, Solvite vela 
 citi. Ov. Fast. iii. 586, Findite remigio, navita dixit, aquas. 
 
 23 For a rather diffuse parallel, compare Valer. Flacc. Arg. iii. .570. 
 ** MatoJTKTTi, in Scythian fashion. The lake Maeotis is in Scythia, 
 near the mouth of the Phasis. The Scholiast tells us Hercules learned the 
 use of the bow from Teutarus, a Scythian, the herdsman of Amphitryon 
 •En. viii. 219, Hie vero AlcidaB furiis exarserat atro 
 
 Felie dolor : rapit arma manu, nodisque gravatum 
 Robur — 
 
58—75. IDYLL xin. 69 
 
 he ^' shouted Hylas to the full depth of his throat, and thrice, 
 I wot, the boy ^ejjgard: and a thin voice came from the 
 water ; but though very near he seemed to be afar off. ^t^^^j 
 as when a well-bearded lion, some savage lion on the moun- 
 tains, upon hearing a fawn crying afar off, hastes from his lair 
 towards a most ready meal, in such wise Hercules kept moving 
 about among the impassable briers through regret for the lad, 
 and kept ranging over much space. 
 
 Hapless are they who love ! How he toiled in roaming over 
 ^ mountains and thickets ! and Jason's enterprise was all 
 secondary to it. 
 
 The ship indeed was waiting with its sails floating in air ; 
 and the youths of ^9 them that were present, kept washing the 
 hatches at midnight, in expectation of Hercules : he however 
 was going madly wherever his feet led him, for a cruel god 
 was tearing his heart inwardly. ^^ Thus indeed most beauteous 
 Hylas is numbered one of the blest immortals. But the heroes 
 began to revile Hercules as a deserter of the ship, because he 
 had withdrawn from Argo of the thirty benches. And he 
 came a-foot to Colchis, and to ^^ inhospitable Phasis. 
 « Virg. Eel. vi. 43, 
 
 His adjungit, Hylan nautce quo fonte relictum 
 Clamassent, ut littus Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret. 
 Spenser, Faery Queen, b. iii. c. 2, 
 
 And every wood, and every valley wide, 
 He fill'd Avith Hylas' name, the Nymphs eke Hylas cried. 
 « Propert. I. xx. 49, 50, 
 
 Cui procul Alcides iterat responsa, sed illi 
 Nomen ab extremis fontibus aura refert. 
 «^ Compare Horn. II. xviii. 318. Lucret. ii. 355. Ov. Met. v. 164. 
 ^ d\u)fi£vog is joined with an accusative. Eurip. Helen. 539. Bion, 
 Id. i. 20, has dvd dpviioiig dXdXrjTai. 
 
 '* Instead of the obscure tuiv TrapsovTiov, Graefius suggests twv 
 xoStu)V(t)V, i. e. the sheets or ropes fastened to the corners of the sails by 
 which they are tightened or slackened. The line will then stand, 
 NaDs fx.ivi.v dp/XEV exoicra fxtTdpaia Tuiv irodEMVcov. 
 Navis stabat antennas habens intentas (vel expansas) ex pedibus. 
 Compare Virg, ^n. v. 830, 
 
 Una omnes fecere pedem, pariterque sinistros 
 Nunc dextros solvere sinus : una ardua torquent 
 Cornua, detorquentque : Ferunt sua flamina classem. 
 But perhaps the most simple and likely emendation is that of "Words- 
 worth, who for Twv irapeovTCJV reads etuiv TrapeovTOJV, sociis praesentibm. 
 30 Virg. Mn. vii. 211, Regia coeli 
 
 Accipit, et numero divorum altaribus addit. 
 " a^evog. Ovid. Trist. III. ii. 7, Inhospita littora Ponti. 
 
IDYLL XIV. 
 
 THE LOVE OF CYNISCA, OR THYONICHUS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 ^schines, jilted by a maiden of whom he was enamoured, declares to 
 Thyonichus the causes of their quarrel. This leads to an explanation, 
 of his heart-sickness, and especially to an account of the banquet, at 
 which their quarrel had arisen. After this ^schines declares to his 
 friend his purpose of crossing the seas, to find relief for his griefs. 
 Thyonichus approves and urges him to go and serve in the armies of 
 Ptolemy ; of which monarch a graceful eulogj' follows. It seems hence 
 not unlikely that this Idjdl, which is not of the pastoral kind, was either 
 composed at Alexandria, or at any rate intended for the eye of the 
 monarch. 
 
 ^SCHINES. THYONICHUS. 
 
 jEschines. Good morrow to Sir Thyonichus. 
 
 Thyonichus. ^ Well, the same to you, ^schines. 
 
 JEsch. How late you are ! 
 
 Thyon. Late ? And what is your care, pray ? 
 
 JEsch. I am not in the best condition, Thyonichus. 
 
 Thyon. Therefore I suppose you are lean, ^ and that upper 
 lip is covered, and your locks are unkempt. Such a sort of 
 ^ fellow was a Pythagorean, that arrived here but lately, pale 
 and ^ unsandaled, and he said that he was an Athenian. In 
 truth that man too, methinks, was longing for baked flour. 
 
 Ibid. IV. iv. 55, Euxini littora Ponti 
 
 Dictus ab antiquis Axenus ille fuit. 
 
 ' aXka TV avTov. So Reiske reads instead of the common roi avrip, 
 which will not stand, to avTov, i. e. volo et ego te ipsum salvere. Reiske 
 also conjectures dXka ToiavTa Max'ivq-, sc. /36vXo/iai yiyveaOat. Better 
 perhaps is tv avrbg, *' immo te ego ipse." 
 
 ^ Juvenal ix. 12, Vultus gravis, horrida siccse 
 
 Silva comae : nullus tota nitor in cute. 
 
 ' Pythagorean tenets and Athenian citizens were objects of special 
 ridicule to the luxurious and easy Sicilian. Idyll iv. 21, is an instance 
 of this. Compare Aristoph. Nub. 103, 104, tovq wxpii^^t^Tag, tovq 
 dvvTroSrjTOVQ Xsysig. 
 
 * 'KawTTodaroQ. Ezech. Spanheim, in Callim. H. in Cerer. 125, shows 
 that this was the custom of mourners, and persons engaged in solemn 
 sacrifice, &c. Compare Bion, Idyll i. 21, Venus Adonidem lugens, 
 dadvdaXog dicitur. Cf. 2 Sam. xi. 30. Ezechiel xxiv. 17. 
 
8—23. IDYLL XIV. 71 
 
 JEsch. 5 You are always joking, good sir : but me the 
 graceful Cynisca wrongs ; ^ and I shall go mad without one 
 knowing it, within a hair's breadth. 
 
 Thyon. You are ever thus, good ^schines, "^ mild or sharp, 
 wanting every thing on the spur of the moment ; but tell me, 
 however, what news ? 
 
 JEsch, The Argive, and I, and Apis, the Thessalian driver 
 of steeds, and Cleonicus, the soldier, were drinking at my 
 country place. I had killed a couple of young fowls and a 
 sucking pig, and had broached for them the fragrant Thracian 
 ^ wine, almost four years old, as mild as if from the wine-press. 
 ^ A Colchian mushroom had been brought out : 'twas a sweet 
 drink. And when the cup was now making way, it pleased 
 us ^^that neat wine should be poured forth to the health of 
 whomsoever each chose, only he was bound to say to whose. 
 We indeed began to drink naming our loves, as it had been 
 determined. But she said nothing, though I was present. 
 What mind, think you, had I then? ^^ 'Won't you speak ? 
 you have seen a wolf,' said some one sportively, 'as the wise 
 man said.' Then she fired up j you might have lighted 
 
 * Traicrdeig tj^wv. For this redundancy of the participle, see Matt. Gr. 
 Gr. § 567, last clause, p. 986. 
 
 ^ 6pi^ dvd fikaaov. Only a hair's breadth. Prov. Plaut. Mostell 
 I. i. 60, Plum4 hand interest patronus, an cliens, probior siet. 
 
 ' Martial, xii. 47, Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem. Terent. 
 Heautont. III. 1. 21. 
 
 * Bibline is the name of a district of Thrace, the wine of which was 
 esteemed highly for its sweetness and lightness. Hesiod O. et D. 587. 
 
 ^ j3oX/36f KoXxeiag, is the reading preferred by Kiessling, and trans.- 
 lated here. Wordsworth, in a long and learned note, suggests for /3oX/3of 
 TLQ Kox^iag to read jSoXfiog, KTetg, Kox^'iag, a mushroom, a cockle, a shell- 
 fish : comparing Horat. Sat. II. iv. 33, 
 
 Ostrea Circeiis, Miseno oriuntur echini, 
 Pectinibus patulis jactat se molle Tarentum. 
 
 '" Compare Idyll ii, 152, o'vvtx spuiTog'AKpaTb) STrexslTO. 
 
 " AvKov eWsg ; These words are those of one of the guests, following 
 up the words of ^Eschines, "Won't you speak 1" There is a joke upon 
 the word AvKog, (wolf or Lycus,) which shows the guest to have been 
 aware of Cynisca's passion, and to have been at the same time apt at 
 proverbs. See Virg. Eel. ix. 53, Vox quoque Maerim 
 
 Jam fugit ipsa : Ma?rim lupi videre priores. 
 St. Ambrose in Hexaem. on St. Luke x. S, writes, Lupi, siquem priores 
 hominem viderint, vocem ejus feruntur eripere. See Wordsw. note at 
 this passage. In the next line Wordsw. would read for X' ij<p9a, k y9iT§ 
 from alOeaOai. 
 
72 THEOCRITUS. 24 — 41. 
 
 even a lamp with ease from her. 'Tis Lycus, yes^ Lycus it is, 
 son of Labas our neighbour, tall and delicate, and to the fancy 
 of many, beautiful. His was that much talked-of love with 
 which she was pining away : and this had been thus quietly 
 whispered in my ear before : however I had not inquired into 
 it, ^2 to no purpose being a bearded man. And now then we 
 four were in the depth of our cups, when the Larissaean began 
 to sing ' My Lycus,' from the beginning, a kind of Thessalian 
 ditty, misguided mind as he had. But Cynisca on a sudden 
 began to weep more warmly than a maiden of six years be- 
 side her mother, longing for her bosom. Then I, the hot fellow^ 
 whom you know, Thyonichus, struck her ^^with my fist on the 
 side of the face, ay and another blow again : and she, having 
 drawn her robes up around her, went away out quickly. Do 
 not I please you, my pest ? Is another sweeter to you ^"^in the 
 bosom ? Go, caress another lover : for him those tears of thine 
 flow '^like sweet apples. And like as a swallow flies back 
 quickly to gather victuals, *^ fresh sustenance for her young 
 nestlings ; nay^ more swiftly ran she from her soi^ seat, right 
 
 '^ fiaTuv I'lQ dvdpa yevfiwv, fig avSpa, i. q, pro viro, as Plaut. Mensechm. 
 II. ii. 14, pro sano loqueris. See vs. 50, fig Siov, in the same construc- 
 tion. Compare Idyll x. 40, (ojxoi toi jrwyiovog. The meaning of the sen- 
 tence is, I have not shown myself a man, because I did not examine the 
 matter. 
 
 '' TTi'? 67ri Koppag "RXaffa — iXavvio is properly used of a blow given. 
 Horn. II. ii. 199. Theocr. Id. xxii. 104. Callim. H. in Carer. 92, ijXaae 
 KO-Trpog. Odyss. xix. 393, avg rfKaat XtVKii) oSovti. — liri Kupprjg •KaratJ- 
 <THv. Demosth, 562, 9. Ovid. Amor. I. vii. 3, 
 
 Nam furor in dominam temeraria brachia movit : 
 Flet mea vesana laesa puella manu. 
 Horat. Od. I. xvii. 24, Nee metues protervum 
 
 Suspecta Cyrum, ne mali dispari 
 Incontinentes injiciat manus. 
 KaXXav avOig, understand irXrjyijv. Compare ^sch. Agam. 1386, rpirriv 
 iTTEvdiSw/xt. 
 
 '* vTroKoXTTiog. Juvenal ii. 120, Ingens Coena sedet, gremio jacuit nova 
 nupta mariti. 
 
 '^ TO. ad SaKpva fiaXa — fiaXa for iog fxdXa. Mosch. iv. 56, 57, 6a\- 
 ipioTspa fifjXcJV. Kiessl. Dr. Wordsworth naturally thinks this absurd, 
 and would read daKpvffi for doLKpva, h. e. Illi tuse genae lacrimis madent. 
 But a writer in Class. Museum, vol. ii. 294, su^jgests KaXd for fidXut 
 where the adjective would be an emphatic predicate, *' Your tears are 
 very pretty to him.'' Or KaXd, as Briggs says, might stand for /caXuit. 
 »« Cf. Horn. II. ix. 323. Virg. /En. xii. 473, 
 
 Nigra velut magnas domini ciim divitis ades 
 Pervolat, et pennis atria lustrat hirundo. 
 
42—58. IDYLL xrv. 73 
 
 through the vestibule and folding- doors, '^wherever her feet 
 bore her. In truth there is a saw spoken, ^^ ' The bull has 
 gone to the wood.' 'Tis twenty now, and eight and nine and 
 ten days beside ; to-day is the eleventh, add two: and 'tis 
 two months since we have been parted one from the other, 
 and, ^^ after the Thracian custom^ I _have,not shaven .jaaysetf; — • \ 
 And to her now Lycus is ^^^ every thing, and to Lycus at night 
 the door is opened. ^^ But I am neither worthy any ac- 
 count, nor am I numbered, wretched Megarensian, being in 
 most dishonoured plight. And if indeed I could love no more, 
 then every thing would go on as it ought: but now, ^^at 
 last, as the mouse, so the saying is, Thyonichus, I have 
 tasted pitch. And what is the remedy for hopeless love, I 
 know not : only Simus, he who was enamoured of the daughter 
 of Epichalcus, Simus, my equal in age, sailed abroad and came 
 back heart-whole. ^^I too will sail across the sea : I shall be 
 neither the worst, nor perhaps the foremost, but an ordinary 
 kind of soldier. 
 
 Thyon. Would that indeed what you desire could turn out 
 to your mind, ^schines ! But if in sooth you are thus deter- 
 
 " a TToSeg ayov. Horat. Epod. xi. 20, Ferebar incerto pede. Cf. 
 Idyll xiii. 70. 
 
 1* This proverb is said of those that return not : as the bulls which 
 take shelter in the wood, cannot be caught again. Scholiast. Wordsw. 
 would read rt, jSsjSaKfv ravpog dv vkav. He quotes very appositely Soph. 
 (Ed. Tyrann. 476—478. 
 
 »» The Thracian mode of shaving was so imperfect, that, in Greek 
 judgment, it passed for unshavenness. The words imply, " Nor have I 
 been shaven even so far as to look like a Thracian." Horn. II. iv. 533, 
 calls the Thracians aKpoKOfioi. Cf. Herodot. i. 122. 
 
 20 vavTa. See Matth. Gr. Gr. § 438, p. 724, (edit. 1832,) for thi« 
 use of TravTa. 
 
 *' An allusion to the Pythian response to the Megarensians, seeking 
 to know their rank among Greek states. 
 
 U/iEl? 5' 3) Mtyap^SS OUTE TpiTOl, OVTS TiTapTOl 
 
 OUTS. SmoSiKaTOL, out' iv \oya», ovt iv dptdfiM. 
 Cf, Callim. Epigr. xxvi. 
 
 *» The proverb of the mouse touching pitch is applied to things 
 
 troublesome to be retained, yet hard to get rid of. Compare Ecclus. xiii. 1. 
 
 ** For the benefits of this cure for beart-ache, compare Propert. iii. 21, 
 
 Magnum iter ad doclas proficisci cogor Athenas : 
 
 Ut me longa gravi solvat amore via. 
 
 In the next line for ofiaXbg Sk tiq 6 trrpariwrrtc, Wordsworth propose! 
 
 ofiaXbg Si rig ol, illi : that is, to Simus: which seems highly probable. 
 
 "Not a very bad, nor a first-rate soldier, but much such another as Simus," 
 
74 THEOCRITUS. 58—70. 
 
 mined to go abroad, Ptolemy is the very best of pay-masters 
 to a free-man. 
 
 ^sch. And in other respects, what kind of man is he ? 
 
 Thyon, The very best to a free-man; indulgent, fond of 
 the Muses, given to love, pleasant in the extreme. He knows 
 him who loves him, still better him that loves him not : gives 
 much to many : not refusing, when asked ; as a king should 
 be. But it is not right to ask on every occasion, ^schines. 
 So that if you are minded to clasp the top of your mantle up- 
 on your right shoulder, and ^4 standing firm on both feet will 
 have the nerve to bide the onset of the bold warrior, off with 
 all speed to Egypt ! We all become old men, beginning from 
 +he temples, and time that maketh gray creeps on by degrees 
 to the chin. Those must do something, ^5 whose knee is fresh 
 and active. 
 
 IDYLL XV. 
 
 THE SYRACUSAN WOMEN ; OR, ADONIAZUS^. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Idyll describes a festival in honour of Adonis, kept at the cost of 
 Arsinoe, with great pomp, at Alexandria ; and it affords the poet an 
 opportunity for lauding the queen, and through her, king Ptolemy also. 
 Two Syracusan women who have Alexandrian husbands, in a low rank 
 of life, start out with their maids to the palace, to see the show. The Idyll 
 has three scenes, so to speak— first, the dialogue between Gorgo and 
 Praxinoe, at the house of the latter ; — then their adventures in the 
 way to the palace ; — and lastly, the interior of the palace, and the battle 
 of words between these women and a stranger, which is hushed by the 
 song of a female minstrel in honour of Adonis : when this is ended, 
 they return home. The poem is true to life in its lighter and more 
 homely parts ; and is also remarkable for the graceful introduction of 
 praise of the royal family. 
 
 '* £7r' dfi(poTspoi(TL (understand Troai). Tyrtaeus i. 53, 
 'AWd Tt? tv (5iaj3as fitviTw irotrlv a/uLKpoTipoLai 
 "SiTripixdeU iirl yfjs, x^'^os 6dov(ri BaKuiv. 
 
 ^ Horat. Epod. xiii. 4, Dumque virent genua, 
 Aristoph. Acharn. 218, viiv d' kirtidi^ artppov ydr) tovixov avrtKvrifjLtov, 
 
1—9. IDYLL XV. 75 
 
 CHARACTERS. 
 
 GORGO. PRAXIN,OE. OLD WOMAN. FIRST STRANGER, 
 SECOND STRANGER. SINGING WOMAN. 
 
 Gorgo. Is Praxinoe within ? 
 
 Praocinoe. Dear Gorgo, how late you are ! I am at home. 
 'Tis a wonder you have come even now. ^ See for a chair 
 for her, Eunoe : and put a cushion on it. 
 
 Gorg. 2 It does very well. 
 
 Praxin. Be seated. 
 
 Gorg. Oh ! my unbroken spirit, with difficulty have I 
 reached you in safety, Praxinoe, the crowd being great, and 
 the chariots many. Every where there are ^ booted men ; 
 every where cavaliers ; and the road is toilsome, and you live 
 too far from me. 
 
 Praxin. For this reason that '* madman came to the extre- 
 mity of the world, and took ^ a den, not an habitation, in order 
 
 * opj7 dicppov. Compare Horn. Odyss. viii. 443, Avrog vvv Ids Trw/ita. 
 Somewhat less simple is the phrase in Iliad ii. 384, iv ds rig dpfxarog 
 a/Kplg id(jjv. J, Wordsworth compares Cic. ad Attic, v. I, Antecesserat 
 Statius ut prandium nobis videret. Terent. Heautont. III. i. 50, As- 
 perum, pater, hoc est: aliud lenius, sodes, vid6. Soph. Aj. 1165, 
 Juvenal viii. 96. 
 
 * tX" KoXkiara, it does excellently well. The Latins use " rect^ " 
 thus. Terent. Eun. II. iii. 50, Rogo num quid velit. Recte, inquit. 
 Abeo. Horat. Epist. i. 7, 16, 62, At tu quantnmvis toUe. Benigne. 
 Valken. quotes here Plauti Slichus I. ii. 37, P. Mane pulvinum. An. 
 Bene procuras mihi : satis sic fultum est mihi. 
 
 ^ Kpriirl^tg (the abstract for concrete) for Kpr]7nSr](p6poi, or KeKprfTTi- 
 Suj/jikvoi. So Eurip. Phoen. dyefxovevfxa for i^yifiu)v. Troad. 420, 
 vvfJKpevfia for vvficpij. Iph. in Aul. 189, aaTTig for dcnnSocftopot and 
 XoyxVy for Xoyxn^popoi. CEd. Col. 1312. Markland ad loc. Of the same 
 nuisance as that which she complains of, Juvenal says, Et in digito 
 clavus mihi militis hgeret. In the next line, Wordsworth suggests in 
 place of the corrupt t/t' the reading ufx for lifxa, prseterea or simul. And 
 besides you live far off. He compares Soph. Alet. vii. 3. Thuc. i. 37, 
 Koi 7] TToXig afia avrapKr) Qkaiv Kiifievrj. 
 
 * irdpapog, like Trapjyopog, (from dtipw,) strictly of a horse which draws 
 by the side of a regular pair; (2)- lying beside, at the side of, or out of 
 the way; and so (3) beside oneself. Understand voov. Compare II. xxiii. 
 603. Archiloch. Fragm. 63. II, iii. 108, ravB' is for Sid ravTa. 
 
 * cXtov, (i. q. tiXtov or tiXvov,) a lurking-place. Callim. H. in Jovem 
 25, iXvovg i(3dXovTo KivMirtra. Martial. Epigr. xi. 19, 
 
 Donasti, Lupe, rus sub urbe nobis : in quo nee cucumis jacere rectus, 
 Nee serpens latitare torta possit. 
 
76 THEOCRITUS. 9—24. 
 
 that we might not be neighbours to each other ; a jealous 
 pest, ever the same for strife. 
 
 Gorg. Don't say such things, my dear, of your goodman 
 Deinon, in the presence of the little one. See, ma'am, how- 
 he is looking at you ! 
 
 Praxin. Never mind, little Zoppy, sweet child ! I don't 
 mean ^papa ! 
 
 Gorg. The infant understands you, "^by'r Lady. Pretty 
 papa! 
 
 Praxin. That papa indeed lately, (and we call every thing 
 lately, you know,) going to buy ® nitre and ceruse from a stall, 
 even came and brought me mere salt, ^ the great big oaf. 
 
 Gorg. Ay ; and my husband, Diocleidas, is just the same, 
 ^^ a ruin of money. For seven drachmae yesterday he bought 
 five fleeces, mere dog's-hair, mere pluckings of old wallets ; all 
 filth : trouble on trouble. But come, don your ^^fine robe and 
 your clasped kirtle. Let us go to the palace of the king, rich 
 Ptolemy, to be spectators of the ' Adonis.' I hear that the 
 queen is getting up a charming kind of affair. 
 
 Praxin. In the house of a fortunate person all is flourish* 
 
 * air^vq. On this passage, compare Juvenal xiv. 47, Maxima debetur 
 puero reverentia, &c. Callim. H. in Dian. 6, dinra. Like the Hebrew and 
 Chaldaic Abba, and our " Papa." Horn. II. v. 408, ov^i rt {iiv TraTdeg 
 TTOTi yovvaci iraTTTra^ovaiv. Persius, Sat. iii., Et similis regum pueris 
 pappare minutum. In point of fact, it is only one of the forms which are 
 the first utterances of the lisping child, just as fidfiua, mamma, for fxrjTijpt 
 which are to be referred to common nature, rather than to any origin 
 in language. 
 
 ' Tav TTOTviav. Proserpine, by whom, as well as Ceres, Sicilian wo- 
 men would swear. 
 
 * Nitre and paints of various colours ministered much to the dress and 
 cheeks of Greek women. Pollux vii. 95. Ov. Medicam. fac. v. 73, 
 
 Nee cerussa tibi, nee nitri spuma rubentis 
 Desit. 
 
 * A long lazy loon. 
 
 *" <p06poQ for cpOopdg. Cf. Callim. H. in ApoU. 113, Iv 6 tpOSpog, Cicer. 
 Verr. Act. i. 1, Pernicies provinciae. Terent. Adelph. II. i. 34, Pemi- 
 cies adolescentium. 
 
 " cunrkxovov, a fine upper robe. Trspovarpida, fcf. 34, IfiTTfpovana,) a 
 robe fastened to the shoulders with a buckle, woollen in texture, sleeve- 
 less ; closed on the right side, but on the left only kept together by a feyf 
 clasps, hence called ax^OTOQ xtrwj/, &c. Liddell and Scott, Lex. in voc. 
 It was a Dorian garment. Cf. Herodot. v. 87, 88. Virg. ^n. iv. 139, 
 Aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem. 
 
25—45. IDYLL XV. 77 
 
 ing. What ^^you have seen, that you might tell, when you 
 have seen it, to them that have not seen it. 
 
 Gorg. Itmustbe timetobe off: to the idle 'tis ever holiday. 
 
 Praxin. Eunoe, ^^ bring hither the towel, and place it in the 
 middle again, good-for-nothing hussey ; the cats want to sleep 
 softly. Come, stir, bring water quickly. I want water first. 
 See how she brings the towel. Well, give it me ! Don't 
 pour in too much water, wasteful ! wretched creature, why 
 are you wetting my kirtle ? That will do. ^^ I am washed 
 enough to satisfy the gods. Where is the key of the large 
 press ? Bring it hither. 
 
 Gorg. Praxinoe, that pelisse with ample folds greatly 
 becomes you ; tell me ^^ how much did it stand you in from 
 the loom ? 
 
 Praxin. Don't mention it, Gorgo ! more than two pounds 
 of good silver. But I had set even my life upon the bargain. 
 
 Gorg. Well, it turned out to your wishes. 
 
 Praxin. Yes, you have said well. Bring me my cloak and 
 my parasol. Put it about me becomingly. I won't take you, 
 child. ^^ Bugbear ! Horse bites ! Cry as much as you please : 
 but we must not have you become 4ame. Let us be moving. 
 Phrygian slave, take and play with the little man. Call the 
 do"r in. Shut the hall door. 
 
 ^"^ Good gods ! what a crowd ! how and when must we pass 
 this nuisance ? They are numberless and measureless as 
 
 '* The reading which has been translated here, is that approved by 
 Kiessling, wv i^tq, wv iliraig Kai idoTcra tv ri^ firj tSovri, where the second 
 wv stands for tovtojv, the relative anciently serving as the demonstrative 
 pronoun not uncommonly. Wordsw., u>v Idsg wv tliroiq Kari^dlaa tv rip 
 fiil IdovTi. For u)v — wv, repeated, see ii. 82, wg — wg, iv. 39, ocrov — o<t<tov. W. 
 
 '* TO vajj-a, as was shown by Ahlward, is for vrjfia, mantele, for vii/xa 
 signifies quicquid ex filis conficitur ; this supplies a better sense than if 
 we took it to mean '* water." In vs. 28, Praxinoe says that the cats are 
 snoozing on the towel before the fire," alpc, affer, fetch hither. J. W. 
 Cf. Soph. Ajax, 545. 
 
 •* Praxinoe says that she has washed enough to satisfy even the gods, 
 the chief lovers of purity. 
 
 '* " Costing how much, did it come to you from the loom 1 " Praxinoe 
 had bought the wool and other articles for it, and made it herself. 
 
 ^* fiopfiu), a word used to frighten children, fiop^vcrcrerai is used 
 Callim. H. in Dian. 70, qu. v., and fiopfid), Aristoph. Eq. 693, Ach. 582, 
 Vesp. 1038. 
 
 »• "Q QioL Di boni, quid turbse est ! Terent. Heaut. Act. 2. For the 
 
78 THEOCRITUS. 45—62 
 
 ants. Many good works have been done ^^by you, Ptole- 
 my. Since your sire has been among the immortals, no evil- 
 doer assaults the passenger, creeping up in the ^^ Egyptian 
 fashion. Even as formerly men wholly made up of deceit 
 used to sport, like to each other in evil tricks, ^^all worthless. 
 Sweetest Gorgo, what is to become of us ? Here are the war- 
 horses of the king. My good man, don't trample on me. The 
 chesnut charger has reared upright. See, how fiery he is. 
 Impudent Eunoe, will you not fly ? He will make an end of 
 his leader. I am very much delighted, that my child remains 
 in the house. 
 
 Gorg. Courage, Praxinoe : we are now in the rear of them. 
 And they have fallen ^^ into their rank. 
 
 Praxin. I too am collecting myself at length. From a child 
 I have been very much afraid of a horse, and the ^^ cold snake. 
 Let us hasten on. What a vast crowd is pouring upon us ! 
 
 Gorg. From court, good mother ? 
 
 Old Woman. I am, my daughters. 
 
 Gorg. Then is it easy to pass in ? 
 
 O. Worn. By trying the Greeks came into Troy. Fairest 
 of daughters, by trying, in truth, all things are accomplished. 
 
 simile of the ants, see Idyll xvii. 107. ^sch. Prom. Y. 451, auavpoi 
 fiv^tfirjKsg, and Herat. Sat. I. i. 33. Virg. ^n. iv. 401, Ac veluti in- 
 gentem ibrmicce, &c. 
 
 '* Ptolemy Philadelphus deified his father Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagus, 
 and his mother Berenice. Compare Idyll xvii. 16, 123, ovhic; kuko- 
 epyoQ. See Herodot. i. 41, ju?) riveg kcct' odov KXanreg KUKovpyci tTrl 
 6}]XT](rai (pav'swai vfuv. And Baehr's note thereupon. J. W. 
 
 •^ Propert. III. xi. 33, Noxia Alexandria, dolis aptissima tellus. Cic. 
 pro Rabir., lUinc (Alexandrise) omnes praestigiae — illinc inquam omnes 
 iallacise, &c. Aristoph. Nub. 1138, 
 
 uxtt' iCTtos fBovX^cTETai Kfiv Ev Aiyi'TTTco Tux^ti' (av fxaWovh Kplvai K-aKWS. 
 JEsch. Fragm. 309, deivoi TrXeKeiv toi ixr]\avaQ AiyvirTioi. 
 
 2° spswi, a dubious word, expressive of some sort of contempt for Egyp- 
 tians. Dr. Wordsworth suggests *E7rftoi, 1. e. " all rogues like Epeus, the 
 builder of the fatal Trojan Horse." ^n. 264, Et ipse doli fabricator Epeus. 
 tXeioi, dwellers in the marshes, the common receptacle for Egyptian 
 rogues, is the best conjecture. Some read aepyoi, comparing St. Paul to 
 Titus i. 12, yaarspsg dpyoi. ri yfvilJjjLeBa — Cf. Blomf. Gloss ad iEsch. 
 144. J. W. Below compare Virg. ^En. x. 892, Tollit se, arrectum 
 sonipes. 
 
 ^' h X^P^**' ^- ^' ^'C '"')*' ''«?'^' avTMv. Schol. So xcjpav XafSslv, 
 Xenoph. Callim. in Del. 192, TroSeg 6e oi ovk evi x^P^- 
 
 2- Virg. Eel. iii. 93, Frigidus, o pueri, fugite hinc, latet anguis in 
 herba. Comp. Eel. viii. 71, Sciunt quid in aurem rex reginae dixerit. 
 
63—81. IDYLL XV. 79 
 
 Gorg. The old woman has departed, having delivered 
 oracles. 
 
 Praxin. ^3 Women know every thing : even how Jove wed- 
 ded Juno. 
 
 Gorg. Observe, Praxinoe, what a throng around the doors ! 
 
 Praxin. Prodigious ! Give me your hand, Gorgo. And 
 do you, Eunoe, take the hand of Eutychis ! Keep close to 
 her, that you may not be lost. Let us all go in together. Hold 
 tight to us, Eunoe. Oh ! wretched me ! my fine summer veil 
 has been torn in two at last, Gorgo. By Jove, if you would 
 be in any degree blest, good sir, keep off my robe. 
 
 Stranger. It is not in my power indeed : but still I will 
 keep off. 
 
 Praxin. The crowd is all in a heap. They push like boars. 
 
 Strang. Courage, madam, we are all safe. 
 
 Praxin. ^^Next year and afterwards, dear sir, may you be 
 prosperous, for taking care of us as you did. What a good 
 compassionate man ! Our Eunoe is being hustled. Come, 
 wretched girl, burst through. Well done. We are all inside, 
 '^^as the man said, when he shut in his bride. 
 
 Gorg. Praxinoe, come hither! first observe the embroid- 
 ery ; how fine and elegant ! ^^ you would say 'twas the robes 
 of goddesses. 
 
 Praxin. Our lady Minerva : what clever spinsters wrought 
 them ! What fine artists ^7 have painted these life-like pic- 
 
 "^^ So Plautus Trinummus I. ii. 171, Sciunt quod Juno fabulala est 
 cum Jove, neque facta neque futura tainen illi sciunt. Comp. Horn. 11. 
 xiv. 295, where it appears that the immortals had not this knowledge. 
 2* dg wpag, "in annum proximum." Comp. Horat. Od. I. xxxii. 2, 
 Quod et liunc in annum 
 Vivat, et plures. 
 <pt\' avSpCjv. Ran. Aristoph. 1081, w (tx^tXl avdpujv. 
 
 25 A proverb of the bridegroom, who, when he has shut himself and 
 his bride (aTTOfcXa^ac) in the nuptial chamber, says from his heart, 
 ivSoZ iraaai. KdriKkaXaTO is so used, Idyll xviii. 5. 
 
 26 Theocrit. seems to have had an eye to the Odyss. x. 222, 223, in 
 this passage. Wordsw. suggests, and finds Hermann to have hit upon 
 the same idea, the reading for Trepoiva/uara — x^P*^^/^"''"* ^* ®* ** *^® 
 handiwork." 
 
 2^ Cicero in Hortensio apud Nonium Marcell. v. * inanima,' " Cum 
 omnis," ait, " solertia admiranda est, turn ea quae efficit, ut, inanima 
 
80 THEOCRITUS. 82—95. 
 
 tures ? How true to nature they stand, and how true they 
 move ! They are breathing, and not inwoven. Man is a clever 
 kind of contrivance. And how admirably is he represented 
 as reclining on a ^^ silver couch, just shedding the first down 
 from his temples, the thrice beloved Adonis, who is beloved 
 even in Acheron. 
 
 2nd Stranger. Ye wretched women, stop prating incessant- 
 ly, like turtles. They will wear us out, pronouncing all their 
 words broadly. 
 
 Gorg. Mother earth, where does the man come from ? And 
 what is it to you, if we are praters ? ^^ When you have ac- 
 quired a right, order us ! Do you order Syracusan women ? 
 And that you may know this too, ^^we are Corinthians by 
 descent, as was also Bellerophon. We speak in the Pelopon- 
 nesian dialect. And 'tis lawful, I suppose, for Dorians to speak 
 in the Doric. 
 
 Praxin. Proserpine, may there never arise but one to 
 be my master. I do not care, ^^ don't give me scant measure. 
 
 quae sint, vivere ac spirare videantur." Virg. ^n. vi. 848, ^Era spirantia. 
 Propert. III. vii. 9, 'Signa animosa.' Horat. ii. Sat. vii. 98, 
 Velut si 
 Re vertt pugnent, feriant, vitentque moventes 
 Arma A'iri. 
 Our own poets speak of 'breathing marble.' See too Shaksp. "Winter's 
 Tale, act v. scene 3, " Life lively mocked." On the contrary, Antony 
 and Cleopat. act iii. sc. 3, 
 
 Her motion and her station are as one : 
 She shows a body rather than a life ; 
 A statue than a breather. 
 (To<p6v Ti xpj?/*'. Ovid, ex Pont. II. vii. 37, Res timida est omnis miser. 
 Martial, x. Epigr. 59, Res est imperiosa timor, &c. Senec. Ep. 2.5, 
 Homo sacra res. Cic. ad Quint. Fratr. ii. 13, Callisthenes quidem vul- 
 gare, et notum negotium. 
 
 28 Comp. Idyll XX. 21. Hom. Odyss. x. 318, TrptV <r0(uiV v'ko KporA' 
 <poi(T-v iovXovQ 'AvOfjaai. Virg. ^n. viii. 160, Turn mihi prima genas 
 vestibat flore juventas. JEn. x. 324, Flaventem prima lanugine malas. 
 
 ^ TraaajxsvoQ. Kiessling aptly compares Plant. Pers. II. iv. 2, Emere 
 oportet, quern tibi obedire velis, and Sophocl. (Ed. Colon. 839, /i^ 
 'TTiraaa a fxi^ Kpartig. Add to these Plant. Trinumm. IV. iii. 54. 
 
 3° Archias, the Corinthian, led a colony to Sicily and founded Syracuse. 
 Hence it is called in Idyll xvi. 83, 'E(pvQaiov aorv. It was founded about 
 B. c. 7.33. See Thuc. vi. 3, (Arnold). 
 
 2' This passage is despaired of by Kiessling — it seems to have been 
 rendered not a whit clearer by the numbers of annotators who have 
 touched it. We must understand xoi»'<Ka— Xot»'t'ea diroixaXai, to give 
 
96- -117. IDYLL XV. 81 
 
 Gorg. Hush, Praxinoe, the sister of the Argive woman, a 
 very skilful songstress, who also excelled in the dirge of 
 '^^ Sperchis, is going to sing the Adonis. She will sing some- 
 thing fine, I am very sure. She is just now bridling up. 
 
 Singing Woman. ^^ Mistress, that hast loved Golgus, and 
 Idalium, and lofty Eryx, Aphrodite, sporting in gold, how 
 lovely to thee, in the twelfth month, did the soft-footed Hours 
 bring back Adonis from ever-flowing Acheron ; dear Hours, 
 tardiest of the immortals: yet they come objects of longing, 
 ever ^^ bringing something for all mortals : Dionasan Venus, 
 thou indeed hast made, as the story of men runs, Berenice 
 immortal instead of mortal, having distilled ^^ ambrosia into 
 the bosom of a woman : and paying grateful offerings to thee, 
 O thou of many names, of many temples, Arsinoe, the daugh- 
 ter of Berenice, resembling Helen, cherishes Adonis with all 
 good things. Beside him lie fruits in their season, whichso- 
 ever the topmost branches bear. And beside him tender 
 ^^quick-growing plants, kept in silver baskets, and golden 
 caskets of ^^ Syrian unguent, and honey-cakes, as many as wo- 
 men shape in a mould, mixing all kinds of flowers with the 
 white fine-meal : all shapes as many as are made of sweet honey, 
 and those that are wrought in moist oil, fowls and creeping 
 
 scant measure ; hence, Ksvedv cnroixd^ai, to lose one's labour. Grsefius 
 would read yevtav. Wordsworth thinks the text may stand as it is, 
 /m/crpav, a kneading-trough, being the ellipse, — or else that aTroKXd^rjQ 
 should be read, and XdpvaKa understood. Don't lock the empty chest. 
 Don't command me, over whom you have no right. It might possibly 
 mean, " Don't treat me as a slave, when I am as free-born as yourself." 
 ivog, i. e. Ptolemy. 
 
 32 Sperchis.] Herodot. vii. 134. 
 
 ^' Golgus, a city of Cyprus. Idalium, a grove and mountain of the 
 same. Erjx, a mountain in Sicily sacred to Vends. Erycina ridens, 
 Horat. Od. I. ii. 32. Ibid. III. xxvi. 9, O quae beatam Diva tenes Cy- 
 prum. CatuU. Ixiii. 96, Qugeque regis Golgos, quaeque Idalium frondosum. 
 
 ^ The Hours, and their functions. Idyll i. 150. Moschus ii. 160. 
 Ovid. Met. ii 25. 
 
 ^ Berenice, cf. Idyll xvii. 36. Ambrosia was thus used by Cyrene. 
 Yirg. Georg. iv. 415, for the same purpose. And Ovid Met. xiv. 606, 
 Ambrosia cum dulci nectare misik 
 Contigit OS, fecitque Deum. 
 
 3« KT/TTOi here mean lettuce and other quick-growing plants in pots- 
 Hence, proverbially, pretty things that fade. 
 
 •" Ovid. Heroid. xv. 76, Non Arabo noster rore capillus olet. Said 
 of Syrian unguents. 
 
82 THEOCRITUS. 118—137. 
 
 things, are present here for him. And verdant canopies, 
 weighed down with soft dill, are constructed ; and the ^* boy 
 loves are fluttering about overhead, even as young nightin- 
 gales, perching on the trees, flit about, making trial of their 
 wings, from bough to bough. the ebony, O the gold, O ye 
 two eagles of ^^ white ivory bearing to Jove, the son of Saturn, 
 a lad as cup-bearer. And above are purple rugs, softer 
 than sleep, ^° as Miletus will say, and whoso feeds flocks in 
 the Samian land. Another couch is strown for the beautiful 
 Adonis. One Venus occupies, the other rosy-armed Adonis, 
 the bridegroom of eighteen or of nineteen years. ^^ His kiss does 
 not prick ; still his lips are reddish all round. Now, indeed, 
 adieu to Venus, enjoying her own husband. "^^And at dawn 
 we in a body, along with the dew, will carry him out to the 
 waves foaming on the shore : and having unbound our hair, 
 and having loosened to the ancles the folds of our robes, with 
 bosoms suffered to appear, will begin the clear-sweet song. 
 Alone of the demigods, as 'tis said, thou comest, dear 
 
 38 Compare Bion Epit. Adon. 80, dfjxpl Se fiiv, k. t. X., and Ovid. Amor. 
 iii. El. 9, Ecce puer Veneris, &c. Images of the Loves always graced 
 this festival. 
 
 3* Ganymede, ^n. i. 28, Rapti Ganymedis honores, Y. 255, 
 Quem prsepes ab Id^ 
 Sublimem pedibus rapuit Jovis armiger uncis. 
 Ovid. Fast. vi. 46, Rapto Ganymede dolebam. Spenser, Faery Queen 
 B. iii. canto ii. Hor. Od. IV. iv. 3, Expertus fidelem 
 Jupiter in Ganymede flavo. 
 *■* dv(t), understand tov KXivTrjpog. Milesian and Samian wools were 
 the finest. The testimony of the natives of these therefore would be highly 
 valued. Virg. Georg. iii. 306, 307, Quamvis Milesia magno. 
 Vellera mutentur Tyrios incocta rubores. 
 fia\aK(lJTspoi virvb). Cf. Idyll v. 58. Virg. Eel. vii. 45, Somno mollior 
 herba. Our own poets use the phrase "downy sleep." 
 
 *' ov KEVTil. Though his beard is Trvppog, reddish, his touch is not 
 rough, but soft. Tibull. I. viii. 32, 
 
 Cui levia fulgent 
 Ora, nee am plexus horrida barba terit. 
 »' Respecting the Adonia, see Smith's Diet. Gr. and R. Ant. p. 12. 
 We have allusion to Adonis or Tammuz, Milton's Paradise Lost, i. 455, 
 Thammuz came next behind, 
 "Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured * 
 
 The Syrian damsels to lament his fate 
 In amorous ditties, all a summer's day. 
 While smooth Adonis from his native rock 
 Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood 
 Of Thammuz yearly wounded. 
 
/37 — 149. IDYLL XV. 83 
 
 Adonis, both hither and to Acheron : neither did Agamemnon 
 enjoy this privilege^ nor the great Ajax, hero of grievous 
 wrath, nor Hector, the most honourable of the twenty sons of 
 Hecuba, nor Patrocles, nor Pyrrhus having returned from 
 Troy, nor those who were yet earlier in date, the Lapithae and 
 *3 Deucalions, nor the descendants of Pelops, and Pelasgi, 
 ^^ eldest rulers of Argos. Be prosperous now, dear Adonis, 
 and mayest thou give pleasure '^^next year ; both now thou hast 
 come, O Adonis, and whenever thou mayest arrive, thou wilt 
 come, dear. 
 
 Gorg. Praxinoe, the affair is very clever. The female is 
 fortunate in having so much knowledge — most fortunate, in 
 that she sings sweetly. However, it is time even for home : 
 Diocleidas is without his dinner. ^^ And the man is vinegar 
 all over: and, if he is hungry, don't go near him. Farewell, 
 beloved Adonis, and go to those who rejoice at your coming. 
 
 IDYLL XVL 
 
 THE GRACES; OR, HIERO. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This poem is written in praise of Hiero, son of Hierocles, tyrant of Sy- 
 racuse, a ruler of great moderation, and also of warlike renown, ac- 
 quired in his battles with the Carthaginians. The poet lashes the avarice 
 of tobst rulers ; who, he says, do not favour poets, and so prevent 
 their fame from gaining that immortality, which cannot be attained, 
 save by song. He goes on to praise Hiero as an honourable exception ; 
 and afterwards prays for the future safety and fortunes of Syracuse, 
 and of Hiero, its ornament and support. In conclusion he invokes the 
 
 ** iii.vKa\'n»}vtQ, i. e. such as Deucalion. So Plutarch speaks of ITj/XfTc 
 Kai Ayxi(rai Kai Qpiojveg kul HixaOiojvsg. And Longinus cites a Trage- 
 dian speaking of "Efcropsc re Kai ^apTTTjdoveg. 
 
 ** "Apycof aKpa, i. q. avroxOovsg. 
 
 *^ dg vfojr. tig to kiribv r} vkov irog, v, Hesych. Heinsius, Briggs, 
 Wordsworth, prefer to read at verse 145, to xP»^/*« ao(p<l)Tepov a OrjXtia. 
 Just as at verse 83, ao(p6v ti xP^H-' a.v6p<jj7rog. 
 
 *« Hog airav. Cf. Idyll iii. 19; xv. 20. Horat. Epist. I. xv. 29, 
 Impransus civem qui non dignosceret hoste. 
 
 2 
 
84 THEOCRITUS. 1—18. 
 
 Graces, to win favour for his strains. The poem was written in the 
 time of the Punic war, after Hiero's treaty with Rome (b. c. 263), 
 In character it is epic and encomiastic. 
 
 This is ever a care to the daughters of Jove, ever to poets, 
 to hymn immortals, 4o hymn the glories of brave men. The 
 Muses indeed are goddesses ; goddesses sing of gods : but we 
 are mortals here ; let us mortals sing of mortals. ^ Yet who 
 of as many as dwell under the bright dawn, will open his 
 doors, and graciously welcome in his home our ^ Graces, and 
 not send them away again unrewarded ? Whilst they indig- 
 nantly return home with naked feet, flouting me much, because 
 they have gone on a fruitless journey ; and sluggishly again, 
 having thrust their heads upon their ^starved knees, they 
 abide at the bottom of an empty coffer, where they have ^ a 
 dry seat, whensoever they shall have returned after a bootless 
 errand. Who of the present generation of men ^is of such a 
 nature as this ? Who, / mean, will love one that has spoken 
 well of him ? I know not ! for no longer, as of old, are men 
 anxious to be celebrated for worthy deeds, but they have been 
 conquered by gains. And every one keeping his hands in his 
 bosom, regards his '^ money, from what source it shall increase ; 
 and would not even rub the rust off, or give it to any one ; but 
 says immediately, ^ ' The shin is further off than the knee : 
 
 * Hom. II. ix. 189, an^t S" apa kXeu dvdpCJv: Odyss. viii. 73, Mova dp' 
 doidov dv^Ktp deiSsufvai kXeu dvSputv. Horat. IV. viii. 28, Dignum 
 laude virum musa vetat mori. 
 
 ^ rig yap. There is an ellipse of tovto OavfiatTTOv lariv — yap supply- 
 ing the reason. It is a wonder that mortals sing the praise of mortals, 
 seeing how ill-requited they are. 
 
 ^ XdpiraQ, i. e. his poems. For a similar prosopopoeia, see Horat. Epist. 
 i. 20, where he compares his book with a damsel desiring to go forth in 
 public. 
 
 * ^pvxpouj, starved. Compare Aristoph. Plut. 262, 
 
 6 dsaTTOTris yap (ptjcTiv vfxa^ voiuj^ airavra'S 
 xj/vxpov ^iov Kcii dva-KoXov "^vaEiv airaWayivra^. 
 
 * avT} — ^dpa. Compare Idyll i. 61 ; viii. 44. 
 
 * For TowQ dt uxTTf. (piXeXv tov ei) e'movra. So Sophocl. CEd. Tyr 
 1403, 1494, Tis oi'Tos taTat ; t/s Trapappixlrti TtKva 
 
 toluvt' outior] XafifSdvwv ; 
 ' Compare Horat. Od, III. xvi, 17, 
 
 Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam 
 Majorumque fames. 
 t'TTo koXttu). See Ov. Am. 1. x. 18, Quo pretium condat, non habet ille 
 sinum. 
 
 * Cicero quotes this proverb, Epist. ad Diversos, lib. xvi. Ep. 23, 
 
i9— 34. IDYLL XTI. 85 
 
 let me have something myself. Gods honour poets. And 
 who would listen to another ? Homer is enough for all. This 
 is the best of poets, who will carry off nothing from me.' 
 Strange men ! now what gain is your countless gold laid up 
 within ? Such is not the advantage of wealth to the wise : 
 but it is rather to give a part to ^ one's tastes, and a part also 
 to one of the poets : and to do good to many of one's ^^ kins- 
 men, and many too of other men, and ever to perform sacrifices 
 to the gods ; ^^ and not to be a bad host, but to send away a 
 guest having treated him kindly at one's board, whensoever he 
 may choose to depart : but chiefly to honour the sacred inter- 
 preters of the Muses, that, though buried in Hades, you may 
 be well spoken of ; and may not lament ingloriously in chilly 
 Acheron, like some ^^poor man, having had his hands "made 
 callous inside by the spade, bewailing portionless poverty left 
 him by his fathers. 
 
 ^^ In the mansions of Antiochus and king Aleuas, ^^ many 
 
 Nee tamen te avoco a syngraph^, yovv KvrjurjQ. Athenseus ix. 383, 
 yovv KV7]HT]Q lyyiov. Plaut. Tunica pallio propior. Charity begins 
 at home. Shaksp. Two Gentleman of Verona, act ii. sc. 6, I to my- 
 self am dearer than a friend. Qtoi ti/xuxtiv aoidovg, is equivalent to the 
 cant phrase, Providence will take care of poets. 
 
 ® ^WX? — dovvai, Genio dare, (Lat.) Horat. Epist. II. i. 144, Flori- 
 bus et vino Genium memorem brevis aevi. .iiEsch. Pers. 827, \pvxy ^i- 
 Sovreg rjSovrjv kuO' tjfispav. 
 
 '" 'TrTjog, " cognatus." See Odyss. viii. 581, where the Schol. observes 
 that it denotes connexion secondary to blood relationship, for which it 
 was never expressly used. See Yalken. Phoeniss. 431, — derived from 
 'Trsirafiai. 
 
 " Theocrit. had in view Odyss. xv. 68. Compare Pope's Imitation 
 of Horace, Sat. ii. 2, 
 
 Through whose free opening gate 
 None comes too early — none departs too late, &c. 
 For patriarchal hospitality, see Genesis xviii., xix. 
 
 *2 a%77v, needy, a x<^^^(^* akin to egenus. iEschylus uses the substan- 
 tive dxijvia. Choeph. 301. Ag. 419. Virg. ^En. vi. 436, Nunc et pauperiem 
 et duros perferre labores. 
 
 " Aleuas, a king of If'hessaly, one of a most powerful dynasty, 
 Herodot. vii. 6. Ovid Ibis, 327, 
 
 Quosque putas fidos, ut Larissgeus Aleuas 
 Vulnere non fidos experiere tuo. 
 ^* IfiSTpritravTo, 1. e. fiSTprjfia iXa^ov. Fawkes compares apfiaXiat 
 tfifXTjvov with the "Demensum," or monthly measure of Roman slaves 
 Terence Phorm. Act. i. § 1, 
 
 Quos ille unciatim vix de demenso sue 
 Suum defraudans genium, comparsit miser. 
 
86 THEOCRITUS. 35 — 4S. 
 
 serfs had monthly provisions measured out to them : and many 
 calves lowed with horned heifers, as they were driven to the 
 stalls of the Scopadse: and shepherds would let out to feed 
 along the Crannonian plain, ten thousand choice sheep for the 
 hospitable Creondae : ^^ yet had there been no pleasure to them 
 of these things, after that they had poured out their sweet 
 spirits into the broad bark of hateful Acheron; and, out of 
 mind, having quitted those many and rich resources, they 
 would have lain long ages among the wretched dead, had not 
 the clever bard, ^^ the Ceian with his changeful song set to his 
 many-stringed lyre, made them illustrious to posterity ; ^' for 
 even swift steeds which came to them crowned from the sacred 
 contests, obtained a share in the honour. And who had ever 
 known the nobles of the ^^Lycians, who the sons of Priam 
 
 Hesiod, Op. 349, tv fiev nerpslaOai rrapa ytirovog — Titvi-arai. — Thirlw. 
 History of Gr. i. 437. Each of the chief Thessalian cities exercised 
 a dominion over several smaller towns, and they were themselves the 
 seat of noble families, of the line of ancient kings, able generally to draw 
 to themselves the whole government of the nation. Larissa was thus 
 subject to the house of Aleuadae ; Crannon and Pharsalus, to the Scopadse 
 and Creondse, branches of the same stock. The vast estates and flocks 
 and herds of these were managed by their serfs, the Penests, who, at 
 call, were ready to follow them to the field afoot or on horseback. Cf. 
 Herodot. vi. 127. 
 
 '* (TxtSiav. JEiXi. vi. 304, Et ferruginea subvectat corpora cymba ; for 
 the sentiment cf TibuU. I. iv. 63, 
 
 Carmine purpurea est Nisi coma : carmina ni sint 
 Ex humero Pelopis non nituisset ebur. 
 Hor. IV. viii. 22, Quid foret Ili» 
 
 Mavortisque puer, si taciturnitas 
 Obstaret meritis invida Romuli. 
 Add Spenser, ** Ruines of Time," quoted by Gaisford. 
 For not to have been dipt in Lethe lake 
 
 Could save the son of Thetis from to die, 
 But that blind bard did him immortal make, 
 With verses dipt in dew of Castalie. 
 Comp. Hor. IV. ix. 26—28 ; ii. 3, ad fin. 
 
 ** 6 Krj'iog. Simonides of Cos (b. c. 540) was the friend of Hipparchus 
 the tyrant, Pausanias the Spartan general, and Hiero the Syracusan 
 tyrant. He wrote, in Doric dialect, lyrics, elegies, epigrams, and dramatic 
 pieces. 
 
 ^^ tTTTToi, the victorious steeds from the games of Greece. Compare 
 Callim. in Cerer. H. 110, 
 
 Kal Tov aedkocpopov Kal tov iroXzfiriiov 'L'trirov. 
 w Nobles of the lycians,] i. e. Sarpedon, Pandarus, Glaucus. Comp. 
 
48—65. IDYLL XYI. 87 
 
 with the flowing locks, or Cycnus called feminine from his 
 complexion, had not bards hymned the battle-dins of olden 
 heroes? Not even Ulysses, though he wandered one hundred 
 and twenty months over all nations of men, and went alive to 
 extremest Orcus, and escaped the cave of the destructive Cy- 
 clops, would have had lasting renown : hushed too in silence 
 had been the swine-herd Eumjeus, and Philgetius busied 
 among the heifers of the herd, and great-hearted Laertes him- 
 self, had not the ^^ songs of a man of Ionia befriended them. 
 
 From the Muses comes worthy renown to men ; but ^o the 
 living consume the wealth of the dead : since however the toil 
 is the same to measure waves on the shore, as many as the 
 wind drives to land with the green ocean, ^lor to wash a 
 muddy brick with dark-coloured water, as to get round a man 
 22 blinded by avarice, farewell to all such : and may they have 
 money untold, and ever may a longing for more possess them. 
 
 II, ii. 875. Cycnus, son of Neptune, was slain by Achilles at Troy. 
 According to Hesiod, he was white-headed, and hence called Q^Xvg. 
 Compare Ovid. Met. x. 72, &c., Jam leto proles Neptunia Cycnus, Mille 
 viros dederat, &c. At line 51, 'OSvatvg. Cf, Horace Epist. I. ii. 19, 
 Multorum providus urbes 
 Et mores hominum inspexit, latumque per sequor 
 Dum sibi dum sociis reditum parat, aspera multe 
 Pertulit. 
 » Horace Od. IV. ix. 26—28, 
 
 Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
 Multi, sed omnes illachrimabiles 
 Urgentur, ignotique long^ 
 
 Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. 
 Fawkes observes that Theocritus, keeping up his pastoral capacity, 
 honours with princes the swine-herd and the neat-herd. 
 
 20 The living consume, &c.] Compare Horace Od. II. iii. 19, 
 
 Exstructifl in altum 
 Divitiis potietur haeres. 
 Virg. Georg. ii. 108, Nosse, quot lonii veniant ad littora fluctus. 
 
 21 QoXtgav, i, e. unbaked. Whence the proverb of Terence, Phorm. 
 I. iv. 9, Purgem me % Laterem lavem. TrXivQovg irkivuv. Zenob. 
 Diogen. Centur. Suid. Somewhat parallel is Jeremiah xiii. 23, " Can the 
 ^Ethiopian," &c. 
 
 2* (3t(3\afifiEvov, blinded, stricken. Mente captum. So used II. xxii. 
 15, Odyss. xxiii. 14, &c. Two lines below, compare Horace Od. III. 
 xvi. 17, 
 
 Crescentem sequitur cura pecuniam 
 Majorumque fames. 
 
B8 THEOCRITUS. 66—87. 
 
 Yet I would prefer ^^ to many mules and horses, honour, and 
 the friendship of men. Now I am in quest of one, to whom 
 among mortals I may come with favour, by the help of the 
 Muses ; for hard are the ways to minstrels, apart from the 
 daughters of Jove, the mighty counsellor. Not yet hath 
 Jieaven tired of drawing on months and years ; many steeds 
 will yet move the chariot's wheel. Such a man will arise, as 
 shall need me for his bard, when he has achieved as much as 
 mighty Achilles, or strong Ajax in the plain of Simois, where 
 is the sepulchre of Phrygian llus. Already ^4 now the Phoe- 
 nicians, dwelling at the very farthest part of Libya under the 
 setting sun, shudder with alarm : already Syracusans carry 
 their lances by the middle, having their arms burdened with 
 wicker shields : and among them Hiero, a match for elder 
 heroes, girds himself, and ^^ his horsehair plumes overshadow 
 his helmet. 
 
 Oh that, most glorious father Jove, and lady Minerva, and 
 thou, 26 Proserpine, who with thy mother hast obtained by lot 
 the great city of the exceeding-rich Ephyrceans, by the waters 
 of Lysimelia, stern necessity would send our enemies out of the 
 island over the Sardinian wave, to announce to wives and 
 children the fate of their dear ones, 2' by the fact of their be- 
 
 -^ Xenoph. Mem. Socr. II. iv. 1, iroio^ yap t7nro9, h irotov ^eDyos ovtm 
 j^^oi'iarifiov, (ixTTTtp 6 X/0'3O'T^o9 0i\os. Cf. Clc. de Amicit, xv. 17. 
 
 -* So Yirg. ^n, tI. 799, Hujus in adventum jam nunc et Caspia 
 regna, Responsis horrent Divum, et Maeotia tellus. Carthage, as every 
 one knows, was founded by a Phoenician colony [see ^n. i. 338, 339], 
 This Idyll bears evidence in these lines of having been written during 
 the first Punic war, after the alliance of Hiero with the Romans, B. c. 
 263. (Yid. Arnold's Rome, ii. 471, 472.) 
 
 25 Virg, ^n. X. 869, ^re caput fulgens cristaque hirsutus equina. 
 'iTTTTOvpig and 'nnroddtTeia coupled with Kopvg denote the same in the 
 Iliad, frequently. Two lines above we find a parallel in Virg. -^n. VII. 
 vi. 32, Flectuntque salignas Umbonum crates. 
 
 ^ Proserpine and Ceres were specially worshipped by the Syracusans. 
 Syracuse was founded by a Corinthian colony (compare Idyll xv. 91, 
 note). The ancient name of Corinth was Ephjre. Lysimelia, a pool at 
 the mouth of the river Anapus, hard by Syracuse. Sil. Ital. xiv. 51, 
 Sed decus Hennaeis baud ullum pulchrius oris, 
 Quam quae Sisyphio fundavit nomen ab Isthmo, 
 Et multum ante alias Ephyreeis fulget alumnis. 
 
 2^ apidfiarovc airb ttoWuiv, 1. e. ha to slvai, /c. r. \. The sense is, 
 that the tale of destruction should find its way home in the few that re- 
 turned safe. Horat. A. P. 206, Populus numerabilis utpote parvus. Cas- 
 
87—103. IDYLL XVI. 89 
 
 ing numbered by many; and oh! might cities be inhabited 
 again by former citizens, cities as many as the hands of enemies 
 have laid waste utterly : and oh that they might till flourishing 
 fields ; and their ^^ thousands unnumbered of sheep, fattened 
 upon the herbage, might bleat along the plain, and heifers, 
 coming in herds to the stalls, urge on the traveller by twilight : 
 and oh that the fallow lands might be broken up for sowing, 
 what time^^ the cicala, watching the shepherds in the open 
 air, chirps within the trees on the topmost branches ; that ^ 
 spiders might distend fine webs in the arms, ^^ and not even 
 the name of the battle-cry be heard any longer. And may 
 minstrels bear lofty glory for Hiero, even beyond the Scy- 
 thian sea, and where ^^ Semiramis having bound a broad wall 
 with asphalt reigned within it. I indeed am but one man : 
 yet the daughters of Jove love many others also, to all of whom 
 it is a care to hymn Sicilian ^^ Arethusa with her peoples, and 
 
 aubon remarks a like phrase among the Hebrews. Isaiah x. 19, " And the 
 rest of the trees of the forest shall be few, (in the original ♦' a number,") 
 that a child may write them." So Cic, Orat. pro lege Manil. c. ix., Tanta 
 fuit clades, ut earn ad aures L. Luculli non ex proelio nuntius, sed ex 
 sermone rumor afferret. 
 
 ^ Virg. Eel. ii. 21, Mille mese Siculis errant in montibus agnge. " The 
 folds shall be full of sheep, and the valleys also shall stand so thick with 
 corn, that they shall laugh and sing," Psalm Ixv. 14. Compare also 
 Ps. cxliv. 13. 
 
 ^^ dx£t kv a.K0£ix6vs<T£(v. Virg. Eel. II., Sole sub ardenti resonant arbusta 
 cicadis. With the next clause compare Horn. Odyss. xvi. 34, 35. Hesiod 
 Op. et D. ii. 93. Propert. III. vi. 33, Putris et in vacuo texetur aranea lecto. 
 So Catullus, Carm. XIII. v. 7, Nam tui Catulli 
 
 Plenus sacculus est aranearum. 
 Virg. Georg. iv. 247, In foribus laxos suspendit aranea casses. Add to 
 these Bacchylides, Fragm. ix., and TibuU. I. x. 49. 
 
 30 Comp. Isaiah ii. 4, "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
 neither shall they learn war any more." Theocritus is said to have 
 imitated in some passages of this piece, Isaiah, and the 66th, 72nd, and 
 144th Psalms. 
 
 31 Compare Ovid. Met. iv. 57, 
 
 Ubi dicitur altam 
 Coctilibus muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem. 
 »2 Arethusa. See Idyll i. 117. Ovid. Met. v. 573—641. Silius xiv. 53, 
 Hie Arethusa suum piscoso fonte receptat Alpheon, sacrae portantem 
 gigna coronae. Milton in Arcades celebrates, 
 
 Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice 
 Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse. 
 For fikXei, Wordsw. suggests fxoXci, obveniat, contingat. 
 
90 THEOCRITUS. 1G4— 109. 
 
 33 the warrior Hiero. ^'^ Ye goddesses having your rise from 
 Eteocles, that love Minyan Orchoraenus, hated of old by Thebes, 
 inglorious indeed may I remain at home : yet with confidence 
 would I go to men's halls, if they call me, along with my 
 Muses, and I will not leave even you behind. For apart from 
 the Graces what is ever beloved by man ? May I ever bide 
 with the Graces. 
 
 IDYLL XVIL 
 
 THE PRAISE OF PTOLEMY. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The poet intending to celebrate Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, 
 sets out Avith the praise of his father, Ptolemy Lagus, to whom after 
 his death a place among the gods had been ascribed ; and goes on to 
 eulogize Berenice, the mother of Philadelphus, whom Venus was sup- 
 posed to have received into her temples to be her Trapj^pog, or assessor, 
 He next proceeds to set forth the fortunes and virtues of Philadelphus 
 himself, beginning with the happy omens which had attended his birth 
 in the island of Cos, and portended his future opulence and power. 
 Then follows an enumeration of the royal territories, and laudation of 
 the royal wealth, augmented as it has been by the blessings of peace. 
 The poet commends in glowing terms the munificence and discern- 
 ment of Philadelphus in conferring favours, as well as his filial piety 
 shown so eminently. He ends with praise of the queen, the wife and 
 sister of Ptolemy. Reiske, Warton, and others have held this to be a 
 ])oem of Callimachus ; but Eichstadt declares that, while it equals the 
 lightness of the poems of that writer, it surpasses them in jejuneness. 
 
 3^ Hiero. Silius Ital. xiv. 79, &c., gives a character of the old age of 
 Hiero. 
 
 ^^ Q Erfo/eXftoi QvyaTptQ. i. e. O goddesses, whose worship was origin- 
 ated by Eteocles, son of Cephisus, or Andreus, who first sacrificed to the 
 Charites at Orchomenus in Bceotia. See Pausan. ix. 34, § 5 ; 35, § 1. 
 Schol. ad Pind. 01. xiv. 1. Smith's Diet. Gr. R. B. vol. ii. 53. For the 
 grounds of enmity between Thebes and Orchomenus, J. W. refers us to 
 Thirlwall, Hist. Greec. c. iv. vol. i. p. 91, § 9. At the last line compare 
 Milton, L'AUegro, 
 
 These delights if thou canst give, 
 Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 
 
1—24. IDYLL XVIL 91 
 
 ^ Begin we with Jove, and at Jove make an end, ye Muses, 
 whensoever we sing in our minstrelsy the best of inimortals. 
 But of men, on the other hand, let Ptolemy be spoken of 
 among ^the first, and last, and at the middle; for he is the 
 most excellent of men. Pleroes, who ^aforetime sprung from 
 demigods, having done noble deeds have met with skilful 
 poets. But I, knowing how to speak well, would yam hymn 
 the praise of Ptolemy ; and hymns are a glory even of the 
 immortals themselves. A wood-cutter having gone to woody 
 Ida, looks around whence to begin his work, though there is 
 abundance at hand. What shall I first recount ? for in- 
 numerable glories occur to tell, with which the gods honoured 
 the best of kings. 
 
 From his fathers what a man indeed was Ptolemy son of 
 Lagus ^to accomplish a great work, when he had conceived 
 in his mind a counsel which no other man was able to devise. 
 ^ Him father Jupiter has made equal in honour even to the blest 
 immortals, and for him a chamber of gold has been built in 
 the mansion of Jove ; and beside him sits Alexander, kindly 
 disposed to him, a god hard upon Persians with variegated 
 turbans. And opposite to them is set the chair of Hercules, 
 slayer of the Centaur, wrought out of solid adamant ; where 
 with other celestials he holds feasts, rejoicing exceedingly in 
 his grandchildren's grandchildren, ^ because the son of Saturn 
 
 ' Virg. Eel. iii. 60, A Jove principium. Eel. viii. 11, A te prineipium, 
 tibi desinet. Horn. II. i. 97, kv croi fxiv Xrj^w, aeo d' dp^ofiai. 
 
 2 Milton's Paradise Lost, v. 165, Him first. Him last. Him midst, and 
 without end. Horat. i Ep. i., Prima dicte mihi, summa dicende Ca- 
 moen^. 
 
 ' TrpoaOev, olim. So "ante," in Latin. Ovid. Fast. i. 337, 
 Ante, deos homini quod conciliare valeret 
 Far erat. 
 Three lines below compare with vfivoi dk Kai, k. t. \. Horaee Epist. IL 
 i. 138, Carmine Di superi placantur, earmine Manes. 
 
 * Compare Callim. H. in Jov. 87, where he says of this same Ptolemy, 
 Eo-TTsptog kCivoq yt rtXtl to. Ktv j)oI vorjay. So Horn. Od. (3. 272, olog 
 iKtivog trjv TsXkffai tpyov rt eirog re. 
 
 * Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Lagides, or Soter, (one of 
 Alexander's generals, who obtained Egypt at the division of his empire,) 
 was associated in the government by his sire, to the exclusion of his 
 children by his first wife Eurydice ; in return for which Philadelphus 
 deified Lagides and his wife Berenice. Below at line 19, J. W. quotes 
 Juvenal iii. 66, Ite quibus grata est picta lupa barbara mitra. 
 
 « Callim. H. in Dian. 159, yvla eetjOdg. Ov. Met. iv. 538, Abstulit 
 
92 THEOCRITUS. 24 — 43. 
 
 has exempted their limbs from old age. and because, being of his 
 "^ brood, they are styled immortals. For to both the brave son 
 of Hercules is an ancestor, and both ^ reckon up their descent 
 to Hercules, as the source. Wherefore likewise when, at 
 length satisfied with fragrant nectar, he goes from the feast 
 to the chamber of his dear spouse, to the one he gives his 
 bow and the quiver under his elbow, and to the other his 
 iron club, studded with knots ; and they bear the arms to the 
 ambrosial chamber of white-fancied Hebe, along with their 
 ancestor, Jove's son himself. And among wise women how 
 did far-famed Berenice shine, a great blessing to her parents \ 
 Upon whose fragrant breast, indeed, the august daughter of 
 Dione, that occupies Cyprus, impressed her slender hands. 
 Wherefore 'tis said that never did any woman so please her 
 husband, as Ptolemy in fact loved his own wife. She indeed 
 returned his love far more than other wives. Thus he could 
 trustfully commit his whole house to his children's care, when- 
 soever lover-like he ascended to the chamber of his loving wife. 
 ^^B-ut of an unloving woman the thoughts are ever on a 
 
 illis quod mortale fuit. Soph. (Ed. Col. 607, Movoig ov yiyvsrai Oeolm 
 yfjpag. The founder of the kingdom of Macedon was Caranus, an Argive, 
 sixteenth in descent from Hercules. From him Philip and Alexander 
 therefore traced their pedigree. See more, as J. W. refers us, in Valkenaer 
 on Herodot. viii. 137. 
 
 ^ vsTTodsq, i. q. TSKva, a hrood. Eustath. (quasi veoTTodeg, from veog.) 
 Compare nepos, nepotes. It occurs in Callim.Frag. Ixxvii. 260. Apoll. 
 Rhod. iv. 1745. 
 
 * Juvenal viii. 131, Tunc licet a Pico numeres genus. 'UpaKXsiSag. 
 Hyllus. 
 
 ' Hebe, daughter of Jupiter and Juno, was the fabled wife of Hercules. 
 Odyss. xi. 602, where Ulysses is represented beholding Hercules with 
 KaX\i(T(pvpoQ"R(3tj, a mythic union of strength and youth. 
 
 '" The meaning of this and the foregoing verses seems — *' A husband 
 sure of his wife's love, can trust his children, because they are no bastards, 
 with his interests and fortunes." As Ptolemy, son of Lagus, did, in sharing 
 his kingdom with Philadelphus, his son by Berenice. Herat. Od. II. v. 
 21—24, 
 
 Nullis poUuitur casta domus stupris : 
 Mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas; 
 Laudantur simili prole puerperae: 
 
 Culpam pcEua premit comes. 
 Compare Martial vi. 7, 24, 
 
 Et tibi, quae patrii signatur imagine vultus, 
 Testis maternae nata pudicitiae. 
 Compare also Juvenal vi. 81 ; Hesiod O. et D. 235. CatuU. lix. 229 
 
44—65. IDYLL XVH. 93 
 
 stranger ; and her parturitions are easy, but the children never 
 like the father. O Lady Aphrodite, excelling the goddesses in 
 beauty, to thee she was a care, and on account of thee beauteous 
 Berenice did not cross mournful Acheron ; but having snatched 
 her away ere she had come down to the dark stream, and to 
 the ever-rueful ferryman of the dead, thou placedst her in 
 thy temple, and gavest her a share in thine honour. And 
 gentle to all mortals, she ever breathes upon them soft loves, 
 and to one that longs ^^ makes his cares light. 
 
 ^^O dark-browed Argive lady, thou didst bear Diomed, 
 slayer of hosts, a Calydonian hero, when thou hadst been united 
 to Tydeus. But deep-bosomed Thetis bare the warrior 
 Achilles to Peleus, son of JEacus : and thee, O warrior Ptolemy, 
 distinguished Berenice to a warrior, Ptolemy. '^And Cos did 
 rear thee, having received thee a new-born babe from thy 
 mother, when thou sawest the dawn first. For there the 
 ^'* daughter of Antigone, weighed down with throes, called 
 out for ^^ Lucina, the friend of women in travail. And she 
 with kind favour stood by her, and in sooth poured down her 
 whole limbs an insensibility to pain, and so a lovely boy, like 
 to his father, was born. 
 
 ^^And Cos when she beheld him broke forth into joy, and 
 
 Sit suo similis patri 
 Manlio, et facile insciis 
 Noscitetur ab omnibus ; 
 Et pudicitiam suam 
 Matris indicet ore. 
 J. W. aptly compares Shaksp. Much Ado about Notbing, act i. sc. 1, 
 "Truly the lady fathers herself," and Terent. Heaut. Y. iv. 17. 
 
 " Kov<pag diSdi, i. e. KOV(pi^ti. Cf. Idyll xxiii. 9, (piXafJia rb Kovtpil^ov rot 
 epojra. 
 
 •2 Tydeus, son of ^neus, king of Calydon, flying to Argos, married 
 Deipyle, daughter of Adrastus, who bare him Diomed, called here Caly- 
 donian, because of his father's origin. 
 
 '3 Ptolemy Philadelphus was born at the island of Cos, whither his 
 mother Berenice had accompanied her husband during the naval cam- 
 paign of B. c. 309, against Demetrius. Comp. Callim. H. in Del. 165 — 190. 
 '* Berenice was the daughter of Antigone, the daughter of Cassander, 
 the brother of Antipater. See Smith D. G. A. p. 482, vol. i. 
 
 '^ Lucina, Xwai^wt'og. Call. H. in Jov. 21, IXvaaro jxirpav. See Span- 
 heim, note at this passage. To her belonged the influence we moderns 
 ascribe to chloroform. 
 
 ** oX6X»>?£r, uttered a cry of joy. Eur. Electr. 691. This impersonation 
 of the island is bold an^ sublime. Polwhele compares with passages of 
 holy writ, e. g. Why hop ye so, ye high hills. Break forth into singing, 
 
94 THEOCRITUS. 65—82, 
 
 said, with fond hands touching the infant: ^^ 'Blessed, boy, 
 mayest thou be, and mayest thou honour me as much as even 
 Phoebus Apollo honoured Delos of the azure fillet : and in the 
 same honour mayest thou rank the ^^ promontory of Triops, 
 assigning equal ^^ favour to the Dorians dwelling near, as also 
 king Apollo lovingly paid to ^^ Rhenoea." Thus, I wot, spake 
 the island, and the propitious eagle-bird of Jove thrice from 
 on high, above the clouds, screamed with its voice. This 
 methinks is a sign of Jove. To Jove the son of Saturn 
 august monarchs are a care : and chiefly he, whomsoever he 
 shall have kissed at his first birth ; and great fortune attends 
 him. Much land rules he, and much sea. Numberless con- 
 tinents, as well as myriads of races of men, till corn-fields 
 assisted by the moisture of Jove : but no region produces so 
 much as low-^' lying Egypt, when Nile gushing forth breaks 
 up the moist clods. Nor hath any so many cities of men 
 skilled in works. Three hundred indeed of towns have been 
 
 ye mountains. Theocritus however has a closer parallel here, inCallim. 
 H. in Del, 264, AvT-fj St xpv(Teoio cnr' ovdfog e'lXso Trat^a, spoken of the 
 island Delos. Horn. H. in Apoll. 61, 119, q. v. Virg. Eel. v. f)2, 
 Ipsi laetitia voces ad sidera jactant 
 Intonsi montes. 
 
 '^ 6Xj3u KiSjpe ysvoio, for oXIiiog, a rare construction in Greek, Eurip. 
 Troad. 1229. In Latin, Tibull. i. 7, 53, Sic venias hodierne. Propert. 
 II. XV. 2, Lectule deliciis facte beate raeis. Yirg. ^n. ii. 282, Quibus 
 Hector ab oris, expectate venis. 
 
 ^* Spanheim, at Callim. H. in Del. 160, says that Triops was king of 
 Cos, and father of Merops, another king of the island ; and that from 
 him the promontory of Cnidos was called Triopium. Comp. H. in Cerer. 31. 
 
 '^ The Dorian Pentapolis consisted of five cities, Lindus, lalysus, Ca- 
 mirus, Cos, and Cnidos. Thirwl. H. of Greece, vol. ii. 88. 
 
 ^" Rhenaea, an island close to Delos, to which in the purification of 
 Delos by Pisistratus, and afterwards in the Peloponnesian war, all dead 
 bodies were carried from Delos for burial ; and all births of Delian 
 children arranged to take place there. Cf. Thuc. iii. 104. Polycrates, 
 tyrant of Samos, bound it to Delos and dedicated it to Apollo. See Virg. 
 Mn. iii. 75. 
 
 21 "^gypti pars depressior." Tibull. i. 7, 23, 
 Fertilis sestiva Nilus abundet aqua 
 Nile pater quanam possim te dicere causS. 
 Aut quibus in terris occuluisse caput. 
 The Delta is here alluded to. See Georg. iv. 287—294, for another ac- 
 count of the Nile. BpvTrrei, confringit. Herod, ii. 12, (quoted here by 
 J. W.,) T7JV AlyvTTTOv fifXdyyaiov re Kai KaTapprjyyv/jievrjv wore tov(Ta» 
 iXvp Tt Kal TTpSxvmv k^ AiOiOTrirjg Kartviiveiyixivrjv virb tov irorafiov. 
 
82—107. IDYLL XVIT. 95 
 
 built for him, ay and three thousand over and above thirty 
 thousand, and two triads, and besides them thrice nine ; in 22 all 
 which magnanimous Ptolemy is sovereign. And in truth he 
 -juts off for his portion a part of Phoenicia and Arabia, and of 
 Syria and Libya, and the black Ethiopians ; and he bears 
 sway over all the Pamphylians, and warrior Cilicians, and 
 Lycians, and war-loving Carians, and the island Cyclades, for 
 23 his ships are the best that sail over the sea ; and all sea and 
 land and rushing rivers are ruled over by Ptolemy. And for 
 him many horsemen and many shield-bearers arrayed in 
 gleaming brass rage and roar. 
 
 In wealth indeed he outweighs all monarchs, so much every 
 day comes into his splendid house from every quarter, and the 
 peoples go about his works in peace and quietness. For no 
 hostile infantry having crossed the Nile abounding in 24croco- 
 diles, has raised the battle-cry in strange villages ; nor has 
 any armed man leapt ashore from a swift ship against the 
 cattle of Egypt, as a foe : such a hero yellow-haired Ptolemy 
 has established himself in her broad plains, skilful to wield 
 the spear ; whose whole care is to protect his patrimony, as a 
 good king's should be; and other realms he is himself ac- 
 quiring. Not however to no purpose, I ween, is the gold in 
 his wealthy house, ^^even as the riches of labouring ants are 
 
 -2 tCjv TTOLVTiov, referred to ttoXscjv, but in the neuter gender. Cf. 
 Epigr. i. 3, 4. The whole number is 33,339. Wordsworth refers us for 
 the riches of Ptolemy, to the commentators on Daniel xi. 5. 
 2* His ships are the best, «&c. Fawkes compares Waller, 
 Where'er thy navy spreads her canvass wings, 
 Homage to thee, and peace to all she brings. 
 Byron, Corsair, opening. 
 
 Our flag the sceptre, all who meet obey. 
 KsXadovTSQ, resonantes. Cf. Idyll vii. 137. Aristoph. Nub. 284, cat 
 TTOTafioJv Za9k(i)v KeXadTifxari. 
 
 2* For the crocodiles of the Nile, see Herodot. lib. ii. Senec. Natur. 
 Qusest. iv. 1, p. 611, Elzev. J. W. At "yellow-haired Ptolemy," com- 
 pare Horat. Od IV. xv. 17, 
 
 Custode rerum Caesare, non furor 
 Civilis, aut vis exiget otium. 
 " Cf. ^sch. Prom. v. 451, dficrvpoi jxvpjxijKeg. Horat. Sat. i. 1, 33. 
 Magni formica laboris 
 Ore trahit quodcunque potest, atque addit acervo 
 Quem struit. 
 For the next line compare Virg. ^n. x. 619, 
 Tua larga 
 Saepe manu multisque oneravit limina donia. 
 
96 THEOCRITUS. 107—128. 
 
 ever poured in ; but much of it indeed the splendid temples of 
 the gods have, whilst ever and anon he offers first-fruits with 
 other gifts : and much has he bestowed on brave kings, and 
 much on cities, and much on good comrades ; nor has any 
 man, skilled to strike up a sweet song, ^^come to the sacred 
 contests of Bacchus, ^^to whom he has not presented a gift 
 worthy of his craft, ^a^n^ the interpreters of the Muses 
 sing the praise of Ptolemy, in return for his beneficence. But 
 what can be more honourable to a man of wealth than to win 
 worthy renown among men ? This remains sure even to the 
 sons of Atreus, while those countless acquisitions, as many as 
 they made, when they had taken the mighty house of Priam, 
 have been hidden some where in the ^^ mist, from which there- 
 after there is no longer a return. ^^ This man, alone of men 
 of former ages, impresses the foot-prints of his parents, yet 
 warm in the dust, as he treads above them. ^^ To his loved 
 mother and father he has placed incense-breathing temples, 
 and has set them up therein conspicuous with gold and ivory, 
 as helpers to all mortals. And many fatted haunches of oxen 
 does he burn, in revolving months, on blood-red altars, him- 
 self and his goodly spouse, than whom no nobler woman 
 
 26 The festivals of Bacchus celebrated by Ptolemy, and the " sacred 
 contests " here alluded to, appear to have been either dramatic pieces, 
 or the Dionysia at which poets contended v^^ith those dramatic pieces. 
 
 ^^ Ptolemy's munificence drew to his court seven poets, called the 
 Pleiades from their number, Theocritus, Callimachus, ApoUonius, Aratus, 
 Lycophron, Nicander, Philicus, 
 
 2^ Horat. Od. III. i. 3, Musarum sacerdos. In Cicero's oration for 
 Archias, Ennius is quoted as calling poets " sanctos." Propert. III. i. 3, 
 Primus ego ingredior puro de fonte sacerdos. Virg. Georg. ii. 475, 
 Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae, 
 Quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore, 
 " aspi : caligine. See Hom. Odyss. ix. 144, 
 
 dijp yap Trapd vrjvai ^a9e.V -qv, ovde atXrjVTj 
 ovpavoQsv Trpov<paive, 
 Cf. II. V. 864. 
 
 *" Ovid. Met. vii. 775, Pedum calidus vestigia pulvis habebat. Hom. 
 II. xxiii. 763, describes the act which gives rise to this metaphor, 
 avrdp OTTwdtv 
 'Ixvia TVTTTe TToSscrcn, TrdpoQ koviv dfi^ixvOfjvai. 
 SKfidaatrai imitatione exprimit. 
 '* Ptolemy raised temples in honour of his parents, as well as one to 
 .lis sister as Venus Arsinoe. XP^'^V • Signa auro illinebant antiqui. J. 
 W. Vid. not. Wordsw. Theocr. p. 158. 
 
129—137 IDYLL XVII. 97 
 
 embraces her bridegroom in the palace ^^with bended arm, 
 loving as she does from the heart her brother and husband. 
 Thus too was consummated ^^the holy marriage of the im- 
 mortals, whom sovereign Rhea bare as sovereigns of Olym- 
 pus : and Iris, still a virgin, having washed her hands with 
 unguents, strews one couch for Jupiter and Juno to sleep upon. 
 Farewell, O king Ptolemy ; but of thee I will make mention 
 like as of other demigods ; and methinks^^ I shall speak a word 
 not to he spurned by posterity: 'Excellence at any rate one 
 will gain from Jupiter.' 
 
 IDYLL XYIIL (/ uNlVERi 
 
 THE EPITHALAMIUM OF HELEN. %t:J^>AI 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 After the nuptials of Helen and Menelaus, the chief maidens of Sparta, 
 ranging themselves before the bridal chamber, sing an Epithalamium, 
 beginning with the jokes which would naturally be passed at the ex- 
 pense of the bridegroom. Menelaus is next felicitated on the score of 
 the prize of beauty which he has won, while so many of the noblest 
 suitors failed. The poet passes naturally on to a description of Helen's 
 personal and mental graces, and puts into the mouth of the chorus a 
 warm expression of their love and regard for her. This Idyll is of a 
 lyric character, and is amongst the most beautiful of its kind. Some 
 have been led, by its dissimilarity from the other Idylls, to suppose 
 Theocritus not to have been its author. But there is no reason why 
 
 ^2 ayocrr*^, with a bent arm, akin to ajKUiv. 
 
 " A comparison is instituted between the marriage of Jove and Juno, 
 and that between Philadelphus and Arsinoe ; the brother in each case 
 wedding his sister. Iris is represented as discharging the office which, in 
 Idyll ii. 160 of Moschus, the Hours discharge for Jove and Europa. 
 
 3-* (pQsy^ofiai, &c. The moral sentence that follows is premised by 
 (pOky^ofiai, and the sense is, that the observation of excellence in Ptolemy, 
 granted him by the gods, causes the poet to exhort all that his words 
 reach, not to scorn his example, but to seek from Jove, who alone can 
 give it, like excellence, 'i^tig. The second person here is used, ac else- 
 where, for an indefinite third person. Compare Sophocl. Trachin. 2. 
 Ajax 155. Tacitus German : Nam magnum — baud tueare. 
 
 H 
 
98 THEOCRITUS. 1—10 
 
 he should not have excelled in this as in more homely styles. He may 
 have borrowed from Stesichorus, but the Epithalamium of that poet 
 not being extant, we have no means of deciding whether, or how far, 
 this was the case. It is of that class of Epithalamia which is called 
 KaraKoifuiTiKov, or slumber-inducing. 
 
 ^ Whilome in Sparta, at the house of auburn-haired Mene- 
 laus, maidens having blooming ^ hyacinth in their tresses, 
 formed the dance in front of a ^newly-painted nuptial cham- 
 ber, the twelve first maidens of the city, '* pride of the Spartan 
 women, when the younger son of Atreus, having wedded 
 Helen the beloved daughter of Tyndarus, had shut her within 
 his chamber. And they began to sing, I ween, all beating 
 time to one melody with many-twinkling^ feet, and the house 
 was ringing round with a nuptial hymn. "Hast thou then 
 fallen asleep thus too early, O dear bridegroom? Art thou 
 
 ' It was Brunck's opinion that Theocritus wrote this Idyll with an 
 eye to the Song of Solomon, many passages of which strikingly receive 
 illustration from it. iv ttok apa ^irdprq,. Callimach. H. in Lav. Pall. 
 Iv iroKa Qr]l3atg. 
 
 2 Milton's Paradise Lost iv. 301, " Hyacinthine locks." Odyss. vi. 230, 
 
 Ka8 8k /t"Ctp7JT0S 
 
 ou\a? r]KE KOfxa^y vaKLvdivto avdei o/xolu's. 
 Horace Od. I. iv. 9, 10, 
 
 Nunc decet aut viridi nitidum caput impedire myrto 
 Aut flore, terrae quem ferunt solutse. 
 ' Embroidery, or tapestry, is here spoken of— provided at the husband's 
 expense. Horn. II. xvii. 36, 0a\a/i5to vsoio. Odyss. xxii. 178. Comp. Idyll 
 xxvii. 36. 
 
 * fieya XP»5i««. See Matt. Gr. Gr. § 430, p. 704. Herodot. i. 36. 
 ffvoQ xpfjl^a fiiya. Acharn. Aristoph. 150; Nub. 2. Valken. on Phoen. 
 206. 
 
 ^ TrepnrXsKTOig, which appears the true reading here, signifies literally 
 "intertwined." Some would read x^P^-* foi" Troai, bringing Horat. Od. 
 I. iv. 6, Junctaeque nymphis gratiae decentes Alterno terram quatiunt 
 pede, and Ovid. Fast. vi. 329, Pars brachia nectit, Et viridem celeri ter 
 pede pulsat humum, to support the reading. But these do not militate 
 against Troaari, which is borne out by Euripid. Troad 2, 3; Iph in 
 Aulis, 1055—1057. ' 
 
 Gray's Progress of Poesy : 
 
 Thee the voice, the dance, obey, 
 Temper'd to thy warbled lay. 
 O'er Idalia's velvet green 
 The rosy-crowned Loves are seen 
 
 On Cythersea's day. 
 With antic sports, and blue-eyed pleasures, 
 Frisking light in frolic measures; 
 
n— 23. IDYLL XVIII. 99 
 
 then of a nature over sluggish, or art thou fond of slumber ? 
 6 Or wast thou drinking a draught too much, when thou didst 
 lay thyself on thy couch ? If thou didst want to sleep in season, 
 thou shouldest have done so by thyself, "^ and have suffered the 
 damsel to sport with her maidens beside her fond mother, 
 until morning prime ; since both the day after to-morrow, 
 and to-morrow, and from year to year, O Menelaus, she i 
 your bride. Blest husband, some lucky person ^ sneezed oi 
 thee, as thou wentest to Sparta, (whither the rest of the 
 nobles repaired,) that thou ^mightest accomplish thine object. 
 Alone among demigods thou wilt have Jupiter, son of Saturn, 
 as father-in-law. A daughter of Jove has gone beneath the 
 same coverlet with thee, being such an one as no other of 
 Greek women, that treads the earth. Surely a great thing 
 would she bear to thee, if she bare one like its mother. For 
 we are play-mates all, who had the same course to run, ^^when 
 we had anointed ourselves, like men, beside the banks of 
 
 Now pursuing, now retreating, 
 Now in circling troops they meet ; 
 To brisk notes in cadence beating 
 Glance their many twinkling feet. 
 Muse of the many twinkling feet. Byron, The Waltz. 
 Compare Horn, Odyss. viii. 265 ; Iliad xviii. 491 — 495. 
 
 * TTokvv TLv, understand oivov. Eurip. Cyclops 566, ^^aXfTrov toc' 
 fliTag, OGTiQ av Trivy ttoXvv. Theogn. v, 509, olvog ttivo^iivoq itqvKvq, 
 KaKOQ, {]v Se Tig avrov Uivy eTritTTa^svug, ov KUKog aXX' aya96g. 
 
 ^ Compare Catull. Carm. Nupt. LX., 20, 
 
 Hespere, qui coelo fertur crudelior ignis 1 
 Qui gnatam possis complexu avellere matris, 
 Complexu matris retinentem avellere gnatam, 
 Et juveni ardenti castam donare puellam. 
 fiaBvv op9pov. Cf. St. Luke Evang. c. xxiv. v. 1, 6p6pov (BaOsog. 
 
 * iTriTTTapei'. See Idyll, vii. 96, St/xix'^? A*£*' tpujrtg iTrsTrrapov. 
 Propert. II. iii. 23, 
 
 Num tibi nascenti primis, mea vita, diebus, 
 Aridus argutum sternuit omen amor. 
 Catull. xliii. 9. Comp. Xenoph. Anab. III. ii. 9, TrrdpvvTai Tig ayaObg, 
 homo boni ominis. So Callimach. H. in Lav. Pall. 124, dyaQai TTTtpvytg. 
 Propert. III. x. 11, Felicibus — pennis. Ovid. Fast, i, 513, Este bonis 
 avibus visi natoque mihique. "Virg. Eel. v. 65, Sis bonus o felixque tuis. 
 ' dvvffaio. Comp. Idyll v. 144, dvvadfiav tov dfivbv. With xXdivav 
 (two lines below) compare Sophocl. Trach. 539, 
 
 Kal vvv dv ovcrai iiifivofifv jxidg vrvh 
 xXaivrjg virayKd \i(Tfia. 
 " The river Eurotaa ran close by Sparta. For the hardy nurture and 
 
 ii 2 
 
100 THEOCRITUS. 23—37. 
 
 Eurotas, four times sixty damsels, a youthful band of maidens ; 
 of whom not one would he faultless, if haply she should have 
 been compared Avith Helen. ^^As the rising morn would 
 show out its beauteous face against the night, or as bright 
 spring ^^when winter has relaxed ; so also the golden Helen 
 was wont to shine out amongst us. ^^As a tall cypress hath 
 shot up, an ornament to a fertile field or garden, or a Thes- 
 salian steed to a chariot, thus also the rosy-complexioned Helen 
 is an ornament to Lacedaemon. ^"^ Neither does any damsel 
 weave such work in the wool-basket, nor cut off from the 
 long upright beams a closer warp in the curiously wrought 
 web, having woven it with the shuttle. ^^No, nor is any 
 damsel so skilled to strike the cithern, ^^ singing of Artemis, 
 and broad-chested Athene, as Helen, ^"in whose eyes are all 
 loves. 
 
 exercises of Spartan maidens, see Thirl w. Greece, vol. i. p. 327. Virg. ^n. 
 i. 315, Virginis os habitumque gerens et virginis arma 
 
 Spartanae. 
 
 '* 'Ab)Q avrkWoiaa. Comp. Solomon's Song vi. 10, "Who is she that 
 looketh forth like the morning 1" Job xli. 18. In this ])assage, Avhich is 
 unsound as it stands in MSS.,Ave have adopted the reading awe avTeXKoKr' 
 are kuXov e(pT]ve TrpocrioTrov ttot rdv vvkt r), which Kiessling seems to 
 favour. Chapman quotes an exquisite parallel from Campbell's Gertrude 
 of Wyoming. 
 
 A boy ******* 
 Led by his dusky guide like morning brought by night. 
 Wordsworth's suggestion is tvot tLv vv^ : Sicut pras te, nox, exoriens 
 Aurora prsenitet. As rising morn, compared with thee, O night, shines 
 out with bright countenance. And this seems extremely probable. 
 
 *' ■)(tilxCJvoQ avkvroQ. Solomon's Song ii. 11, " Lo, the winter is past, 
 the rain is over and gone." xti^aroQ oixo/uiivoLO, Meleag. ii. Truip^ 
 /icyaXa cit'. Wordsw. proposes Trte/p^ tXara cir, ut abies, &c. 
 
 '3 Catull. Epithalam. Pel. 89—90, 
 
 Quales Eurotse progignunt flumina myrtos, 
 Aurave distinctos educit verna colores. 
 OetTaaXbQ'iTTTroQ. These were the most approved steeds of Greece. St-e 
 Sophoc. Electr. 703. Solomon's Song i. 9, "I have compared thee, O my 
 love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots." 
 
 " For the full understanding of these verses, read Smith's Diet. Gr 
 Rom. Ant., art. Tela, p. 940— 943. 
 
 '^ ^n. vi. 647, Jamque eadem digitis, jam pectine pulsat eburno. 
 
 '® Laconian maidens, so skilful at weaving, might fitly hymn Minerva, 
 and, so hardy in nurture, sing the praise of the divine huntress, Artemis. 
 Ov. Fast. iii. 817, Pallade placata, lanam nioUire puellae Discant et plenas 
 exonerare colos. Comp. TibuU. II. i, 65. 
 
 1' Burns, " The kind love that's in her e'e." Meleager Epigr. Anthol. 
 xvi. Z/jj'o^iXat; o^^iaai KpvTTTontvoQ. Cf. Museeus, 64. 
 
38—57. IDYLL XVIII. 'ilQV>*' 
 
 " beauteous, graceful damsel, thou indeed art a matron 
 now ; but we in the morning shall proceed to the course and 
 the Howery meads, to cull chaplets breathing sweet incense, 
 oft remembering thee, O Helen, as suckling lambs yearning 
 for the teat of their mother. For thee first of any having 
 plaited a chaplet of ^^low-growing lotus, we will place it on 
 the shady plane tree ; and for thee first, taking moist oil from 
 silver flask, we will drop it beneath the shady plane tree, and 
 letters shall be ^^ graven on the bark, that any passer-by may 
 recite in Doric: "Reverence me, I am Helen's tree." — Hail, 
 thou bride ! Hail, bridegroom, happy in thy father-in-law. 
 May Latona indeed, Latona the nurse of youth, grant to you 
 the blessing of children ; and Venus, goddess Venus, that ye 
 may be loved alike one by other ; and Jove, Jove the son of 
 Saturn, lasting riches ; that they may descend from nobly-born 
 to nobly-born again. ^^ Sleep on, breathing into the bosoms 
 each of the other love and desire, and forget '^^not to rise to- 
 wards morn. We too will return at dawn, as soon as the 
 earliest 22 songster having reared his crested neck, shall have 
 
 18 The Lotos, a flower of the Nile, is found composing garlands in 
 Egyptian monuments. Ovid. Trist. III. i. 31, 
 
 Sic nova Dulichio lotos gustata palato, 
 Illo, quo nocuit, grata sapore fuit. 
 
 19 Letters graven.] Propert. I. xviii. 22, Scribitur et vestris Cynthia 
 corticibus. Virg. Eel. x. 53, 
 
 Tenerisque meos incidere amores 
 Corticibus : crescent illae : crescetis amores. 
 Compare Idyll xxiii. 46.— Pope Past. III. 66, 67, 
 
 Oft on the rind I carved her amorous vows, 
 While she with garlands hung the bending boughs. 
 
 20 Catull. Ixii. 331, 332, 
 
 Languidulosque paret tecum conjungere somnos 
 
 Levia substernens robusto brachia collo. 
 Compare Solomon's Song viii. 3, 4, " His left hand should be under my 
 head, and his right hand should embrace me. I charge you, O daughters 
 of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love until he please." 
 
 21 Idyll xxiv. 7, vttvoq iykgainoq. 
 
 '2 6 Trparog aoi^bq. Cf. Idyll xxiv. 63, " The feather'd songster chan- 
 ticleer." Prudentius, Hymn Matutin. Daniels' Thesaurus Hymnologicus 
 i. 119, 
 
 Ales diei nuntius 
 
 Lucem propinquam preecinit. 
 St. Ambrose calls the cock " praeco diei," &c. Ovid, Jam dederat cantm 
 iucis prgenuncius ales. 
 
'.'102/: >;.' '. .' • ; ' THi-^OCKITUS. 1—8. 
 
 crowed from his roost, ^^ Hymen, O Hjmenseus, roayest thou 
 joy over these nuptials. 
 
 IDYLL XIX. 
 
 THE STEALER OF HONEY-COMBS. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This little poem seems to have been wrought out of the fortieth ode of 
 Anacreon, which has been rendered into English by our freshly lost 
 Thomas Moore ; to which however it is clearly inferior in the merit of 
 originality and management of subject. Valkenaer thinks it a poem 
 of Bion ; but Stobgeus (c. 63) quotes the lines as the work of Theo- 
 critus. Meleager (Epigr. eviii. Antholog. Jacobs) has taken the same 
 subject for his muse. 
 / ' 
 
 ' The naughty bee once stung the pilferer Eros, as he was 
 plundering a comb from the hives, and pierced all the tips of 
 his fingers ; and he began to lament and blow his hand ; and 
 struck the earth, and leaped aloft. Then showed he his pain 
 to Aphrodite, and began to complain 'that at any rate the bee 
 is a little creature, and yet what great wounds it inflicts ! ' 
 And his mother smiling said — How then ? are you not a crea- 
 ture resembling the bees ? Since little though you be, yet the 
 \ wounds you inflict, how great are they ! 
 
 23 Cf. CatuU. Ix., Hymen o Hymeriae, Hymen ades, o Hymenaee. 
 Milton P. L. IV. " Heavenly quires the hymenaean sung." Chapman 
 quotes at length a parallel from the same, lib. viii. 
 
 ' H, Yoss observes that /tlXto-cra is said collectively, not "a bee," but 
 •* the bee," hence rpaufxara, not Tpavf.ia, below at line 6. 
 
 2 ^at tvtOoq [xev erjg — Eo quod tantulus quum sis, quanta facis vulnera. 
 The imperf. irjg, observes Schaefer, has the force of a present, as at Idyll v. 
 79, ij (TTcj/jLyXog tjcrOaKofidra. Anacr. xxix. 40, tA d' fjv dfisivu). Bion 
 XT. 4, Ktjv fioi trvQiaSiv, Mup<ra»j' ^iXov. 
 
IDYLL XX. 
 
 THE HERDSMAN. ' 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The poet in this Idyll introduces a rustic complaining of the scorn and 
 contempt of a city maiden in rejecting his addresses. Having de- 
 clared the cause of this scorn, he shows how undeserving he is of it, 
 as being neither ugly nor a man of the lowest condition, seeing that 
 gods and goddesses had sought out of his rank of life, objects of love. 
 Heinsius holds this to be a poem of Moschus, but though Valkenaer 
 inclines to the same opinion, the mass of testimony ascribes it to 
 Theocritus. 
 
 EuNiCA laughed at me when I wished sweetly to kiss her, 
 and, teasing me, said thus:^ 'Away with you from me! 
 Clown as you are, do you want to kiss me, wretch ? I have 
 not learned to kiss bumpkins, ^but to press city lips. Don't 
 you at any rate kiss my fair mouth, no, not in your dreams. 
 What a look you have ! what a speech ! ^how rudely you toy ! 
 How mincingly you talk ! what wheedling words you utter ! 
 How '* smooth is the beard you have ! what sweet hair ! ^ Nay^ 
 your lips in truth are diseased, and your hands are black, and 
 you smell foully. Away from me, lest you contaminate me !' 
 
 Speaking thus, ^ she spat thrice on her breast, and ' eyed 
 
 ^ IjOjof. ^olic for £tp£, (says Graevius at Callim. H. in Del. 130,) as 
 <pGspptiv for (pQfipeiv. Latin. Abin' in malamrem. Terent, Andria II. i. 
 17. Horn. Iliad viii, 164, tppe, kak/) yXrjvrj. II. xxii. 498, tpp' ovrioQ. 
 
 ^ dXijSeiv xfi^ea- Labra suaviter premere. Comp. Idyll xii. 32 ; 
 Bion i. 44. 
 
 ^ dypia Traiahig. Mosch. i. 11, and see the notes of this transl. on that 
 passage. 
 
 ♦ Virg. Eel. viii. 34, Hirsutumque supercilium promissaque barba. — 
 aSka x'at^a*'. Simple adjectives in vg are often common in gender. 
 Comp. Matth. Gr. Gr. § 119, b. 4. OtiXyQ Ispcrjj, Odyss. v. 467. Of 
 course the lines 6 — 8 are ironical. 
 
 ^ Aristoph. Nub. 50, u^wv rpwyof, rpaaiag, kpicjv. A strong description 
 of a rustic. 
 
 * rplg sig tov tirrvaB Kokirov. Compare ii. 62 ; Theocr. vi. 39 ; Soph. 
 Antig. 653. 
 
 ' Comp. Virg. JEn. iv. 363, 364, 
 
 Hue illuc volvens oculos, totumc^Q pererrat 
 Luminibus tacitis. 
 
104 THEOCRITUS. 13—27. 
 
 me all over from my head to my two feet, making mouths at 
 me with her lips, and looking at me askance. ^ And she played 
 the woman with much aifectation as to her figure, and laughed 
 at me with a mocking and proud kind of laugh. But ^quickly 
 my blood boiled up, and I became purple in complexion by 
 reason of my chagrin, as a rose is with dew. And she indeed 
 left me and went away. But I bear wrath at my heart, 
 because a worthless mistress has ridiculed me, pleasing though 
 I am. 
 
 Shepherds, tell me the truth ; *am I not beautiful?' ^^Has 
 one of the gods, I wonder, made me on a sudden another 
 mortal ? ^^For formerly a pleasing kind of beauty was bloom- 
 ing upon me, as ivy on the trunk, and used to shade my chin ; 
 and my locks poured, like parsley, around my temples, and 
 my white forehead was wont to shine over dark eye-brows ; 
 my eyes were far more ^^ bright than those of blue- eyed 
 Athene ; ^^ my mouth more sweet even than cream cheese ; 
 and ^"^from my lips flowed a voice more pleasant than from a 
 
 Hor. Epist. II. ii. 4, Hie et 
 
 Candidas, et talos a vertice pulcher ad imos 
 Fiet. 
 8 Compare Bion xv. 18, where the word is used of Achilles in woman's 
 apparel with Deidamia, Kal yap laov Trjvaig BrfKvvtro. ataapbg. Comp* 
 Idyll vii. 19. Literally, " of parted lips," 
 » Compare Callimach. Bath of Pallas, 27, 
 
 Q Kutpai, TO 8' tptvQoQ aveSpa^e, irpujiov o'iav 
 "H fwSov ri oifiSag kokkoq t^ei xpotav. 
 Cf. Bion i. 35 ; Moschus iii, 5. 
 
 ^* Propert. I. xii. 11, Non sum ego qui fueram. Horat. Od. IV. i, 
 3, 4, Non sum qualis eram, &c. The poet may allude to Homer ; 
 Odyss. xiii. 429. 
 i» Odyss. xi. 318, 
 
 irplv ar(f>u)'iu viro KpoTdcf>OL<rLv lovXovs 
 Avdrjaai, nrvKaaraL te yivvv ivavQti Xa^vri. 
 Virg. ^n. viii, 160, Turn mihi prima genas vestibat flore Juventa, See 
 too Idyll XV. 85. 
 
 ^^ XapoTTtJropa. Anacreon Od. xxviii. opposes Minerva's bright blue 
 eye to the languishing blue of that of Venus, xapoirog seems originally 
 to have meant a bright fierce-looking eye, without any defined notion of 
 colour. It came to mean such as have a grayish or light blue lustre, 
 darker than, but not differing much from, yXavKoq, and indeed used here 
 with it. Tacitus calls the eyes of the Germans, "truces etcoerulei oculi." 
 See Liddell and Scott, Lexicon. 
 
 '^ Ov. Met. xiii. 795, Mollior et cycni plumis et lacte coacto. 
 
 " Compare Iliad i. 249, tov kui airb yXwacriiQ fxkXiTog yXvKitov pkew 
 
2S— 43. IDTLL XX. 105 
 
 honey-comb. And sweet is my melody, both if I M^arble to the 
 shepherd's pipe, and if I sing to the flute, or the reed, or the 
 '•'' flageolet. And all the women along the mountains say that I 
 am handsome, and all of them love me ; but the city miss has 
 not kissed me, but has run past me, because I am a rustic ; 
 ^^and she is not yet aware that beauteous Bacchus used to 
 drive the calf in the valleys. Neither did she know that 
 Venus maddened after a herdsman, and tended flocks with 
 him on the Phrygian mountains.^'^ Adonis, himself, she kissed 
 in the woods, and in the woods she lamented. ^* And who 
 was Endymion? Was he not a herdsman? Yes, and him 
 Selene kissed, as he fed his herds ; and coming from Olympus 
 she went up to the Latmian glade, and slept beside the lad. 
 ^^Thou too, Rhea, bewailest thy herdsman. And hast not 
 even thou, O son of Saturn, wandered ^°m the form of a 
 bird through love of a herd-tending boy. 
 
 But Eunica alone has not kissed the herdsman, Eunica who 
 is superior no doubt to Cybele, and Venus, and to Selene. 
 
 av^rf. Cantic, or Song of Solomon, iv. 11, " Thy lips, O my spouse, drop 
 as the honeycomb : honey and milk are under thy tongue." 
 
 '^ irXayiavXoQ. Hence flageolet, *• quasi dicas plagiaulet." ^Emil. Port. 
 Lex. Doric. Comp. Bion iii, 7. 
 
 16 Virg. Eel. x. 18, Et formosus oves ad flumina pavit Adonis, ii. 60, 
 Quern fugis, ah demens! habitarunt di quoque silvas. Pope II. Past. 
 59 — 62, See what delights in silvan scenes appear, 
 
 Descending gods have found Elysium here. 
 In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray 'd, 
 And chaste Diana haunts the forest glade. 
 »7 Ovid Trist. ii. 299, 
 
 In Venere Anchises, in Luna Latmius heros, 
 In Cerere Jasion qui referatur erit. 
 Compare Bion's Idyll on this subject. 
 
 >* Endymion. Cf. Idyll iii. 49, A shepherd, by whose side, as he slept at 
 Mt. Latmus in Caria, Selene, kissing him, lay. See Smith's Diet. Gr. R. 
 Biogr. ii. 16, B. 'iva. One MS. has aiia, which Wordsworth approves. 
 Catull. Com. Berenices, v. 5, 
 
 Ut Triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans 
 Dulcis amor gj'ro devocet aerio. 
 Compare, Latmius Endymion non est tibi, Luna, rubori. Ovid. Ant. Am. 
 iii. 85. 
 
 '^ Atys, a shepherd of Celenae in Phrygia, beloved by Rhea or Cybele. 
 
 Cf. Smith Diet. ii. 417, B. See Ovid Fast. iv. 221—244. And see tne 
 
 poem of Catullus, bearing the name of Atys, and Propert. II. xxiii. 20, 
 
 20 For the legend of Ganymede see Smith Diet. G. R. B. ii. 230, and 
 
 Virg. ^n. V. 253 ; Ov. Met. x, 255 ; Horat. iv. 4. 
 
106 THEOCRITUS. 44, 45. 
 
 Love no longer even thou, ^I'would-be Venus,* thy sweet one 
 either in the city or on the mountain, but sleep alone all night 
 long. 
 
 IDYLL XXL 
 
 THE FISHERMEN. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Idyll contains a conversation of two fishermen by night. Our poet 
 addressing one Diophantus with a few observations on the force of 
 poverty in rousing men to active pursuits, describes the scene of this 
 colloquy, which is laid in a scantily furnished sea-side hut. One of 
 the fishermen calls upon the other to unriddle him the dream which 
 he has dreamed. It was this: that he had in pursuit of his calling 
 caught a golden fish, and thereupon determined with an oath to es- 
 chew the trade for the future. Now that the golden hope and his 
 dream have proved alike unreal, he fears lest he ought to consider his 
 oath binding. His comrade bids him be of good cheer, telling him 
 that his oath is clearly no more real than his dream was. This is the 
 only Idyll descriptive of fishermen's life that has come down to us ; 
 and it has been suggested, with much reason, that in it Theocritus 
 imitated the 9vvvo9r]pa or AXuvg of Sophron. 
 
 ASPHALION AND A COMRADE. 
 
 ^ Poverty, O Diophantus, alone arouses the arts : she is 
 the teacher of labour ; for hard cares do not permit labouring 
 men even to sleep. And even if a man shall have tasted 
 sleep 2 for a little space in the night, solicitudes on a sudden 
 
 21 i« Would-be Venus." It seems clear that the poet makes his rustic 
 taunt Eunica in these last words, and the suggestion of Wordsworth, top 
 'Apia, "thy Mars," (alluding to Venus' amour with that God,) will give 
 point to an otherwise obscure passage. Theocritus, in the 27th Idyll, in 
 like manner makes a shepherd call himself "Paris," and address his 
 sweetheart as " Helen." 
 
 ' Compare Virg. Georg. i. 145, 146, 
 
 Turn variae venere artes : labor omnia vincit 
 Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas. 
 Compare Aristoph. Plut. 552 — 554. Persius Prologus 10, Magister artis, 
 ingenique largitor venter. 
 
 * For tTTixpavayai, Wordsworth suggests tTna^kaaijai — shall have dis- 
 
6—16. IDYLL XXI. 107 
 
 present themselves and disturb him. Two old men, ^hunters 
 of the finny tribe, were reclining together, having strewed for 
 themselves dry sea-weed in their wattled cabin, and resting 
 themselves against its wall of leaves ; and near them were 
 lying the implements of their handicraft, the wicker baskets, 
 the rods, the hooks, and ^the gum cistus, covered by sea-weed, 
 fishing lines, and weels, and bow-nets of rushes, cords, and 
 ^two oars, and an old boat on its rollers. Beneath their 
 heads was a scanty cloak of mat-work, garments, and felt 
 caps. This was to the fishermen their whole ^ stock of im- 
 plements, this their wealth. And neither had an earthen 
 pot, or a 'measure; all, all seemed superfluous to them; 
 ^poverty was a friend to their fishing trade. And no neigh- 
 
 sipated (his cares), comparing Horat. Od. II. xi. 17, Dissipat Evius curias 
 edaces. oKiyov is used here adverbially — vvktcq, the genitive of the part of 
 time. Cf. Idyll xxiii. 32, aXK' bXiyov Zy- Horn. Odyss. xix. 515, &c., 
 AifTap lirr)v vv^ 2X6^7, eXtictl te koIto^ awavTU^ 
 YLzifxai kvl XiKTpw, irvKival Si jjloi a/jicp' aSivov Krjp 
 'O^tlai fJLEktdtovat o8vpofxivr}V kpiQov<JLV. 
 Juvenal xiii. 217, Nocte brevem si forti indulsit cura soporem. 
 ' ixOvog — for ix&vwv. See Idyll xvi. 72. Mosch. v. 10. 
 
 * XrjSavov was the " gum cistus," which is found on the leaves of X^^ov, 
 an oriental shrub. Some such herbs were used as baits in fishing, as w^e 
 learn from Oppian Halieut. Various readings have been suggested to 
 simplify the passage. The best is Briggs's dtXfJTa for re XrjSa ; as 
 ^fXf art becomes otXiJn. Heysch. It will thus be simply ** baits." Words- 
 worth prefers to erase the comma at rayKiorpn, and joining ra <pvKi6ev 
 TO. with it ; and for re XfiSa, to read to. TrrjSa, the oars — a word used by 
 Homer, Odyss. vii. 328, and elsewhere. Then we should construe " the 
 hooks covered with sea- weed, awe? the oars." But see Wordsworth's note. 
 
 * Kojdg re, is the common reading, but obviously unsound. The fisher- 
 men had scanty bed-clothes : if they had had skins or fleeces, they would 
 not let them lie among their implements. The best suggestion seems 
 Kiessling's jcwTra re, a pair of oars. But if so, Wordsworth's conjecture 
 in the last note is overthrown. J. Wordsworth, however, thinks that 
 Kwac is the true reading, and that it means the skin used as a " seat cover," 
 or " coverlet," as the case might be, of Greek sailors, mentioned by 
 Thirlwall, Greece, vol. iii. 158, note. 
 
 ^ TTovoQ. There is no need here to substitute -Tropog, with Schsefer 
 and Brunck. ttovoq here signifies " id quo labor fit," as vs. 9, x^polv 
 a9Xr}fiaTa — 
 
 ^ IV must be read here — i. e. a measure whose half was called rjfiivut 
 Eustath., uTravra Trepicrcd. Wordsworth suggests ov kXivuv, not a bed. 
 
 * Read Travr k^oKU ty]voiq. aypag irevia a(piv iraipa. Sanctamand. 
 This is the slightest alteration, though Wordsworth's suggestion is in- 
 genious, who reads — Travr' i^o/cei ttjj'oiq a ypag rrkpi, a <Tf' ay' (Taipovg. 
 
108 THEOCRITUS. 17—30 
 
 bour had they ^near ; but on all sides the sea would gently 
 float up even to ^^ the narrow cabin. Not yet was Selene's 
 car accomplishing the mid-way of her course, when their 
 wonted toil began to wake the fishermen, and having thrust 
 away slumber from their eyelids, they proceeded to rouse a 
 song in their minds. 
 
 Asph. They were all liars, friend, as many as used to say 
 that the summer nights shorten, when Jove draws out the 
 days to a great length. Already have I seen a myriad dreams, 
 nor is it yet dawn. Have I forgotten myself ? What is the 
 matter ? ^^ Are the nights then lagging ? 
 
 Com. Asphalion, are you blaming the fair summer ? For it 
 is not the season which has of its own accord over-stepped 
 its due course, but your cares, disturbing your sleep, make the 
 night long to you. 
 
 Asph. Hast ever learnt, I wonder, to interpret dreams ; 
 for I have seen a good one. I would not have you be with- 
 out a share in my vision ; be partner of all my dreams, even 
 as you are of my spoils. For you will not be surpassed in 
 understanding ; ^^ he is the best diviner of dreams with whom 
 understanding is the teacher. Besides there is leisure too ; 
 for what can a man do as he lies on a bed of leaves close by 
 the waves, '^and sleeps uncomfortably on prickly shrubs, 
 
 Omnia iis videbantur supervacanea prae piscatione et praed^, quae eos fecit 
 socios. 
 
 » i. e. between the cabin and the sea. 
 
 1" 9\i(3oix£vav, pressed for room. Theoc. xx. 4, 6Xi(3eiv xfiXfa, to 
 press the lips. Musaeus 114, rjpkjxa fiev OXi^mv podoeiSea doKTvXa 
 KovprjQ. For TravTCL, (or Trivia, which is the reading of MSS.,) Words- 
 worth would read ttvoi^ Se, connecting it with QXi^ojXivav, which would 
 then signify *' fractam vento." 
 
 »' Aristoph. Nub. 2, 3, 
 
 TO yjpriixa Ttav vuiCTajj/ oarov ; 
 &TripavTov. ovdiirod' Vfitpa jEVJicrtTai. 
 
 " Scaliger reads og yap av siKa^y — which seems borne out by the fol- 
 lowing quotations. Cic. de Divin. ii. 5, Qui bene conjiciet vatem 
 perhibebo optimum. Eurip. apud Plutarch, fiavrig 5' dpi(TTog octtiq 
 eiKoXii KdXu)g. Better perhaps is Wordsworth's rovvap "iv tiKa^yg. 
 
 '^ afffxevoQ iv pdfjivq). Such is the common reading, which yields a 
 tolerable sense, viz. that Asphalion cannot comfortably, without fear, 
 sleep on thorns, in a rough and dangerous place. If we adopt any 
 various reading, firjds Ka9svd<x)v dXXvxvog iv pdyp.(^, i. e. " without a light, 
 on the sea's edge," is best. This reading has the merit of introducing the 
 words following less abruptly. 
 
«fe— 63. IDYLL XXI. 109 
 
 "and the light is in the Prytaneum, not here, ^^for they say 
 that that is ever catching spoil. 
 
 Com. Tell me, pray, the vision of the night, and say and 
 signify all to me your comrade. 
 
 Aspli. ^^At evening, when I fell asleep over my sea-faring 
 labours, (I was not indeed full of meat; for dining ^^^t the 
 proper time, if you recollect, we were sparing of our stomachs,) 
 1 fancied I saw myself on a rock, busy, and I was sitting and 
 watching for fish, and throwing the sly bait hanging from the 
 rod. And one of the i^t fellows made a bite ; (for even in sleep 
 every dog scents loaves, and so do I a fish ;) and it indeed 
 clung to the hook, and the blood began to flow, and I was getting 
 the rod bent by his movement. So stretching out both my 
 hands, I found a struggle about the creature, how I should catch 
 a large fish with hooks rather small for him. ^^ Then, remind- 
 ing him of his wound, 'will you prick me then,' said I : 'Nay, 
 rather you shall be pierced sorely;' and I extended my rod, 
 while he did not escape it. I seemed to have accomplished 
 my labour, I drew ashore a golden fish, altogether wrapt up 
 in the gold. But fear possessed me, lest haply it should be a 
 
 '■•t *^ To this very difficult pas<;age the only light which seems clear, is 
 the explanation of Strothius. The comrade says, (34 — 37,) Unfold your 
 dream, since we have leisure : we cannot sleep, so comfortless is our 
 couch, and we cannot work because 'tis dark. We have not the same 
 means of dispelling darkness as the rich, or public halls, which can keep 
 their lamps {\vxvia) burning all night ; nor is our aypa, our gain from 
 our craft, such as to enable us to get a light for the dark nights. When 
 it is said the light is in the Prytaneum, (the common hall of Athens, 
 Syracuse, and other large towns,) it is implied that it is " not in thefisher- 
 iVMu's hut" by the same figure as we say " wine is the rich man's drink," 
 i. e. "not for the poor man." And so in the New Testament, St. Matt. 
 xi. 8, " Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king's houses," i. e. 
 you must not look for them in the desert. The 37th verse implies that 
 public halls can always afford to be lit up. These fishermen, says Chap- 
 man, were honest radicals. 
 
 '® SeiXivbv, adverbially. Compare Idyll i. 15; xiii. 69; xxiv. 11. 
 
 ^^ tv wp^. Pierson's suggestion, aojpiy intempestiv^, yields a better 
 sense. For ^ffiaioTa, two lines below, Wordsworth reads fSejSawra; and 
 at £K KoXdfiwv, in the line below, compare Ovid Met. xiii. 923, Nunc in 
 mole sedens moderabar arundine limum. 
 
 1^ For the obscure reading of the books, which has been literally 
 Englished in the text, but yields no adequate sense, Kiessling, after 
 reviewing many other suggestions, proposes el6' vTrofxifivdaKwv ToJ rpio' 
 fiaroQ ripsfia t^v^a, Kai vv^ag ex^^^^'^^ i^^' ov (pevyovroQ ireiva — I gently 
 pricked him, and when I had done so, relaxed my hold on the rod, &c. 
 
110 THEOCRITUS. 54—67. 
 
 fish beloved by Neptune, or perhaps a treasure of blue-eyed 
 Amphitrite. Then softly I disengaged him from the hook, 
 lest ever the hooks should retain the gold from his mouth. 
 ^9 And the fish indeed I hauled ashore with ropes, and I swore 
 ,that never in future would I set foot upon the sea, but abide 
 on land and reign over the gold. This was even what awoke 
 me : but do you, my friend, resolve my mind henceforward, 
 for I am alarmed at the oath which I have sworn. 
 
 Com. Why then fear it not ! you have not sworn ; for 
 neither did you find, as you saw, a fish of gold. But visions 
 resemble falsehoods. ^^ And if in reality, and not in sleep, you 
 shall search these spots, the hope of your dreams requires a 
 fish of flesh, lest you should die by famine, though amid 
 dreams of gold. 
 
 IDYLL XXII. 
 
 THE DIOSCURI. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This hymn to the Dioscuri is divided into two parts — the first (27 — 134) 
 in praise of Pollux, the second of Castor, After a proem (1 — 26) 
 sounding their common praises, a most renowned contest between 
 Pollux and Amycus is described. When the Argonauts touched at the 
 
 ^® Wordsworth, seeing the absurdity of the text, which makes the fisher- 
 man haul ashore a fish, after he has disengaged the hook from the mouth, 
 suggests — Koi TOTt \iiv Kiary KareKXa^a tov ivr' dpprjTov. Et tunc ego 
 area eum conclusi tanquam sacrum. This reading he supports by Horat. 
 Sat. I. i. 67, and y. 71; as well as by Ovid Met. ii. 557, clauserat 
 Acteeo texta de vimine cista. 
 
 ** Here Bindemann suggests 
 
 si (5' v-Trap, ov Kvuxraoiv tv tu y^copia Taura /naTEvaEi^ 
 
 eXiridaTcou vttvmu, X^aTtt. k. t. \. 
 If you in reality, and not in sleep, shall seek in these places the hope 
 raised in your dreams, seek then, &c. A sense which, it will be allowed, 
 is clearer than that of the text. Wordsworth reads kX-KiQ toiv uttvwv, 
 placing a colon at vttvcjv, and then Zdrei, k. t. \., i. e. There is hope in 
 your dreams : seek the fish of flesh. In the next line he reads, with 
 Scaliger, toTq for rot ; the article for the possessive pronoun " tuis," 
 'Lest you die in famine, and your golden dreams." 
 
X— 12. IDYLL XXII. Ill 
 
 shores of the Bebrycians, Pollux and Castor, going in quest of water, 
 find in the region, which abounds in springs, one Amycus of great 
 bodily strength ; who gives out to them that they shall then only 
 draw water, when they t;un conquer him in boxing. Terms are 
 accepted, the Argonauts and Bebrycians convened, and in the conflict 
 Pollux comes off victorious, although there was reason to fear that his 
 adversary's vast strength might overwhelm him. In the remainder of 
 the Hymn is commemorated Castor's fight with Lynceus. The cir- 
 cumstances of which were these. When the Dioscuri had carried off 
 the daughters of Leucippus, Idas and Lynceus, the sons of Aphareus, 
 their betrothed lovers, overtake the ravishers at the tomb of Aphareus. 
 Then Lynceus having in vain tried to persuade the Dioscuri to give 
 back the maidens, challenges Castor to single combat. Castor accepts 
 the challenge, and they fight first with spears, and then with swords, 
 till Lynceus is wounded, and pierced through at his father's tomb, to 
 which he had fled. Idas, grieved at the loss of his brother, seizes a 
 fragment of the tomb to hurl at Castor, but is himself overthrown in 
 the act by a thunderbolt from Jupiter. 
 
 ^We celebrate the two sons of Leda and ^gis-bearing 
 Jove, ^ Castor and Pollux, formidable to contend in boxing, 
 when he has bound his knuckles over with thongs of ox-hide. 
 We celebrate both twice, and the third time, the male offspring 
 of the 3 daughter of Thestius, twin Lacedasmonian brothers, 
 ^preservers of men when already at the utmost extremity, 
 and of horses thrown into confusion in the bloody rout, and 
 of ships ^ which, running counter to setting and rising stars of 
 heaven, have chanced upon rough gales. For these having 
 raised a huge wave at the stern of them, or even at the prow, 
 or wheresoever each may choose, are wont to dash it into the 
 
 * For the conflict of Pollux with Amycus, cf. ApoUon. Rhod. lib. ii., 
 and Valerius Flaccus iv. Argonaut. 99 — 334. 
 
 ^ Horn. Odyss. xi. 299, KaTropa 0' 'nnroSafiov, Kai irv^ dyaOov 
 JloXvSevKea. Horat. I. xii. 25, 26. Puerosque Ledee, Hunc equis, ilium 
 superare pugnis nobilem. Virg. Mn. v. 405, Tantorum ingentia septem 
 Terga boum plumbo insuto ferroque rigebant. 
 
 ^ l^ovpr]Q QectTidSog, i. e. Leda. Just as in Idyll xv. 110, a BspevtKsia 
 BvycLTTjp. Comp. Hom. II. iv. 367. Her female oflspring is commemorated 
 in Euripid. Iph. Aul. 49. 
 
 * Horat. Od. I. iii. 2, Sic fratres Helenae, lucida sidera. — tTri ^vpov 
 tlvai. Cf. Hom. II. x. 173; Herodot. vi. 11; Sophocl. Antig. 1009. 
 
 ^ Bia^6/i6vai — struggling against. Herodot. ix. 41 ; Hom. II. xi. 
 658, IjSirycraro Traidag. Sophoc. Fragm. ap. Stobaeum, irdvTOJV dpiffTov 
 fir} Pidi^eaOat Otovg. Compare St. Matt. xi. 12, r) fSaaiXeia tuiv ovpavuiv 
 (Sid^trai. Chapman Englishes it "star-defying;" setting at a wrong 
 season of the year. The fate of such is given in the poet's 9th Epigram, 
 infra, vs. 5, 6. 
 
112 THEOCRITUS. 12—27. 
 
 hold, and then break up both the sides of the ship, whilst all 
 the tackle hangs with the sail, broken off hap-hazard ; and 
 there ^ is a vast rain from the sky, as night steals on, and the 
 broad sea murmurs, "^ struck by the blasts, and by the inces- 
 sant hail. ^ Yet, notwithstanding, ye, on your part, draw out 
 even from the depths ships with sailors and 2i)^.,just as they 
 think they are going to perish. Then quickly cease the winds 
 and there is a clear calm over the sea, and the clouds flee 
 away in different directions ; and the Bears shine out again, 
 and in the midst of the ^'asses' a dusky crib, indicating '^that 
 all the weather for sailing is clear and fine. Oh ! both of 
 you, helpers to mortals, oh both of you, friends, as horsemen, 
 harpers, wrestlers, minstrels — Shall I begin to sing of Castor 
 or Pollux first ? Celebrating both, I will sing of Pollux first. 
 Now the ship Argo, I ween, having cleared ^^the rocks 
 
 « Mn. V. 10, 11, 
 
 OUi caeruleus supra caput astitit imber 
 Noctem hyememque ferens. 
 Hom. II. ii. 413, jcal tTrt Kve(pag kXOeXv. We have here translated the 
 emendation of Kiessling, ttptpTroiaag. 
 ^ See Virg. Mn. ix. 669, 670, 
 
 Quam muUa, grandine nimbi 
 In vada praecipitant ; cum Jupiter humidus Austria 
 Torquet aquosam hyemem, et coelo cava nubila rumpit. 
 Two lines below for avToiaivvavTaiaiv, compare Eurip. Kippol. 1188, 
 avToicriv apfivXaicrtv, and Bp. Monk's note thereon. Matth. Gr. Gr. ^ 
 405, Obs. 3. 
 
 * Cf, Horat. Od. I. xii. 25, Quorum simul alba nautis Stella refulsit, 
 &c., and Od. I. xiv. 10, Non di, quos iterum pressa voces malo : add to 
 these Od. IV. viii. 33, 
 
 Clarum Tyndaridtfi sidus ab infimis 
 Quassas eripiunt aequoribus rates. 
 ' Cf, Aratus 905, oviov <parvt], two stars in the breast of the crab, of 
 which Pliny, H. N. xviii. 35, says, Sunt in signo Cancri duaB stellae parvae. 
 Aselli appellatfie, exiguum inter illas spatium obtinente nubecula, quam 
 Prsesepia appellant, r) 'ApKTog was the Great Bear, or Charles's Wain ; ai 
 dpKTOi, the Greater and Lesser Bear. Cic, N. D. ii. 41 ; Virg. Georg. i. 2-15 ; 
 .^n. vi. 16. 
 
 •** TO. Trpbg ttXoov ivdia. ^n. iii. 518, Postquam cuncta videt calo 
 constare sereno. 
 
 '' avviovrrag, the Cyanean rocks. See Idyll xiii. 22 ; Ovid Trist. I. x. 
 34, Transeat instabiles strenua Cyaneas. Pliny iv, B. 27 ; Ovid Keroid. 
 Ep. xii. 121, Complexos utinam Symplegades elisissent. Theocritus differs 
 from ApoUon. Rhod. II. 565, respecting the site of the Bebrycians, the 
 latter making it on this side the Bosporus in Propontis, while Theoc- 
 
27—50. IDYLL xxn. 113 
 
 that meet in one, and the mischievous mouth of snowy Pontus, 
 arrived at the country of the Bebrycians, carrying the dear 
 children of the gods ; here upon many heroes were descending 
 by one ladder from both the sides of Jason's ship. And 
 having landed on the low beach and ^^ sheltered shore they 
 were strewing couches, and ^^ rubbing sticks to and fro in their 
 hands. But Castor, manager of steeds, and the dark complex- 
 ioned Pollux, were both keeping aloof, having strayed from their 
 comrades. (And spying on a mountain ^^ a wild wood of vast 
 size, they found under a smooth cliff an ever-flowing spring, 
 filled with pure w^ater, and the pebbles beneath seemed like 
 crystal or silver, from the depths; and near the spot there 
 had grown tall pines, and poplars, and plane trees, and cy- 
 presses with leafy tops, ^^and fragrant flowers, pleasant work 
 for hairy bees, flowers as many as, when spring is ending, 
 sprout up along the meadows. 
 
 And here a man of overwhelming size would sit and take 
 the air, terrible to look upon, ^^ having his ears bruised with 
 hard thumps, ^^and his huge chest and broad back were 
 arched and rounded with iron flesh, like a forged colossus. 
 And on his strong arms the muscles stood out at the surface 
 of the shoulder, like ^^ round stones which the river torrent 
 
 ritus places it beyond the Bosporus, on the shore of Bithynia, which the 
 Pontus washes. 
 
 ^- vTTTjvenov, sheltered from the wind. Soph, Antig. 411, KaOfjfitO' 
 UKptov tKTrdywv vTzrjvenoi, Xen. ^c. xviii. 7. ^n. iii. 223, Turn littore 
 curve exstruimusque toros. 
 
 '3 Pieces of wood for striking a light. See Horn, Hymn to Merc. 111. 
 Vid. ApoUon. Rhod. i. 1184. Add Sophocl, Philoct. 36, kuI TrvptV ofiov 
 TaSe. 
 
 » Virg. ^n. i. 165—167, 
 
 Desuper horrentique atrum nemus imminet uqihr^ : 
 Intus aquee dulces vivoquc sedilia saxo. 
 Wordsworth compares very aptly some beautiful lines of Ausonius in his 
 Mosella, 60—75. 
 
 '* Compare Idyll vii. 80. 
 
 16 iEn. iii. 621, Nee visu facilis, nee dictu affabilis ulli. Hard thumps, 
 i. e. those of hands covered with the caestus, which some say Amycus in- 
 troduced. It is described by Virgil JEn, v. 405, Terga bourn plumbo 
 insuto, ferroque rigebant. Ibid, 478, Duros libravit csestus 436, duro 
 crepitant sub vulnere malee. 
 
 '' Comp. Yal. Flacc. Argon, iv. 202, &c., At procul e silvis, &c. 
 
 *^ oXoirpoxoi, rolling stones thrown from a wall, on besiegers. Hcrodot. 
 viii. 52. oXooirpoxog, occurs 11. xiii. 137, which place Virgil has copied, 
 ^n. xii. 684. 
 
 I 
 
114 THEOCRITUS. 50—67 
 
 has polished by rolling in its vast eddies ; ^^but over his back 
 and neck was hung a lion's skin, fastened on by the paws. 
 And him the prize man Pollux first bespoke. 
 
 Poll. Save you, stranger, whoever you are. Who are the 
 mortals to whom this country belongs ? 
 
 Amyc. How can I be ^^safe, that is, when I see men, whom 
 I have never seen ? 
 
 Poll. Be of good cheer ! deem that you see neither unjust 
 men, nor unjust men's sons. 
 
 Amyc. I am of good cheer ! And not from you is it meet 
 that I should be taught this. 
 
 Poll. You are savage, in every thing malignant and over- 
 bearing. 
 
 Amyc. I am such as you see me : yes, and I am not setting 
 foot on your country. 
 
 Poll. Come — and return home again, ay, having met with 
 hospitable treatment. 
 
 Amyc. Do not either you entertain me, and my entertain- 
 ment is not in readiness. 
 
 Poll. My good sir, would not you at any rate allow us even 
 to drink of this water ? 
 
 Amyc. You shall learn, when thirst ^i shall dry your re- 
 laxed lips. 
 
 Poll. Is it silver, or what is the pay, will you tell us, by 
 which we might persuade you ? 
 
 Amyc. 2^ Lift your hands against me in single combat, 
 having stood man against man. 
 
 Poll. As a boxer, or even tripping up the heels, and keep- 
 ing eyes right ? 
 
 Amyc. Having laboured might and main in boxing, spare 
 not your craft. 
 
 *' Diomed is thus arrayed, Horn. x. 177, 178. Claudian Rapt. Proserp. 
 i. 16, Simul procedit lacchus, 
 
 Crinali florens hedera, quem Parthica tigris 
 
 Velat, et auratos in nodum colligit ungues. ' 
 
 '^" X^'t'Pfi— X«tp<^ 'Tw^g. J. Wordsworth points to similar puns on this 
 word in Alcest. Eurip. 527, and Monk's note, and Matthiee at Hecuba 424. 
 
 2' ripo-ti. We have here translated according to Buttmann's view, 
 who holds it to come as ii from a present rippw. The aor. imperat. Tsptror 
 occurs, Nicand. Theriac. 96, 693, 709. 
 
 -- So ApoUon. Ehod. ii. 14, Trpiv x^iO€(Taiv i/xiitnv td<; dvd x^^P^S 
 atlpai. 
 
$8-^8. iDYi.T. xxn. 115 
 
 Poll. 23 Why, who is there with whom I shall match my 
 hands and caestus ? 
 
 Amyc. He is near. Don't you see me ? The boxer shall be 
 called Amycus. 
 
 Poll. Is the prize also ready for which we shall both con- 
 tend ? 
 
 Amyc. I will be called thine, or thou shalt be called mine, 
 if I shall have conquered. 
 
 Poll. 2^ Such as these are the cock-fights of crimson-crested 
 birds. 
 
 Amyc. Whether then we be like birds or lions, at all events 
 we will fight for no other prize. 
 
 So spake Amycus, and '^^ having taken a spiral shell, raised 
 a soundyroTw it. And they quickly gathered together to the 
 shade of the plane trees, at the blast of the trumpet, the always 
 long-haired Bebrycians. In like manner too Castor, pre- 
 eminent in fight, went and summoned from the Magnesian 
 ship all the heroes. Now they, when, in fact, they had forti- 
 fied their hands with coils of ox-hide, and had rolled great 
 thongs 26 around their arms, proceeded to engage in the midst, 
 breathing slaughter one against the other. Hereupon a great 
 struggle arose to them, as they were urgent which of the two 
 should get the glare of the sun at his back. But by skill you 
 over-reached a great hero, O Pollux, and all the countenance 
 of Amycus was being struck with the rays. Then he, in sooth, 
 enraged at heart, was advancing forward, taking aim with his 
 
 ^ Polwhele compares here the conflict between David and Goliath. 
 
 " The Scholiast at Aristoph. Aves, (70, 71,) states that in cock-fights 
 it was usual that the vanquished should ever afterwards follow and obey 
 the victors. Here Pollux refers to such a custom. It may be remarked 
 that, after the Persian war, cock-fights were annual occurrences at Athens. 
 
 " Kox^ov iXiov. Cf. Virg, ^n. vi. 171, Sed tum forte cav& dum 
 personat aequora concha. Ov. Met. i, 333 — 338, gives a full account of 
 this instrument. 
 
 2« yvla. Callira. H. in Dian. 177. Ernestiat that passage shows that 
 yvla is said of all the members, especially the hands, and feet, and knees, 
 in which lies the greatest force of the body. Horn. II. xiii. 61, yvla S' 
 iQt}Kiv EXa<ppd, Tcddag Kai x^^P^Q vTrepQev. Here it clearly stands for the 
 lower part of the arm, which was bound with thongs, as the old statueK 
 of boxers would show. Compare Smith's Diet. Gr. R. Antiq. pp. 215, 21G, 
 art, 'caestus.' Below at vs. 84, cf. Shakspeare's Love's Labour Lost, 
 It. 5, Down with them, but be first advised 
 
 In conflict that thou get the sun of them. 
 I 2 
 
116 ' THEOCRITUS. 88—107 
 
 hands ; when the son of Tyndarus hit the tip of his chin as he 
 came on, and he was roused more than before, and dealt his 
 blows ^^at random, and kept rushing on with great force,, 
 bending over towards the earth. And the Bebrycians began , 
 to shout ; but on the other side the heroes were cheering on 
 strong Pollux, though fearful lest haply in a narrow spot 2«a 
 man resembling Tityus should bear down and subdue him. But 
 in truth the son of Jove on his part coming up with him 
 in one place and another kept wounding him with both hands 
 in turn, and was checking from his onslaught the son of Nep- 
 tune, overbearing though he was. And he ^^ stood reeling with 
 blows, and spat out gory blood : and then all the chiefs raised 
 a shout together, when they saw grievous wounds about his 
 mouth and jaws, and his eyes were straitened for room on his 
 swollen visage. 
 
 3*^ Him, indeed, the prince (Pollux) disturbed, by making 
 feints with his fists on every side ; but when at length he 
 perceived that he was distressed, he drove his fist above the 
 middle of his nose right down his brow, and stripped off all 
 his forehead to the bone. ^^ But he, having been ^tricken, 
 measured his length on his back, among the green foliage. 
 ^^ Hereupon, a fierce fight arose again, when he had righted 
 
 '' Pugnam concussit. Something like this is "Virgil's — Nunc dextr& 
 ingeminans ictus, nunc ille sinistra, JEn. v. 458; and Scott's Lady of 
 the Lake, " And shower 'd his blows like wintry rain." 
 ^ Ovid Met. iv. 456, 
 
 Viscera prsebebat Tityos lanianda, novemque 
 Jugeribus distentus erat. 
 Virg. Mn. vi. 595, &c., 
 
 Necnon et Tityon terrae omnipotentis alumnura 
 Cernere erat, per tota novem cui jugera corpus 
 Porrigitur, &c. 
 " HeOvbjv. A metaphor, the idea of which may have arisen from 
 Odyss. xviii. 239, ^jcFTai vevara^ojv icecpaXy, [itGvovTi foiKU}g. So Psalms, 
 •' They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man." In the lan- 
 guage of the English ring "groggy," as Chapman observes. 
 
 ■'"> x^P'^^ TrpoSeiKvvQ. Some read xapc, unnecessarily, for crKTjTrrpt^ 
 irpodsiKvvQ occurs in Sophoc, CEd. T. 456, "Feeling his way." As 
 Seneca, "Baculo seniliter praetentare." Yirg. ^n. v. 433, Multa viri 
 necquicquam inter se vulnera jactant. 
 
 ^' Virg. ^En. 446, Ipse gravis graviterque ad terram pondere vasto, 
 
 Concidit. 
 ^ Ibid. 453, At non tardatus casu, neque territus heros, 
 Acrior ad pugnam redit, ac vim suscitat ira. 
 
108—130. IDYLL XXII. 117 
 
 himself, and they were hurting one another by blows with 
 the hard caestus. But the ruler of the Bebrycians for his part 
 was directing his fists against the chest, and outside the neck 
 of his foe, while Pollux the invincible was disfiguring all the 
 others visage with unseemly blows. And his flesh (i. e. that 
 of Amycus) was sinking through sweat, and from being huge 
 he had become on a sudden a little man ; but the other, as he 
 tasted toil, was bearing limbs ever stronger, and still im- 
 proving in healthy colour. 
 
 Now how at last the son of Jove overthrew ^^ the athlete, 
 declare, thou goddess ! for thou knowest ; and I, the inter- 
 preter of others, will speak as much as thou desirest, and as is 
 agreeable to thyself. In truth, Amycus for his part being 
 desirous to do some great deed, seized with his left hand the 
 left hand of Pollux, bending slantwise with a lunge ; and 
 with the other hand making his assault, raised ^''his broad fist 
 from his right side, and he would have hit and injured the 
 king of the Amyclseans, but he in turn came up secretly from 
 under with his head, and then with his strong hand struck 
 him under the left temple, and fell on his shoulder ; then the 
 cark blood poured out rapidly from his gaping temple : ^^ and 
 with his left hand he struck his mouth, and the thickset teeth 
 rattled ; whilst he kept maiming his face with ever sharper 
 blows, until he had smashed his cheeks ; but then all on the 
 3^ ground he fell senseless, ^^and lifted up both hands at once, 
 as renouncing the victory, for he was nigh unto death. 
 
 ^3 dSrjfdyov, " gluttonous." Cf. Philoct. Sophocl. 313, where the word 
 is applied to v6<tov. It is elsewhere an epithet of 'Ittttoi, ^wa, &c., and 
 seems to stand for an expression of the good keep which is commonly 
 connected with brute strength. See Pierson on Mseris Atticist. pp. 89, 90, 
 With the next line compare Virg. ^n. vii. 645, Et meministis enim, 
 divae, et memorare potestis. 
 ■ 3* Compare Mn. v. 443—445, 
 
 Ostendit dextram insurgens Entellus, et alt6 
 Extulit : ille ictum venientem a vertice velox 
 Prsevidit, celerique elapsus corpore cessit. 
 « ^n. V. 469, 470, 
 
 Crassumque cruorem 
 Ore ejectantem mixtosque in sanguine dentes. 
 3* a\\o(PQovs(jJV (Horn. II. xxiii. 698) is explained ouk iv avT(^ wv, 
 dW (Xi<jTd}iivoQ ry Siavoig.. 
 
 »^ The worsted combatant in encounters of this kind used to signify 
 his discomfiture by holding up his hands, or by falling on the ground* 
 
118 THEOCRITUS. 131— ir)3 
 
 To him then, though thou wast victor, O boxer Pollux, thou 
 didst nothing madly violent ; and he sware to thee a great 
 oath, calling his sire Neptune from the deep to witness, that 
 never more would he be vexatious to strangers. And thou 
 indeed, O king, hast been celebrated by me. But I will sing 
 of thee too. Castor, son of Tyndarus, swift on horseback, 
 brandisher of the lance, clad in brazen mail. 
 
 The two sons of Jupiter indeed had caught up, and were 
 carrying off, two daughters of Leucippus : ay, and in sooth 
 these two, ^^ two brethren, sons of Aphareus, wooers about to 
 marry, Lynceus and the stout Idas, were pursuing at full 
 speed. But when they reached the tomb of the deceased 
 Aphareus, from their chariots all at once rushed, one against 
 the other, burdened with spears and hollow shields. Then 
 spake Lynceus to them from out his helmet, shouting loudly. 
 *Fair sirs, why long ye for battle? And how is it ye are 
 wrongful in the case of the betrothed of others ; and^^ whi/ are 
 naked swords in your hands ? To us, look you, Leucippus 
 promised these his daughters long before any ; to us this 
 marriage stands upon oath. But ye, in no seemly manner, 
 in the case of the brides of others, '^^by oxen, and mules, and 
 by goods not your own, have perverted the man ; and by gifts 
 have stolen our affianced brides. In very truth I myself have 
 often said the following words before the face of both of you, 
 
 See Lambert Bos. ; Antiq. Greec. 53, where much information respecting 
 pugilistic encounters among the ancients may be found. 
 
 ^^ Idas and Lynceus, sons of Aphareus and Arene ; or, as she is called 
 vs. 206, Laocoosa. Theocr. has related their story with great variations 
 Lynceus was the same to whom Horat. alludes Epist. I, i. 18, Noii 
 possis oculo quantum contendere Lynceus. For the full history, see 
 Smith's Diet. G. R. B. ii. 561,562; Ovid Met. viii. 304; Fast. v. 699— 
 720, where the scene is laid at Aphidna. Propert. I. ii. 15. 
 
 39 Horat. Epod. vii. 1, 2, 
 
 Qu5, quo scelesti, ruitis? aut cur dexteris 
 
 Aptantur enses conditi 1 
 The daughters of Leucippus, brother of Aphareus, were Phoobe and 
 Hilaira. Non sic Leucippus succendit Castora Phoebe 
 
 Pollucem cultu non Hilaira soror. 
 I. Propert. ii. 15. edvow, to betroth for presents. Odyss. ii. .53, wf c 
 avTog ttdvuxraiTo Qvyarpa. 
 
 ** The Dioscuri and Aphareidae appear by some accounts to havn 
 been engaged in a plunder of cattle conjointly, and after gaining theit 
 object the former c' ^ed the latter of their share. 
 
153—178. IDYLL XXII. 119 
 
 even though I am not a man of many speeches : — Not so, kind 
 sirs, is it fitting that princes should woo spouses, for whom 
 bridegrooms are already provided. *^ Wide, look you, is Sparta, 
 and wide equestrian Elis, and Arcadia rich in flocks, and the 
 cities of the Achaeans, Messene and Argos, and all the Sisy- 
 phian coast-land, where myriads of damsels are nurtured 
 under the care of their parents, lacking neither figure nor 
 mind. 'Tis easy for you to wed of these whichsoever you 
 may choose, since many would wish in sooth to be fathers-in- 
 law to the noble ; and ye are distinguished among all heroes, 
 and so are your fathers, and your mother's race at the same 
 time by descent. Nay, friends, suffer this mai^riage to be con- 
 summated for us, and for you two let us all look out another 
 bridal. — Many such words I was wont to say, but a blast of 
 wind would bear them away to the moist wave, and favour 
 did not follow my speeches. ^^For ye two were inexorable 
 and harsh. But yet even now be persuaded, for ye both ^^ are 
 kinsmen to us on the father's side. But if your heart yearns 
 for war, and it must needs be that, "^^ having made mutual 
 strife break forth, we end our feuds with bloodshed, Idas, 
 indeed, and his cousin, brave Pollux, shall hold off their hands, 
 having kept from the battle ; but let us two, I and Castor, 
 being the younger, decide the issue in fight, and let us not 
 leave to our parents exceeding grief. One corpse is enough 
 from one house, but the others shall feast all their friends as 
 
 *^ The various parts of the Peloponnese are enumerated. SiVv^tg, 
 Corinthian ; so called from the fabled king Sisyphus. Odyss. xi. 593. 
 Two lines below compare Virgil ^n. xii. 24, 
 
 Sunt alisB innuptse Latio et Laurentibus agris 
 Nee genus indecores. 
 
 ** dKrjXrfTu). Sophoc. Trach. 999, rod' aKrjXrjTov fiaviag dvOog Kara- 
 SepxBtivai : unappeasable. 
 
 *^ Aphareus and Tyndarus were brothers, sons of Gorgophone, the 
 former by her first husband Perieres, the latter by ^Ebalus, the second 
 husband of Gorgophone. Thus their children, the Dioscuri and Aphar- 
 eidae would be cousins. For Xvcxai there is another reading Xovaai. 
 Wordsworth thinks that this is a mistake of transcribers for devaai — 
 rigare hastas sanguine. Virg. ^n. xii. 308, Sparso rigat arma cruore. 
 Cf. Horn. II. p. 51. 
 
 ** Yirg. ^n. ii, 129, vocem rumpit. iv. 553, Tantos ilia suo rumpebat 
 pectore questus. avappiiaauv is used as here, Pindar Fragm. 172 ; 
 Aristoph. Eq. 626. Below compare Mn. xii. 78, Teucrum arma quiea- 
 cant, et Rutilum : nostro dirimamus sanguine belluni. 
 
120 THEOCRITUS. * 179—202. 
 
 bridegrooms instead of corpses, and shall wed these maidens ; 
 'tis meet, look you, to remove great strife by a little evil.' 
 
 He spake, and his words in truth the god was not about to 
 render idle. For they two, indeed, who were elder in age, 
 put off their arms from their shoulders upon the ground ; 
 whilst Lynceus, advanced to the mid space, brandishing his 
 strong lance under the topmost '^^rim of his shield ; and in like 
 manner brave Castor brandished his pointed spear, and the 
 plumes of the crests of both kept nodding. First of all, indeed, 
 with lances ^^they were busied in aiming at each other, if haply 
 they saw any part of the body exposed. But, in truth, the 
 points of their spears, ere they had wounded one or the other, 
 were broken, having stuck fast in their ^"^ mighty shields. Then 
 they two, having drawn their hangers from the scabbards, 
 again proceeded to deal out slaughter one against the other, 
 and there was no withdrawal of battle. Oft, indeed. Castor 
 pierced into the broad shield and ^^ horse-plumed helmet, and 
 oft the ^^ keen-eyed Lynceus struck the other's shield, and the 
 point reached ^" as far as the purple crest. Now of this man's 
 hand, as he brought his sharp sword in the direction of his 
 (Castor's) left knee. Castor lopped off the extremity, having 
 removed from under the blow with his left foot; and he, 
 having been wounded, cast away his sword, and speedily set 
 off to fly to the tomb of his father, where brave Idas was re- 
 clining, and beholding the battle of men akin to each other. 
 But the son of Tyndarus having rushed after him, thrust his 
 broad blade right through his flank and navel, and the steel 
 
 *^ The parts of the shield were avTV^, or Itvq Trepi^kptta, or kvkXoc, 
 the rim ; (Horn. II. xviii. 479 ;) oficpaXog, the boss; (cf. Horn. II. vi. 118, 
 dtTTTig 6fi(pa\6t<j(Ta ;) reXafiujv, the thong, or shoulder-strap ; iropTra^, the 
 ring, by which it was held, for which oxavov, a handle, was substituted. 
 
 " TTOvov elxov. Cf. Idyll vii. 139. Cf. Virgil ^n. ii. 748, 
 Partes rimatur apertas 
 Qua vulnus lethale ferat. 
 
 *' Setvolm. II, vii. 145. The epithet is worthy to be applied to shields, 
 if, as Kiessling suggests, we remember, ^sch. S. c. Theb. 372, &c., 
 the devices on the shields of the seven chiefs. Reiske conjectures kv 
 irtivoKTi. 
 
 *^ 'nriroKoixoQ. II. xii. 339; Idyll xvi. 81, which see. 
 
 *^ Cf. note at vs. 140, above ; Pind. Nem. x. 116, Kiivov yap IttixOoviojv 
 TrdvTwv ytvtT b^vrarov ofifia. Horace Epist. I. i. 28, Non possis ocuLi 
 qua t; turn contendere Lynceus. 
 
 ^ oaov. Compare Idyll i. 45. 
 
203—223. IDYLL XXIL 121 
 
 quickly scattered in different ways his intestines within, and 
 Lynceus lay bowed to the earth, and down his eye-lids, I 
 ween, a heavy slumber coursed. 
 
 ^^No, nor did Laocoosa see even the other of her sons con- 
 summate a marriage dear to him at his father's hearth ; for of 
 a truth he on his part, Messenian Idas I mean, having broken 
 off a column standing out from the sepulchre of Aphareus, 
 was in act to throw it speedily at his brother's murderer ; 
 ^'^but Jupiter bore aid, and dashed out of his hands the 
 wrought marble, and burnt him up with his blaze of light- 
 ning. Thus to fight with the sons of Tyndarus -^^is no light 
 matter. Both they themselves are mighty, and were born of 
 one who is mighty. 
 
 Hail, children of Leda ! and may ye ever send worthy fame 
 to my hymns, for friendly, I wot, are all poets to the Tyn- 
 daridge, and Helen, and to other heroes, who sacked Troy, in 
 aid of Menelaus. For you, ye princes, the Chian bard 
 wrought glory, when he had sung the city of Priam, and the 
 ships of the Greeks, and the Ilian battles, and Achilles, 
 ^'* tower of war. And to you, in my turn also, I bear pro- 
 pitiatory offerings of sweet Muses, such as they themselves 
 provide, and according as my means are ; and to the gods the 
 ^^ noblest of honours is song. 
 
 ^* Compare with this Eurip. Phoenissee, 336 — 350. (Dindorf.) Just 
 above, for the death of Lynceus, compare Yirg. ^n. x. 745, 
 Olli dura quies oculos, et ferreus urget 
 Somnus : in geternam clauduntur lumina noctem. 
 *2 Ovid Fasti, v. 712, 
 
 Ibat in hunc Idas ; vixque est Jovis igne repulsus, 
 Tela tamen dextrse fulmine rapta negant. 
 *' ovK kv k\a(pp(f. So Herodot. i. 118, ovk tv t\a(pp(i} TroieiffOai. Com- 
 pare Iphig. in Aul. Eurip. 969 ; Helen. 1227, iv evfiaptX ; and Electr. 530. 
 5* irvpyoi' dvTTJQ. Odyss. xi. 555. Eurip. Alcest. 311, Traifi — varkp 
 iyii TTvpyov fisyav. 
 
 " Compare Idyll xvii. 8. 
 
IDYLL XXIIL 
 
 THE LOVER; OR, LOVE-SICK 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Idyll represents the ungovernable love of a young man for a friend, 
 who despised him, in consequence of which he at last hangs himself. 
 The other, nowise moved, goes to the baths, and is there slain by a 
 statue of Eros which falls upon and crushes him. Virgil has taken 
 the idea of his second Eclogue partly from this. Compare also Ovid 
 Met. xiv. 698. 
 
 ^ A CERTAIN love-sick man was enamoured of a hard youth, 
 in beauty fair, but in disposition no longer on a par. He 
 hated him that loved him, and had not even a jot of mildness, 
 and he knew not Eros, what god he was, and ^what sort of 
 bow and arrows he holds in his hands, how grievous shafts 
 he hurls against boys ; but in all respects, whether in 
 speeches or in approaches, he was unbending. Nor was 
 there any solace of the fires of love, not quivering of lip, 
 nor bright flash of eyes, ^nor rosy cheek, nor word, nor kiss 
 that relieves love. ^ But as a beast of the forest watches the 
 hunters, so would he do all things against the man : and 
 fierce were his lips, and sternly looked his eyes; ^they had 
 fate upon them : and his countenance answered to his bile, 
 and the colour fled from it, ^clad in arrogance from his 
 
 ' Tro\v(pi\TQOQ, suffering from many love-charms. Hence enamoured, 
 love-sick. Virg. Eel. II. i., Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin, &c. 
 2 Mosch. i. 21, Tol TTiKpol ndXafioi, toIq TroWaKi Kt)ixk TiTg^OKU. Ovid. 
 Met. v. 380, 381, Et arbitrio matris de mille sagittis 
 
 Unam, seposuit, sed qu£i nee acutior ulla, 
 Nee minus incerta est. 
 ' poSofiaXov. Compare Idyll vii. 117 ; Tibull. in. iv. 34. 
 
 * Compare Apolion. Rhod. i. 1243. 
 
 * slxov dvayKav. Heinsius reads tlSev avayKav, *' she looked necessity," 
 but the reading of the text seems best. For avdyKt], necessitas, see 
 Horat. Od. I. iii. 35, Tarda necessitas lethi ; I. xxxv. 17, Te semper 
 anteit sseva necessitas. 
 
 ^ Ov. Met. xiv. 714, Spernit et irridet, factisque immitibus addit Verba 
 superba ferox. TrepiKeifxtvog. The construction is like the Homeric 
 aXxriv, dvaiSeirjv eTrififiivog. II. i. 149 ; viii. 262, «fec. Perhaps the comma 
 should be removed after xpwf in the preceding line. 
 
14—31. IDYLL XXIII. 123 
 
 wrath. But even under these circumstances he was beautiful, 
 ''and from his wrath the lover was the more inflamed. ^ At 
 last he could not endure so great a blaze of Cytherea, but 
 went and ^ began to bewail at the cruel dwelling, and kissed 
 the door-post, and thus lifted up his voice : — 
 
 Cruel and morose youth, offspring of an evil lioness, ^*^ flinty 
 youth, and unworthy of love, I have come bringing thee this 
 last present, my rope ; since no longer do I wish to pain thee, 
 lad, angered as thou art, but I am going whither thou hast de- 
 voted me ; where, 'tis said, the road is common, and ^^ where 
 oblivion is the remedy, for them that love. ^^ But even though I 
 should have taken it all to my lips, and have drained the cup^ 
 not even thus shall I quench my yearning thii'st. But now I 
 add farewell to your vestibule — I know what is coming. 
 
 ^^Both the rose is lovely, and time withers it. And the 
 violet is beautiful in spring, yet quickly it grows old. 
 White is the lily ; when it falls, it withers : the snow too 
 is white, and it melts after it has become frozen. And 
 
 ' Compare Martial, Ep. v. 47, 
 
 Basia dum nolo, nisi quae luctantia carpsi : 
 Et placet ira mihi plus tua, quam fades. 
 Chapman compares Shakspeare's Twelfth Night, 
 
 " O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful 
 In the contempt and anger of his lip ! " 
 ' » Ov. Met. xiv. 716, 
 
 Non tulit impatiens longi tormenta doloris 
 Iphis, et ante fores haec verba novissima dixit. 
 • An allusion to the custom referred to in Idyll iii, Horat. Od. I. xxt. 
 1, Parcius junctas quatiunt fenestras, &c. 
 
 '" \aivE. See Idyll iii. 18, to nav XiOog. Ibid. 39, ddafidvTiva. 
 Tibull. I. vi. 32. 
 
 " Here some read to XdOag. Cf. Virg. ^En. vi. 714, 
 Lethaei ad fluminis undam 
 Securos latices, et longa oblivia potant. 
 Hor. Od. I. xxviii. 15, Omnes una manetnox, 
 
 Et calcanda semel via lethi. 
 " Comp. Song of Solomon viii. 6, 7, " Love is strong as death : 
 jealousy is cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which 
 has a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither 
 can the floods drown it." 
 
 '^ Virg. Eel. ii. 18, Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur. 
 Tibull. I. iv. 29, Quam cit6 purpureos deperdit terra colores : 
 
 Quam cito formosas populus alta comas. 
 For rraxOy, (line 31,) Wordsworth suggests QakTry, cum sol earn 
 calefaciat, or cum nix calefiat, as Soph. Antig. 415. 
 
124 THEOCRITUS. 32—5 . 
 
 the beauty of childhood is fair, yet it lives but a short 
 space. That time shall come when even you will love ; when, 
 scorched at your heart, you shall weep briny tears. Nay, do 
 you, boy, even now for this last time, do a pleasant act, 
 *^ whensoever, having gone forth, you shall have beheld me 
 suspended at your vestibule, pass me not by, wretch as I am, 
 but stand and weep though briefly ; and having shed the liba- 
 tion of a tear, loose me from the rope, and place about me gar- 
 ments from your limbs, and cover me, and for the last time 
 *^kiss me, and make the dead man a present of your lips. Be 
 not afraid of me. I cannot live, no, not if, having been recon- 
 ciled, you shall kiss me. And hollow me out a tomb, ^^ which 
 shall bury my love. And if you depart, ^'^ shout this over me 
 thrice : ' friend, thou liest low.' Yes, and if you will, say 
 this too : * And for me a beautiful companion has perished.' 
 And write this inscriiption, which I will engrave for ^^you in 
 verses : ' Traveller, this man Love slew ; pass not by, but stop 
 and say this. He had a cruel comrade.' 
 
 Thus having said, he took up a stone, and having planted 
 it against a wall even to the middle of the door-posts, a dread- 
 ful stone, he proceeded '^to attach to them the slender rope, 
 
 »< Ov. Met. xiv. 733, &c., 
 
 Dixit et ad postes, ornatos saepe coronis, 
 Cum foribus laquei religasset vincula summa 
 " Hsec tibi serta placent, crudelis et improba," dixit, &c. 
 " See Bion, i. 45, &c., lypiv tvtOov 'Adojvi, to d' av Trvfiarov (it 
 ^iXaffov. 
 
 »« Propert. I. xvii. 19, 20, 
 
 Illic si qua hieum sepelirent fata dolorem, 
 
 Ultiraus et posito staret amore lapis. Cf. Virg. Eel. v. 42. 
 " Prop. I. vii. 23, 24, 
 
 Nee poterunt juvenes nostro reticere sepulehro ; 
 Ardoris nostri maarna poeta, jaces. 
 " Ovid. Trist. III. iii. 71—74, 
 
 Quosque legat versus oeulo properante viator 
 
 Grandibus in tumuli marmore caede notis : 
 
 Hie ego qui jaceo, tenerorum lusor amorum, 
 
 Ingenio perii Naso poeta meo. 
 
 Comp. Idyll xvii. 47 ; TibuU. III. ii. 27. But Wordsworth's reading, 
 
 roixoKTif is far more probable, and rests on good ground. 
 
 " For ott' avToiv, which must refer to the beam above the doors, 
 Vossius would read dvwOev (as ^sch. Agam. 884, iroWag dvuiBev 
 dprdvag Ifirjg dkprjg tXvaav), But Kiessling thinks utt' avTu " unici 
 verum." 
 
51—63. . IDYLL XXIIL 125 
 
 and began to throw the noose around his neck ; and then he 
 rolled the stepping-stone from under his foot, and hung, a 
 corpse. But the other in his turn opened the doors, and 
 beheld the dead man suspended from his own hsiW-door ; nor 
 was te overcome in his spirit, nor did he weep ^ofor the 
 slaughter of a young man : but yet more, he polluted for the 
 dead man all the youthful garments, and proceeded to go to 
 the contests of the wrestlers, and to seek, afar off, pleasant 
 baths ; and he came to the god whom he had insulted, for 
 Eros was standing on a stone basement above the waters. 
 2^ And the statue leaped forth and slew the wretched youth, 
 and the water became purpled, but the voice of the lad kept 
 coming to the top. Rejoice, ye that love, for he who hated 
 has been slain ; and ye, beloved youths, be affectionate, for the 
 god knows how to punish. 
 
 IDYLL XXIY. 
 
 THE LITTLE HERCULES. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 In this Idyll the first achievement of the boy Hercules is recounted, his 
 victory, to wit, over the hostile dragons sent against him by Juno. 
 Alcmena, terrified by this prodigy, (62,) sends for Teiresias, the seer, 
 to explain it, and to point out means of appeasing the wrath of the 
 gods. He comes, and unfolds the labours, the earthly and the hea- 
 venly glory which should attend the child, when grown to man's 
 estate. He also orders the dragons to be burned, and the house to be 
 purified. There follows an enumeration of the masters, whose train- 
 ing conduced to make Hercules a worthy hero. The end of the poem, 
 which we may suppose to have gone deeply into the history of his 
 training, has been lost. .Valkenaer thinks that this ^ Idyll, and the 
 
 "^ vkov <p6vov for <p6vov rov vkov. Find. 01. ii. 78, vka dsQXa for 
 dtQXa TUiv vkwv. But J. Wordsworth shows by a number of passages, 
 that vkov stands here, by a sort of euphemism, for vtoKorov, *' strange, 
 unwonted." lirl vtK^(^. A better reading is suggested, tri, by Kiess- 
 ling, which we have adopted. 
 
 2^ Polwhele in his notes compares (as regards the manner of death) 
 Callimachus, Epigr. vii., which see; and also gives a version of the same 
 by Duncombe. 
 
126 THEOCRITUS. 1—19. 
 
 25th, and the Megara of Moschus, are the three parts of one poem, 
 the Heraclea jf some nameless author. Reiske supposed Idylls 24th 
 and 25th to be pa^'ts of the Heraclea of Pisander; but Kiessling 
 points out that the non-preservation of the customs of the heroic age 
 in these two Idylls disproves this theory. We may safely, with War- 
 ton, reckon it among the Idylls of Theocritus. 
 
 Once upon a time Alcmena of ^ Midea, having washed both 
 Hercules, now ten months old, and Iphiclus, younger by a 
 night, and having filled them with milk, had laid them down 
 in a 2 brazen shield, which, a noble piece of armour, Amphi- 
 tryon had taken as spoil from fallen Pterelaus. And the 
 woman, touching the head of her children, spake thus : ' Sleep, 
 my babes, a sweet sleep, and one from which ye may aw^ake ; 
 sleep, my lives, two brothers, secure children, happily may ye 
 sleep, and happily arrive at morn.' Thus having said, she 
 rocked the great shield, and sleep took possession of them. 
 
 But what time ^the Bear revolves at midnight toward the 
 setting, opposite Orion himself, and he displays his broad 
 shoulder, then in sooth Juno of many schemes set in motion 
 two dreadful monsters, dragons bristling w^ith azure coils, 
 against the broad threshold, where the door-posts of the cham- 
 ber are hollow, having urged them by threats to devour the 
 babe Hercules. 
 
 These twain then having uncoiled themselves, were rolling 
 their ravenous bellies along the ground; and "^from their 
 eyes, as they went, evil fire was glancing, and they were spit- 
 
 • Midea. See Idyll xiii. 20. 
 
 2 Meursius (at Callim. H. in Jov. 48) tells us that the shield was often 
 the cradle of a hero's child, the father praying his offspring might be 
 thereby inspired with a taste for war. He quotes a fragment of the 
 Andromeda of Ennius, " Nam ubi introducta est, puerumque ut laverent, 
 locant in clypeo." Pterelaus, king of the Taphians, was subdued by Am- 
 phitryon, who made war upon him in behalf of Electryon, the father of 
 Alcmena. He had one golden hair, which Neptune had given him, till 
 which was taken, he was to be immortal. This his daughter Comaetho 
 gave to Amphitryon. See Smith Diet. G. R. B. i. 152, Amphitryon. 
 
 * Anacr, iii. ] — 3, VaaovvKTioiq iroO' wpaig Srps^crai '6T"'ApKTog rjSij 
 Kard X^^P*^ "^V^ Boujtov. Horn. Odyss. v. 274, " ApKTOv — r/ t avrov 
 (TTpkcptTai, Kai r 'Qpiujva doKtvei, i. e. keeps his heatl turned towards 
 Orion. The same is meant here by kut avrbv. 
 
 ■* Compare /En. ii. 210, Ardentesque oculos suffecti sanguine et igni. 
 And compare the whole passage. Milton, in his description of the old 
 serpent, speaks of "eyes that sparkling blazed." P. L. ix. 496. I'or 
 tpxo/ievotf, Pierson suggests dspKOfxivois, ingeniously. 
 
19- -45. IDYLL XXIV. 127 
 
 ting forth noxious venom. ''But when at length, licking 
 their forked tongues, they had come nigh the boys, then, I 
 wot, as Jove knoweth all things, the dear children of Alc- 
 mena awoke, and a light was raised all over the chamber. In 
 truth, the one, namely Iphiclus, forthwith shouted out, when 
 he perceived the evil monsters above the hollow shield, and 
 saw their ruthless fangs ; and kicked away with his feet the 
 fine coverlet, being eager to escape : but the other, Hercules, 
 opposing them, held fast to them with his hands, and bound 
 both in a firm grasp, having seized them by the throat, where 
 baneful poisons, such as even the gods abhor, are wrought by 
 murderous serpents. ^And they two, on the other hand, 
 began to wind with their coils around the child, late-born, 
 still a suckling, ever tearless under his nurse's care : but again 
 they began to uncoil, since they were wearied in their spines, 
 in trying to find a riddance from his constraining grasp. And 
 Alcmena heard a cry, and awoke first. 'Rise, Amphitryon, 
 for timid fear possesses me : rise, "^nor put your sandals on 
 your feet. Hear you not how greatly the younger of the 
 children is crying? ^Or perceive you not that, some where in 
 the early night, these walls also around are all plain to be seen, 
 without the aid of clear dawn ? There is some strange thing, 
 I know, in the house, there is, dear husband.' 
 
 Thus said she: and he, having complied with his wife's 
 request, descended from his couch, and rushed in quest of his 
 curiously-wrought sword, which was ^always suspended for 
 him upon a peg, above his cedar couch. In truth he was 
 reaching after his new-spun belt, lifting in the other hand a 
 large scabbard, a work wrought of the lotus ; when, I wot, 
 
 5 Virg. Mn. ii. 211, Sibila lambebant Unguis vibrantibus ora. 
 
 ^ Virg. ^n. ii. 214, Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque, 
 Implicat; and 217, Spirisque ligant ingentibus. 
 
 ' I. TibuU. iii. 91, Tunc mihi, qualis eris, longos turbata capillos 
 Obvia nudato, Delia, curre pede. 
 
 ' Here, as in ^^22 above, there seems tp have been a supernatural light 
 intended. Comp^ Horn. Odyss. xix. 37 — 39, where Telemachus from 
 the flood of light draws the inference ri fxaXa rig 6sbg tvSov. And com- 
 pare Plaut. Amphitr. V. i. 44, iEdes totae confulgebant tuae, quasi 
 essent aurese.— dwjoi. Cf. xi. 40. John Wordsworth suggests for artp 
 OTrep, tanquam, sicut. 
 
 » diooTo, the epic plusq. perf. of aeipoj. 11. iii. 272 ; xix. 253. Matt. 
 Gr, Gr. p. 233. Kiessl. 
 
128 THEGORITUS. 46 — 70. 
 
 the spacious chamber was filled again with gloom. Then at 
 length he shouted to the servants ^^ snoring heavily in sleep : 
 *Bring fire with all speed, having snatched it from the hearth, 
 my servants, and force back the strong bolts of the doors : 
 rise, ye patient-hearted servants, ^Uhe master calls.' ^^The 
 servants then speedily came forward with blazing lights, and 
 the chamber was filled with the bustling of each. In good 
 truth, I ween, when they saw the suckling Hercules tightly 
 holding two monsters in his tender hands, they, shouted out, 
 clapping their hands together : but he began to point out the 
 serpents to his sire Amphitryon, and to leap aloft with joy- 
 in his boyishness, and laughingly he laid before his father's feet 
 the dire monsters stupified with death. Alcmena indeed then 
 took to her bosom, dry by reason of fear, Iphiclus in passion- 
 ate distress ; and Amphitryon placed the ^^ other boy under his 
 coverlet of wool, and again returned to his couch and was 
 mindful of slumber. The cocks a third time now were pro- 
 claiming the last of dawn : then ^'^ Alcmena having summoned 
 Teiresias the soothsayer, telling all things true, recounted to 
 him the strange matter, and bade him answer how it was 
 likely to end. 'And do not,' said she, ^^'if the gods intend 
 any thing adverse, hide it fi'om me through scruples : for that 
 'tis impossible for men to escape whatever the Fate ^^ forces 
 down the spindle, I teach thee, prophet son of Eueris, very 
 
 '" Comp. ^n. ix. 326, Exstructus ioio proflabat pectore somnum. Cf. 
 ^sch. Choeph. 612. 
 
 " avTOQ properly means oneself as opposed to others. Hence it implies 
 emphasis, without opposition ; the master, for instance, as in the Pytha- 
 gorean avrbgtipa, Ipse dixit. Cf. Aristoph. Nub. 219; Ran, 520; Liddeil 
 and Scott Lex. 
 
 " Hom. II. xviii, 525, o'l ^k rdxa irpoytvovTO. 
 
 " X^aivav. Comp. Idyll xviii. 19 ; vii. 36. 
 
 ^* Teiresias the soothsayer, son of Eueris; stricken with blindness, 
 because he had seen Minerva at her bath. Cf. Callimach. H. in Lavacr. 
 Pallad. 91. Propert. IV. x. 57, 
 
 Magnam Tiresias aspexit Pallada vates 
 
 Fortia dum, posita Gorgone, membra lavat. 
 
 " Compare Eli's abjuration of Samuel, I. iii. 17, «' I pray thee hide it 
 not from me," &c. The poet here passes abruptly from his own person 
 to that of Alcmena. 
 
 "^ K\w<TTrjp is the same as '* fusus." Virg. Georg. iv. 349, 
 Carmine quo captae dum fusis mollia pensa 
 Devolvunt. 
 Virg. iEn. i. 22, Sic volvere Parcaa. 
 
70— «7. IDYLL XXIV. 129 
 
 wise though thou art!' Thus spake the queen. And he 
 answered thus : ' Cheer up, lady, mother of noblest progeny, 
 ^^ of the blood of Perseus ; ^^ for, by my dear light, long since 
 gone from mine eyes, many Achaian women shall ply the soft 
 yarn with the hand about the knee, '^at even-tide singing of 
 Alcmena by name : ^^ thou shalt be a glory to the women 
 of Argos. This thy son, being such a hero, is about to ascend 
 to the star-bearing heaven, ^^ a hero with a broad chest, to 
 whom both all monsters and all other men shall be inferior. 
 To him it is fated, after he has accomplished twelve labours, 
 to dwell in the halls of Jove : but all his mortal parts ^^ the 
 Trachinian pyre shall have. And he shall be called son-in- 
 law of the very immortals, who set on these skulking monsters 
 to destroy the babe. ^^ In truth, that day shall come, when 
 the sharp-toothed wolf, having seen the kid in his lair, shall 
 not be willing to harm it. But, lady, let the fire be in readi- 
 ness, look you, under the ashes, and make ye ready dry logs 
 
 1^ Of the blood of Perseus. She was daughter of Electryon, son of 
 Perseus. 
 
 1* Compare Idyll xi. 53, and Gray's Bard, "Dear as the light that 
 visits these sad eyes." Remembrance of lost blessings is keener than the 
 sense of possession. Chapman compares Milton, Paradise Lost, B, iii. 
 33—37. 
 
 19 Virg. Georg. i. 390, Nee nocturna quidera carpentes pensa puellae. 
 Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, 
 
 And as she twirled the distaff 
 
 With solemn steps and slow. 
 She sung of great old houses, 
 
 And of fights fought long ago. 
 
 20 Compare Odyss. xxiv. 196—199. Ovid. Ep. ex Pont. IV. viii. 47. 
 " airb (TTspvoJV rrXarvQ, See Idyll xvi. 49, QrfKvQ cnrb xpoiag. 
 
 " The body of Hercules was burnt on a pyre at the top of CEta, a 
 mountain of Thessaly. Trachinian is the same as Thessalian, from 
 Trachis, a city of Thessaly, called after Hercules, Heraclea. Hence the 
 name of the tragedy of Sophocles, ♦' Trachinise." Comp. Spanheim's 
 note at Callim. H. to Dian. 159. Below at ya/xftpbg d aOavdnov, the 
 plural is for the singular, Juno being the goddess indicated. 
 
 2^ Theocritus may have read Isaiah xi. 6, " The wolf also shall dwell 
 with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf, 
 and the young lion, and the falling together ; and a little child shall 
 lead them." Cf. also Ixv. 25. Virg. Eel. iv. 22, Nee magnos metuent 
 armenta leones. Cf. Eel. v. 61. Lactantius, lib. vii. 24, quotes the 
 Erythraean Sibyl, 
 
 (rapKo^opoi Te\iu}U (pdyeT* a\vpov trapa (paTuan 
 avv ^pi(ptaiuTi 3pa/covT£S &.fxdrop(Ti. KoifJLno'OVTai. 
 
180 THEOCRITUS. 87—106. 
 
 of 24 aspalathus, or paliurus, or of bramble ; or the brittle 
 wild-pear wood shaken by the wind : and at midnight, 
 when they wished to destroy thy child, burn these two 
 dragons upon the wild cleft-wood, ^s Then at morn let one of 
 the attendants, having gathered the ashes of the fire, carry 
 and throw :t thoroughly every whit across the river, upon 
 the rugged rocks, over the boundary, and return home 
 without turning back: but first of all 26purify. the house 
 with clear sulphur, and next remember to sprinkle with a 
 green branch ^^^ plenty of pure water, mixed, as is usual, with 
 salt ; and to sacrifice to supreme Jove a boar pig, that ye 
 may ever be superior to your enemies.' 
 
 Teiresias spake, and withdrew with his ivory seat, though he 
 was bent with the weight of many years. And Hercules was 
 reared under his mother's care, like a ^^ young plant in a 
 garden, being called the son of Argive Amphitryon. Letters 
 ^^aged Linus, son of Apollo, a sleepless guardian, a hero, 
 taught the boy : and to bend the bow, and to be a good 
 shot with arrows, ^^ Eurytus, rich in broad lands from his 
 forefathers. ^^ Eumolpus, son of Philammon, made him a 
 
 -* Aspalathus.] Cf. Idyll iv. 57, Rose of Jerusalem. — Paliurus,] Virg. 
 Eel. V. 39, Spinis surgit paliurus acutis. All kinds of thorns were con- 
 sidered efficacious for dispelling evil agency. Ovid Fast. ii. 28, Februa 
 poscenti pinea virga data est, dx^p^og. Odyss. xiv. 10. Soph. O. C. 
 1596. A wild prickly shrub. 
 
 2^ Eel. viii. 101, Fer cineres Amarylli foras; rivoque fluenti, 
 Transque caput jace, ne respexeris. 
 Cf, uEsch. Choeph. 93, daTpocpoimv ofifiaaiv, and Blomf. Glossary at that 
 passage. 
 
 *• For the use of sulphur in purifications, see Tibull. I. v. 11, Ipseque 
 te cireum lustravi sulfure puro. Compare also Odyss. x. 527, &c. 
 
 '^ IffTifjifievov might be translated «' brimming." It seems to convey 
 the idea of excessive fulness. Compare tTrierre^laf, II. i. 471 ; viii. 232. 
 Compare also Idyll ii. 2. 
 
 «» In a garden.] Cf. Hom. II. xviii. 57 ; Odyss. xiv. 175. In the 
 Psalms, too, we have children compared to olive branches. 
 
 2» Linus. Virg. Eel. iv. 56, 
 
 Nee Linus ; huic mater quamvis, atque huie pater adsit, 
 Orphei Calliopea, Lino formosus Apollo. 
 Cf. Smith Diet. Gr. R. Biogr. p. 787, vol. ii. 
 
 »• Eurytus (Odyss. viii. 224 ; II. ii. 730) was of ^chalia in Thessaly. 
 Cf. Smith Diet. G. R. B. ii. 113. 
 
 ^' Eumolpus, son of Philammon. Philammon was the son of Phoebus 
 »nd Chione. Ov. Met. xi. 317, Carmine vocali clarus citharaque Phil- 
 
108— ISl. IDYLL XXIV. 131 
 
 minstrel, and moulded both his hands upon a cithern of box- 
 wood. And in how many ways men of Argos, throwing their 
 adversaries from their legs with a cross-buttock, trip up each 
 other in Avrestling, and in how many ways boxers are formi- 
 dable in the caestus, and what tricks adapted to their art men 
 ready for every kind of contest have invented, by falling for- 
 ward to the earth, all these he learned under the teaching of 
 ^2 Harpalycus of Phanote, son of Mercury, whom not though 
 beholding him afar off, could any one withstand, as he con- 
 tended in the games. Such a scowl rested on his awe-in- 
 spiring visage. Moreover, with feelings of love, Amphitryon 
 himself was wont to teach his son to drive steeds in the 
 chariot, and turning safely ^^ round the post, to guard the 
 box of the nave of the wheel, since full oft in equestrian 
 Argos he had carried off prizes in contests of speed ; and his 
 chariots on which he used to mount, ^^ still unbroken, burst 
 their reins by reason of age. But to aim at his man with 
 outstretched spear, keeping his back under cover of his shield, 
 and to bear up against sword-wounds, and to marshal a pha- 
 lanx, and in making his attack to measure again and again 
 the ambuscades of the enemy, and to cheer on the cavalry, 
 Castor the horseman taught him, having come an exile from 
 Argos, what time ^^ Tydeus was holding the whole inheritance 
 and broad vineyard, having received equestrian Argos from 
 Adrastus. Among the demigods was no other warrior 
 like to Castor, before old age wore out his youthful vigour. 
 
 ammon. The Eumolpu's who is said to have instructed Hercules in 
 music was son of Musseus, a pupil of Orpheus. Ov. Met. xi. 93, 
 Cui Thracius Orpheus 
 Orgia tradiderat cum Cecropio Eumolpo. 
 Cf. Smith Diet. G. R. B. ii. 92. 
 
 ^^ Harpalycus, the tutor of Hercules in wrestling, (109, 110,) boxing, 
 (111,) pancratiasm, (112,) was the son, it would seem, of Mercury, and a 
 native of Panope, or Phanote ; which, according to Strabo, (ix. 538,) is 
 synonymous, and is in the region of Lebadeia in Boeotia. Cf. Ovid Met. 
 iii. 19 ; Horn. Odyss. xi. 580. 
 
 ^^ TTfpi vvaaav. Compare the advice of Nestor to Antilochus, (II. xxiii. 
 334 — 337,) to near the post as closely as possible, yet without grazing it. 
 Cf. Hor. Od. I. i. 4, Metaque fervidis Evitata rotis, &c. 
 
 3* So skilful had been the charioteering of Amphitryon, that though his 
 chariot's thongs, or reins, failed at last through age, no breakage had 
 ever damaged them. 
 
 " ^neus, king of Calydon, after the death of Athsea, married Perebiea, 
 
132 THEOCRITUS. 132 — 133. 
 
 Thus indeed his loving mother ^^had Hercules brought up* 
 And a couch was made for the lad near his father, ^'^ a lion's 
 skin, a couch very agreeable to himself: and ^^his dinner was 
 roast-meat and a huge Dorian loaf in a bread basket ; it would 
 be safe to satisfy a digger and delver. But ^^ at the close of 
 day he was wont to take a little supper, uncooked ; and he 
 was clad in unembroidered garments '^^ above the calf of the leg. 
 
 IDYLL XXV. 
 
 HERCULES THE LION-SLAYER, OR, THE WEALTH OF AUGEAS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 In this fragmentary poem we find Hercules in the land of Elis, in the 
 neighbourhood of the famous stables of Augeas. Having arrived 
 thither, he is led to the king by an old rustic. The king has retired 
 into the country to visit his herds. A description of a vast herd re- 
 turning from pasture is finely interwoven, (84 — 137,) and Hercules is 
 exhibited repelling with ease the assault of the finest bull of the herd, 
 a proof of valour which excites the admiration of the king and his 
 son. This son of Augeas, as they travel by the same road, begs Her- 
 cules to recount to him, by what means he slew the Nemean lion. 
 The hero, complying, narrates the whole exploit. Some have doubted 
 whether Theocritus wrote this poem. It is variously assigned by such, 
 
 daughter of Hipponous, by whom he had Tydeus. Tydeus, when grown 
 up, was banished, and fled to Adrastus, king of Argos, and marrying his 
 daughter Deipyle, begat Diomed. 
 
 ^^ Traidevcraro, h. e. " educendum curavit." 
 
 '^ The custom of sleeping on skins occurs Virg. ^n. vii. 87, 
 Cffisarum oviura sub nocte silenti 
 Pellibus incubuit stratis, somnumque petivit. • 
 
 '* For a notion of the appetite of Hercules, see Eurip. Alcest. 750 — 
 760; Aristoph. Vesp. 60 ; Ran. 62 ; Av. 1690; Pax, 741. Dorian bread 
 was of the commoner and less fine kind. 
 
 ^^ kir' a/iari, post diem. In the same sense is stti Ty rtXevry tov 
 iSiov, *' at the close of life." 
 
 *" Virg. Mn. i. 317, describes Harpalyce, a Thracian princess of manly 
 hardihood, as " nuda genu." 
 
1—20. IDYLL XXV. 13g 
 
 to Pisander, a contemporary of Tyrtaeus, to some unknown poet 
 earlier than the date of Theocritus, and to some Alexandrine Rhapso- 
 dist. Hermann deems it not unworthy of Theocritus. Old editions 
 have prefixed to this Idyll a poor attempt of some nameless gram- 
 marian to furnish a beginning. 
 
 And to him spake the old man, a husbandman Mn charge 
 of the tillage, having ceased from the work which lay on his 
 hands : * Stranger, I will readily tell over to you all that you 
 ask, since I stand in awe of the dread vengeance of ^ Hermes 
 by the wayside. For they say, that, most of all the gods of 
 heaven, he is incensed, if so be that any one spurn a traveller 
 very anxious to know the way. The fleecy flocks indeed of 
 king Augeas ^feed not all on one pasture, or one spot ; but 
 some, I ween, pasture round about on the banks of ^ Elisus, 
 others beside the sacred stream of divine ^ Alpheus, others 
 again hard by ® Buprasium teeming with grapes, and others 
 also here. Now separately, for each of these, folds have been 
 built. But for all the herds, overflowing though they are, still 
 there are here pastures ever rich, along the wide standing- 
 waters of '^ Menius ; ^ for dewy meads and water-pastures 
 luxuriate in fragant herbage in abundance, which in sooth 
 increases the strength of horned heifers. And here, to your 
 right hand, appears their stall, all of it quite on the other side 
 of the flowing river, in that quarter where the planes grow all 
 
 ' sTTiovpoQ, Etym. M. 362, 29, 6 l^SffrriKijjQ fpvXa^ ; from opui, iTriopog, 
 and by epenthesis, eTriovpog. 
 
 2 tvodiog, said specially of Mercury, who had his statues in the cross- 
 ways. Valkn. Diatr. 138. In Aristoph. Plut. 1159, we find him call- 
 ed rjyfuoviog, the guide and protector of travellers, and these two epithets 
 are coupled together in his case by Arrian de Venat. c. 35, 'Epfiov kvodiov 
 Kai riyefioviov. 
 
 3 ^oGKovTai lav j8o(Ttv. Cf. Matth. Gr. Gr. § 421, obs. 3, p. 680. 
 
 '' Elisson, or Elissa, was a river of Elis, not far from Olympia. (Strabo.) 
 
 5 Alpheus, a river of Elis. Compare Idyll iv. 6. 
 
 ^ Buprasium, a city of Elis, mentioned by Homer, II. ii. 615, where 
 the forces of the Epeans, who occupied the north of Elis, as it would 
 seem, are being enumerated. See also II. xi. 759, and II. xxiii. 631. 
 Augeas ruled over the Epeans. Cf. vs. 166. 
 
 ^ M7/vioy. Heyne suggests Tlrivfov, (as in Pindar AX0£ow for A\<piwv,) 
 which Kiessling approves. The Peneus was a river of Elis. 
 
 8 Nonnus. Dionys. b. 3, 15. iapivaig kykXaaore \i\ovixevov dvOof; 
 hp(Ta~.g. eiafisvaiy II. iv. 483, derived pernaps from rjfiai, low, flooded 
 mead-jws. 
 
134 THEOCRITUS. 20 — 47 
 
 the year long, and the green wild olive, a sacred holy -grove 
 of ^ pastoral Apollo, a most perfect god, stranger. 
 
 * And right forwards are built very spacious dwellings for us 
 husbandmen, who zealously guard for the king his great and 
 untold wealth, sometimes casting ^^the seed into thrice-plough- 
 ed fallows, and in like manner into four times ploughed. Now 
 his boundaries the diggers and del vers know, who, hard- 
 working ye?/o2f75, come to the wine vats, when the ripe summer 
 season shall have arrived. For in truth all this is the plain of 
 prudent Augeas, and these his wheat-bearing ^^ acres and 
 wooded orchards, even to the extreme points of the moun- 
 tain ridge having-many-springs, which we ply with our 
 labour all day long, as is the law for servants, whose life is 
 a-field. But tell you also me, [which likewise will be better 
 for yourself,] ^^ being in need of what have you come here ? 
 Either, I suppose, you seek Augeas, or one of his servants, 
 whom he has. Now I, look you, can fully tell you every par- 
 ticular, as I know them accurately ; for I think that you at 
 any rate come not of evil people, nor are yourself like unto 
 evil men, such a noble figure is conspicuous about you : 
 surely, methinks, of such a stamp are the sons of immortals 
 among mortal men.' And him the valorous son of Jove 
 addressed in answer : ' Yes, old man, 1 would wish to see 
 Augeas, ruler of the Epeans, for it was even a want of this 
 which brought me here. But if now he is abiding in the city 
 among his citizens, engaged in caring for his people, and is 
 deciding questions of law, prythee, aged sir, bid you one of 
 
 ' Pastoral Apollo.] Compare Callim. H. in ApoU. 47, 
 ^oifSov Kal "SofXLOv KLKXva-KOfxev, e^tTi keivov, 
 i^oT ett' AficfypiKTco ^£i/yiTi5as ETptcptv 'iinrovi. 
 Virg,, Georg. iii. 2, calls Apollo, Pastor ab Amphryso. 
 
 The wild olive, dypisXaiog or kotivoq, bore the leaves which composed 
 the crown of the victor at the Olympic games. 
 »» Virg, Georg. i. 47, 48, 
 
 Ilia seges demum votis respondet avari 
 Agricolffi, bis quae solem, quae frigora sensit. 
 Virg. Georg. i, 398, Namque omne quotannis 
 
 Terque quaterque solum scindendum. 
 >' yvat, from yvrig, 6. Elmsl. Soph. O. C. 58. Eurip. Bacch. 13, 
 Heracl. 839. Vid. Valkenaer ad Phceniss. Eurip. vs. 648. 
 " Compare Virg. Mn. vii. 197, 
 
 Quae causa rates aut cujus egentes 
 Littus ad Ausonium tot per vada caerula vexit 1 
 \ 
 
47—68. IDYLL XXV. 135 
 
 the servants to be my guide, whosoever is the most honour- 
 able ^^ manager over these lands, to whom I might say some- 
 what, and from whom I might learn somewhat, when he speaks. 
 For God, in sooth, hath made one man in need of one, and A 
 another of another.' 
 
 And him the old man, trusty husbandman as he was, an- 
 swered yet again : ' By the advice, stranger, of some one of the 
 gods you come hither. Since to you every business, which you 
 wish, quickly finds its accomplishment. For hither hath come 
 but ^"^ yesterday from town Augeas, dear son of the Sun, 
 with his child, the strong and noble Phyleus, to visit after 
 many days the property, which he has in countless extent in 
 the country. Thus, I suppose, even to princes their house 
 seems to be safer, to their mind, if they manage it themselves. 
 But let us go to him by all means ; and I will be your guide 
 to my stall, where we shall find the king.' 
 
 Thus having spoken, he began to lead the way ; but ^^ in 
 mind he at least was pondering much, as he saw the lion's 
 skin, and the club, which filled his hand, whence the stranger 
 could be : and he was eager to question him. But again 
 through fear he was keeping within his lips his speech as it 
 rose, lest he should address to him, in his haste, any inoppor- 
 tune word : for 'tis hard to know another man's mind. And 
 as they approached, ^^the dogs quickly noticed them from afar 
 
 " aiVv/iV)7r);e, a manager, from ai(Tia v£/i£iv, to give each his due. Here 
 the person, indicated seems to be the Latin " villicus." aiavfjivrirrjg stands 
 for the elective prince of the Mitylenseans in Aristot. Politic. III. xiv. 8. 
 Cf. Smith, D. G. and R. Antiq. pp. 32—36. 
 
 ^* xdi^og, elegantly for x^^Q- So 11. A. 497, iqepiT] d' a.i'e[3r] fieyav ovpa- 
 vov. See below at vs. 223. Horat. Epod. xvi. 51, Nee vespertinus cir- 
 cumgemit ursus ovile. 
 
 — From town.] Elis was not built in Homer's day, much less that of 
 Hercules. There is no doubt an anachronism, unless we suppose, with 
 Warton, that aarv here stands for the palace or seat of government. 
 
 " Polwhele remarks, that the ancients never inquired the names of their 
 stranger guests, instancing the Phgeacians of the Odyssey, and the Ger ■ 
 mans of Tacitus, De Mor. G. c. 21. 
 
 '« Compare Homer Odyss. xiv. 29, 30, 
 
 E^aTTtvtjs 5' '05uo-77a l^ov kvvz'3 vXaKOfxoopoL 
 01 fikv KtKkriyovTE^ kiriBpaiiov — 
 Comp. Odyss. xvi. 5. " Princes of old made much of dogs. Telemachua 
 is attended by two house dogs, Odyss. ii. Achilles has nine at hit 
 board, II. xxiii. Two attend Evander, .^n. 8, and Syphax in Livy." — 
 Warton. 
 
136 THEOCRITUS. 69—100. 
 
 off, in botli ways, by their scent of flesh, and by the sound of 
 feet. And barking furiously they rushed from different sides 
 on Hercules, son of Amphitryon : but about the old man, 
 barking without need or cause, they kept fawning on the 
 other side. These indeed he for his part proceeded to frighten 
 into retreating, by stones, merely lifting them from the ground ; 
 and sharply with his voice did he threaten every one of them» 
 and check their barking, though he rejoiced in his heart 
 that they protected his stall, yes, when he was absent ; then 
 spake he such words as these : ' Strange ! what an animal 
 this is, that the gods our rulers have made to be with men : 
 how sagacious ! if it had but a mind, so far intelligent, 
 within, as to know with whom 'twere right to be angry, and 
 with whom not, then no other of brutes had vied with it for 
 the meed of honour. But, as it is, 'tis a very wrathful kind 
 of beast, and ^^ savage to no purpose.' 
 
 He spoke ; and speedily they came in their progress to the 
 stall. The ^^ Sun indeed at that time had turned his steeds 
 towards the west, bringing on eventide : and the fat sheep 
 arrived, coming up from pasture to their ^^ folds and pens. 
 Next full myriads of heifers were seen, one after another, com- 
 ing, like rainy clouds, as many as in the heaven are being 
 driven forward, either by force of the south wind, or of 
 Thracian Boreas : of which there is no numbering, as they 
 move in air, no, nor cessation ; for so many does the violence 
 of the wind roll after the first, and the rest too rise and swell 
 upon others again : so many herds of heifers, 1 say, were 
 coming up ever and anon behind. Then in sooth all the plain 
 was filled, and all the ways, with the cattle coming in, while 
 the fertile fields were full of lowings, and the stalls easily 
 crowded with trailing-footed oxen ; the sheep too were fold- 
 ing themselves in the pens. '^^ Here, indeed, no man, though they 
 
 *' apprfveg, savage, (a collateral form of dppijv, from pr]v, L. and S.,) 
 aypiov, Svax^P^Q- Hesych. 
 
 " Compare Horn. Odyss. xvii. 170, 
 
 'AW OT£ 5j; ^ElTTVtJO-TOS t1]V, Kul tTTriXvds fltjXa 
 
 UdvTodav l^ dypuiv. 
 Virg. Georg. iv. 433, Yesper ubi e pastu vitulos ad tecta reducit. 
 
 '^ auXia, shelters for the smaller stock ; (rrjKovg, for the larger. Cf. 99, 
 18, 61, 76, 169, (for avXia,) of this Idyll ; for atjKol, see vs. 98. 
 Horn. II. iv. 433, wctt' ot£9 TroXvird/JLOVo's dvSpo^, tv avkrf 
 
 Mvpiai iOTTVKaaiv ajxsXyofjitvat. ydXa XtvKov. 
 -" * Though they were mimberlessy' is to be understood, says Kiessling, 
 
100—127. IDYLL XXV. 137' 
 
 were numberless, stood inactive by the oxen, in lack of work : 
 but one was fitting with well-cut thongs wooden logs about the 
 cows^ feet, for the purpose of standing close beside to milk 
 them. Another, again, was putting the dear calves to 
 their own mothers, all eager as they were to drink of the 
 pleasant milk : another was holding a milk -pail ; another was 
 ^^hickening a rich cheese ; another was driving in the bulls, 
 apart from the cows. And Augeas was going over all the ox- 
 stalls, and noting what fruits of his possessions his herdsmen 
 were making for him. And with him his son as well as mighty 
 and wise Hercules were following, as the king went round his 
 large property. Hereupon the son of Amphitryon, though hav- 
 ing in his bosom a spirit unbroken 22and sternly fixed for ever, 
 yet was vastly astonished on seeing the countless tribe of oxen, 
 I ween. For no one would say, or ^3 have supposed, that the 
 stock of one man, no, nor of ten others, ay, such as were rich 
 in flocks beyond all other men, was so great. Since Phoebus 
 had presented to his son this special gift, to be rich in cattle 
 above all men ; yes, and he kept altogether prospering for 
 him all his beasts to the uttermost ; '^^for no disease, of 
 those which destroy the labours of herdsmen, assailed his 
 herds. But ever more in number, ever finer sprang up horned 
 heifers duly from year to year: for of a truth all were 
 25 mothers of live offspring, far beyond others, and all of fe- 
 male offspring. And together with these, three hundred bulls 
 were ranged in rows, white-legged and crumple-horned ; nay, 
 
 of the cattle. Harles refers the words to the men, and illustrates the 
 number of servants by Dido's Feast, Virg. ^n. i. 701. 
 
 ^* The first meaning of rps^w is, to thicken, congeal, or curdle, hence 
 rpo^aXig, Aristoph. Vesp. 338, fresh cheese. Odyss. ix. 246, kvf'iKa 
 Z i]fii<Tv fiiv Opetpag XevKoio yaXuKTog. Cf. II. v. 902. Virg. Eel. i. 35 
 and 82, Pressi copia lactis. For the next line compare Virg. Georg. iii. 
 212, Aut intus clausos satura ad prsesepia servant. 
 
 ^^ Ovfibq aprjpdjg. Odyss. x. 553, ovre (ppemv yaiv aprjpdjg. — IQvoQ, used 
 of bees, Iliad ii. 87 ; of birds, v. 459 ; of flies, v. 469. 
 
 ^^ IwXTTEt, arbitratus fuisset. Compare Mosch. ii. 146, itKirofiai tiaopd- 
 auQai. Idyll iv. 55 — 80, toXira. Spero is so used by the Latins, ^n. i. 
 543, At sperate deos memores fandi atque nefandi. Eel. viii. 26, Quid 
 non speremus amantes. .^n. xi. 275. 
 
 "^^ vovaoQ — aire. A rare construction. See Person's note at Eurip. 
 Orest. 910, avrovpybg, oiTrtp. Porson ap. Monk Eurip. Hippol. 78. 
 Virg. Mn. viii. 427, Fulmen — quae plurima — 
 
 ^* Genesis xxxi. 38i " These twenty years have I been with thee : thy 
 ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young." 
 
138 THEOCRITUS. 127—155. 
 
 there were other two hundred red ; and all such as were 
 even already full-grown. And other twelve again beside 
 these were feeding, ^Ggacred to the Sun, and in colour they 
 were like swans, so white were thei/, and they were conspicu- 
 ous among all the trailing -footed oxen, which also were feeding 
 on the verdant herbage apart from the herd in the pasture ; 
 so exceedingly were they exulting over themselves. 
 
 And whensoever swift wild beasts chanced to sally forth 
 from the bushy thicket into the plain, for the sake of heifers 
 afield, these were thei/, I wot, that would rush first to the con- 
 flict, guided by their scent of the skin ; and bellow fearfully, 
 27 looking slaughter in their visages. And chief of them in- 
 deed both in strength, and in his natural force and high 
 courage, was huge Phaethon : whom in sooth herdsmen were 
 all 2^ wont to liken to a star, because as he moved he shone 
 out greatly among other oxen, and was very conspicuous. Now 
 he in fact, when he beheld the dry hide of a fierce-eyed lion, 
 upon this rushed against wary Hercules himself, so as to bring 
 against his sides his head and sturdy forehead. But, as he 
 approached, ^Sthe hero quickly seized his left horn with his 
 broad hand, bent his neck, ^o^ard though it was, down to 
 the earth beneath ; and then thrust him back again, having 
 pressed heavily with his shoulder ; so the bull, having the 
 tendons of the muscles strained, stood right up on his haunches. 
 Then marvelled both the king himself, and Phyleus, his war- 
 like son, and the herdsmen over ^^ crumple-horned kine, as 
 they beheld the immense strength of the son of Amphitryon. 
 Then they two, Phyleus and strong Hercules, began to pro- 
 ceed to the city, having left there behind them the fruitful 
 fields. But as soon as they had set ^^foot on the highway, 
 
 ^ Sacred to the Sun.] Herodot., ix. 93, mentions a flock of sheep in 
 Ionia sacred to Phoebus. Cf. Horn. Odyss. xii. 123. 
 
 ^ <p6vov XtixTtrovre. Compare Idyll xiii. 45, and see Matt. Gr. Gr. § 
 409, 2, p. 653. 
 
 ^^ Hom. II. yi. 295, aarijp d' ioq aTrkXaix-mvy sc, irkirKoq. Kiessling. 
 
 ^^ ava^. Thus Homer calls all his heroes. In later poets the term is 
 applied to the sons or near kinsmen of sovereigns. 
 
 '" Hercules seizing the bull's left horn forces his head down to the 
 ground ; then pressing with his shoulder, he shoves him back. The bull 
 in vain strains every nerve against Hercules, but unable to repel him, is 
 at last forced right up on his haunches by the efibrts of his antagonist. 
 
 '' So Archilochus (Fragm. viii. ) has ^ovq Kopujvog. 
 
 '* The meaning seems to be, that as soon as they had got over the 
 
156 175. IDYLL XXV. 139 
 
 having got over ^s-with active feet a narrow path which in 
 sooth extended through the vineyard from the ox-stalls, not 
 being in any way very distinguishable amid green foliage, here 
 then, I say, the dear son of Augeas addressed the offspring 
 of highest Jove, as he came on behind him, having slightly 
 bent his head over his right shoulder : 
 
 ^^* Stranger, I am just now pondering in my mind, that I 
 have certainly heard long ago some famous story about thee. 
 For there came hither on his way from Argos, one, ^^ quite a 
 young man, an Achaean from ^^Helice by the sea-shore, who in 
 truth, look you, was also discoursing among many of the 
 Epeans, that one of the Argives in his presence had destroyed 
 a wild beast, a savage lion, a monster of evil to rustics, having 
 a hollow den ^"^ in the grove of Nemean Jupiter. I know not 
 accurately, whether he was from ^^ sacred Argos, on the spot, 
 or an inhabitant of the city of Tiryns, or Mycenae. Thus he 
 at least used to say : but by birth he reported that the hero 
 was (that is, if I recollect rightly) ^^of the lineage of Perseus. 
 I deem that none other of the '^'^-^gialasans, but you, has had 
 
 by-path, where Hercules and Phyleus could not walk abreast, and make 
 any way, being at last on the high road, Phyleus made room for Her- 
 cules beside him, in order that they might converse without difficulty. 
 
 ^^ KapTTaXifioig Troai. II. xvi. 342. 
 
 ^* Read with Briggs, whom Kiessling approves, 
 
 ^eTj/e iraXai Tiva irdyx^ aiQzv Tripi fxvdov a'/coucas 
 
 ciffElTTEp, &c. 
 
 '* WQ vkog ciKfiriv. aKfirjv, in later writers, stands for en. See Pierson, 
 Mferis, 79. Only once so in Xenophon, Anab. iv. 3, 26. 
 
 ^^ Helice by the sea-shore.] Cf. Idyll i. 125, a city of Achaia, on the 
 Peloponnesian coast of the '• Corinthiacus Sinus." Spanhem.ad Callim. 
 H. in Del. 100, who quotes Ovid Met. xv. 293, 
 
 Si quaeras Helicen et Burim Achaidas urbes, 
 Invenies sub aquis. 
 
 " In the grove of Nemean Jupiter.] The Nemean games were held in 
 a grove in Argolis, between Cleonae and Phlius. Strabo viii. 6, p. 210 
 (Tauchnitz). It appears that Hercules either revived these ancient 
 games, or introduced the alterations by which they were henceforth 
 celebrated in honour of Jupiter. Of the Nemean lion, vid. Trachin. 
 Sophocl. 1092, 1093. 
 
 ^ Argos was sacred to Juno. Iliad iv. 52. Ov. Met. vi. 414. Fast. 
 vi. 47. Virg. jEn. i. 24, Memor Saturnia belli 
 
 Prima quod ad Trojam pro caris gesserat Argis. 
 Her temple there was called Herseum. 
 
 , 3' Ik Ilf pffiyoc. The line ran thus, Perseus, Alcaeus, Amphitryo, Hercules. 
 Cf. Idyll xxiv. 72. 
 
 *<* iEgialaeans, the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Achaia and Argolis, 
 
140 THEOCRITUS. 175—199. 
 
 the courage to do this deed, and the wild beast's' hide, which 
 envelopes your sides, very clearly bespeaks the work of your 
 hands. Come now, tell me first, (that I may know in my mind, 
 O hero, whether I guess rightly or not,) if even you are that 
 hero, ^^ of whom the Achsean from Helice told us, his hearers, 
 and I judge of you rightly. And tell me how you yourself 
 slew this dreadful wild beast, and how it came into the land 
 of well-watered Nemea, For such a monster you could not 
 find, though you desired to see it, in "^^ Apis ; since it surely 
 rears none such, but only bears, and wild boars, ^^ and the 
 destructive seed of wolves. Whereat they used to wonder 
 then, as they heard the story, and some too even thought that 
 the traveller was telling a falsehood, giving freely of a false 
 tongue to please present company.'' 
 
 Thus having spoken, Phyleus ^^ made way from the middle 
 of the road, that it might suffice for them to walk together 
 upon, and also, I ween, that he might more easily hear Her- 
 cules speak, who, having accompanied him, addressed him in 
 such a speech as follows. 
 
 ' son of Augeas, as to that which you asked me first, you 
 have yourself, and very easily, guessed aright. And concern- 
 ing this monster, I will tell you each particular, how it was 
 accomplished, since you desire to hear ; that is to say, except 
 whence it came ; for that, though there be many Argives, no 
 one can clearly state :fonly we conjecture that some one of the 
 
 before the lonians settled there. Eustathius says the whole Peloponnese 
 was so called. 
 
 ** ov hiTTiv. Compare Sophoc. Electr. 984. Eurip. Med. 250, 
 Xiyovai 5' vfia^y ws aKlvBvvov fiiov 
 
 X,03fJLeV. 
 
 De quo referebat. 
 
 *^ Apis and 'Attiu yrj — "The Peloponnese," especially "Argolis,''' 
 (jEsch. Suppl. 262,) said to be so called from Apis, a mythical king of 
 Argos. Compare Horat. Od. I. xxii. 13, 
 
 Quale portentum neque militaris 
 Daunia in latis alit sesculetis. 
 
 *' ipvog, Lucret. iii. 741, Triste leonum seminium. Virg. Georg. 
 ii. 151, Sseva leonum semina. In II. xvii. 53, ipvog appears in its 
 proper sense, a shoot or scion, used of plants ; here in its secondary mean- 
 ing, or second intention. Below, (vs. 188,) J. Wordsworth compares 
 ^sch. Choeph. 260. Prom. v. 294. 
 
 ** e^spbjsio, a rare word ; it occurs Horn. II. xxiii. 468, at d' e^r]p<lJri<Tav, 
 iTrei fikvog tWa(3e 9vn6v. 
 
199—226. IDTLL XXV. 141 
 
 immortals, *^ angry on account of sacrifices, inflicted the pest 
 on the men descended from Phoroneus. For overwhelming, 
 like a river, all '*^the men of Pisa, the lion kept ravaging them 
 furiously, and most of all the ^"^ Bembinaeans, who were dwell- 
 ing near to him, being in most intolerable plight. Now this 
 conflict Eurystheus imposed on me to accomplish first of all, 
 for he desired that the savage beast might kill me. But I took 
 my supple bow, and hollow quiver filled with arrows, and 
 iet forth ; and in my other hand was my stout club, bark and 
 all, of the shady wild olive, of a good size : which I myself 
 having found under sacred Helicon, had pulled up whole with 
 its thick roots. But when I had come to the place where the 
 lion was, then it was that, having taken my bow, and applied 
 the string to the "^^ hooked tip, I forthwith set upon it a bane- 
 ful arrow. And moving my eyes every where, I proceeded 
 to look out for the destructive monster, if haply I might spy 
 him, and that too before he had caught sight of me. ^^ 'Twas 
 mid-day, and no where was I able to discern tracks of him, 
 or to hear his roar. No, nor was there any man, set over 
 cattle, or engaged in tillage, to be seen throughout the arable 
 land, whom I could question : but pale fear was keeping each 
 in his dwelling. I had not however stayed my steps, recon- 
 noitring a woody mountain, ere I even beheld him, and 
 straightway began to make trial of prowess. In truth, he 
 -vvas ^^ going before evening to his den, having fed on flesh 
 and blood ; and he had got his squalid mane, and grim visage, 
 and chest, bespattered about with gore ; and was licking his 
 
 *^ ipCJv [xr]vi(javTa. Just as in Horn. II. i. 65, eIt' dp' oy' evxft^^VQ 
 ETTtjttEju^erai, eW sKaToixftrjg. See also Iliad ix. 529. Soph. Aj. 176. 
 — Phoroneus was the son of Inachus, king of Argos, and the Phoroneans 
 are therefore identical with the ^Egialeans, -vs. 174. 
 
 *^ Men of Pisa,'] a town of Elis, celebrated for the Olympic games. 
 
 *' Bembinseans,] the people of a village near to Nemea, mentioned 
 by Strabo, viii. 6, p. 210, Tauchnitz, referred to at 169. 
 
 *^ KopujvT]. TO cLKpov Tov TO^ov, siQ 5 ?) vsvpct SkSeTai. Hesych. The 
 word occurs, Horn. II. iv. 111. Odyss. xxi. 138, 165, aurov d' wkv (3IXog 
 KoXy TrpoasKXive icopujvy. 
 
 49 Warton compares here Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1247. Four lines below, 
 compare Ovid. Met. viii. 298, 
 
 Diffugiunt populi : nee se, nisi maenibus urbis 
 Esse putant tutos, 
 
 ^9 TrpoSsieXog, before eventide. Compare 1. 56 of this Idyll and the 
 note there. 
 
142 THEOCRITUS. 226—248. 
 
 jaws with his tongue. But I quickly hid myself amid shady 
 bushes on a woody hill-top, awaiting when he might come 
 upon me: and I hit him, as he drew nearer, on his left flank, 
 but ^^ to no purpose; for in no wise did the barbed missile 
 penetrate through his flesh, but glancing back fell on the green 
 herbage. Then speedily did he raise in astonishment his blood- 
 red head from the ground, and ran over it on all sides with 
 his eyes, making his observations, and, in yawning, ^^he gave 
 me a view of his gluttonous teeth. Now at him I proceeded to 
 shoot another arrow from the string, being vexed that before 
 it had escaped fruitlessly from my hand, and I hit him be- 
 tween the breasts, where the lung is seated. But not even so 
 did the painful arrow pierce beneath the hide, but fell before 
 his feet, absolutely to no purpose. Again the third time I 
 was preparing, though grievously disgusted in mind, to draw 
 my bow anew, when the furious beast caught sight of me, 
 ^^as he glared around with his eyeballs : and ^^he rolled his 
 great tail about the hollow of the knee, and quickly bethought 
 him of battle : his whole neck was swollen with rage, and 
 his tawny mane ^^ bristled, as he chafed ; whilst his back-bone 
 became curved, like a bow, as he gathered himself up from 
 all sides towards his flanks and loins. And as, when a chariot- 
 maker, skilled in many works, ^^ bends shoots of the easily 
 
 5' TJ/uo-iwf, the Homeric word for juaraior. Vid, Odyss. iii. 316 ; xv. 13. 
 Hymn to Apoll, 540, (Either Ionic for Tavcriog, or avaiog = fxaraiogy or 
 from dvio, dvTeo), noisy. L. and S.) 
 
 " Compare here Homer II. xx. 165—168, 169, 
 
 Sii/TT]5, bv T£ Kal dvBpts aTTOKTajULEvaL fxtfxdaaiv • 
 
 ********** 
 ip^ETai aX\' 0T£ kIv Tts ' ApiiiQ6(ov ai'^ijcov, 
 Soupi fidXri, kdXi] te yavwv^ TrtpL t' d(ppd^ oSouras 
 yiyvETai. 
 " ^n. ix. 793, where the lion is represented at bay, " asper, acerba 
 tuens." Trag ds oi avxv^. Compare Job xxxix. 19, "Hast thou given 
 the horse strength 1 hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? " 
 5* Compare II. xx. 168—173, above, and Hesiod, Sent. 426—432. 
 " efpi^av. So the Latins use " horrere." Horat. Epod. v. 27, 
 Horret capillis, ut marinus, asperis 
 Echinus, aut currens aper. 
 iEn. vi. 419, Horrere videns jam colla colubris. .^is„ I. 635, Horrentia 
 centum Terga suum. 
 
 »« Comp. Hom. II. xxi. 37, 
 
 bo kpLVEov o^eL -x^aXKtS 
 Ta/JiVEf viovi Oj07r»2/cas, Iv dpfJiaTos oi/Tuyts tlt». 
 
249—272. IDYLL XXV. 145 
 
 cleft wild fig-tree, having first warmed them in the fire, to he 
 wheels for the chariot-seat on its axles, the thick-barked fig- 
 shoot is apt to fly from out his hands in the bending, and leaps 
 to a distance with one bound, so upon me sprang ^^ all-at-once 
 the fierce lion from afar, eager to glut himself on my flesh ; 
 but I in one hand was holding before me my arrows, and my 
 double-folded cloak from my shoulders, while with the other, 
 having raised my dry club above his temple, I struck him ^^ 
 upon the head, but broke my sturdy olive club right in twain, 
 there upon the shaggy skull of the enormous beast. Ay, arid 
 he fell, even before he reached me, from on high upon the 
 earth, and stood upon trembling feet, nodding with his head : 
 for dimness had come over both his eyes, the brain having 
 received a concussion within the skull from the violence. 
 Now when I observed him to be stunned by severe pain, ere 
 at least he had recovered himself and breathed afresh, being 
 beforehand I struck him on the nape of his sturdy neck, hav- 
 ing cast on the ground my bow and well-sewn quiver : and 
 I proceeded to throttle him vigorously, having set my strong 
 hands firmly together behind him, lest he should lacerate my 
 flesh with his claws ; ^^and with my heels I kept strenuously 
 pressing to the ground his hinder feet, having mounted upon 
 him : while with his sides I kept protecting my thighs, until 
 I had strained his shoulders to the uttermost, having lifted 
 him upright, ^^ breathless as he was : and Hades received a 
 monster soul. 
 
 And then, in fact, I began to deliberate how I should draw 
 
 The op-Kt]^ was more commonly used for the rails of the chariot. dvTV- 
 yeg. Cf. Diet. G. R. Ant. p. 55, b. 
 
 ^' dOpooQ. Comp. Idyll xiii. 50. 
 
 ■*« ijXaaa. Idyll xiv. 35. 
 
 ^9 Hercules as it were rides the lion ; so that his thighs are, as it were, 
 shielded, by the sides of the lion. 
 
 ^^ d-n-vtvcTov. Cf. Ovid, Epist. ix. 61, 
 
 Nempe sub his aniraam pestis Nemeaea lacertis 
 Edidit : unde humerus tegmina laevus habet. 
 And Sophocl. Trachin. 1089, &c. The souls of beasts descended to 
 the shades, according to Homer and Yirgil. Virg. ^n. vi. 285, enu- 
 merates animals beheld by ^Eneas in the shades, Multaque praeterea 
 variarum monstra ferarum. Orion (Odyss. xi. 572,) is described hunting 
 in Orcus the shades of wild beasts which he had slain on the barren 
 mountains. 
 
144 THEOCRITUS. 272--281. 
 
 the shaggy hide from off the limbs of the dead beast, ^^ a very 
 laborious task : for it was not able to be cut with steel, nor 
 with stones, though I tried, no, nor with wood. Thereupon 
 one of the immortals put it into my mind to devise, how to rip 
 up the skin of the lion with his own claws. With these I 
 speedily flayed him, and placed the skin around my limbs, that 
 it might be to me a defence against skin-wounding Enyalius. 
 Such, look you, friend, was the destruction of the Nemean 
 monster, after he had first brought many deaths upon sheep 
 and men.' 
 
 IDYLL XXVL 
 
 THE BACCHANALS. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This poem narrates the slaughter of Pentheus, king of Thebes. While 
 Agave his mother, with her sisters, Ino and Autonoe, is celebrating the 
 orgies of Bacchus, Pentheus is spied by the Bacchants, concealed 
 amongst some shrubs. Hereupon they make an attack upon the un- 
 fortunate offender, and, under the influence of Bacchic phrensy, seize 
 him and mangle him. At the close of the poem, our poet prays the 
 gods that it may be permitted him to live purely and safely, and adds 
 an encomium on Bacchus and Semele. The subject has been treated 
 by Euripides and by Lucius Accius, his translator. See also Ovid's 
 Metamorph. iii. 701—733. 
 
 Ino and Autonoe, and ^apple-cheeked Agave, led three 
 2 companies, themselves being three, to a mountain. And they 
 
 ®^ apyaXkov — fxSxBov, accusative in apposition with the sentence, Cf. 
 Virg. JEu. vi. 222, Pars ingenti subiere feretro, 
 
 Triste ministerium. 
 Comp. Matth. Gr. Gr. § 432 — 434. — criST]p(p. Harles argues from the use 
 of this metal, and not x«^Koe, here, that the author of this Idyll disre- 
 gards the manners of the heroic age. But Kiessling shows that both 
 were in use, by the references, II. iv. 485 ; Odyss. i. 483, 484 ; ix. 391. 
 For vXrj, (275,) Wordsworth suggests aXXy, h. e. Nulla alia ratione. 
 
 ' Apple-cheeked.] Hesychius thinks fxaXoiraprioQ is equivalent to 
 XtvKoiraprioQy albis geris praedita ; but it is clear from Id. vii. 117, xxiii. 
 8, and xxix. 16, as well as the Scholiast on Hom. II. xxii. 68, that the 
 word equals peOofidXig, or oLTrciXoTrdpyog, generally rosy-cheeked. 
 
 2 Virg. Eel. V. 30, Daphnis thyasos inducere Baccho. Cf^Eurip. 
 
8—22. IDYLL XXVL 145 
 
 indeed having plucked wild foliage of a ^ busby oak, and green 
 ivy, and aspbodel that grows over the ground, had reared ^in 
 an open meadow twelve altars, the three for Semele, the nine 
 for Bacchus : and, when they had taken in their hands ^from 
 the mystic chest curiously-wrought sacred images, had laid 
 them down silently upon the ^ newly plucked altars, as Bacchus 
 himself was wont to teach, as himself was well pleased it 
 should be. But Pentheus was beholding all from a high rock, 
 creeping under an ancient mastich tree, a shrub of the country. 
 Autonoe first spied him, and raised a fearful cry, and rushing 
 in suddenly, with her feet disturbed the orgies of frantic Bac- 
 chus: and these, ^uninitiated persons behold not. Maddened 
 indeed both she, and maddened, I ween, straightway also others. 
 Pentheus was flying affrighted; while they kept pursu- 
 ing, having drawn-up-tight their robes by the waist to the 
 knee. Now Pentheus spake thus, * What want ye, women ?' 
 But Autonoe said this, ' Soon shalt thou know, ere thou hast 
 heard it.' His mother, on the one hand, roared out, as she 
 seized the head of her son, deeply ^ as is the roar of a lioness 
 with cubs : and Ino on the other hand brake his great shoulder 
 
 Bacch. 679. Propert. iii. 17, 24, Pentheos in triplices funera grata greges. 
 — iq opoQ. The mountain was Cithgeron, according to Euripides ; Par- 
 nassus, according to JEschyl. JEumen. 26. 
 
 3 Xaaiag, bushy. So Callim. H. ad Dian. 192, r/ 5' bri fifv Xaciyoit 
 virb dpvai KpvTTTtro Kovpij. 
 
 * Ka9ap(^, open. So Yirg. ^n. xii. 771, Puro ut possent concurrere 
 campo. 
 
 * Reiske understands this of the curiously wrought images of Bacchus 
 and Semele, drawn on this occasion from the cista or mystic chest or 
 vase, mentioned Catull. Nupt. Pel. et Thet. 260, 261, 
 
 Pars obscura cavis celebrabant orgia cistis, 
 
 Orgia, quae frustra cupiunt audire profani. 
 For TTiTTOvaiikva, "Wordsworth proposes to read TroTravf v/iara, baked flat 
 cakes used at sacrifices. 
 
 * vi.oSpk^rT^li)v, newly plucked. As these altars were composed of 
 boughs, poetic liberty uses the material of the altars for the altars 
 themselves. 
 
 ' /3lj3j7\ot, profani. Horat. Od. III. i, 1, Odi profanum vulgus. Callim. 
 H. to Apoll. 2, and Spanheim's note there. Ovid. Met. vii. 156, Et 
 monet arcanis oculos removere profanos. 
 
 * Horat. Od. III. ii. 41, Quae velut nactae vitulos leaenae, 
 
 Singulos eheu lacerant. 
 Callim. H. to Ceres, 52, -qk Kvvaybv "Qpsmv Iv Tfiapioimv viro^XsTra 
 ivSpa Xkaiva QfioroKog. Of. Eurip. Bacch. 1137 ; Ovid Met. iii. 725. 
 
 L 
 
146 THEOCRITUS. 22 — 38. 
 
 with the shoulder-blade, when she had trampled on his belly : 
 and the same was Autonoe's manner of acting : and the rest of 
 the women tore in pieces the remainder of his flesh, and arrived 
 at Thebes aU of them stained with blood, bearing from the 
 mountain ^not Pentheus but Trivdrjfia. I care not ^^for it, 
 nor let another think of being hostile to Bacchus, not even 
 though one has suffered worse treatment than this, and is but 
 nine years old, or even entering on his tenth year. But may I 
 be pure and holy, and please the pure and holy. From ^gis- 
 bearing Jove this omen hath honour, namely, ^^ ' To the sons 
 of the pious comes the better fortune, and to the impious 
 not so.' 
 
 Hail to Bacchus, whom on snowy ^^ Dracanus supreme Ju- 
 piter deposited, leaving relieved his vast thigh : and hail to 
 beauteous Semele, and her Cadmeian sisters, objects of love 
 and care to many heroines, who at the instigation of Bacchus 
 performed this deed, undeserving of blame : - let no one blame 
 the acts of the gods. 
 
 IDYLL XXVII. V 
 
 THE ^FOND DISCOURSE OF DAPHNIS AND THE DAMSEL. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 In this truly pastoral Idyll, the herdsman Daphnis is represented as 
 striving to win a maiden, who is tending her goats. His efforts at 
 
 ® Not Pentheus, but nevOijfia,] i. e. grief, a source of mourning. The 
 pun is untranslateable. For instances of it, see Eurip. Phoeniss. 598, 599. 
 Soph. Aj ax 430. -S:schylus calls Helen 'EXIvav v. Shakspeare is fond of 
 these «* concetti." He makes a strange prince say of Rome, This is 
 Rome, and room enough. He makes a pun on Hotspur's name, calling 
 him, when dead, Coldspur. Cf. Bacch. 367, UevQivg d' oTnog [i^ ttsvOoq 
 iiaoiau dofioig. 
 
 1* I care not for it] The sense appears to be, * This treatment of 
 Pentheus shakes not my reverence for Bacchus : whom I advise none to 
 offend or quarrel with ; even though a harder case of punishment should 
 come under his notice, e. g. a child of nine or ten years punished by the 
 Bacchants, for chance privity to the orgies.' 
 
 " Melancthon called this verse the best in Theocritus. 
 
 *' Dracanus, a promontory and city of Samos. 
 • * 6api<fTv£. Juno, in Homer II. xiv. 216, receives from Aphrodite a 
 
1—15. IDYLL XXVII. 147 
 
 wooing and the damsel's coyness are very graphically pictured. There 
 has been much dispute as to the authorship of this Idyll, which some 
 ascribe to Moschus ; others, to an imitator of Theocritus ; whilst 
 Warton, Eichstadt, and others, agree in determining that it is not the 
 work of Theocritus. 
 
 Daphnis. ^The pfudent Helen Paris, another herdsman, 
 carried off; my Helen here is kissing me, the herdsman, 
 rather. 
 
 Damsel. Brag not, little satyr, 'tis said the kiss is an empty 
 favour. 
 
 Daph. 3 There is even in empty kisses sweet delight. 
 
 Dams. I wipe my mouth, and spit out your kiss. 
 
 Daph. Dost wipe thy lips ? Give me them again that I 
 may kiss. 
 
 Dams, 'Tis good for you to kiss heifers, not ^ an un wedded 
 girl. 
 
 Daph. Boast not : for soon youth passes by you, like a 
 dream. 
 
 Dams. The bunch of grapes is still a bunch of raisins, and 
 the withered rose will not perish wholly. 
 
 Daph. Come under the wild olives, that I may tell thee a 
 tale. 
 
 Dams. I don't choose: before now you have cajoled me by 
 sweet tales. 
 
 Daph. Come beneath the elms, that you may hear my pipe. 
 
 Dams. Satisfy your own taste: nothing sorry ^pleases 
 me. 
 
 Daph. Fie, fie, regard, yes, even thou, maiden, the wrath 
 of the Paphian goddess. 
 
 Dams. Farewell to her of Paphos ! Only be Diana pro- 
 pitious ! 
 
 cestus, or girdle. ivB' ivi fikv ^iXoTrjg, Iv 5' V/tcpoc, «v ^* 6api<TTV£. 
 Compare II. xxii. 126. 
 
 2 Cf. Idyll xviii. 25, &c. Bion xv. 10. Horat. Od. I. xv., Pastor 
 cum traheret per freta navihus, &c. Homer always represents Helen as 
 right-minded, and sensible of her error. II. iii. 171 ; vi. 344. 
 
 3 This line occurs in Idyll iii. 20. 
 
 * Comp. Hom. Odyss. vi. 106, TrapOsvog dSfirjg. Two lines below 
 Wordsworth reads earai for sort. 
 
 ^ otKvov. So Virg. Eel. iii. 27, Strident! miserum stipulS. disperdere 
 carmen. Calpurn. Sic. iii. 59, 
 
 Torrida Mopsi 
 Vox, et carmen inops et acerbse stridor ayenae. 
 I. 2 
 
148 THEOCRITUS. 16—32. 
 
 Daph. Say not so ; lest she smite you, and you come into 
 an inextricable net. 
 
 Dams. Let her smite as she will ! On the other hand, 
 Diana aids me. Lay not your hand upon me. ^If you do, 
 I will tear your lip too. 
 
 . Daph. You do not escape Love, whom never did other 
 maiden escape. 
 
 Dams. I do escape him, yes, by Pan ! But you ever bear 
 the yoke. 
 
 Daph. I fear lest, in truth, he shall give thee to a worse 
 man. 
 
 Dams. Many were my wooers : but not one pleased my 
 taste. 
 
 Daph. I too, as one of many, come hither as your suitor ! 
 
 Dams. And what can I do, kind sir ? Marriages are full 
 of trouble. 
 
 Daph. Nor care nor grief hath marriage, but dancing ! 
 
 Dams. Well, but in sooth they say that women fear their 
 husbands. 
 
 Daph. Rather they always rule them ! Whom do women 
 fear ? 
 
 Dams. I fear to be in labour : Lucina's dart is painful. 
 
 Daph. But your queen is Diana, 'that helps in hard 
 labours. 
 
 Dams. But I fear to be a mother ; lest I should lose my 
 fair complexion. 
 
 Daph. Yet, if you shall have borne dear children, you will 
 see a new light in your sons. 
 
 Dams. And what ® nuptial gift bring you me, worth marry- 
 ing for, if I should consent. 
 
 ® Horat. Epod. iii, 19, Manum puella suavio opponat tuo, 
 Extreme, et in spond^ cubet. 
 Warton reads koI iiakri x^^Xoc dfiv^eig ; Will you again assail my lips 
 with bites "? Wordsworth, Kai ely' tri x«Xoe, dfxv^oj. Ne mihi injicias 
 manum, et si insuper labium tuum (injeceris) mordicabo. 
 
 ^ fioyoaroKog, an epithet of Lucina, in Horn. II. xvi. 187, xix. 103. 
 Here of Diana. Horat. Carm. Sec. 15, 16, 
 
 Sive tu Lucina probas Tocari 
 Seu Orenitalis. 
 Cf. Odyss. iii. 22, 2. 
 
 ^ iSvov, the bridegroom's present to the bride, in Homer frequently, 
 and in jiEsch. Prom. Yinct. 560. Compare Idyll xxii. 147. 
 
37—70. IDYLL XXVII. 149 
 
 Daph. You shall have all the herd; all the groves, and pasture. 
 
 Dams. ^ Swear not to go away after wedding, deserting 
 me against my wish ? 
 
 Daph. I will not indeed, no, by Pan; even though you 
 should wish ^^ to drive me off. 
 
 Dams. Are you going to build me a nuptial chamber, and 
 build me a house and stalls ? 
 
 Daph. I am building thee chambers : and the flocks I tend 
 are beautiful. 
 
 Dams. And what, what story should I tell my aged father ? 
 
 Daph. He will approve your marriage, when he has heard 
 my name. 
 
 Dams. Say that name of thine : even a name often pleases. 
 
 Daph. I am Daphnis ; and my sire Lycidas, and my mother 
 Nomaea. 
 
 Dams. You come of gentle blood ! but I am no worse than 
 you. 
 
 Daph. Neither are you honourable in the highest degree ; 
 for your sire is Menalcas. 
 
 Dams. Show me your grove, where your stall stands. 
 
 Daph. Come hither and see how my tall cypresses bloom. 
 
 Dams. Feed ye, my she-goats : I shall go see the works of 
 the herdsman. 
 
 Daph. ^^ Graze well, my bulls, whilst I show the maiden 
 the groves. 
 
 12************ 
 
 Thus they indeed, delighting in young limbs, were whis- 
 ^pering one to the other. ^^A stolen embrace was springing 
 up. And she indeed, when she had arisen, I wot, went for- 
 ward to tend her flocks, showing shame in her eyes ; but her 
 heart was warmed within : and he proceeded to his herds of 
 oxen, rejoiced at his marriage. 
 
 ' She fears what Simsetha found too true, Idyll ii. 40. 
 
 '" diioKsiv, fugare. 
 
 " Ka\d vifxetrOe. So Idyll iii., to koXov is used adverbially. 'Iva 
 " dum," de tempore. Horn. Odyss. vi. 27, *' quo tempore." So ottov, 
 Xenoph. Cyr. III. iii. 6. Kiessling. 
 
 '* I hesitate not to leave untranslated these verses, following Pol- 
 whele's example. J. B. For a sufficiently close rendering, see Chap- 
 man's version. 
 
 " <p(l)pioQ diva. Bion, xv. 6, \d9pia UijXdSao ^iXafiara, \d9piov 
 ivvav. Virg. ^n. iv. 171, Nee jam furtivum Dido meditatur amorem. 
 
IDYLL XXVIIL 
 
 THE DISTAFF. 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This sweet ditty was written to commend an ivory distafP, which the 
 poet, about to sail to Miletus, intended as a present for Theugenis, the 
 wife of Nicias the physician. Under the semblance of teaching the 
 distaff what sort of a mistress it is about to have, he cleverly and 
 gracefully praises a most honourable matron and her husband. The 
 Idyll is of the lyric class ; the metre Choriambic ; a favourite of Alcaeus, 
 and one which Horace imitates in the 18th Ode of the first book. 
 
 Nullam I Vare sScra | vltg prius ] sevMs ar | borem. 
 
 O DISTAFF, ^practised in wool -spinning, gift of blue- 
 eyed Minerva, labour at thee is fitting to wives who are pru- 
 dent-housekeepers. Attend me confidently to the famous 
 city of ^Neleus, where is ^ the temple of Venus, green by reason 
 of the soft reed. For thither we ask of Jove a favourable 
 voyage, that *I may be gratified by the sight of my friend 
 Nicias, and be loved by him in turn ; Nicias^ a sacred scion 
 of the Graces of lovely voice ; and may present thee, that wast 
 wrought of much worked ivory, to the hands of the wife of 
 Nicias, as a gift. With her you will finish off much work for 
 men's robes, and many ^gauze-like garments, such as women 
 wear. For twice in the same year will the mothers of lambs 
 yield their soft fleeces to be shorn in the pastures, even for 
 the sake of Theugenis of the beautiful ancle. So industrious 
 
 ' Idyll XV. 80, TToial (T(p' tTrovaaav ipiOoi ; Pierson in Moer. Atticist. 
 says that ffvvkpl^og and ^iXepiOog are used in much the same senses. 
 (TvvspiOog, Leonid. Epigr. cxxiii. 3. 
 
 ^ NctXtw. Neleus, son of Codrus, leaving Athens, went to Ionia, and 
 built or restored Miletus, ^lian V. H. viii. 5. The ei in Ntt'Xtw must 
 be considered a peculiarity of Dialect. Wesseling defends it at Herodot. 
 ix. 97. 
 
 3 Athenaeus, b. 13, p. 372, T^v Iv ^dfnp 'AtppoUrriv, ijv o'i fikv iv 
 KoXcifioig KaXovmv. " Yon deep bed of whispering reeds." 
 
 * Futures middle for passive. See Matt. Gr. Gr. § 496, 8. 
 
 ^ w^ariva = Thalassina, fine gauzy Milesian textures. See Ovid. Art. 
 A. iii. 177, Hie undas imitatus habet quoque nomen ab undis, 
 
 Crediderira nymphas hac ego veste tegi. 
 Virg. Georg. iii. 316, Quamvis Milesia magno 
 
 Vellera mutentur Tyrios incocta rubores. 
 
14—25. IDYLL XXVIII. 151 
 
 is she, and loves all that ^discreet women love. Now, I 
 should not wish to present thee, as thou art from our land, to 
 slack and idle houses. '^For thy country is that which ^Archias 
 from Ephyre founded of old, the richest part of the island, 
 Trinacria, a city of men in repute. Now indeed, keeping the 
 house of a man who has learnt many saving medicines to 
 ward off from men grievous diseases, you will dwell in lovely 
 Miletus, among lonians ; that among townsfolk Theugenis 
 may have a good distaff, and you may ever and anon put her 
 in mind of a friend who loves the song. For looking at you, one 
 shall say this to another : * Sure there is great grace with a 
 trifling gift : and all the gifts from friends are precious.' 
 
 IDYLL XXIX. 
 
 LOVES. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 In the Idyll, which is of the lyric character, our poet blames the in- 
 constancy and fickleness of a beautiful youth, and urges him to con- 
 
 6 Penelope, Helen, (Hom. Odyss. iv. 130,) Lucretia were all industri- 
 ous workers in wools. Polwhele here quotes Epitaph. Spon. Miscell. 
 Antiq. Erudit. p. 151, 
 
 HIC . SITA . EST . AMYMONE. 
 MARCI . OPTIMA . ET . PULCHER 
 BIMA . LANIFICA . PIA . PUDICA. 
 FRUGI . CASTA . DOMISEDA. 
 
 St. Paul, Ep. to Tit. ii. 5, ouxppovag, dyvag oUovpovg. 
 
 ^ aKipojQ. According to Liddell and Scott, Lex., this is the same aa 
 anidvog, weak, faint, &c. It is only found here, and as a various read- 
 ing, Hesiod, O. et D. 233. — i(3o\X6fiav, the earliest form of ifiov\6fit]v. 
 
 * Corinth, or Ephyre, was the mother country of Syracuse, which was 
 founded by Archias. See Idyll xv. 91, xvi. 83, and notes there. — {ivtXoVy 
 meduUam, the marrow, i. e. the richest land. Callim. H. to Del. 48, 
 fiaffTov TtapOtviriQ. Virg. Mn. iii., 
 
 Quae vos a stirpe parentum 
 Prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere Icefo 
 Accipiet reduces. 
 Varro de R. R. I. vii. 10, Caesar — campoa Rosese Italiae dixit es«e 
 $umen. 
 
152 THEOCRITUS. 1—26. 
 
 suit his good name by better faitb in future. The metre is ^olic. 
 g-ss — wv^-^^-z-ww- '='. See Hermann, Element. Doctr. Metr. p. 
 360, seq. 
 
 1 ' Wine,' dear youth, ' and truth,' is the saying ; and we 
 must be true as drunkards. And I indeed will tell what lies 
 in the depths of my heart. You choose not to love me with 
 your whole soul, I know it : ^for the half of life, which I 
 have, lives in thy beauteous form, and the rest has perished. 
 And w^hensoever you choose, I pass a day like the gods ; but 
 when you choose not, / am wholly in gloom. How is this 
 seemly, ^to consign him that loves thee to cares ? Nay, if 
 you would be persuaded at all by me, the younger by the 
 elder, then you yourself would be better circumstanced, and 
 commend me for it ; build one nest in one tree, where no 
 savage reptile shall reach. But now you occupy one branch 
 to-day, and another to-morrow ; and you seek one after 
 another. And suppose any one shall have seen and praised 
 ^your fair face, to him then you straightway become a friend of 
 more than three years' date ; whilst you place your first admirer 
 in the third rank. You seem to savour of arrogant men. 
 Nay, prefer, as long as you live, to have always one like your- 
 self. For if you thus do, you will be well-reported of by 
 the citizens ; and Love would not be troublesome to you, Love^ 
 who easily subdues the minds of men, and hath wrought me 
 into softness from being iron-hearted. But he this as it may, 
 ^ I approach thee closely by thy tender lip. 
 
 ^Remember that last year thou wast younger, and that we 
 
 * " In vino Veritas," Erasmus. Cf. Herat. Od. I. xviii. 
 
 * Herat. Od. II. xvii. 5, 
 
 Ah! te meee si partem animae rapit 
 Maturior vis, quid merer altera ; 
 Nee carus aeque nee superstes 
 Integer ? 
 ' Siddv, Doric for SiSovai, or diSovv. 
 
 * pkeog, a face, Soph. Antig. 629. Cf. Idyll xxvi. 1. 
 
 * TTfdkpxofiai for fieTspxofiai : so in line 37, -irsda for ukra. JEschylus 
 has several such Doricisms or ^olicisms, see Prom. Vinct. 269, Choeph. 
 589, 590, &c. 
 
 * Hermann ad Viger. p. 926, pronounces fiffivaao to be tne true 
 substitute for the hopelessly corrupt reading onvdadr}v, which none can 
 render. Wordsworth suggests a much slighter alteration, dfivaaOriv, the 
 iEolic 1st aorist infinitive for avafiv rjaOijvai, as fieOvaOrjv for [itQvaOrjvat 
 in Alcseus Mus. Grit. i. 425 ; Fragm. 3. He suggests likewise that 
 (OTi yripaXkoi TriXofisg, depends net on duvaaOrjv, but a.7ro7rTvoai. i.e. Re- 
 
26—40. IDYLL XXIX. 153 
 
 are old, before you spurn us, and wrinkled ; and to have youth 
 recalled is impossible ; for it hath wings on its shoulders, and 
 we are ' too sIoW to catch the flitting runaways. Considering 
 this, you must ®be more agreeable, and return my love, who 
 love you without guile, that so, when you get your mannish 
 chin, we may be to each other fast friends like Achilles. But 
 if you commit these words to the winds to bear away, and say 
 in your heart, ' Good fellow, why do you trouble me ? ' now let 
 me go for love of thee, even after the golden apples, and in 
 quest of Cerberus, guardian of the dead ; but then, not even 
 though you called me, would I come forth at Vhe hall-doors, 
 having ceased from violent love. 
 
 IDYLL XXX. 
 
 THE DEATH OF ADONIS. 
 
 ARGUMENT, 
 
 When Venus, on the death of Adonis, had bidden a boar, the author of 
 the crime, be brought before her, the animal tries to excuse his sin, 
 by pleading, that he had been smitten by love of the beauteous 
 youth, and had therefore longed to kiss his limbs. Then he surren- 
 ders himself to Venus, that she may inflict upon him the penalty due 
 to his guilt. The goddess, taking pity, orders him to go free. In con- 
 sequence of which, the boar thenceforth voluntarily attends Venus. 
 
 The argument, no less than metre, of this Idyll prove it Anacreontic : 
 but though Warton deems it the work of Anacreon, or an imitator, 
 it seems to have had a place among the Idylls of Theocritus, from the 
 very oldest edition. Person says of it, ad Aristoph. Lysistr. 1246, *' Idyl- 
 lium Theocriti falso inscriptum." The metre runs zLz'-^Z l~C' Herm. 
 Elem. Doctr. Metr. p. 475. 
 
 When Cytherea beheld Adonis already dead, with locks 
 unkempt, and his cheek pale, she bade the Loves bring the 
 
 member that last year you were younger, before you spurn me, because 
 I am old and wrinkled. For a parallel on the whole passage, (26 — 30,) 
 lee Horace's beautiful Ode to Ligurinus, lib. IV. x. 
 
 ^ (BapdvTepoi. Cf. Idyll xv. 104. 
 
 • TOTUKvTipoVy a metaphor from mellow and mild wines. 
 
154 THEOCRITUS. 6—46, 
 
 wild boar before her. And tbey forthwith, on wings, ^ having 
 traversed all the wood, found out the ^ hateful boar, and bound 
 him once and again. And one, having tied him with a rope, 
 was dragging on his captive ; while another, driving him in 
 the rear, kept striking him with his arrows. Now the beast 
 was advancing timidly, for he was afraid of Cytherea. Then 
 Aphrodite said to him, * Thou worst of all wild beasts, didst 
 thou wound this thigh? Hast thou stricken ^my lover?* 
 But the beast answered thus, ' I swear to thee, Cytherea, by 
 thyself and thy lover, and these my bonds, and these my 
 hunters, I did not wish to wound thy beauteous lover ! but I 
 gazed on him ^as though / had been a statue, and not being 
 able to endure my warmth, I was mad to kiss the limb which 
 he had bare ; and then ^my tooth hurt him. Take these, O 
 Venus, and punish them, wrench out (for why do I carry 
 them beyond the due number ?) these passionate teeth. But 
 if these do not satisfy thee, then take these my lips also ; for 
 why did they dare to kiss ? ' 
 
 But Venus pitied him, and bade the Loves to loose his bonds. 
 Thenceforth he was wont to attend her, and would not go to 
 the woods ; ^and having approached the fire, kept burning 
 his loves. 
 
 ' For this transitive use of an intransitive verb, compare Virg. ^n. 
 iii. 191, Vastumque cav4 trabe currimus eequor. 
 
 2 arvyvbv tov vv dvtvpov, must mean " Found the boar sad," as J. 
 W. shows by reference to iEsch, Agam. 625, &c. It cannot have the 
 same force as tov arvyvov vv avtvpov. Wordsworth suggests (jTvyvoi, 
 i. e. " Sadly found out the boar." 
 
 ^ 6 avriQy is "amator," just as " vir " is used by Terence Andria III. 
 i. 2, Fidelem baud fermfe mulieri invenias virum : and Hecyra, 1. 1. 2. 
 
 * ayaXfia might be referred to Adonis as an accusative, or as a nomi- 
 native to the boar, which is much the most agreeable to the sense of the 
 passage. 
 
 * Kpavrrjp, the wisdom teeth were so called. In Latin, " genuini." 
 They are those teeth which come last and complete the set, from Kpaivu. 
 Shakspeare, in his Venus and Adonis, makes the same excuse for the boar. 
 
 ^ Bindemann, whom Kiessling approves, takes this passage to mean 
 that the boar, approaching the funeral pile of Adonis, thrust himself up- 
 on it, and so made an end of his love. Scaliger would read tfcXats, kept 
 lamenting his wretched love. May not the fire be that of Venus ever 
 present, and the boar's constant attendance the means of keeping up his 
 warmth of love 1 I see Chapman inclines to this idea, explaining it, 
 ** He became one of Aphrodite's train, and his contemplation of the 
 charms of Beauty might burn out his recollection of beauty's paramour." 
 
1—6. A FRAGMENT FROM THE BERENICE. 155 
 
 This fragment from the Berenice, as it is inscribed, is given by Athenaeus 
 vii. 284, A. Casaub., and mentioned by Eustathius ad Horn. Iliad, 
 v., iepbv ix^vv, p. 1067, 41. Berenice, called 9ioc in verse 3, is the 
 Queen of Egypt, wife of Ptolemy Lagidas, who was divinely honour- 
 ed by her son Ptolemy Philadelphus, (Idyll xv. 106 — 108, xvii. 34, 
 &c.,) and was supposed to vouchsafe most benignantly all the bless- 
 ings of plenty. 
 
 And if a man asks good sport and wealth for himself, 
 ^ whose subsistence is from the sea, and his nets are his 
 ploughs, then let him slay ^ at nightfall to this goddess a 
 Bacred fish, which men call * white,' for it is the sleekest of 
 all others ; and then he will set his nets, and draw them up 
 out of the sea full. 
 
 * Compare Theocr. Idyll vii. 60, oaaKji rrsp s| a\og aypa. 
 
 ^ dKp6vvxog» Reiske has confounded this with aKpwvvxos, or aKptljvv^ 
 — summis unguibus. The Scholiast rightly explains it t<nripiv6g, Nicand. 
 Theriac. 762. Compare Ajax, Sophocl. 283, and Lobeck's note on the 
 
 words CLKpUQ VVKTOQ. 
 
 ' 0top6ff is used, Theocr. xi. 21, of Galatea, q. v. 
 
EPIGRAMS 
 
 THEOCEITUS THE SYRACUSM. 
 
 These Mewy roses and yon thick ^creeping-thyme are 
 dedicated to the Heliconian Muses. And the dark-leaved 
 bays to thee, O Pythian Paean : for the ^ Delphic rock hath 
 given thee this for an ornament. And this '* white he-goat 
 with the horns, browsing the extremity of a branch of the 
 turpentine tree, shall stain thy altar. 
 
 II. 
 
 ^ Daphnis the fair-complexioned, that did modulate pastoral 
 hymns with beautiful pipe, dedicated to Pan these gifts; his 
 reed-pipe with stops, his shepherd's crook, his sharp dart, his 
 fawn's skin, and ^ the wallet, in which he once used to carry 
 apples. 
 
 * Roses were sacred to the Muses, Anacreon, Ode 53. Sappho, Fragm. 
 2. Polwhele. 
 
 ' egirvWoQ. Virg. Eel. ii. 11, Allia, serpyllumque, herbas contundit 
 olentes. Georg. iv. 31. 
 
 3 AsX^ic Trirpa. (See Soph. (Ed. Tyr. 463. Eurip. Androm. 998.) 
 
 * b ^laXoQ, white. Hesych. Others, (as if it were ^laWbg,) shaggy. 
 "We have translated ayXaiat as if transitive, with Brunck. Kiessling 
 renders it, '* Delphica petra hoc decore nituit." 
 
 * Daphnis, in this Epigram, dedicates to Pan his pipe, his crook, and 
 dart, in token of bidding adieu to music, hunting, and love. 
 
 * An allusion to the custom of lovers, to carry apples to their mis- 
 tresses. Compare Idyll ii. 120 ; iii. 10 ; xi. 10. Kiessl. Compare also 
 Vircr. Eel. iii. 70. 
 
SIT. IT. EPIGRAMS. 157 
 
 III. 
 
 Daphnis, you sleep on leaf-strown ground, ' resting your 
 wearied body ; and the ^ poles are fresh fastened along the 
 mountains. But Pan is in chase of you, and ^Priapus, who 
 has saffron-berried ivy bound about his lovely head, advancing 
 to the interior of the cave with one bound. But do you 
 take flight, fly, having * shaken off the lethargy of sleep, that 
 is stealing over you. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ^ When you have turned down yon lane, goatherd, where 
 the oaks are, you will find ^ a fresh-carved image of fig-wood, 
 ^ with three legs, with the bark on, and without handles, but 
 with creative phallus able to accomplish works of Venus : 
 and an enclosure duly sacred surrounds it, and an ever-run- 
 ing stream from the hollow rocks luxuriates on all sides in 
 laurels and myrtles, and fragrant cypress : where the grape- 
 begetting vine sheds itself around with its tendrils, and ver- 
 
 ' Compare Idyll i. 16, 17. 
 
 2 ardXiKsg, the poles on which hunters fastened their nets. Daphnis, 
 weary of hunting, had ceased from snaring wild heasts, when, lo ! he 
 falls himself into the snare of Pan and Priapus. The poet works upon 
 the ground of Pan's love for Daphnis. 
 
 3 See Tibull. I. iv. 1, 
 
 Sic umbrosa tibi contingant tecta, Priape, 
 Ne capiti soles, ne noceantve nives. 
 Catull. xix. 10, 
 
 Florido mihi ponitur picta vere corolla 
 Primitu', et tenera virens spica mollis arista. 
 
 * vTTVov Kuifxa, a lethargic sleep. For a like construction, see Virg. 
 Georg. i. 134, Frumenti herba. Eel. v. 26, Graminis herbam. Soph. 
 Trach. 20, eig dywva jxdxVQ' It is difficult to decide between the vari- 
 ous readings suggested in place of KaTaypofitvov. Wordsworth approves 
 of KUTeifiofievov, " pouring down," which is not unlikely to be right, as 
 in the MSS. ay and h are written with the same mark over them. 
 
 ■^ A shepherd describes a statue of Priapus, and the fair spot where 
 it stands dedicated to the god : and at the same time he vows an ample 
 sacrifice to him, if he will free him from love of Daphnis, with whom he 
 is smitten. Failing this, he would fain have his love returned, and in 
 this case he promises three victims to the god. 
 
 * Horat. Serm. I. viii. 1, Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum. 
 ^ Since Priapus is generally represented as standing on one foot, or a 
 
 *take rather, Jacobs proposes to read dcKtXkq. 
 
158 THEOCRITUS. ^' "^^ 
 
 nal blackbirds, with sweet-voiced songs, chaunt various-noted 
 melodies : yellow nightingales respond with their plaints, 
 warbling with their throats the sounds of music. ^ Prythee, 
 take your seat there, and supplicate the graceful Priapus, that 
 I may discourage the loves of Daphnis : and sa^ that I will 
 straightway sacrifice a fine he-goat : but if he shall have re- 
 fused, I am willing, after having succeeded in this, to pay 
 three victims. ^ For I will offer a heifer, a shaggy he-goat, 
 and a lamb which I am keeping in the stall : and may the 
 god hear propitiously. . 
 
 V. 
 
 Are you willing, / ask you by the Nymphs, to sing me 
 some sweet trifle on the ^ double flutes ? And I will take up 
 *a harp, and begin to strike it somewhat : and the cowherd 
 Daphnis shall charm us at the same time, singing to the 
 breathing ^of a wax-bound pipe. Then standing near a leafy 
 oak, behind the cave, would we rob of sleep ^the goat-footed 
 Pan. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ah ! thou wretched Thyrsis, what boots it thee, if thou 
 waste with tears thy two eyes in lamentation ! The young 
 she-goat ^is gone, the pretty kid is gone to the shades ; for 
 a ruthless wolf crushed her with his talons. And ^ the dogs 
 
 ' p£^<o. So Virgil Eel. iii. 77, Cum faciam vitul^ pro frugibus, ipse 
 venito. SaKtVav. See Idyll i. 10. 
 
 ' " Sometimes one person played two flutes {aiiKol) at once. See 
 a painting from Pompeii, and Diet. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. v. tibia." 
 Liddell and Scott, Lexicon. 
 
 ^ " A harp." TraKriS', from irriyvviii. It appears to have been an 
 ancient kind of harp with twenty strings. Sophoel. Fragm. 227, uses 
 the word. 
 
 * " KapodkT<i> TTvevfiaTi, i. e. Sovuki KrjpoTrXdaTip : fistula." Briggs. 
 
 * Aiyi^dravy capripedem, a dubious reading is aiytftorav, a goatherd. 
 Jacobs remarks, from a comparison of this passage with Idyll i. 15, that 
 shepherds and cowherds had less reverence for Pan than the goatherds, 
 whose tutelary god he was. 
 
 * oix^Tai is a * vox solennis ' of the dead common in pastoral and 
 other poets. 
 
 ^ Briggs observes, *' It was late for the dogs to bark, when the kid 
 was devoured." 
 
VII.— IX. EPIGRAMS. 159 
 
 then give tongue. What boots it, when, gone as she is, nor a 
 bone nor ash is left of her ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OF ^SCULAPIUS.^ 
 
 The son of Paean came even to Miletus, ^to dwell along 
 with a man that heals diseases, Nicias by name: ^who ever 
 day by day approaches him with sacrilfices, and has had this 
 statue carved out of '* fragrant cedar, having promised the 
 highest price to Eetion, because of his skilful hand ; and he 
 has thrown all his art into the work. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 the EPITAPH OF ORTHON. 
 
 Stranger, Orthon, a man of Syracuse, gives thee this 
 charge : Walk no where, in your cups, of a wintry night. For 
 such is the fate, which I have met : and ^ instead of my ample 
 father land, I lie having wrapped myself in foreign soih 
 
 IX. 
 
 Good man, ^be careful of your life, nor be a voyager out 
 
 * This is an Epigram on a statue of iEsculapius by the hand of Eetion, 
 set up by Nicias the physician of Miletus, concerning whom see Idylls 
 xi., xiii., xxviii. 
 
 2 (TVfi^kpofiai is used elsewhere in this sense. Philoct. Sophocl. 1084, 
 dW tfioi Kai 9vT]<TK0VTi avvoiau. 
 
 3 Itt' djiaQ ad, *• Quotidie." So Soph. CEd. Col. 682, kut ^fiap aid. 
 iKvelaOai for iKtTtvtiv frequently occurs, as here, in Sophocles. 
 
 * Fragrant cedar,] often used for these purposes. See Virg. Mn. 
 yii. 177, where in the palace of Picas are to be seen, 
 
 Veterum eflfigies ex ordine avorum 
 Antiqua e cedro. 
 ^ Warton remarks that the ancients held it a misfortune, if a man was 
 buried under only a little earth, yrfv s7rtl(T<ra(T0at, to shroud oneself in, 
 or be buried in, earth. Pindar, Nem. ii. 21. Xenoph. Cyrop. vi., where 
 Panthea assures Abradates that she would prefer, with him, Koivy yriv 
 lir'uaaadai, fiaXXov rj Kw fier aiaxvvofievov alcxwofisvij. For avri 6e 
 iroXXac, Wordsworth suggests dvTi ^ikrjg Sk. 
 
 * The four last lines of this Epigram were introduced into the text 
 
160 THEOCRITUS. X. XI. 
 
 of season : since life is not long to a man. Wretched Cleoni- 
 cus, you, on the other hand, were in haste to go as a merchant 
 from ^Coelesyria to fruitful ^Thasos. Ay, a merchant, O 
 Cleonicus ; but crossing ocean just about the ^very setting of 
 the Pleiad, you went down along with the Pleiad. 
 
 X. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OF THE MUSES. 
 
 To you, goddesses, Xenocles dedicated this marble statue, 
 in gratitude '^to Nine altogether: a musician, no one will say 
 otherwise, and enjoying repute on the score of this talent, he 
 is not forgetful of the Muses. 
 
 XL 
 
 AN EPITAPH ON EUSTHENES THE PHYSIOGNOMIST. 
 
 This monument is of Eusthenes ; he was the philosopher 
 * who judged men by their features; being clever at learning 
 even the mind from the eye. Worthily have his friends 
 buried him, though a foreigner, in a foreign land: ^and to 
 
 by Graevius, from a very ancient Palatine codex. To illustrate the Epi- 
 gram, see Hesiod, O. et D. 616. 
 
 1 KoikrjQ "Evpirjg, Coelesyria, so called from its lying as it .were in a 
 valley between Libanus and Antilibanus. It is here that the Orontes 
 (Pharphar) rose. 
 
 2 Thasos, an isle in the iEgean Sea, very fertile. Dionys. 523, wyvyit] 
 Tt Qdffog, Arj^rjTepoQ aKTrj. 
 
 ^ Setting of the Pleiad,] Compare Callimach. (Ernesti) Epigr. xix. 
 (pEvye daXuTTri 
 "Sv/xfiicryeiv kpifputv, vavriXf., 6uofxlvu)v. 
 Where, however, Blomfield and others remark, that, according to Ptolemy 
 and Horace, there was danger in sailing in the season " Orientis hsedi." 
 
 * kvvsa Trdffaig, nine in all. This is a common signification of Trdg. 
 Mosch, i. 6, Iv tLKOtri 7rd<n fxdBoig viv. Callim. in Dian. 105, TrkvT taav 
 at Trdaai. A Latin poet, Gratius Faliscus, author of a poem on the 
 chase, has a parallel usage of " omnes." 
 
 Accessere tuo centum sub nomine Divae 
 
 Centum omnes nemorum, centum de fontibus omnes 
 
 Naiades. 
 
 * What the ancients meant by ^ucioyj/w/iwv appears in Aristot. Prior 
 Analyt. ii. 28. 
 
 6 XvuvoOeryg. We have translated the reaaing of D. Heinsius and 
 
Xn. XIII. EPIGRAMS. 161 
 
 lyric poets he was wondrously dear. The philosopher in 
 death hath all it was fitting he should have ; even though he 
 was ^ powerless, I wot he found friends-to-care-for-him. 
 
 XII. 
 
 UPON A TRIPOD DEDICATED TO BACCHUS BY DEMOTELES. 
 
 Demoteles, 2 the leader of the choir, who set up the 
 tripod, O Dionysus, and ^thee the sweetest of gods, was pretty- 
 * well-in-merit among boys ; but in the choir of men he gained 
 victory, seeing both the beautiful and the becoming. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 UPON AN IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY APHRODITE. 
 
 ^ Our Venus is not the vulgar : propitiate the goddess by 
 having called her ' heavenly,' the offering of chaste Chryso- 
 gona in the house of Amphicles, with whom she had both 
 children and life in common ; and ever it was better to them 
 ^from year to year, 'as they began with thee, divine lady ; 
 for if they care for the immortals, mortals find advantage in it 
 themselves. 
 
 Toup. But the majority of editors consider the passage corrupt. Three 
 MSS. read avTrjg, and for Saifioviwg tpiXog ■qv AAIMQN QS, against sense 
 and metre, Wordsworth proposes a very desirable emendation grounded 
 upon this, i. e. QiAlMON, i. q. doiSifiov, ujg (piXog ^g. If we accept this, 
 the meaning of the passage will be, they buried him, a stranger, in a 
 foreign land ; and as ojie worthy to be sung of by its (^^dvrjg) minstrels, 
 how dear he was to them. 
 
 ' For uKiKvg, Heinsius reads doiKog — KTjdefjiovag. The poet says that 
 Eusthenes had neither wife, children, nor relations, yet his worth and 
 genius found him friends to mourn and bury him. 
 
 * 6 X^PVyogf not the provider of the chorus, whose office every reader 
 of the Greek theatre, and of the Midias of Demosthenes, knows ; but 
 the choir-leader, as is seen by verses 3 and 4. 
 
 * at, that is, thy statue. 
 
 * fiirpiog i]v, " modicam laudem adeptus est." — X^9V — 'Av^pw^. See 
 Idyll xvii. 112. 
 
 ^ Plato, in his Symposium, says there were two Yenuses ; one, the 
 daughter of CcbIus, who is called Ovpavia, Urania : the other, the 
 daughter of Jupiter and Dione, who is known as Udvdrifiog, or popular. 
 
 * fig tTog. Understand f$ ireog. Comp. Idyll xviii. 15. 
 
 ' «K ffsOtv a pxo fisvo ig . "A te omnia auspicantes inde felicitatis fructum 
 retulerunt." Briggs. 
 
162 THEOCRITUS. Xiv.—XVIT. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AN EPITAPH OF EURYMEDON. 
 
 YoD left an infant son ; and yourself too in life's prime, 
 Eurymedon, found a tomb here, in death. For you indeed 
 there is ^ a seat amid godlike men ; but him citizens will 
 honour, remembering hia sire as worthy. 
 
 XV. 
 
 UPON THE SAME. 
 
 Traveller, I shall know, whether you pay any more 
 honour to the good, than the bad, or if even the coward gets 
 likewise an equal share from you. You will say ^ Hail to this 
 tomb, for it lies light upon the sacred head of Eurymedon. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OF ANACREON. 
 
 Stranger, regard this statue ^ carefully, and say, when 
 you have returned home, *'In Teos, I saw a likeness of 
 Anacreon, ^pre-eminent, if ever man was, among bards of 
 old/ And by having added also, that he delighted in the 
 young, you will truthfully describe the whole man. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 UPON EPICHARMUS. 
 
 Both the inscription is Doric, and the man, he who in- 
 
 ' c^pa, ♦' static." Compare Callim. H, in Del. 233, and Spanheim 
 and Ernesti thereupon. Kiivr} 6' ovSeiroTe (TiptTspijg £7rtX/y0erai 'iSprig. 
 
 ^ XaipsTU), i. e. if you are favourable to the good, you will say, " Hail 
 to this tomb," &c. 
 
 ^ (TTTovd^, attento animo. Briggs. 
 
 "* Teos, a city near Colophon, the birth-place of Anacreon and Erinna. 
 Horat. Epod. xiv. 10, Anacreonta Teium. Od. I. xvii. 18, Et fide 
 Teia Dices, &c. 
 
 * TuJv TTQoaQ' H Tt- mpioaov. Understand ovtoq Trtpiaaov. Compare 
 Idyll vii. 4, and notes there. ApoUon. Rhod. iii. 347, liavaxauSoQ ii 
 rt ^ipiarov ypwuv. 
 
XVIII. EPIGRAMS. 163 
 
 vented comedy, ^ Epicharmus. O Bacchus, to thee ^ the Pelo- 
 rians, who are settled in the city of Syracuse, set him up here 
 in brass instead of in his true nature, inasmuch as they are 
 mindful to pay the price of his labours to a fellow citizen, 
 •^ for he had abundance of wealth ; for many saws useful for 
 life and conduct taught he to their childien. Great gratitude 
 is due to him. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF CLEITA, NURSE OF MEDEIUS. 
 
 The little Medeius raised this monument by the way-side 
 to his ^ Thracian nurse, and inscribed it ' Of Cleita.' The 
 woman will enjoy his thanks in requital for her having reared 
 the boy. Why not ? ^ She has yet another name. Useful. 
 
 * Epicharmus, though born at Cos, was carried, when three months 
 old, to Megara,' about b. c. 540. From about b. c. 484 to his life's end 
 he dwelt at Syracuse. He was the great comic poet of the Dorians. 
 
 ^ kvldpvvrai TltXojguQ rq, ttoXu. Reiske asks with reason what had 
 the Pelbrians, dwellers about the promontory of Pelorum, to do with 
 Syracuse. Tyrwhitt and Jacobs read for IlfXwpf tc rq, — TreSiopiffTq TroXft, 
 excelsa urbe — but Syracuse is low. Wordsworth proposes to read 
 TredoiKiffTal, coloni, inquilini, Doric for fxeTOiiciaTal, just as we have 
 TTsda for n'sTa in Idyll xxix. 25 — 38, and very frequently in ^schylus 
 TredaopoQ, ireddpmog, &c. (See Blomf. in Gloss. Prom. v. 277, 735, 
 952.) The Syracusans, it will be remembered, were a Corinthian colony, 
 and Evidpvvrai is properly used of colonists. This suggestion, thereforie, 
 is especially to the purpose. In his addenda, Wordsworth prefers 7r£- 
 doiKiCfTq, to agree with TroXei. 
 
 3 A curious reason for honouring him. To clear the Syracusans of 
 such a charge, some editors have read prifiaTCJv, for xpjjjwarotv, but *' a 
 heap of words " is no stronger ground for a statue of him at the peo- 
 ple's expense than a heap of gold. Wordsworth has probably come very 
 near the truth, when he suggests, 
 
 cupou TrapfTxE, XP^ f^^^ "'" fJLSfxvafiiuovs 
 teXeIv tTrtx^JjOa. 
 Donum nobis dedit, (see 9, 10,) oportet igitur nos ejus bene niemores 
 eum remunerari. 
 
 * Thracian nurses seem to have been in esteem. See Idyll li. 70. 
 Callimachus has an Epigram somewhat similar to this. 
 
 ^ kTi xprjainf} KaXtirai — If we read the words as they stand, the 
 Epitaph turns on the nurse's name, Cleita, (famous,) and her sur- 
 name, given for her useful qualities, xPn^^'^M- ^"^ some MSS. read 
 TiXtvT^ for KaXCiTai, and Wordsworth suggests that the passage should 
 be read ri fiAv ; hi XP'?'^*/*' ov reXevrq. Quidni ita faceret t Nam ipsa 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THEOCRITUS. XIX.— XXI. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 UPON ARCHILOCHUS. 
 
 Stand and behold the ancient poet, ^ Archilochus, him of 
 the Iambics, whose ^ infinite renown has reached both to the 
 west and to the east. Of a truth, I ween, the Muses and 
 Delian Apollo were wont to love him : so melodious was he, 
 and skilful both in making Iambics and singing to his lyre. 
 
 XX. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OF PISANDER, WHO COMPOSED " THE 
 LABOURS OF HERCULES." 
 
 For you this man, ^ Pisander from Camirus, first of the 
 former poets, wrote the exploits of Jove's son, the lion-subduer, 
 the quick-of-hand ; and declared how many labours he had ac- 
 complished. And this very man, that you may duly know 
 it, the people set up here, having made him of brass, '* many 
 months and years afterwards. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 UPON HIPPONAX, THE POET. 
 
 Here lies ^Hipponax the poet. If thou art worthless, 
 
 quidem periit, sed ejus officia adhuc utilia, (her rearing of the boy,) non 
 perierunt. Though the nurse is dead, her care of him keeps her memory 
 alive. Wordsworth suggests also xP^^^H-' owk oXtirat — Utilia non 
 peribunt. 
 
 * Archilochus of Paros, one of the first Ionian lyric poets, and the 
 first Greek poet who composed Iambics on fixed rules. He fiourish- 
 ed 714 — 676 b. c. The biting character of his Iambics is marked by 
 Horace A. P. 79, Archilochum proprio rabies armavit lambo. 
 
 ' fjivpiov. Infinite. So in Idyll viii. 50, tJ fidOog vXag Mvpiov. 
 
 ^ Pisander, a poet of Camirus in Rhodes, who flourished about B, c. 
 648 — 605, was author of a poem, in two books, on ** The Labours of 
 Hercules." Vid. Miiller's History of Greek Lit. ix. § 3. 
 
 ♦ Theocritus publishes the fact, that the inhabitants of Camirus neg- 
 lected the memory of their bard until long after his death. 
 
 ^ Hipponax of Ephesus was the third Iambic poet of Greece, after 
 Archilochus and Simonides. His date b. c. 546. Horace, Epod. vi. 14, 
 "Aut acer hostis Bupalo," alluding to the savage Iambics which he 
 launched at Bupalus and Anthermus, brothers and statuaries of Ephesus, 
 who had made his image ridiculous. They were driven by his satires 
 to hang themselves. 
 
XXIl.— XXIV. EPIGRAMS. 165 
 
 come not nigh his tomb ; but if thou art both ^ good, and 
 come of good stocky sit down boldly, and sleep, if thou wilt. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 AN EPIGRAM OP THEOCRITUS UPON HIS OWN BOOK. 
 
 2 The Chian Theocritus is another ; but I, Theocritus who 
 wrote these Idylls, am a Syracusan, one of the commonalty, 
 ^son to Praxagoras and well-known Philina, and I have 
 never ^ claimed to myself another's muse. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 This bank allows the same to strangers as to citizens. 
 Deposit your money, and take it up again, ^a calculation 
 being duly made. Let some one else make excuses; but 
 ^Caicus tells back the monies of others, even by night if 
 they wish it. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 '^ The inscription will declare what is the tomb, and who 
 under it : I am the grave of her that was called Glauc^. 
 
 ^ Kpr'iyvog. Vid. xx. 19, and Horn. II. i. 106. >, 
 
 ^ The Chian namesake of our poet was an orator and sophist, and 
 perhaps historian of the time of Alexander the Great. This Epigram is 
 probably the work of some grammarian who wished to mark the differ- 
 ence between the two persons. See Smith's Diet. Gr. Rom. Biog. 
 vol. iii. pp. 1031, 1032. 
 
 3 Some have supposed, from Theocritus seeming to represent himself 
 under the character of Simichidas, or son of Simichus, Idyll vii. 21, 
 that he was son of Simichus : but it seems better to consider that he 
 used that name as an assumed one, just as Virgil does Tityrus. And 
 indeed this Epigram seems to establish his parentage. 
 
 * " Alienge laudis appetens nunquam fui." Briggs. *« I never flirted 
 with another's muse." Chapman. 
 
 * \pf]<j)ov. The ancients used pebbles and counters in casting up ac- 
 counts. ^r}<j>ov Trpbg \6yov epx^f^^^VQ* is in Latin •' rationibus recte 
 subductis." 
 
 6 Caicus is of course the manager of the bank, which never fears a 
 run upon it. 
 
 ^ This Epigram (Anthol. Pal. vii. 262,) is printed among those of 
 Theocritus only in Wordsworth's edition. He is led to print it there 
 by the reasons given for ascribing it to Theocritus in the Anthologia 
 Palat. 
 
■.^i 
 
 THE IDYLLS 
 
 OP 
 
 BION THE SMYRNJIAK 
 
 IDYLL L 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF ADONIS. 
 
 I WAIL for Adonis ; beauteous Adonis is dead. * Dead is 
 beauteous Adonis ;' the Loves join in the waiL Sleep no 
 more, Venus, in purple vestments ; rise, wretched goddess, in 
 thy robes of woe, * and beat thy bosom, and say to all, ' Beau- 
 teous. Adonis hath perished.' I wail for Adonis : the Loves 
 join in the wail. Low lies beauteous Adonis on the moun- 
 tains, having his white thigh smitten by a tusk, a white tusk, 
 and he inflicts pain on Venus, as he breathes out his life 
 faintly ; but adown his white skin trickles the black blood ; 
 and his eyes are glazed neath the lids, and the rose flies from 
 his lip ; and round about it dies also the kiss, which Venus will 
 never relinquish. To Venus, indeed, his kiss, even though 
 he lives not, is pleasant, yet Adonis knew not that she kiss- 
 ed him as he died. 
 
 I wail for Adonis : the Loves wail in concert. A cruel, 
 cruel wound hath Adonis in his thigh, ^ but a greater wound 
 doth Cytherea bear at her heart. Around that youth ^ indeed 
 
 * And beat thy bosom.] See Ovid Met. x. 720, 
 
 Utque sethere vidit ab alto 
 Exanimem, inque suo jactantem sanguine corpus 
 Desiluit, pariterque sinus, pariterque capillos 
 Rupit et indignis percussit pectora palmis. 
 
 * ^tptt iroTiKapdiov (Xkoq. Ov. Met. v. 426, 
 
 Inconsolabile vulnus Mente gerit tacita. 
 ; » Faithful hounds whined.] Senec. Hippolyt. 1108, 
 
 Msestseque domini membra vestigant canes. 
 Ossian, *• His dogs are howling in their place.'* 
 
18—45 IDYLL J. 1(57 
 
 faithful hounds whined, and Oread Nymphs weep ; but 
 Aphrodite, having let fall her braided hair, wanders up and 
 down the glades, sad, unkempt, ^ unsandaled, and the brambles 
 tear her as she goes, and ^ cull her sacred blood : then wailing 
 piercingly she is borne through long valleys, crying for her 
 ^Assyrian spouse, and calling on her youth. But around 
 him dark blood was gushing up about his navel, arid his 
 breasts were empurpled from his thighs, and to Adonis, the 
 parts beneath his breasts, white before, became now deep-red. 
 Alas, alas for Cytherea, the Loves join in the wail. She 
 hath lost her beauteous spouse, she hath lost with him her 
 divine beauty. Fair beauty had Venus, when Adonis was JW/ 
 living ; but with Adonis perished the fair form of Venus, ' ^A 
 alas, alas ! All mountains, and the oaks say, * Alas for "^PtW*^ 
 Adonis.' "^And rivers sorrow for the woes of Aphrodite, and ^^'-'^^ 
 springs on the mountains weep for her Adonis, and ® flowers 
 redden from grief ; whilst Cytherea sings mournfully along 
 all ^ woody-mountain-passes, and along cities. Alas, alas for 
 Cytherea, beauteous Adonis hath perished. And Echo cried 
 in response, * Beauteous Adonis hath perished.' *°Who would 
 not have lamented the dire love of Venus ? alas ! alas ! When 
 she saw, when she perceived the wound of Adonis, which 
 none might stay, when she saw gory blood about his wan 
 thigh, unfolding wide her arms, she sadly cried, * Stay, ill- 
 fated Adonis, Adonis, stay : that I may find thee for the last 
 time, that I may enfold thee around, and mingle kisses with 
 kisses. Rouse thee a little, Adonis, and again this last time 
 
 * dffdvdaXog, unsandaled, betokening haste or severe distress. See 
 Theocr. Id. xxiv. 36. 
 
 ^ Cull her sacred blood.] See for the same bold metaphor, iEsch. S. c. 
 Theb. 718, dXV avTudtX^ov alfxa dpsxl/aaOai BsXitg. Virgil ^n. xi. 804, 
 Hasta sub exsertam donee perlata papillara 
 Heesit, virgineumque alt6 bibit acta cruorem. 
 
 * Assyrian spouse.]" Adonis was son of Cinyras and Myrrha. Cinyras 
 is variously called king of Cyprus, Arabia, and Assyria. 
 
 ^ Rivers sorrow.] Compare Mosch. iii. 2 and 28.' 
 
 * And flowers redden.] Cf. Theocr. xx. 16, Kal xpo« ^oivix^riv 
 vTTo ToiXysog, ojg poSov tpoq.. Briggs reads for tttoKiv, voltvoq from the 
 Aldine Edit, 
 
 ^ Kvrjfiog is used in Homer II. for the woody passes of Ida. Trovf, 
 the base of the mountain. KVTjfiog, from Kvqfiri, (the leg between ancle 
 and knee,) the part just above the base. 
 
 "^ Milton's Lycidas. Who would not sing for Lycidas, &c. 
 
168 BION. 45—63. 
 
 kiss me : kiss me just so far as there is life in t hy kis s, ^^till 
 from thy heal't tiiy spirit shall have ebbea intomy lips and 
 soul, and I shall h»ve drained thy sweet love-potion, and 
 ^2 have drunk out thy love : and I will treasure this kiss^ even 
 as if it were Adonis himself, since thou, ill-fated one, dost flee 
 from me. Thou flyest afar, O Adonis, ^^ and comest unto 
 ^,/Acheron, and its gloomy and cruel king ; but wretched I 
 live, and ^'^am a goddess, and cannot follow thee. Take, 
 Proserpine, my spouse : for thou art thyself far more power- 
 ful than I, ^^and the whole of what is beautiful falls to thy 
 share ; yet I am all-hapless, and feel insatiate grief, and 
 mourn for Adonis, since to my sorrow he is dead, and I am 
 afraid of thee. Art thou dying, O thrice-regretted ? ^^ Then 
 my longing is fled as a dream ; and widowed is Cytherea, 
 and idle are the Loves alcfeg my halls : and with thee has my 
 charmed-girdle been undone ; nay, why, rash one, didst thou 
 hunt ? Beauteous as thou wert, wast thou mad enough to 
 contend with wild beasts ? ' Thus lamented Venus ; the 
 Loves join in the wail. Alas, alas for Cytherea, beauteous 
 
 " The last kiss was wont to be given to the dearest one, when " in 
 articulo mortis ;" and it was a fancy of old, that the survivor drew in, 
 •with the last breath of the dying, their passing life. Virg. Mn. iv. 684, 
 Extremus si quis super halitus errat, Ore legam. Seneca, Here. Oct. 
 1339, Spiritus fugiens meo Legatur ore. Cicero, Ut extremum filiorum 
 spiritum ore excipere liceret. 
 
 " IK dk TTiw Tov ipojTa. Virg. ^n. iv. 749, 
 
 Necnon et vario noctem sermone trahebat 
 Infelix Dido, longumque bibebat amorem. 
 '^ Acheron, and its gloomy and cruel king.] Virgil Georg. iv. 469, 
 470, Manesque adiit, regeraque tremendum, 
 
 Nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda. 
 Job xviii. 14, '• His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle ; and 
 it shall bring him to the king of terrors." 
 
 1* And am a goddess.] Compare Spenser's Fairy Queen, 
 O what awails it of immortal seed 
 
 To been ybred, and never born to die ; 
 For better I it deem to die with speed, 
 Than waste with woe and wailful miserie. 
 " rb Sk Trap koXov. CatuU. iii. 13, 
 
 At vobis male sit, malae tenebrse 
 Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis 
 Tam helium mihi passerem abstulistis. 
 i« u)Q ovap tTTTrf. Compare Job xx. 8, " He shall flee away at a 
 dream, and shall not be found ; jea, he shall be chased away as a vision 
 of the night." 
 
64—82. IDYLL L 169 
 
 Adonis has perished. The Paphian goddess sheds as many 
 tears as Adonis pours forth blood : and these all, on the ground, 
 become flowers : ^"^ the blood begets a rose, and the tears the 
 anemone. I wail for Adonis : beauteous Adonis hath perish- 
 ed. Lament no more, Venus, thy wooer in the glades : there 
 is a goodly couch, there is a bed of leaves ready for Adonis ; 
 this bed of thine, Cytherea, dead Adonis occupies ; and 
 though a corpse, he is beautiful, a beautiful corpse, as it were 
 sleeping. 
 
 Lay him down on the ^^ soft vestments in which he was 
 wont to pass the night : in which with thee along the night he 
 would take his holy sleep, on a couch all-of-gold ; yearn thou 
 for Adonis, sad-visaged though he be now: and lay him 
 ^^amid chaplets and flowers ; all with him, since he is dead, 
 20 ay, all flowers have become withered : but sprinkle him 
 with myrtles, sprinkle him with unguents, with perfumes : 
 perish all perfumes, thy perfume, Adonis, hath perished. 
 Delicate Adonis reclines in purple vestments ; and about him 
 weeping Loves set up the wail, ^^ having their locks shorn for 
 Adonis : — and one was trampling on his arrows, another on 
 his bow, and 22 another was breaking his well-feathered 
 
 »7 The blood begets a rose, &c.] Cf. Ovid Met. x. 731—737. 
 ** Soft vestments.] Indicative of rank and luxury. Compare St. 
 Luke vii. 25, " Behold, they which are gorgeously apparelled, and live 
 delicately, are in king's courts." In the next line tov iepov vttvov 
 ifioxQu, •' divinum ilium soporem tecum elaborabat," certaminibus ni- 
 mirum amatoriis. Briggs. 
 
 " ^dWe d' kvl (TTecpdvoKTi, &c. See Milton's Comus at the end, 
 Beds of hyacinths and roses, 
 Where young Adonis oft reposes, 
 "Waxing well of his deep wound, 
 In slumber soft ; and on the ground 
 Sadly sits th' Assyrian queen. 
 *> I must here refer the reader to the beautiful lines from Ben Jon- 
 son's "Sad Shepherd," quoted by Chapman in his translation of this 
 passage. 
 
 ^^ Keipdfievoi x<*'''"C ^'^' 'A.do)vtSi. For this ancient custom, see 
 Homer, II. xxiii. 135 ; Odyss. iv. 197 ; Sappho, Epigr. 2. Ovid and 
 Statius have illustrations of the same practice. In sacred Scripture, 
 Ezechiel says, in a description of a great lament, " They shall make 
 themselves utterly bald for thee," xxvii. 31. 
 
 ** Ovid imitates this passigo in his death of Tibullus, Amor. iii. 9,7, 
 Ecce puer Veneris fert eversamque pharetram, 
 Et fractos arcus, et sine luce facem 
 
170 BION. 82—98. 
 
 quiver ; and one has loosed the sandal of Adonis, while an- 
 other is carrying water in golden ewers, and a third is bathing 
 his thighs ; and another behind him is fanning Adonis with 
 his wings. 
 
 The Loves join in the wail for Cytherea herself: Hy- 
 menosus has quenched every torch at the door-posts, and 
 shredded the nuptial wreath ; and no more is ^^ Hymen, no 
 more Hymen the song that is sung, alas ! alas ! is chanted : 
 alas, alas for Adonis, wail the Graces, far more than Hy- 
 menaeus, for the son of Cinyras, saying one with another, 
 * Beauteous Adonis hath perished ;' and far more piercingly 
 speak they, than thou, ^4 Dione. The Muses too strike up 
 the lament for Adonis, and invoke him by song, but he heeds 
 them not ; not indeed that he is unwilling, but Proserpine 
 does not release him. Cease, Cytherea, thy laments, refrain 
 this day from thy dirges. ^5 Thou must wail again, and weep 
 again, another year. 
 
 IDYLL IL 
 
 EROS AND THE FOWLER. 
 
 A BIRD-CATCHER, yet a boy, hunting birds in a leafy grove, 
 spied Eros, ^from whom men -turn-away, perched on the 
 branch of a box-tree ; and when he had observed him, in 
 delight because in sooth it seemed to him a great bird, ^ fitting 
 
 Below at Xw filv tXvoi irkdiXov, for this oflSce of respect, see St. John 
 i. 27 ; Acts xiii. 25. 
 
 ^^ ovK en d' 'TfiAv. Compare Lamentations v. 15, " The joy of our 
 heart is ceased ; our dance is turned into mourning." For Hymenaeus, 
 see Theocr. xviii. 58 ; CatuU. 62 ; and in its primary sense, Horn. II. 
 xviii. 493. 
 
 2* Dione was the mother of Aphrodite, but here we are to understand 
 the daughter under the mother's name. 
 
 25 Compare Theocr. Idyll xv. 143, 144. 
 
 ^ aTTOTpoirov, explained by Hesych., "quod aversetur aliquis." It is 
 so used (Ed. Tyr. 1313, 1314, im gkotov v's^og ijxbv aTroTpoirov. Briggs 
 here conjectures vTroTrrtpov, "alatum." 
 
 * The ancient mode of catching birds with rods was this. Reeds 
 smeared with bird-lime were joined together lengthwise, till they struck 
 the wings of the bird, which meanwhile was being charmed by the song 
 of the fowler hid amid the bushes. (Schwebel.) 
 
5—16. iDxxL n. 171 
 
 together one on another his rods all at once, he proceeded to 
 lay a trap for Eros, as he hopped ^ hither and thither. And 
 the lad, being chagrined that no success befell him, threw 
 down his rods, and went to an old rustic, who had taught 
 him this art ; and spoke to him, and showed him Eros perch- 
 ing. '*But the old man, gently smiling, wagged his head, and 
 answered the boy : ' Beware of thy sport, and come not at yon 
 bird ; fly far from it; 'tis an evil brute ; happy will you be, 
 ^so long as you shall not have caught it ; but if you shall 
 have reached to man's stature, yon bird that now flees, and 
 hops away, will come himself of his own accord, on a sudden, 
 ^and settle upon your head.' 
 
 IDYLL IIL 
 
 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 
 
 The mighty Venus stood beside me, when I was yet ^ in 
 youth's prime, leading with her fair hand infant Eros, nodding 
 towards the ground ; and addressed me as follows, ' Prythee, 
 good herdsman, take and teach Eros to sing.' Thus said she, 
 and herself went away ; but I, witless as I was, began to 
 teach Eros, as though he wished to learn, as many pastorals 
 as I knew ; namely, how ^Pan invented the cross-flute, how 
 
 2 Tq. Kat TO.. Mosch, i. 16, 
 
 Kai TTTEpoets tis opvi^ iipLTTTaTai aWoT Itt' dX\ov9 
 dvipa^ TjSk yui/ai/cas. 
 Cf. Theoc. XT. 119. 
 
 * 6 'jrpk<T(Svg fieiSiocjv KivTjtrc Kapij. Ecclus. xii. 18, " He will shake his 
 head, and clap his hands, and whisper much, and change his countenance." 
 
 ^ tiVoKa, here "quamdiu," as Iliad vii. 604. It often signifies 
 •' usque dum," " until," Mosch. iv. 13. The word has therefore the two- 
 fold force of donee. IgfxkTpov. So St. Paul's Ep. to Ephes. iv. 13. Hesiod 
 has the line, a\\ orav r]^r]atu, Kai ri^riQ fisTpov 'ikoito, e. 131. 
 
 6 This little Idyll has been imitated successfully by Spenser in the 
 third Eclogue of his Shepherd's Calendar, verse 60 to the end. 
 
 * The reading here was vTrvwovri, clearly corrupt. We have trans- 
 lated the best emendation, that of Herelius, W r)iS(»)0VTi. 
 
 ^ Virgil Eel. ii. 32, Pan primus calamos cer^ conjungere plures In- 
 stituit. irXayiavXoQ tibia obliqua, seems to have been the same as the 
 ovpiy^ or fistula, wg avXbv 'AOdva. Pindar says Minerva invented the 
 avXbg, " tibia recta," or " longa," after the Gorgon had been slain bj 
 
172 MON. 7—13; 
 
 Athena the pipe, how ^ Hermes the lyre, and how sweet 
 Apollo the cithern. These I began to teach him ; but he did 
 not take heed to my words, but himself kept singing me love- 
 ditties, and teaching me "^the desires of mortals and immortals, 
 and his mother's doings. And I forgot indeed all the strains 
 which I was teaching Eros, but whatsoever love-ditties Eros 
 taught me, I learned them all. 
 
 IDYLL IV. 
 
 THE POWER OF LOVE. 
 
 The Muses fear not the savage Eros, but love him from 
 their hearts, and follow him close behind. And if haply 
 one follow them having an unloving spirit, out of that man's 
 way they fly, and are not willing to teach him. But if a man 
 agitated in mind by Eros sing sweetly, to him every one of 
 them hasten ^ in flowing stream. I am witness that this state- 
 ment is ^ universally true ; for if indeed I sing of any other 
 mortal or immortal, my tongue ^ stutters, and sings no longer 
 as before ; but if again I warble any ditty to Eros, and to 
 Lycidas, ^why then the strain flows joyously through my 
 lips. 
 
 Perseus through her aid, Pyth. Od. 12. Ovid makes Minerva say, in 
 Fast. lib. vi., Prima terebrato per rara foramina buxo 
 
 Ut daret effeci tibia longa sonos. 
 Comp. Callim. H. in Dian. 244. 
 
 ' Hermes the \yvQ.] Horat. (Od. I. x. 6) calls him, Curvaeque lyrac 
 parentem. 'Epjiidwj/, Doric for 'Ep/«^f. Hes. Fr. 9, 1. 
 
 * Compare Virgil Georg, iv. 345, 
 
 Inter quas curam Clymene narrabat inanem 
 Vulcani, Martisque dolos et dulcia furta 
 Eque Chao densos Divum referebat amores. 
 
 * iTTtiySixevat, irpopsovn, "hastening flow forth ;" for the translation 
 in the text thanks are due to Chapman. 
 
 2 iraaiv, as neuter, " in all things," " altogether." This usage of the 
 word is very common in Herodotus. 
 
 2 ^a^(BaivH, Agathias, Epigr. xiii, x«t^«a ^afi^aivu ^Oeyfiari 
 yi]pa\s({}. 
 
 * Kai TOKa. Ruhnken prefers avTiKa. But Iliad ix. 674 ; Theocr. Id, 
 xxiv. 20, quoted by Schaefer, amply justify the common reading. 
 
1-15, IDYLL V. " 375J 
 
 IDYLL V. 
 
 LIFE TO BE ENJOYED. 
 
 ^ I KNOW not how, nor is it fitting I should, to labour at 
 what I have not learned. If my ditties are beautiful, then 
 these only, which the ^ Muse has presented to me aforetime, 
 will give me renown. But if these be not to men's taste, 
 what boots it me to labour at more ? For if indeed Saturn's 
 son or shifting fate had given to us a twofold life-time, so 
 that one term might be spent on pleasure and delights, and 
 the other in toil, 'twere possible perhaps ybr one, having first 
 laboured, at some after-period to receive the fruits. But 
 since the gods have allowed but one time for living to come 
 to men, ^and this a short space, and too brief for all, '*how 
 long, ah wretched men, do we toil over labours and works ? 
 And how far are we to throw our whole souls upon gains and 
 upon arts, longing ever for much more wealth ? Surely we 
 have all forgotten that we were born mortal, and how brief 
 a time we have had assigned to us by fate. 
 
 ' In the Florilegium of Stobaeus, this first line is given as Bion's, 
 and prefixed to this Idyll. Brunck and Winterton omit it or write it 
 separately. 
 
 2 Pierson and others read '^ioiaa here for 'hldlga, the common reading. 
 But the latter has to support it, Horace Od. II. xvi. 37—40, 
 Mihi parva rura et 
 Spiritum Graiae tenuem Camenae, 
 Parca non mendax dedit et malignum 
 Spernere vulgus. 
 ^ Hyova TTcivTtjjv, " non potens omnia complecti." Hor. Od. II. ii. II, 
 Quid seternis minorem 
 Consiliis animum fatigas. 
 Job xiv. 1, " Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of 
 trouble." 
 
 * Iq TToaov, K. T. \. Compare here St. James iv. 13, 14; and for the 
 moral of this earnest and beautiful pleading of natural religion, refer to 
 Psalm xc. 12, '< So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our 
 hearts unto wisdom." 
 
174 - BION. 1—18. 
 
 IDYLL VL 
 
 CLEODAMUS AND MYRSON. 
 
 Cleodamus. ^ Of spring, good Myrson, or winter, or 
 autumn, or summer, what is pleasant to you ? And what 
 do you desire most to come ? Is it summer, when all things, 
 as many as we labour at, are completed ? Or sweet autumn, 
 when hunger comes but lightly on men ? Or is it even ^idlo 
 winter ? since 'tis e'en in winter that many, while they warm 
 themselves, ^are overpowered by laziness and sloth. Or is 
 beauteous spring more agreeable to you ? Tell me what your 
 inclination prefers ; for our leisure has given us leave to 
 speak. 
 
 Myrson. For mortals to judge divine works is unmeet ; for 
 all these are holy and sweet ; yet for your sake, Cleodamus, 
 I will speak out which is to me more sweet than all the rest. 
 I would not it were summer, '*for then the sun scorches me. 
 I would not it were ^autumn, for then ripe fruits breed disease. 
 I dread to endure terrible winter, its falling snow and frosts. 
 Come spring to me thrice-welcome in the ^ whole year, when 
 there is neither frost, nor does sun oppress us. In spring 
 every thing is fruitful. All sweet things burst forth in 
 spring, "^and night is equal to men, and morning the same. 
 
 * ^la^oQ. £7ri is understood, according to Briggs. Brunck reads Mopffwv 
 for Muptrwj/, the former being used by Theocritus. In verse 4 we find 
 XifjLog, feminine. It is common. 
 
 - X^^H'(^ SixTspyov, that is, unsuited for rustic pursuits. Virg. Georg. 
 i. 299, Hiems ignava colono. G. Wakefield interprets it, " Bruma 
 intractabilis." See Georg. i. 211. 
 
 3 Cf. Virg. Georg. i. 303, Invitat genialis hiems curasque resolvit. 
 
 * Virg. Eel. vii. 46, Jam venit aestas Torrida. 
 
 * Horace Sat. ii. 6, 19, Auctumnusque gravis Libitinae quaestus acerbae. 
 In the next line some place a full stop after ^kptiv, and construe, winter 
 is terrible to bear. 
 
 * AvKa^avTi, from AvKa(3aQ, an Homeric word, signifying the year : 
 from XvKrj, lux, and (Saivoj. ttclvt' dapog. Compare Theocr. xi. 58; 
 Virgil Eel. iii. 57, Nunc frondent silvae, nunc formosissimus annus. 
 
 ^ The vernal equinox, Virg. (Georg. i. 208) says of the autumnal 
 equinox, Libra die somnique pares ubi fecerit horas. 
 
VII. vm. IDYLLS. 175 
 
 YII. 
 
 ON HYACINTHUS. 
 
 Perplexity seized on ^Phoebus experiencing so great 
 grief ; he began to seek every remedy, and strove to obtain a 
 cunning art. And with ambrosia and nectar he anointed, he 
 anointed all the wound ; but for the fates all remedies are 
 remediless. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Blessed are they who love, ^ whensoever they are loved 
 equally in return. Blest was ^ Theseus, when Pirithous was 
 with him, even though he had descended to the abode of re- 
 lentless Hades. Blest was Orestes among the '^churlish 
 inhospitables, because Pylades had chosen common paths 
 with him. ^ Achilles, grandson of JEacus, was fortunate in 
 his friend's life-time, blessed was he in his death, because he 
 warded off from him dire fate. 
 
 * Tov ^oi^ov is no doubt the true reading, though one editor has 
 dfKpaaia de Bicjv «\c : another, tov jiiov 'iXiv : and another, Jlaiaiv iXe, 
 (i. e. Ipse Deus medicinae obstupuit). But bearing the story of Hy- 
 acinthus in mind we need no alteration. The fair youth, son of Amyclas, 
 king of Sparta, and of Diomede, was unintentionally slain by Apollo's 
 discus. The hopelessness of the passionate god's attempts to undo the 
 mischief are touched upon in this fragment. For more particulars see 
 Ovid Met. x. 184, &c. 
 
 ^ Whensoever, &c.] Theocr. Idyll xii. 15, 
 
 dWjjXous 8' k(f)LXt)<rav 'iarta $wya>' r\ pa tot' ^arav 
 •Xpv(T£Ot OL iraXaL dvdpti, ot' avTicpiXijar' 6 <^i\Tj0£ts. 
 » Compare Horat. Od. IV. vii. 27, 28, 
 
 Nee Lethaea valet Theseus abrumpere caro 
 Vincula Pirithoo. 
 
 * The churlish inhospitables.] 'A^dvoi. Allusion is here made to the 
 fierce character of the barbarians dwelling on the east coast of the sea 
 called first from them Axenus, the inhospitable ; but afterwards Euxine, 
 from the civilization introduced by Greek settlers. For xaXtTroTtrtv, 
 Briggs suggests XaXv^sdcriv. The Chalybes were a nation of Asia Minor, 
 bordering on Pontus. ^sch. Prom. V. calls them dvrj^epoL yap, ovde 
 
 TTpOtTTtXaaTOl ^kvoiQ. 
 
 ^ The friendship of Pylades and Orestes is commemorated in more 
 than one Greek tragedy : Achilles and Patroclus appear as fast friends 
 in the Iliad. See Ovid. Ep. ex Ponto II. iii. 41 — 46 ; and for some ex- 
 cellent remarks on this beautiful trait of the Heroic ages, see Thirlwall't 
 Greece, a-oI. i. c. vi, 77. 
 
176 BION. IX.— XIT. 
 
 IX. 
 
 It is jiot well, my friend, on every occasion to have re- 
 course to a craftsman, nor at all in every matter to have need 
 of another, but ^ do you even yourself fashion a Pan's pipe ; 
 and it is an easy task for you. 
 
 May Eros invite the Muses, may the Muses bring Eros : 
 and to me, always yearning after it, may the Muses give song, 
 the sweet song, than which ^no charm is sweeter. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ^From the frequent drop, as the saying is, ever falling, 
 even the stone is bored into a hollow. 
 
 XII. 
 
 But I will go on my way to yon slope, '* warbling at the 
 sands of the shore, whilst I supplicate cruel Galatea : for I 
 will not relinquish my sweet hopes even till extreme old-age. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Neither leave me unrewarded, since even Phoebus gave a 
 reward to song. And honour makes the things we do better. 
 
 XIV. 
 ^ Beauty is woman's grace : but man's is courage. 
 
 ' rtx^affOai, may be the infinitive for the imperative here. 
 'No charm, or remedy. Comp.Theocr. Idyll xi. 1, for the same sentiment, 
 3 So Ovid., Quid magis est durum saxo 1 quid mollius und^ ? 
 Dura tamen molli saxa cavantur aqua. 
 And again, Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed ssepe cadendo. Lucret. lib, 
 iv. ad fin., Nonne vides etiam guttas in saxa cadentes 
 Humoris, longo in spatio pertundere saxa^ 
 
 * Warbling.] I have translated Brunck's reading, i//i0i;pto"^a*i', as ^t0t;- 
 piadb) seems condemned by the futures before and after it. In the next 
 line \pdfia9ov rs Kai tjiova, is an instance of Hendiadys. See Theocr. i, 1 . 
 
 * See Anacreon, Ode II., yvvai^lv oinc ir elxsv 
 
 ri ovv diddjtri ; KaXXog, k. t. X. 
 
1—16, IDYLL XV. '377 
 
 IDYLL XV. 
 
 THE EPITHALAMIUM OF ACHILLES AND DEIDAMIA.^ 
 MYRSON. LYCIDAS. 
 
 Myrson. Are you willing now, Lycidas, sweetly to sing me 
 *a Sicilian melody, delightsome, charming the mind, and 
 amorous, such as the Cyclops Polyphemus sung on the sea- 
 shore to Galatea ? 
 
 Lycidas. And if, Myrson, it be agreeable to me to sing to 
 my pipe, then what shall my song be ? 
 
 Myrs. I admire, Lycidas, the Scyrian strain, sweet love, 
 the stolen kisses, the ^stolen embrace of the son of Peleus. 
 How he, a boy, put on a maiden's mantle, and how he belied his 
 form, and how among the daughters of Lycomedes, Deidamia, 
 ^holding him in her arms, gratified Achilles, son of Peleus. 
 
 Lycid. Once on a day, the herdsman carried off Helen ; and 
 led her to Ida, a sore grief to ^none ; then Lacedaemon was 
 wroth, and gathered all the Achaean host. Nor did any man 
 of Hellas, of Mycenas, or Elis, or of the Laconians, stay behind 
 in his home, ^bearing as vengeance dread w^ar. But only 
 
 ' The Scyrian strain.] Lycomedes king of the Dolopians, in the island 
 of Scyros, near Euboea, was father of Deidamia, and grandsire of Pyrrhus, 
 or Neoptolemus. This fragment relates to the sojourn of Achilles, in 
 maiden's guise, among the daughters of Lycomedes at Scyros, whither 
 he had been brought by his mother Thetis, as she knew the Trojan war 
 must be fatal to him. Among his female companions he was called 
 Pyrrha from his golden locks. His sex and hiding-place were discovered 
 by a stratagem of Ulysses. 
 
 2 2iK£X6r n'iXoq. Virg. Eel. iv. 1, Sicelides Musae. Mosch., 2i/f«\tKac Mot- 
 i;ai. All marking Sicily as the land of pastoral poetry "par excellence." 
 
 ^ Xd^piov tvvdv. Compare Theocr. xxvii. 67, aviararo (pwpiOQ diva. 
 
 * For the unintelligible reading, airaX'tyoiaa 
 
 'Aijdrjvrj r airaarbv 'AxtXXia ArjiSafieia — • 
 we have ventured to translate, as at least sense, Ruhnken's conjecture, 
 ayKUQ Ixoica 
 JltjXsidrjv dycLTra^sv, k. t. X. 
 which is aj)proved by Valkenaer and Jacobs, and is by far the best. For 
 the several conjectures of Toup, Wakefield, and Briggs, see Briggs* 
 Bucolici Grseci, p. 361. > 
 
 ^ ^spujv diaaiv ctvav dpva, is hopeless. Scaliger amended it thus, 
 4ifpuiv Ticriv aivdv'ApTja, to which Lennep. prefers riffiv, vindictam, which 
 Brunck follows. This has been translated in the text above. Ruhnken's 
 
178 BION. 15—32. 
 
 Achilles was lying concealed among the daughters of Ly- 
 comedes, and was learning skill in wool, instead of arms, and 
 in his white hand was holding a maiden's ®task; and in ap- 
 pearance he was as a girl ; for he was equally womanish with 
 them, and as fresh a colour as theirs blushed on his snowy 
 cheeks ; and he was wont to walk with the step of maiden- 
 hood, and to cover his hair with a veil ; yet had he the spirit 
 of Mars, and possessed the love of a man, and from dawn to 
 nightfall would he sit beside Deidamia ; and at times indeed 
 he would kiss her hand, and often '^ would he raise her beau- 
 teous mouth, and the sweet tears would flow forth. But with 
 no other of like age did he eat ; and he kept doing every thing 
 in eagerness for a sleep in common. Then he spoke also a 
 word to her, ' With one another other sisters slumber, but I 
 remain alone, and thou sleepest ^ apart /rom me; we two, vir- 
 gins of like age, we twain beautiful. Yet sleep we alone in 
 our several beds, and this evil and troublesome partition -wall ^ 
 wickedly separates me from you. For not of you am I — ' '^ 
 
 suggestion ^epwv <p9iadvop"' Apr\a, is elegant and has claims to be received. 
 Wakefield, (pkpu)v dvffOfiiXov'Apria. Jacobs, ^wywv dvcTfiiKTOv "Aprja. 
 Briggs, <pepov 6t ^vvbv'Aprja. 
 
 * The reading here was Kopov, scopam, a broom ; but this was a slaTc's 
 T/ork. See Eurip. Hec. 362 ; Androm. 166. In the next line, at 
 OrjXuvero, compare Theocr. xx. 14. 
 
 ^ OTo/i' dvd KaXbv deipe. Ursinus corrected this to (Toifi ; which, how- 
 ever, yields not, I venture to think, a better sense. The line is cor- 
 rupt, no doubt. Scaliger proposed to read, understanding it of weaving, 
 ardfiova kuXov dtipi rd d' dcsa Kaipe tTcyvH, " and would often lift the 
 beautiful warp, and praise the scented threads (or thrums)." Briggs reads, 
 rd d' evxpoa SuktvX' siryvEi, "would praise her fresh-coloured fingers." In 
 this translation I have adopted Brunck's trrsppu, as the slightest alteration. 
 
 * For vvfxcpa, read with Briggs v6a<pi. Two lines below, Kard Xl/crpa ia 
 used distributively, like Kara a<j)Eag, in the Iliad, kut dvSpa, man by 
 man, Herodot. &c. 
 
 ' d Se TTOvripd. 
 
 vvaaa yap doXia 
 
 The awkwardness of Se and ydp coming thus together, and the offence 
 against metre in the last syllable of vvaaa, have suggested the reading 
 vvffffa Kai dpyaXka, which I have followed. One reading (Brunck's) is 
 d Sk irovnpd 
 vxxTora, Koi SoXia jue Tpocpd^ diro areXo fXBpi^ei. 
 The duenna is thus introduced into the passage, 
 *• The remainder of this Idyll is lost. 
 
XVI. XVII. IDYLLS. 179 
 
 XVI. 
 
 TO THE EVENING StAR. 
 
 Hesper! * golden light of the lovely Foam -born ! Hesper, 
 dear friend, sacred ornament of dark night, hail, thou friend, 
 ^as much more faint than the moon, as thou art eminent above 
 the stars ; and give thou me, as I go a merry-making to a shep- 
 herd, light instead of the moon : because she, beginning her 
 course to-day, went down too quickly. I am not going forth 
 for theft, nor to molest a wayfarer in the night : but I am a 
 lover ; and 'tis meet to return a lover love for love. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 love resistless. 
 
 Gentle Cyprus-born goddess, child of Jove and the sea, 
 why art thou so wroth with mortals and immortals ? I have 
 said but little ; rather, why dost thou so much hate them, and 
 why, prythee, shouldest thou have given birth to Eros, so 
 great a plague to all, cruel as he is, without natural aiFection, 
 in mind nowise resembling his form ? And to what end hast 
 thou given him to us ^winged and a far-darter, that we migLt 
 not be able to escape him, bitter as he is. 
 
 * Horn. II. xxii. 318, speaks thus of Hesperus, 
 
 I "EoTTTEpOS, OS /CaWlCTTOS kv OVpaVCO '[(TTaTai dtTTJjp. 
 
 And Virgil (iEneid viii. 589) of Lucifer, 
 
 Lucifer unda 
 Quern Yenus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes 
 Extulit OS sacrum coelo, tenebrasque resolvit. 
 2 So Statius Silv. ii. 82, 
 
 Quantum prjecedit clara minores 
 Luna faces, quantumque alios premit Hesperus ignes. 
 Cf. Horat. I. xii. 48. In the next line, for kS)}jlov dyovri, compare Thoocr. 
 Idyll iii. 1. 
 
 ' TTTavov. Compare an epigram of Archias, 
 
 (ptvyeiu drj Tov'^piora Kivoi irovo^' oh yap akOl^ia 
 
 which Fawkes renders, 
 
 Of shining Love 'tis vain to talk, 
 When he can fly, and I but walk. 
 
 k2 
 
THE IDYLLS 
 
 OF 
 
 MOSCHUS THE SYRACUSAK 
 
 IDYLL I. 
 
 LOVE A RUNAWAY. 
 
 **My son Eros,' Venus was loudly calling, 'Eros, if any 
 one lias seen straying in the cross-roads, he is my runaway : 
 the informer shall have a reward. The kiss of Venus shall be 
 your pay ; and if you shall have brought him, not the ^bare 
 kiss, but, stranger, you shall have even more : now the lad is 
 very notable ; you would know him among ^ twenty together : 
 in complexion indeed he is not fair, but like to fire ; and his 
 eyes are piercing and fiery-red : evil his heart, pleasant his 
 speech. For he does not speak the same as he thinks ; his 
 voice is as honey, "^but if he be wroth, his mind is ruthless ; 
 
 ^ " Ben Jonson in his Masque, * The Hue and Cry after Cupid,' has 
 imitated Moschus in this Idyll very closely. The proclamation, however, 
 is addressed by the Graces to the softer sex, with one of whom Aphro- 
 dite supposes young Love to be concealed." Chapman. Heindorf, in his 
 edition, separates rbv 'Epiora tov v'ita by a comma before and after, so 
 that the words may be read as part of the cry of Venus. f/3woTp£t, made 
 proclamation after, Hom. Odyss. xii. 124, So /3o^ is used by Euripides, 
 Phoen.1161, /3o^ TrDp Kai^i/clWaf, which Valkenaer renders "clamando 
 petit." 
 
 ' yvfivbv TO (piXafia. Theocr. Idyll iii. 20 ; xxvii. 4. 
 ' ev v.KocTL TracTt : inter viginti omnino, " amongst as many as twenty." 
 The alteration to TraiGi weakens the force. 
 ♦ Compare Plaut. True. I. ii. 76, 
 
 In melle sunt linguae vestrss sitae, atque orationes 
 Lacteque : corda felle sunt lita, atque acerba aceto. 
 Heskin quotes a rhyming distich, 
 
 Mel in ore, verba lactis. 
 Pel in corde, fraus in factis. 
 
iO— 29. IDYLL I. 181 
 
 deceiving, telling truth in nothing, wily child, he ^sports 
 cruelly. His head has goodly curls, but "impudent is the 
 face he wears: his little hands are tiny, 'tis true, yet they 
 shoot far ; shoot even to Acheron, and to the king of Hades. 
 He is naked indeed so far as his body is concerned, but his 
 mind is "^ shrouded. And being winged, as a bird, he flies 
 upon now one party of men and women and now another, and 
 settles on their inmost hearts. He has a very small bow, and 
 upon the bow an arrow: small is his arrow, yet it carries 
 even to the sky: and a golden quiver above his back, and 
 within it are the bitter shafts, with which he often wounds 
 even me. All, all is cruel ; but far most a little torch that he 
 has, ^with which he kindles the sun himself. If you at any 
 rate shall have caught him, bind and bring him, and do not 
 pity him. And if ever you shall have seen him weeping, be- 
 ware lest he beguile you ; and if he smile, do you drag him 
 on : and if he should desire to kiss you, avoid it ; his kiss is 
 mischievous, ^his lips poison. But should he say, * Take these, 
 I present thee all the arms I have,' do not touch them, de- 
 ceitful gifts ; for they have all been dipt in fire.' 
 
 IDYLL n. 
 
 EUEOPA. 
 
 Venus once sent upon Europa a sweet dream, what time 
 the ^ third portion of night sets in, and dawn is near ; what time 
 
 * dypia TraiffSsi. Compare Virgil, Eel. iii. 8, Transversa tuentibus 
 hircis. jEn. ix. 794, Asper, acerba tuens. Geor. iii. 149, Asper acerba 
 sonans : all illustrative of the frequent poetic use of adjectives neuter, 
 plural and singular, for the adverb. Cf. Matth. Gr. Gr. 446, § 7, 8. 
 
 ^ irafibv, (from fi/it, Itijq,) bold : in a bad sense, generally. Cf. 
 Aristoph. Ran. 1292, irafialg Kvaiv. 
 
 '' ifiTreirvKacTai. Horn. II. iii. 298, TrvKivat ^pkvfQ. TrvKivog vocg ; 
 fxrjdta TTVKva ; elsewhere. Proverbs v. 6, " Lest thou shouldest ponder the 
 path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know her." 
 
 * I have followed the reading of Luzacius, r^ dXiov avrbv dvaiOsi. 
 Hermann retains the common reading tov dXiov ; but punctuates thus, 
 
 TToXv TrXtXov St ol avrtp 
 (Said XafiTrdg ioXaa' tov dXiov avrov dvaiOn. 
 
 * tpdpfiaKov IvTi. Others read (papfiaKoevTa. 
 
 * From Homer's day the Greeks divided "night" into three watches, 
 
182 MOSCHUS. 3—30. 
 
 sleep sweeter than honey settling on the eyelids, limb-relaxing 
 though it is, fetters down the eyes with soft bond; ^what 
 time moreover the tribe of truthful dreams is roving abroad. 
 Then as she slumbered in a chamber next the roof, the daugh- 
 ter of Phoenix, yet a maiden, Europa, fancied ^that two conti- 
 nents were contending for her, Asia and the opposite coast, 
 and they were in shape as women. Now of these the one had 
 the form of a foreign woman, whilst the other in truth re- 
 sembled a native, and hugged her more closely as her own 
 child ; and kept saying that she- was her mother, and that 
 herself had nurtured her. But the other, using violence with 
 strong hands, was drawing her away, nothing loth : for she 
 said that 'twas fated by segis-bearing Jove that Europa should 
 be her prize. 
 
 She then started in affright from '*her strown couch, quak- 
 ing at heart, for she had beheld the dream as a real appear- 
 ance ; and seating herself she kept silence a long time, yet still 
 had she before her waking eyes both the women. And late 
 at length the maiden uplifted a timid voice, * Who of the ce- 
 lestials has sent upon me such phantoms ? What manner of 
 dreams are these which have exceedingly scared me, as I 
 slumbered right sweetly in my chamber on my strown couch ? 
 And who was that foreign woman, whom I beheld in my 
 sleep? How did a yearning toward her strike me at heart! 
 How graciously did she too welcome me, and regard me as her 
 own child ! But may the blessed gods decide the dream to 
 me for good.' Thus saying, she sprang up ; and went to seek 
 her dear companions, in the prime of life, lier equals in years, 
 well-pleasing, and nobly-born, with whom she was ever wont 
 
 (II. X. 253 ; Od. xii. 312,) just as they did " day" also. The first part of 
 the day was called jywifj which the time here mentioned (the TrvfiaTov 
 \axog of Apollon. Rhod. i, 1022) immediately precedes. The Latins 
 called it cockcrow, " gallicinium," d\eKTopo^(»via. See art. Dies, 339, 
 i. Smith's Diet. Gr. and Rom. Ant. 
 
 * evT$ Kal drpeKiiDV. Hor. Sat. I. x. 32, 
 
 Vetuit me tali voce Quirinus, 
 Post mediam noctem visus, cum somnia vera. 
 iBvoc 6veipa>v. So Horn. Odyss. xxiv. 12, drjfiov oveipojv. iroifiaiverai, 
 ovium ritu vagatur. 
 
 ^ i^irtipovg doiag. So ^sch. Persae, 186. — 'AaiSa r dvTi7rkpT]v re. 
 dvTiTrkprjv is an adverh. Supply rriv dvTnrsprjv ovaav ijTreipov. 
 
 * Eurip. Orest. 313, fxtve d' «7rt arpwroi) Xkxovg. Soph. Trach. 916, 
 aTpo)T& — ^dprj. TO yap wg virap eUev bvtipov. The order seems to be 
 il^tv yap TO oveipov <jjg virap. 
 
so— 51. IDYLL IL 183 
 
 to sport, ^when she was making ready for the choir, or when 
 she might be washing her skin at the mouths of ^the Anaurus, 
 or whensoever ^ she might be culling odorous lilies from the 
 mead. And these quickly showed themselves to her, and they 
 had each in their hands a basket for -holding -flowers ; and they 
 proceeded to go to the meadows by-the-shore, where too they 
 were ever wont to gather themselves in one troop, delighting 
 both in the growth of the roses and in the roaring of the sea. But 
 Europa herself was carrying a basket wrought of gold, and ad- 
 mirable, a great wonder, a great work of Hephaestus, which he 
 had bestowed on ^ Libya as a gift, when she went to the bed of 
 the Earth-shaker ; and she gave it to very-beauteous Telephas- 
 sa, who was of near kin to her ; and upon Europa, yet unwed- 
 ded, her mother, Telephassa, bestowed it as a famous present. 
 Whereon many sparkling curious-works had been wrought ; 
 on it indeed was wrought ^ of gold lo the daughter of Inachus, 
 while still a heifer, and she had not the figure of a woman. 
 And frantic she was going afoot over the briny paths, like 
 unto one swimming ; and a sea had been wrought of dark 
 blue. And aloft, upon the brow of the shore, were standing 
 two men together, and they were watching the sea-traversing 
 heifer. On it moreover was ^^ Jupiter, son of Saturn, patting 
 gently with his hand the heifer daughter of Inachus, whom 
 
 * Compare Callimach. H. in Apoll. 8, Ot U vkoi /uoXtt^v rt /cat kg 
 Xopov IvTvveaOe. 
 
 * There is an Anaurus in Thessaly, and one in Dardania. It is sug- 
 gested, that as neither of these will suit the locality of Europa's story, 
 we must read dvavpu) in its first sense — a river or a torrent : as in Anacr. 
 Od. vii., did ^' b^kiov dvavpwv — 
 
 ' Horat. III. xxvii. 29 speaks of Europa as 
 
 Nuper in pratis studiosa florum, 
 Debitte nymphis opifex coronae. 
 
 * Libya, a daughter of Epaphus and Memphis ; the mother by Nep- 
 tune of Agenor, Belus, and Lelex. Agenor is by most of the poets called 
 the father of Europa, though Homer makes her the daughter of Phoenix. 
 Telephassa was daughter-in-law to Libya. 
 
 ^ Horace (de Art. Poet.) calls her " lo vaga." Yirgil places the legend 
 of lo on the shield of Tumus, Mn. vii. 789—791, 
 At levem clypeum sublatis cornibus lo 
 Auro insignibat : jam setis obsita, jam bos, 
 Argumentum ingens, et custos virginis Argus. 
 '" Iv S' ijv Zivg KpovidriQ, tTratpioixevog r/psfxa Xfp<^'« The old reading 
 left out KpoviSijg, and ended the line with x*'P* Oitiy. Briggs proposes 
 iTratpCJv fiovov j/ps/xa xtipi Oedy, as JEsch. Prom. V. 874, tiraipijy 
 drapfitX x^^P** 'f«t Oiyiov fiovov. 
 
184 MOSCHUS. 51—77. 
 
 beside seven-mouihed Nile he was transforming again to a 
 woman from a horned cow. Of silver indeed was the stream 
 of Nile ; and the heifer, I ween, of brass ; but Jove himself 
 was fashioned of gold. ^^ And about the crown of the rounded 
 basket Hermes had been formed ; and near to him Argus had 
 been represented stretched, distinguished by his sleepless eyes ; 
 and from his deep-red blood was springing up a bird exulting 
 in the many-hued colour of his wings, having spread wide the 
 plumage of his tail, and like some ship speeding through the 
 sea, he was covering all round with feathers the rims of the 
 golden basket. Such was very-beauteous Europa's basket. 
 
 Now these, when in truth they had entered the flowery 
 meads, were then pleasing their fancy each with various kinds 
 of flowers ; one of them was plucking odorous narcissus, 
 another hyacinth, another the violet, and another the creeping 
 thyme : and on the ground were falling many leaves of 
 spring-nursed ^^ meadows. But others again were culling in 
 rivalry incense-laden tufts of yellow crocus; in the midst 
 however stood the princess, gathering with her hands the 
 beauty of the bright-red rose, ^^like as foam-born Venus 
 shone conspicuous among the Graces. Not long however was 
 she destined to please her fancy on flowers, or to ^'^ preserve, 
 I wot, her virgin zone undefiled. For of a truth the son of 
 Saturn, when he observed her, had then been smitten at heart, 
 subdued by the unforeseen darts of Venus, who alone can 
 overcome even Jove: wherefore now, both as desiring-to- 
 
 " SivqevTog. The rending SivojOevTog "tomati" is suggested as more 
 probable, Virgil's line, Lenta quibus torno facili superaddita vitis, being 
 adduced in support of this emendation. The story of Argus is found in 
 Ov. Met. i. 625—627, 
 
 Centum luminibus cinctum caput Argus habebat : 
 Inde suis vicibus capiebant bina quietem : 
 Caetera servabant, atque in statione manebant. 
 ^2 "Wakefield suggests XtipivSajv. Briggs, fitjKbJvoJv, because XeifitJvwy 
 has occurred so recently. Briggs quotes Propert. I. xx. 37, 
 Et circumriguo surgebant lilia prato 
 Candida purpureis mista papaveribus. 
 " So Virg. ^n. i. 499, 
 
 Exercet Diana choros, quam mille secutse 
 Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades : ilia pharetram 
 Fert humeris gradiensque deas supereminet omnes. 
 '* epva9ai, i. q. tpveaOai. Horn. Od. v. 484, orrov rpalg av^pag 'ipvaBai. 
 a-XpavTOv, Compare Eurip. Iph. in Aul. 1574, axpavTOv dina (coXXt- 
 irapQkvov depijg. 
 
77—104. IDYLL IL 185 
 
 avoid the wrath of jealous Her^, and wishing to beguile the 
 young fancy of the maiden, he concealed the god, and trans- 
 formed his body, *^and became a bull ; not such a one as feeds 
 in the stalls, nor indeed such a one as cleaves a furrow, drag- 
 ging the curved plough; nor like one that grazes in the 
 herdsjvno, nor of such a kind as the bull that is tamed and 
 draws the heavy-laden wain. But of a truth the rest of his 
 body was chestnut-coloured, whilst a silvery ring was gleaming 
 on his mid forehead, and his eyes were ^^ sparkling from 
 under, flashing through desire ; and horns equal one to the 
 other were branching up from his head, like orbs of the 
 horned moon, her disc cut in half ; so came he into the meadow, 
 and did not alarm the maidens by his appearance : ^"^ but a 
 longing to draw near to him arose in all, and to touch the 
 lovely bull ; for his divine scent from afar surpassed even 
 the sweet odour of the meadow. And he stood before the 
 feet of faultless Europa, and began to lick her neck, and to 
 soften the maiden's heart. Then would she stroke him, and 
 gently with her hands wipe off from his lips much foam, and 
 she kissed the bull. But he ^® lowed softly : you might say 
 that you heard a ^^Mygdonian flute, uttering distinctly a 
 clear sound ; then he bent the knee before her feet, and began 
 to look keenly on Europa, with his neck turned towards her, 
 and to display to her his broad back. Then she bespoke her 
 maidens with-thick-falling hair thus, * Come, dear playmates 
 of like age, that we may delight ourselves in sitting on the 
 bull here ; for in sooth he will spread his back beneath us, 
 
 » Ov.'Met. ii. 850, 
 
 Induitur tauri faciem, mixtusque juvencis 
 Mugit et in teneris formosus obambulat herbis. 
 See also the remainder of the 2nd Book in illustration of this Idyll. 
 
 's ocFcre d' vTToyXavaataKe. So Brunck reads in preference to the cor- 
 rupt vwoyXavKsaKe. 
 
 '7 Ov. Met. ii. 858, &c., Miratur Agenore nata^ 
 
 Quod formosus erat, quod preelia nulla minetur. 
 i» Lowed softly.] Compare Nonnus, lib. i., 
 
 St^ovitjs iroTf. Tau/oos iir' yovo^ vij/iKepco'S Zeus 
 ifXEpoEV fivKrifia vodio fivunaaTO Xaifiw. 
 19 Mygdonian flute,] or pipe. Mygdonian stands for •* Phrygian." The 
 Mygdones, a Thracian tribe, settled in Phrygia. The Phrygian pipe 
 had two holes above and terminated in a horn bending upwards. (See 
 Tibull. II. i. 86. Ov. Met. iii. 533, Adunco tibia cornu.) It thus ap- 
 proached the nature of a trumpet, producing slow, grave, solemn tones. 
 Smith, Diet. Gr. R. A., Tibia, p. 969. 
 
186 ' MOSCHUS. 104 — 124. 
 
 and take us all up, even as a ship ; mild is he to look upon, 
 and gentle, nor is he at all like to other bulls ; 20 and a right 
 mind, as of a man, surrounds him, and he wants but speech.' 
 Thus saying, ^i she took her seat smilingly on his back ; and 
 the rest were about to do so ; when straightway the bull 
 sprang up, having carried off her whom he wished, and 
 speedily he came to the sea. But she having turned her 
 round began to call her dear companions, outstretching her 
 hands ; and they could not reach her, for having set foot on 
 the strand he ran forward as a dolphin, and the Nereids 
 emerged from out the brine, ay, the whole of them, I wot, 
 arrayed themselves in line, 22 sitting on the backs of whales. 
 And moreover heavily-roaring Earth-shaker himself above 
 the sea, levelling the waves, led the briny way for his brother ; 
 and 2^ the Tritons, dwellers in deep-flowing ocean, were gathered 
 round him, sounding on long conches a nuptial melody. 
 
 But she truly, sitting on the bull-like shoulders of Jupiter, 
 with one hand indeed kept holding the bull's long horn, whilst 
 in the other hand she was drawing back the folds of her 
 purple-flowing robe, in order that the countless spray of the 
 hoary brine might not wet the skirt of it when drawn towards 
 
 20 Theocr. Idyll xxv, 79 — 83, puts similar language, respecting a dog, 
 into the mouth of the steward of Augeas. 
 2» Ovid. Met. ii. 868, 
 
 Ausa est quoque regia virgo, 
 Nescia quem premeret, tergo considere tauri. 
 Horat. III. xxvii. 25, 
 
 Sic et Europe niveura doloso 
 Credidit tauro latus, et scatentem 
 Belluis pontum, mediasque fraudes 
 Palluit audax. 
 « Yirg. iEn. v. 822, &c., 
 
 Turn varire comitum facies, immania cete 
 Et senior Glauci chorus, Inousque Palemon 
 Tritonesque citi. 
 For the next line see Milton's Comus, " By the earth-shaking Neptune's 
 mace." 
 23 Milton, ibid., " By scaly Triton's winding shell." Virg. Mn. vi. 171, 
 Sed tum forte cava dum personal sequora concha 
 vEmulus, exceptum Triton submerserat. 
 Valkenaer in this passage has restored the reading of the Codices, ^apv- 
 Bpooi avXrjTijpeg, '* loud-voiced minstrels." Triton was a son of Neptune 
 and Amphitrite. He was his father's trumpeter — his trumpet a conch-shell. 
 Four lines below we have translated the reading of Auratus o0pa fij) wqv 
 AsvoL e<pt\KOfJ.kvr]v. 
 
125—153. IDYLL IL 187 
 
 her. Now the deep robe of Europa had been formed into 
 loose folds at the shoulders, like the sail of a ship, and was 
 wont to lighten the maiden. But when at length she was far 
 from her fatherland, and ^4 there appeared neither any sea- 
 dashed shore, nor tall mountain, but air indeed above, and 
 boundless ocean beneath, peering round about her, she gave 
 vent to words like these : * Whither bearest thou me, divine 
 bull ? Who art thou ? Or how dost thou traverse the way 
 ^^ with untiring feet, and yet not shudder at the sea ? For by 
 swift ships the sea is overrun, but bulls dread the briny path. 
 What kind of drink is sweet to thee ? what food wilt thou get 
 from the sea ? Art thou in truth, I wonder, some god ? For 
 ^^thou dost acts beseeming the gods. Neither do marine 
 dolphins walk upon land, nor bulls in any wise on the sea. 
 But thou rushest unwetted over land and sea, and thine 
 2^ hoofs are oars to thee. Nay, haply also lifted aloft above 
 the azure air, thou wilt take flight, resembling swift birds. 
 Ah me ! iU-fated assuredly in a high degree ; ^^ even I who, 
 having left afar my father's house, and followed this bull, am 
 pursuing a strange voyage, and roaming alone. But mayest 
 thou, earth-shaking regent of the hoary sea, graciously light 
 upon me ! I hope to behold this god directing my voyage, as 
 my forerunner. For not without a god's help do I traverse 
 these watery paths.' Thus spake she ; and her the broad- 
 horned bull addressed thus: 'Take heart, maiden, fear not 
 ocean's billow : I myself, look you, am Jove, though near at 
 hand I seem to be a bull ; yes, for I am able to appear whatso- 
 ever I choose. Now desire of thee hath impelled me to 
 
 2* Virg. Mn. iii. 192, 
 
 Postquam altum tenuere rates, nee jam amplius ullse 
 Apparent terrae, ccelum undique, et undique pontus. ' 
 
 Cf. Lucret. iv. 435. Horat. iii. 27. Ovid. Trist. I. ii. 23. 
 
 ^ apyaXkoiai Trodeaai. Briggs suggests dpyaXeriv cif. One MS, has 
 apyaXerjv ys. 
 
 ^ We have translated the reading given by Briggs, as restored by 
 Gaisford, ivtoiKOTa, which yields a better sense than atriotxoTa. 
 
 *' So Seneca Hippolyt., Unguis lentos imitante remos. For the 
 line above see Matt. Gr. Gr, 594, 4. "When a preposition should stand 
 twice with two separate nouns, it is often put only once, and then with 
 the second. So in Latin, Horat. iii. 25, 3, Qua nemora aut quos agor 
 in specus. Cf. Bion, Id. v. 11, KafiaTwg K*flg epya Trovevfiig. 
 
 28 Horace, Od. III. xxvii, 49, Impudens liqui patrios Penates : and for 
 Jove*s answer see the same ode. Uxor invicti Jovis esse nescis. Mitte 
 ■ingultus. 
 
1,88 MOSCHUS. 153—162. 
 
 measure so much sea, taking the appearance of a bull: but 
 Crete shall receive thee presently, Crete, which reared even 
 m3^self; where shall be thy nuptials: and by me thou shalt 
 bear illustrious sons, who shall all of them be sceptre-bearers 
 among the dwellers upon earth. 
 
 So said he : and what he said found fulfilment : Crete indeed 
 at length appeared : and Jove again assumed his own form. 
 And he loosed her girdle, and the ^^ Hours prepared her bed, 
 and she who was aforetime a maiden became presently bride 
 of Jove. ^^ And she bore sons to Jove and became a mother 
 forthwith. 
 
 [In connexion with this Idyll, 0%'id Met. tI. 103, and Fast. v. 605 — 
 612, may be read with advantage. See Chapman's notes.] 
 
 IDYLL IIL 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF BION, A LOVING HERDSMAN. 
 
 Plaintively groan at my bidding, ye woodland dells, and 
 thou Dorian water, and weep, rivers, the lovely Bion ; now 
 wail at my bidding, ye plants, and now, groves, utter a -vml ; 
 now may ye flowers breathe forth your life in sad clusters ; 
 ^ blush now sorrowfully, ye roses, now, thou anemone ; ^ now, 
 
 ^ The Hours are (in Greek poets) ministers of the gods, II. viii. 433, 
 xxi. 450; the companions of the sun, Ov. Met. ii. 25. In Theocr. i. 
 150, the beauty of a cup is ascribed to its having been washed in their 
 fountain. In Idyll xv. 103, they bring back Adonis to Venus year by 
 year, from Acheron. In nature or art alike they are interested in the 
 perfection of beauty. 
 
 '" Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus were her sons. She after- 
 wards married Asterion, king of Crete, Avho brought up her sons, and 
 whom one of them, Minos, succeeded. 
 
 * See Bion's Lament for Adonis, 36, avOta d' k^ odvvag IpevOaiveTai. 
 Moschus seems here to allude to this passage. 
 
 ^ (3a/u/3a\£, lisp. This is an emendation of Heindorf for Xdfji(3ave, 
 the common reading. A kindred form, /3o/j/3atvw, occurs in Bion iv. 10, 
 — at al. Comp. Theocr. x. 28, Kai a ypaTrrd vaKivOog. The legend ran, 
 that Avhen Hyacinthus had been accidentally slain by Apollo's disc, hii 
 blood produced a flower on whose leaves the initial letters of his. nune 
 were inscribed. Ov. Met. x. 162, 
 
 Ipse suos gemitus foliis inscrit)it, et " ai ai '' 
 . Flos habet inscriptum, funestaque littera ducta est. 
 
6—30. ii>YJ,L in. 189 
 
 hyacinth, speak thy letters, and with thy leaves lisp *ai,' 
 ' ai,' more than is thy wont ; a noble minstrel is dead. 
 
 Begin Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 Ye nightingales, that wail in the thick foliage, tell the news 
 to the SicHTan waters of ^Arethusa, that Bion the herdsman 
 is dead, that with him both the song is dead, and perished is 
 Doric minstrelsy. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. - 
 
 Plaintively wail beside the waters, Strymonian swans, and 
 with mournful voices sing a sorrowful ode, with as sweet a 
 sound as was that of old, loherewith he used to sing to your 
 lips. ^ And tell, again, to ^agrian maids, tell to all Bistonian 
 nymphs, that the Dorian Orpheus has perished. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 That darling of the herds no longer sings : no longer does 
 he warble, as he reclines beneath the solitary oaks : but in 
 Pluto's realm he chants ^ a song of forgetfulness. And voice- 
 lesb are the hills ; and the heifers, which roam with the bulls, 
 lament and will not go to pasture. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 Thy sudden fate, O Bion, even Apollo bewailed, and the 
 rSatyrs grieved, and the dark-robed Priapi ; and Pans sigh for 
 t^y melody, whilst the fountain nymphs through the wood 
 mourned for thee, ^and their tears became waters ; and Echo 
 
 According to other traditions, the flower sprang from the blood of Ajax. 
 See Sophocl. Ajax 430 (Lobeck) ; Ov. Met. xiii. 395, who combines 
 the two legends, and Virg. Eel, iii. 106. The hyacinth, we know, has no 
 such inscription on its leaves. 
 
 ^ The nymph Arethusa, pursued by the river-god Alpheus, was 
 
 changed by Artemis into a stream, which, flowing beneath the sea, rose 
 
 again near Syracuse. See Yirg. .^n. iii. 694 — 696. Virgil alludes to 
 
 he land of pastoral song, Sicily, under this name, Eel. xi., Extremum 
 
 lunc Arethusa mihi, &c. 
 
 ■* A verse would seem to have slipped out here, which should have 
 lade mention of Thracian Orpheus, and so have connected Strymon, 
 Eagria. and the Bistones with this song. — The Dorian Orpheus. So 
 'ropert. IV. i. 64, says of himself " Umbria Romani patria Callimachi." 
 * A song of forgetfulness.] Compare Theocr. i. 63. 
 ^ rat vdara SaKpva ykvTO. " Et lachrymae in rivos abeunt." Briggs 
 uggests reading vdaai. Et undis lachrymae obortie sunt. Comp. Bion 
 34. Kal Jlayal rbv 'Adtoviv iv urpim daKpvovn. Spenser, Shepherd'i 
 .lendar, November, 
 
 The floods do gasp, for dried is their source, 
 And floods of tears flow in their stead perforce. 
 
190 % MOSCHUS. 30—61. 
 
 amid the rocks laments, because thou art mute, and mimics 
 no more thy lips ; and at thy death the trees have cast off 
 their fruit, and the flowers have all withered ; good milk hath 
 not flowed from ewes ; nor honey from hives ; but it has 
 perished in the wax wasted with grief ; for no longer is it 
 meet, now that thy honey is lost, to gather that. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 ^Not so much did the dolphin lament beside the shores of 
 the sea, nor so sang the nightingale ever on the rocks, no, noiP 
 so much complained the swallow along the high mountains.^ 
 ® neither did Ceyx wail so much over the griefs of Halcyon. * 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. '^ 
 
 Neither did Cerylus sing so much in the gray-green wa , es, 
 nor so much ^did the bird of Memnon, fluttering around his 
 tomb, deplore the son of Aurora in the valleys of the East, aj= 
 they have bewailed Bion, having perished. 
 
 Begin, Silician Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 Nightingales, and all swallows, which once he was wont to 
 delight, which he was teaching to speak, sitting on the branches. 
 of trees, kept wailing opposite to each other, whilst the other 
 birds kept responding, * Grieve, ye doves, but we will do so too. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 ' The dolphin's delight in song, commemorated in the fable of Arion 
 (Herod, i. 23 ; Pausan. iii. 25 ; Virg. Eel. viii. 54,) is applied by Moschu.' 
 here to the sorrow of all things for the hushing of Bion's song. Fo 
 traits of the dolphin's musical taste and benevolence, see Pliny, N. H> 
 ix. 8. ) 
 
 * Ceyx perished by shipwreck, and his wife, finding his lifeless body on 
 the strand, threw herself into the sea. The gods in pity changed them 
 both into the birds called Halcyons. Ov. Met. xi. 410. Comp. Virg. 
 Georg. i. 399. KrjpvXog, Att. KeipvXog, vl sea-bird, according to some, 
 the male Halcyon. Aristot. H. A. 
 
 • Mkfivovog upvig. Aurora besought Jove to make her lover Tithonut? 
 immortal. She forgot to stipulate for immortal youth. She therefon 
 had an infirm, though immortal, paramour. But while he was yet young 
 she bore him two sons, of whom Memnon was one. Memnon was slaii 
 at Troy by Achilles, and Aurora obtained from Jove a promise that hi 
 memory should have more than mortal honours. Accordingly from hi 
 funeral pyre there rose a flight of birds, which having thrice flown rouri 
 the flames, divided themselves into two bodies, and fought so fierce!) 
 that above half perished in the fire. These birds, called Memnonides 
 yearly returned to Memnon's tomb, and renewed the encounter. See O 
 Met. xiii., Terque rogum lustrant, et consonus exit in auras 
 
 Plangor. 
 See also Pliny, x. 36. 
 
5r 4v:. IDYLL III. 191 
 
 W ho shall sing to thy pipe, thrice-regretted ? And who 
 shall apply his lip to thy reeds ? Who so bold ? For even 
 yet they breathe of thy lips and thy breath : and Echo amid 
 the reeds feeds upon thy songs. To Pan I bear ^"^the pipe : 
 haply even he would fear to set his mouth to it, lest he should 
 carry off a second prize after thee. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 ' ^ Galatea too weeps for thy lay, she whom of old thou didst 
 lelight, as she sat in thy company along the sea-beach. For 
 lot like Cyclops didst thou sing: from him indeed the fair 
 jalatea used to fly; but thee she was wont to regard ^^^ith 
 
 ^re sweetness than the sea. And now, forgetful of the 
 
 ve, she sits on the lonely sands, and even yet leads thy 
 xi to pasture. 
 
 jiBegin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 All along with thee, herdsman, have perished the Muses' 
 gifts, charming kisses of maidens, lips of boys : and around thy 
 tomb weep sad-visaged Loves. Venus loves thee far more 
 than the kiss, with which lately she kissed dying Adonis. 
 This is a second grief to thee, most musical of rivers ! This, 
 ^ Meles, is a fresh grief ; to thy sorrow perished Homer 
 iforetime, that ^"^ sweet mouth of Calliope, and men say thou 
 lidst deplore thine illustrious son in streams of much weeping, 
 md didst fill all the sea with thy voice : now again thou 
 veepest another son, and pinest over a fresh woe. Both were 
 oloved by the fountains ; the one indeed was wont to drink 
 )f the Pegasean spring ; the other, to enjoy a draught of the 
 Arethusa. And the one sang the fair daughter of Tyndarus, 
 and the mighty son of Thetis, and Menelaus, son of Atreus : 
 but the other would sing not of wars, nor tears, but Pan ; 
 and would sound the praise of herdsmen, and feed the herd 
 
 *• Uavl ^igo) TO fikXiyfia. fikXiyfia is equivalent to "fistula," the 
 Sect for the cause. In Meleager's epigrams, as Wakefield observes, 
 Lnacreon is called to fiiXiafia, that is, " auctor tov (ieXiafiaTog." 
 
 " The poet here alludes to Bion's Idyll on Galatea, a fragment only 
 )f which is extant. 
 
 >2 Compare Theocr. Idyll xi, 43 ; Virgil Eel. ix. 39. 
 
 " Meles, a river of Ionia, washes the walls of Smyrna, where Bion 
 /as born. Here also was supposed to have been the birth-place of 
 
 omer : hence called Melesigenes. 
 
 '* Compare here Theocr. Idyll vii. 37, Kai yap tyw Moiaav Kairvpbv 
 r('na — 
 
192 MOSCIIUS. 83—110, 
 
 as he sang : and he was wont to fashion Pan's-pipes, and to 
 milk the sweet heifer, and to teach the lips of youths, and to 
 cherish Eros in his bosom, ^^and rouse a passion in Aphrodite. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 Every famous city laments thee, O Bion, as do all the 
 towns: ^^Ascra indeed wails for thee, far more than for 
 Hesiod : not so much does Boeotian Hylae regret Pindar ; nor 
 so much did pleasant Lesbos weep about Alcseus : no, nor hath 
 the Ceian town wept for her bard so much. Paros regrets 
 thee more than Archilochus ; and Mitylene yet plaintively 
 utters thy melody instead of Sappho's. All, as many as have, 
 a clear-sounding voice, all singers of pastorals by the Muses* 
 favour, weep for thy fate, now thou art dead. ^' Sicelidas, the 
 glory of Samos, weeps ; and among the Cydonians, he who 
 was aforetime cheerful to look on with his smiling eye, Ly- 
 cidas, yet sheds tears as he wails : whilst among the citizens 
 of Cos, Philetas mourns beside the river Halens ; and among 
 Syracusans, Theocritus : but I sing for thee a strain of '® Au- 
 sonian sorrow, /, no stranger to the pastoral song, but heir to the 
 Doric Muse, which thou didst teach thy scholars : honouring 
 me, to others indeed thou didst leave thy wealth, but to me 
 thy song. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 Alas, alas, when once in a garden the mallows have died, or 
 the green parsley, or blooming crisp dill, they live again after, 
 and spring up another year. But we, the great, and brave, 
 or wise o/'men, after we have once died, unheard of in hollow 
 
 ** Koi TqgiBt TCLv 'A^podirav. Comp. Theocr. Idyll xxi. 21. 
 
 '* Ascra, a town of Bceotia, or according to Hesiod, who was its chief" 
 glory, a village at the foot of Helicon in the Thespian region. O. et D. 
 638. — Hylge, a city of Bceotia. Pindar was born either at Thebes or 
 Cynocephalae, b. c. 522. Alcaeus, a native of Lesbos. Simonides, of Ceot;, 
 B. c. 556. Archilochus, of Paros. See Theocr. Epigr. xix. Sappho, 
 (of the same date with Alcseus, b. c. 628 — 570,) was one of the two 
 leaders of the ,^olian school of poetry, AlctBus being the other. She 
 was a native of Mytilene. 
 
 »^ ^iKsXidag. See Theocr. Idyll vii. 40. Lycidas : Theocr. vii. 12. 
 The Cydonians inhabited the south of Crete. Philetas : ibid. 40. TptoTr/- 
 Saig. Triops was % king of the island of Cos. Cf. Theocr. xvii. 68. 
 The river Halens is mentioned in the Thalysia referred to above. 
 
 " AvtToviKag oSvvag. The Sicilian Sea was called Ausonius Pontus, 
 from Auson, a son of Ulysses and Calypso. Therefore as Moschus was 
 a Syracusan, he calls his song Ausonian. 
 
111—128. IDYLL m. . 193 
 
 earth, sleep a right long and boundless slumber,, from which 
 none are roused. ^^ And in the earth thou indeed wilt be 
 covered in silence, but it has seemed good to the Nymphs that 
 the frog should croak for ever. Yet I envy him not : for 
 'tis no pretty song he sings. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 Poison came, O Bion, to thy lip : thou knewest poison. 
 How did it find access to thy lips, yet not become sweet ? or 
 what mortal was so far ruthless, as to mix for thee, or to give 
 thee the poison, if thou didst speak ? He shunned the power 
 of song. 
 
 Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament. 
 
 But justice has" overtaken all. And I, shedding tears over 
 
 this woe, bewail thy fate ; yet were I able, like ^ Orpheus, 
 
 V having gone down to Tartarus, like Ulysses once, or as Al- 
 
 cides in days of yore, I too would haply descend to the home 
 
 of Pluto, that I might see thee, and, if thou singest to Pluto, 
 
 /that 1 might hear what thou singest. Nay, but in the pre- 
 
 ^' sence of the damsel (Proserpine) warble some Sicilian strain, 
 
 sing some pleasant pastoral. She too, being Sicilian, ^i sport- 
 
 '* Cf. Job xiv. 7 — 10, *' There is hope of a tree, if it be cut do%vn, that 
 it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 
 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the gtock thereof die 
 in the ground ; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring 
 forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man 
 giveth up the ghost, and where is hel " 
 Spenser, Whence is it that the flow'ret of the field doth lade 
 
 And lyeth buried long in winter's bale 1 
 
 Yet soon as spring his mantle hath displayed, 
 
 It flow'reth fresh, as it should never fail. 
 
 But thing on earth that is of most avail, 
 
 As virtue's branch and beauty's bud, 
 
 Reliven not for any good, 
 CatuU., Soles occidere et redire possunt : 
 
 Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux 
 
 Nox est perpetua una dormienda. 
 20 Alcides went alive to Tartarus by command : Odysseus, to obtaiiti 
 information needful to him : but Orpheus went down to recover his wife. 
 His story is beautifully told in th« fourth Georgic of Virgil, ftee also 
 Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. Chapman. 
 
 ^' Proserpine, daughter of Ceres, was carried off by Pluto. The legend 
 is to be found, in Hesiod Theog. 914 ; Callimach. H. in Cerer. 9, and 
 Spanheim, on that passage ; Ovid. Met. v. 565 ; Fast, v^/k 432. Milton 
 alludes to it thus : r 
 
 o 
 
194 MOSCHUS. 128—133. 
 
 ed on the ^tnaean shores, and knew the Doric song : nor will 
 thy strain be unhonoured ; and as of old to Orpheus, sweetly- 
 singing to his lyre, she gave Eurydice to return, so will she 
 send thee, Bion, to thy hills. Yes, if even I could avail aught 
 by singing to my pipe, I too would sing before Pluto. 
 
 IDYLL IV. 
 
 MEGARA, THE WIFE OF HERCULES. 
 
 My mother, why dost thou thus wound thy spirit, being 
 sad beyond measure, and why is the former bloom no longer 
 preserved on thy cheeks ? Why, I pray thee, art thou vexed 
 so much ? Is it in sooth because thine illustrious son sufiers 
 countless annoyances from ^ a man of no account, even as a lion 
 from a fawn ? Alas me ! why then have the immortal gods thus 
 so far dishonoured me ? why then did my parents beget me to 
 a fate thus adverse ? Ill-fated am /, who, since I have come 
 to the bed of a faultless hero, whom I did honour indeed like 
 my own eyes, ay, even now both worship and reverence him in 
 my heart. But than him has no other of living beings been 
 more ill-starred, or tasted so many cares in his own thoughts ; 
 wretched man, who with the -fbow and arrows, which Apollo 
 himself had provided for him, dire weapons either of one of 
 
 Not that fair field 
 
 Of Euna, where Proserpine, gathering flowers, 
 
 Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis 
 
 Was gather' d, which cost Ceres all that pain 
 
 To seek her through, the world ; nor that sweet grove ' 
 
 Of Daphne by Orontes, and th* inspired 
 
 Castalian spring, might with this Paradise 
 
 Of Eden strive. Parad. Lost. Book iv. 
 
 ^ Eurystheus, to wit. Megara was the daughter oj king Creon of 
 Thebes, and wife of Hercules, (Horn. Od. xi. 269. Eurip. Here. Fur. 9, 
 &QI...) by whom he had several children ; whom after his battle with the 
 Miay^ans he slew, with two of the children of Iphiclus, under the influ- 
 ence of .rnadness sent by Juno. 
 
 ^ r6^oter;»,j/. By this name is understood, bow, arrows, and quiver. 
 trdoa tf TQ,?^Kri crrcw^. ApoUodorus says Mercury gave Hercules his 
 sword, Apollu his bow, Yulcan his mail, Minerva his cloak, whilst hi* 
 club he himself zMt in the Nemean grove. 
 
IDYLL IV. 195 
 
 the Fates, or of Erinnys, ^slew his own children, and robbed 
 them of their dear life, as he raged about his house, and it was 
 full of slaughter. Them indeed T, wretched woman, beheld 
 with mine own eyes, stricken by their father ; and this hath 
 befallen no other even in a dream : nor was I able to succour 
 them, though they loudly called upon their mother ; for re- 
 sistless evil was nigh. * And even as a bird laments over her 
 nestlings as they perish, which while still in infancy a fierce 
 snake devours amid the thick bushes, while she, kind mother, 
 hovers over them shrieking y^vy shrilly, yet is not able, I 
 ween, to succour her children ; for in truth, she herself hath 
 a great dread of coming nigher to the ruthless monster ; so I, 
 most wretched mother, wailing for mine own otfspring, with 
 frantic feet kept running to and fro through my house fre- 
 quently. Yes, and would that dying along with my children I 
 too had lain low, having through my heart a poisonous arrow, 
 thou, Artemis, mighty ruler to women, the gentler beings. 
 So, when they had mourned for us, would our parents with 
 their own hands have placed us on a common pile with many 
 funeral honours ; and having collected into one golden urn the 
 bones of all, would have buried us, where we first were born. 
 But now they indeed inhabit horse-breeding Thebes, plough- 
 ing the deep rich ^ clods of the Aonian plain ; but I at Tiryns, 
 Juno's rocky city, wretched woman that I am, am ever in the 
 same manner wounded at heart by many griefs ; and there is 
 present to me no rest from tears. But my husband indeed I 
 behold with mine eyes o'nJy for a brief space in our house ; 
 for a work is prepared for him of many labours, at which he 
 toils, as he roams over land and sea, yes, for he has within his 
 
 ' Eurip. Here. F. says that Megara Avas slain along with her children ; 
 he follows Stesichorus and Panyasis. Plutarch and Pausanias coincide 
 with Moschus. 
 
 * Conapare for this heautiful passage, Horn. II. ii. 308. Virg. Geor. 
 iv. 512, 
 
 Qualis populeS, moerens Philomela sub umbra 
 Amissos queritur foetus ; quos durus arator 
 Observans nido implumes detraxit : at ilia 
 Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen 
 Integrat, et mcestis late loca questibus implet. 
 
 * Aonian plain.] Boeotia was by its ancient inhabitants called Aonia. 
 Tiryns, a town of Achaia, not far from Argos, was the native place 6. 
 Hercules, hence called Tirynthius. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 MOSCHUS. 44— 6fi 
 
 breast a strong heart of iron or stone ; ^but thou meltest away 
 like water, weeping both at night, and as many days as come 
 from Jove. None other, however, of my kinsfolk can stand 
 by and comfort me ; for it is not a wall between houses tliat 
 shuts them in ; no ! but all dwell right beyond the "' piny 
 Isthmus : nor have I to whom, having looked, as an ill-lated 
 woman, I could unfold my heart, except at least, 'tis true, my 
 sister Pyrrha: but she herself, too, is grieving more about 
 her husband, thy son, ® Iphiclus ; for most woeful children of 
 all I deem that you have borne both to a god and a mortal man. 
 
 Thus in sooth spake she : and ^the warmer tears poured 
 the more down from her eyelids on her lovely bosom, as she 
 called to mind her children, and her own parents afterwards. 
 And in like manner Alcmena was '° bedewing her white 
 cheeks with tears ; and deeply while she groaned even from 
 her heart, with wise words thus did she reply to her dear 
 daughter-in-law : 
 
 ^^' Unhappy in thy children, why then, I pray, hath this 
 fallen upon thy sharp thoughts ? how is it that thou wishest 
 to disturb us both, by speaking of our unceasing sorrows ? 
 for not now have they been wept for the first time. Are not 
 the woes enough, in which we are involved as they arise, ever 
 and anon, each second day? Yes, fond indeed of laments 
 
 ^ So the Hebrew sacred writers. Joshua vii. 5, " Wherefore the hearts 
 of the people melted, and became as water." Psalm xxii. 14, " 1 am 
 poured out like water : my heart also in the midst of my body is like 
 melting wax." Iviii. 6, " Let him fall away like water that runneth 
 apace." 
 
 ^ The Isthmus Corinthiacus is here meant, kut' i^oxriv. Pine trees 
 were common in that maritime country, and a garland of pine leaves 
 formed the victor's crown at the Isthmian games in honour of Neptune, 
 to whom the pine was sacred. 
 
 8 Iphiclus, the half-brother of Hercules, married, secondly, Pyrrha, 
 youngest daughter of Creon, king of Thebes. ApoUod. ii. 4, § 11, Ot(^ r« 
 Kai dvspi. Jupiter and Amphitryon. 
 
 ^ Of the numerous emendations of the probably corrupt nr)\o)v, Wake- 
 field's fiaXKov seems most intelligible. Briggs suggests drjXwg. If we 
 read the verse as it stands in Heskin's edition, firjXiov, we should con- 
 strue, " and moist tears were pouring down her cheeks from her eyelids 
 on her fair bosom ;" but this is hardly Greek. 
 
 *o Wakefield suggests here ifilaivtv, quoting Virg. ^n. xii. 67, Stat. 
 Theb. ix. 713, and Young's line, " And lights on lids unsullied with a 
 tear." 
 
 '* Aaifioviii Traidiov, rightly explained by Schwebel, KaxoSaiiiov iraiStitv 
 
66—96. IDYLI, IV. 197 
 
 would be the man, who ^^ would wish to add to the numbei 
 of our woes. Cheer up then ! such fate as this we have met 
 by Heaven's behest; and in truth I see thee, dear child, la- 
 bouring under unabating griefs: yet I am ready to pardon 
 y'our woe ; for in fact I suppose ^^even of joy there is satiety. 
 And I very exceedingly lament and pity thee, for that thou 
 hast partaken of our dismal destiny, which also hangs heavily 
 over our heads. For be Proserpine and richly-robed Demeter 
 witnesses, (by whom with great hurt to himself would any of 
 our foes swear wilfully a false oath,) that in mine heart I love 
 thee not a whit less, than if thou hadst come from out my 
 womb, and wert to me in mine house a ^^ late-born daughter: 
 nor do I imagine that, for thine own part, this at any rate 
 altogether escapes thee. Wherefore say not ever, ^^ my young 
 shoot, that I care not for thee, not even if I wail more con- 
 stantly than fair-haired Niobe : for 'tis no cause of blame for 
 a mother to weep over an afflicted son : since for ten months 
 did I labour, before even I first beheld him, whilst I had him 
 in my womb, and he brought me near to ^^ Hell's gate-keeper 
 Pluto ; so severe throes did I endure when about to travail 
 hard with him. But now my son is gone to accomplish a 
 fresh toil on a foreign land, nor know I, ill-starred woman, 
 whether I shall welcome him again having returned hither, 
 or not. And besides also a fearful dream has scared me 
 during sweet sleep; and I fear exceedingly, having seen a 
 hurtful vision, lest it betide something untoward to my chil- 
 dren. For my son, stout Hercules, seemed to me to hold in 
 both his hands a well-made spade, with which he was delving, 
 
 '' otTTiQ api9fi^(TH£v, understand dx^a, Qui numeret dolores ultra nos- 
 tros, or construe as if it were offng iTrapiOfiriffetev rffitTspois dx^^ffffi, 
 which has been done in this translation. Two lines above, Polwhele 
 compares Matt. v. 34, " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." 
 
 "^ " And if there is a satiety of joy, much more of grief." These 
 words are an excuse for sorrow finding vent. Moschus imitates Horn. 
 Iliad xiii. 636, 7rdvro)v yap Kopog kari' kuI vttvov kuI fiXoTtfTog 
 fioXTrrjg re yXvKsprjg, Kal dfivfiovoc ipxijOfioio. 
 
 '* rriXvyerri — ij TsXtvTdla T<p Trarpi yevoixkvij : one bom at the end, 
 last. An Homeric word, from TrjXe, of same root as TsXog ; and yivofiai. 
 See Butm. Lexil. p. 510—512. Ed. 1836. 
 
 " ifibv OaXog. So Meleager Epigr. 109, ai at, iroii to xoOtivov lnoi 
 eaXog. 
 
 '« vvXdprao. So Horn. II. viii. 365, tig 'Aliog irep iovra irvXapror 
 parepoXo. 
 
198 MOSCHUS. 96—125. 
 
 as one that had taken the work for hire, a dyke at the outskirt 
 of some flourishing field, stripped, without cloak, and well- 
 girdled tunic : but when he had arrived at the end of all the 
 work, labouring at the strong fence of a levelled plot for 
 vines, in truth, he was about, having placed his ^"^ shovel upon 
 the projecting raised bank, to put on the garments, in which 
 he had been clad before ; when, on a sudden, above the deep 
 trench there blazed up a fierce fire, and a vast flame was 
 gathering round him : but he kept ever drawing back with 
 swift feet, desiring to escape the destructive weapon of He- 
 ph^stus ; and continually in front of his person he was brand- 
 ishing, as a ^^ shield, his spade: and with his eyes he kept 
 looking around hither and thither, lest in truth the hostile 
 fire should burn him. High-souled Iphiclus, desiring, as me- 
 thought, to lend him help, tripped and fell upon the ground, 
 ay, before he came up to him : nor could he raise himself erect 
 again, but lay ^^ still, like a feeble old man, whom even against 
 his will joyless age has forced to fall ; and there he lies fixedly 
 on the ground, till some passer-by maintaining ^o ancient re- 
 verence for the hoary beard, has upraised him by the hand ; 
 so on the ground had spear-brandishing Iphiclus ^^ fallen. 
 But as I beheld my two sons in sore distress, I did weep, till 
 sound sleep at length was dispelled from mine eyes, and forth- 
 with bright dawn came. Such dreams, dear one, have 
 thoroughly affrighted my mind all night long : 22 j^y^ ^nay 
 they all turn from our house upon Eurystheus ; and may my 
 spirit become a prophet to him, nor fate accomplish otherwise 
 aught else. 
 
 ^'' XiOTpov, a hoe or shovel for levelling. Horn. Odyss. xxii. 455. 
 avSijpov is used by Theocr. v. 93. 
 
 •8 ykppov, an oblong wicker shield covered with ox-hide, such as the 
 Persians wore. Herod, vii. 61. See Thirlwall, H. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 
 255, note 1. 
 
 ^^ doTe/A06c, immobiliter. Theocr. Idyll xiii. 37, aarefi^tl TiKaftwvt, 
 Telamoni invicto. 
 
 20 oTTida irpoTkpijv 'ttoXioTo yevdov, for irpoTspriv, senilem, Valken. 
 reads uTvyiprjv, Jacobs Kparepi^v or Kpveprjv, Wakefield TpofisprjVt while 
 Briggs suggests TrpoTrerrj, prostrate. But surely TrpoTspijv, " elder " or 
 "ancient," will yield as good a sense as either. 
 
 2' XeXc'aoTo. Horn. II. xx. 430, Xiat^ofievov Trpori yaty. 
 
 *2 Trpbg EvpvaOija TpdiroTro. So Virg. Georg. iii. 513, Dii meliora 
 piis, erroremque hostibus ilium, ^n. ii. 190, Quod dii prius omen in 
 ipsum Convertant. 
 
7. VI. IDYLLS. 199 
 
 IDYLL V. 
 
 THE CHOICE. 
 
 When the breeze gently strikes the gray-green sea, ^ I am 
 roused in my fearful mind, and no longer is land dear to me, 
 
 2 but the calm sea attaches me to it far more : but whensoever 
 the hoary deep has resounded, and the sea-water foams up 
 
 3 into an arch, and the waves rage afar, I look out for land 
 and trees, and flee the brine : and welcome to me is earth ; 
 then does the shady wood delight me, where though the 
 wind should blow violently, ^ yet the pine tree sings. Surely 
 a hard life lives the fisherman, whose house is his bark, the sea 
 his occupation, fish his slippery prey. But sweet to me is 
 sleep beneath a leafy plane, and I should love to hear the 
 sound of the fountain hard by, which, as it babbles, delights, 
 not alarms, the rustic. 
 
 IDYLL VI. 
 
 "love them that love tou."^ 
 Pan loved his neighbour Echo, and Echo was ^ enamoured 
 of the frisky Satjrr, while the Satyr was mad after Lyda : 
 as Echo Pan, so did the Satyr inflame Echo, and Lyda the 
 
 ' Animo timido ad navigandum sollicitor. 
 ' TTOTOLyei. Briggs suggests TrdOti Se, as does also Jacobs. 
 ' KvpTov, i. e. /card to Kvprov, archedly. rd Ss Kvnara fxaKpd. 
 Compare Horn. Iliad, iv. 422, and Virg. Georg. iii. 237, 
 Fluctus ut in medis csepit cum albescere ponto, 
 Longius ex altoque sinum trahit, utque volutus, 
 Ad terras immane sonat per saxa, nee ipso 
 Monte minor procumbit : at ima exsestuat unda 
 Vorticibus, nigramque alt^ subjectat arenam. 
 « d TTirvQ adn. Cf. Theocr. Id. i. 1 ; Yirg. Eclog. viii. 22, 
 Msenalus argutumque nemus, pinosque loquentes 
 Semper habet. 
 * Heskin gives Theocr. Id. vi. 17, as the heading of this Idyll. Kat 
 ^evyti (piKkovTa, Kai ov <pi\eovTa SiMKei. Horace, Od. I. xxxiii. 5, 
 Insignem tenui fronte Lycorida 
 Cyri torret amor : Cyrus in asperam 
 Declinat Pholoen, &c. 
 8 -ijpa and ^paro. Theocr. (vii. 96) and Bion (vi. 8) have the same 
 variations of the form of this verb — 2Ktpr?yra ^arvpo). So Virg. Eel 
 V. 73, Saltantes Satyros imitabitur Alphesibaeus. 
 
200 MOSCHUS. 
 
 ▼II. 
 
 Satyr : and love was smouldering in each in their turns. 
 For as strongly as any one of them hated the lover, so 
 strongly in like manner was he, loving, hated, and was suffer- 
 ing ^ a requital. These lessons speak I to all them that love 
 not, 2 « Cherish them that love you, that if ye love, ye may 
 be loved again.' 
 
 IDYLL yiL 
 
 ALPHEUS. 
 
 3 Alpheus, when he glides along the sea, past Pisa, comea 
 to Arethusa, bringing his waters '^ laden with wild-olives, 
 bearing as a dower fair leaves and flowers and sacred dust ; 
 and he enters the waves deeply and runs in under the sea 
 beneath, and water mingles not with waters ; and the sea is 
 not conscious of it, as the river passes through. Love, knavish 
 boy, plotter of ill, teacher of fearful things, has taught through 
 his spell even a river to dive. 
 
 AN EPIGRAM 
 
 ON EROS PLOUGHING. 
 
 ^ Having laid aside torch and bow, mischievous Eros took 
 up an ox-goad, and he had a wallet slung-on-his-shoulders ; 
 
 ' iraaxt d' a iroiei, is another reading; but airoiva, which has good 
 authority, is more elegant. 
 
 * Cf. Theocr. xxiii. verse the last. Shelley has translated this Idyll. 
 See notes to Chapman's translation. 
 
 ' The legend of Arethusa ran thus : Heated with the chase, she bathed 
 in the Alpheus ; and while so engaged, frightened by a strange murmur 
 in the stream, she sprang to the shore in terror. The river-god pursued 
 her through all Arcadia, where at eventide, feeling her strength fast 
 failing, she called Artemis to aid, by whom she was changed into a foun- 
 tain. Alpheus, resuming his watery form, would fain mingle his stream 
 with hers. But she fled under the earth through the sea, till she rose 
 again in Arcadia, followed by Alpheus still. The Greeks believed that 
 offerings thrown into the Alpheus at Elis rose again at Ortygia near 
 Syracuse. See Pausan. v. 7, § 2 ; Ov. Met. v. 572 ; Virg. ^n. iii. 694, &c 
 
 * Compare Sil. Ital. xiv., 
 
 Hie Arethusa suum piscoso fonte receptat 
 Alphffium, sacrae portantem signa coronae. 
 
 * Grotius has rendered this Epigram into Latin : ^ 
 
8—6. FRAGMENT. 201 
 
 and having joined under the yoke the toil-enduring necks 
 of oxen, he sowed the furrow of Ceres, that it should bear 
 grain. And looking up he said to Jove himself, ^ ' Make full 
 the sown fields, lest I place thee, Europa's bull, under the 
 plough.' 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 2 Would that my sire had taught me to tend fleecy sheep, 
 in which case, seated beneath the elms, or under the rocks, 
 playing on my pipes, I would solace my cares with reeds. Let 
 us fly, ye Pierides : seek we another well-built city for our 
 country ; yet in sooth I will speak out to all, that ruinous 
 drones have harmed the honey-bees. 
 
 Rus petiit positis arcu facibusque Cupido : 
 
 Yirga manu ; tergo pendula pera fuit. 
 Hoc habitu sulcos glebae Cerealis arabat 
 
 Gnavus, agens domitos sub juga curva boves : 
 Respiciensque Jovem : terras, ait, ignibus ure, 
 Ne bos EuropaB tu quoque factus ares, 
 * 7r\rj(Tov, others read irpfjffov, which Grotius seems to have preferred. 
 Why, it is hard to see. 
 
 ' Wakefield suggests, that these lines have suggested Virgil's passage 
 in the mouth of Gallus, Eel. x., 
 
 Atque utinam ex vobis unus, vestrique fuissem 
 Aut custos gregis, aut maturae vinitor uvae. 
 
THEOCRITUS, 
 
 BION, AND MOSCHUS. 
 
 METRICALLY TRANSLATED 
 
 BY M. J. CHAPMAN, M. A,, 
 
 OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBKIOeS. 
 
THEOCRITUS. 
 
 IDYLL L 
 
 THYRSIS THE SHEPHERD, AND THE GOATHERD. 
 THYRSIS. 
 
 Sweet is the music which the whispering pine 
 Makes to the murmuring fountains ; sweet is thine, 
 Breathed from the pipe : the second prize thy due — 
 To Pan, the horned ram ; to thee, the ewe ; 
 And thine the yearling, when the ewe he takes — 
 A savoury mess the tender yearling makes. 
 
 GOATHERD. 
 
 Sweeter thy song than yonder gliding down 
 
 Of water from the rock's o'erhanging crown ; 
 
 If a ewe-sheep for fee the Muses gain, 
 
 Thou, shepherd ! shalt a stall-fed lamb obtain ; 
 
 But if it rather please the tuneful Nine 
 
 To take the lamb, the ewe shall then be thine. 
 
 THYRSIS. 
 
 O wilt thou, for the Nymphs' sake, goatherd ! fill 
 Thy pipe with music on this sloping hill, 
 Where grow the tamarisks ? wilt sit, dear friend, 
 And play for me, while I thy goats attend ? 
 
 GOATHERD. 
 
 We must not pipe at noon in any case ; 
 
 For then Pan rests him, wearied from the chase. 
 
 Him, quick to wrath we fear, as us befits ; 
 
 On his keen nostril sharp gall ever sits. 
 
 But thou — to thee the griefs of Daphnis known. 
 
 And the first skill in pastoral song thine own — 
 
 Come to yon elm, into whose shelter deep 
 
 Afront Priapus and the Naiads peep — 
 
206 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Where the thick oaks stand round the shepherd's seat r 
 There, sitting with me in that cool retreat, 
 If thou wilt sing, as when thou didst contest 
 With Libyan Chromis which could sing the best, 
 Thine, Thyrsis, this twin-bearing goat shall be, 
 That fills two milk-pails thrice a-day for me ; 
 And this deep ivy-cup with sweetest wax 
 Bedewed, twin-eared, that of the graver smacks. 
 Around its lips lush isg^l-wines on high. 
 Sprinkled with drops of bright cassidony ; 
 And as the curling ivy spreads around, 
 On every carl the saffron fruit is found. 
 With flowing robe and Lydian head-dress on, 
 Within, a woman to the life is done — 
 An exquisite design ! on either side 
 Two men with flowing locks each other chide, 
 By turns contending for the woman's love, 
 But not a whit her mind their pleadings move. 
 I One while she gives to this a glance and smile, 
 * And turn s and smiles on that another while. 
 , But neither any certain favour gains — 
 Only their eyes are swollen for their pains. 
 Hard by, a rugged rock and fisher old. 
 Who drags a mighty net, and seems to hold, 
 Preparing for the cast : he stands to sight, 
 A fisher putting forth his utmost might. 
 A youth's strength in the gray-head seems to dwell, 
 So much the sinews of his neck outswell. 
 And near that old man with his sea-tanned hue. 
 With purple grapes a vineyard shines to view. 
 A little boy sits by the thorn-hedge trim. 
 To watch the grapes — two foxes watching him : 
 One through the ranges of the vines proceeds. 
 And on the hanging vintage slyly feeds ; 
 The other plots and vows his scrip to search, 
 And for his breakfast leave him — in the lurch. 
 Meanwhile he twines and to a rush fits well 
 A locust trap with stalks of asphodel ; 
 And twines away with such absorbing glee, 
 Of scrip or vines he never thinks — not he ! 
 The juicy curled acanthus hovers round 
 
IDYLL I. 207 
 
 Th' JEolian cup — when seen a marvel found. 
 Hither a Calydonian skipper brought it, 
 For a great cheese-cake and a goat I bought it ; 
 Untouched by lip — this cup shall be thy hire, 
 If thou wilt sing that song of sweet desire. 
 I envy not : begin ! the strain outpour ; 
 'Twill not be thine on dim Oblivion's shore. 
 
 THYRSIS. ^ 
 
 Begin, dear Muses ! the bucolic strain ; ^ 
 
 For Thyrsis sings, your own ^tnean swain. ^ 
 
 Where were ye, Nymphs ! when Daphnis pined away,'*^ 
 
 Where through his Tempe Peneus loves to stray, J^ 
 
 Or Pindus lifts himself ? Ye were not here — (V 
 
 Where broad Anapus flows or Acis clear, ct* 
 
 Or where tall ^tna looks out on the main, q^ 
 
 Begin, dear Muses ! the bucolic strain. ^. ^ 
 From out the mountain -lair the lions growled,^ a 
 Wailing his death — the wolves and jackals howledB^ 
 
 Begin, dear Muses ! the bucolic strain : ^ 
 Around him in a long and mournful train, <^ 
 Sad-faced, a number of the horned kind, ^ "w 
 Heifers, bulls, cows, and calves, lamenting pined!\ 
 
 First Hermes from the mountain came and said, 
 " Daphnis, by whom art thou disquieted ? 
 For whom dost thou endure so fierce a flame ?" 
 
 Then cowherds, goatherds, shepherds, thronging came, 
 And asked what ailed him. E'en Priapus went. 
 And said : " Sad Daphnis, why this languishment ? 
 In every grove, by fountains, far and near, 
 Thee the loved girl is seeking every where. 
 Ah, foolish lover ! to thyself unkind, 
 Miscalled a cowherd, with a goatherd's mind ! 
 The goatherd when he sees his goats at play, 
 Envies their wanton sport and pines away. 
 And thou at sight of virgins, when they smile. 
 Dost look with longing eyes and pine the while, 
 Because with them the dance thou dost not lead." 
 
 No word he answered, but his grief did feed, 
 
208 V- THEOCRITUS. 
 
 And brought to end his love, that held him fast, 
 And only ended with his life at last. 
 
 Then Cypris came — the queen of soft desire, 
 Smiling in secret, but pretending ire. 
 And said : "To conquer love did Daphnis boast, 
 But, Daphnis ! is not love now uppermost ?" 
 Her answered he : " Thou cruel sorrow-feeder ! 
 Curst Cypris ! mankind's hateful mischief-breeder ! 
 'Tis plain my sun is set : but I shall show 
 The blight of love in Hades' house below. 
 * Where Cypris kiss'd a cowherd ' — men will speak — 
 Hasten to Ida ! thine Anchises seek. 
 I Aromid their. 1^^^^^ swarmed bees are humming here^ 
 Here the low galingale — thick oaks are there. 
 Adonis, the fair youth, a shepherd too. 
 Wounds hares, and doth all savage beasts pursue. 
 Go ! challenge Diomede to fight with thee — 
 '■ I tame the cowherd Daphnis, fight with me.' 
 
 " Ye bears, who in the mountain hollows dwell. 
 Ye tawny jackals, bounding wolves, farewell ! 
 The cowherd Daphnis never more shall rove 
 In quest of you through thicket, wood, and grove. 
 Farewell, ye rivers, that your streams profuse 
 From Thymbris pour ; farewell, sweet Arethuse ! 
 I drove my kine — a cowherd whilom here — 
 To pleasant pasture, and to water clear. 
 Pan ! Pan ! if seated on a jagged peak 
 Of tall Lycaeus now ; or thou dost seek 
 The heights of Maenalus — leave them awhile. 
 And hasten to thy own Sicilian isle. 
 The tomb, which e'en the gods admire, leave now— 
 Lycaon's tomb and Helice's tall brow. 
 Hasten, my king ! and take this pipe that clips, 
 Uttering its honey breath, the player's lips. 
 For even now, dragged downward, must I go, 
 By love dragged down to Hades' house below. 
 Now violets, ye thorns and brambles bear ! 
 Narcissus now on junipers appear ! 
 And on the pine-tree pears ! since Daphnis dies, 
 To their own use all things be contraries ! 
 
IDYLL II. 209 
 
 The stag trail hounds ; in rivalry their song 
 The mountain owls with nightingales prolong ! " 
 
 He said, and ceased : and Cypris wished, indeed, 
 To raise him up, but she could not succeed ; 
 His fate-allotted threads of life were spent, 
 And Daphnis to the doleful river went. 
 The whirlpool gorged him — by the Nymphs not scorned,, 
 Dear to the Muses, and by them adorned. 
 
 Cease ! cease, ye Muses ! the bucolic strain. 
 Give me the cup and goat that I may drain 
 The pure milk from her ; and, for duty's sake, 
 A due libation to the Muses make. 
 All hail, ye Muses ! hail, and favour me. 
 And my hereafter song shall sweeter be. 
 
 GOATHERD. 
 
 Honey and honey-combs melt in thy mouth, 
 And figs from ^gilus ! for thou, dear youth. 
 The musical cicada dost excel. 
 Behold the cup ! how sweetly doth it smell ! 
 ' Twill seem to thee as though the lovely Hours 
 Had newly dipt it in their fountain-showers. 
 Hither, Cissaetha ! milk her ! yearling friskers, 
 Forbear — behold the ram's hupre beard and whiskers ! 
 
 IDYLL II. 
 
 THE SORCERESS. 
 
 Where are the laurels ? where the philters ? roll 
 The finest purple wool around the bowl. 
 Quick ! Thestylis, that I with charms may bind 
 The man I love, but faithless and unkind. 
 This is the twelfth day he my sight hath fled. 
 And knows not whether I be quick or dead ; 
 The twelfth day since he cross'd my threshold o'er, 
 Nor, cruel ! once hath knocked upon my door, 
 In all that time. His fancy, apt to change, 
 Cjrpris and Love have elsewhere made to rangre. 
 
210 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 I'll go — ^to see and chide him for my sorrow — 
 To Timagetus' wrestling-school to-morrow. 
 Now will I charm him with the magic rite : 
 Come forth, thou Moon ! with thy propitious light ; 
 Cold, silent goddess ! at this witching hour 
 To thee Til chant, and to th' Infernal Power, 
 Dread Hecate ; whom, coming through the mounds 
 Of blood-swoln corses, flee the trembling hounds. 
 Hail, Hecate ! prodigious demon, hail ! 
 Come at the last, and make the work prevail ; 
 That this strong brewage may perform its part 
 No worse than that was made by Circe's art, 
 By bold Medea, terrible as fair, 
 Or Perimeda of the golden hair. 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 First in the fire is burnt the barley meal ; 
 Quick ! Thestylis, quick ! sprinkle more — yet more ; 
 Wretch ! wither do thine idle fancies soar ? 
 Am I thy scorn and mock ? sprinkle and say — 
 " The bones of Delphis thus I shred away." 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 Delphis has made me fiercest tortures feel ; 
 I burn the laurel over Delphis now : 
 As crackles loud the kindled laurel bough, 
 Blazes, and e'en its dust we not discern — 
 So may the flesh of Delphis dropping burn ! 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 As by the help divine, which I appeal, 
 I melt this wax, may Myndian Delphis melt ! 
 As whirls this wheel, may he, love's impulse felt, 
 At my forsaken door be made to reel ! 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 Bran now I ofler : thou. Queen Artemis ! 
 Canst move aught firm, e'en Adamantine Dis. 
 Hark ! the dogs howl ; the goddess now doth pass 
 The cross-roads through : ring, ring the sounding brass ! 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 The sea is silent j not a breath doth st-epJ. 
 
IDYLL II. 211 
 
 Over the stillness ; but the troubled din 
 Of passion is not hushed my heart within ; 
 I burn for him, who hath defamed my life, 
 Undone a virgin, made me not his wife. 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 Thrice the libation poured, I thrice unseal 
 My lips, August One ! thrice these words I speak ; 
 Whoever lies with Delphis, cheek by cheek, 
 May he forget her so much as they say 
 Theseus forgot, and left in Dia's bay 
 The bright-haired Ariadne — fast away 
 Sailing from Dia with his rapid keel. 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 A. little herb in Arcady there grows, 
 Which colts and mares doth strangely discompose, 
 (Hence called Hippomanes) ; for this they skurry 
 O'er mountain-ranges with a frantic hurry : 
 Thus from the wrestling-school, all bright with oil, 
 May Delphis madly rush — with thoughts that boil ; 
 May he for me this maddening passion feel ! 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 This fringe he dropt, that ran his cloak across, 
 I tear, and to the furious fire I toss. 
 Ah, love ! ah, cruel love ! why dost outsuck 
 All of my blood, like marsh-leech firmly stuck ? 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 A draught whose ill none antidote can heal 
 From a bruised lizard I'll to-morrow make : i 
 
 Now, Thestylis, this poisonous brewage take. 
 And smear his threshold — there my mind must be, 
 As thereto bound ; but he cares not for me : 
 And having smeared the door-way, spitting there, 
 Then say, " The bones of Delphis thus I smear." 
 
 Him hither, hither draw, my magic wheel ! 
 How, left alone, shall I with sorrow deal ? 
 Or where begin with my grief-plighted thought ? 
 Who first on me this love — this mischief brought ? 
 Anaxo came, on whom it fell this year 
 The basket to Diana's grove to bear : 
 F 2 
 
212 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 She came for me and told me, in the show 
 'Mid many a beast a lioness would go. 
 
 Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend : 
 Theucharila, whose life did lately end. 
 My Thracian nurse, now numbered with the blest. 
 Came also to me, prayed me, strongly prest 
 To go and look upon the splendid show. 
 At last I went — ah, doomed to bitter woe ! 
 My linen tunic, never worn before, 
 And Clearista's glistering robe I wore. 
 
 Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend : 
 Whilst I along the public road did wend, 
 Midway by Lycon's house, I saw, alas ! 
 Delphis and youthful Eudamippus pass. 
 The beards of both were of a yellower dye 
 Than the bright gold-bedropt cassidony. 
 Twain wrestlers, lately breathed, their breasts, bright Queen ! 
 Outshone the sparkles of thy golden sheen. 
 
 Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend : 
 I saw, loved, maddened ! raging love did rend 
 My very soul ; my bloom of beauty bright 
 Withered at once as by a sudden blight : 
 The pomp I saw not passing in my view, 
 And how I reached my home I never knew ; 
 A fiery torment on my vitals fed ; 
 Ten days and nights I lay upon my bed. 
 
 Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend : 
 Such hues and juices of the thapsus lend 
 Gloomed on my cheek ; off dropt my crown of hair ; 
 I was but skin and bones ; in my despair 
 Whom sought I not ? what magic-dealing crone 
 Consulted not ? but I found help from none : 
 On hastened time, that brings aU things to end. 
 
 Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend : 
 Then to my hand-maid I revealed my mind ; 
 " Some remedy for my sore sickness find ; 
 I pine for, dote upon, the Myndian youth. 
 Am altogether his in very sooth ; 
 At Timagetus' school watch, bring him me, 
 
IDYLL n. 213 
 
 For there he visits— there he loves to be. 
 And when you see him from the rest apart, 
 Then nod and softly whisper him, * Sweetheart ! 
 Simaetha calls you * — guide him here, my friend." 
 
 Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend : 
 She went and found the remedy I sought. 
 And to my house the blooming Delphis brought. 
 But when I saw him o'er my threshold-sill 
 Pass with light foot, I sudden grew more chill 
 Than wintry snow ; and from my forehead burst 
 Sweat like the dew the melting South hath nurst ; 
 I could not utter — e'en the murmur fine 
 That sleeping infants to their mothers whine ; 
 Senseless I stiffened in my strange affright, 
 Like a wax-doll, the girl-child's dear delight. 
 
 Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend : 
 The heartless minion first on me did bend 
 His eager eyes, then sitting on the bed 
 He turned them on the ground, and softly said : — 
 " In calling me before I came self-moved. 
 Thou hast as much outpast me, my beloved, 
 As I did lately with swift foot out-pace 
 The beautiful Philinus in the race." — 
 
 (Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend :) 
 " For, by sweet Eros ! with a second friend, 
 Or with a third, I should have come to-night. 
 Bringing sweet apples, crowned with poplar white. 
 Careful the wreath with purple stripes to blend : " 
 
 (Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend:) 
 "Had you received me — well ; for me, 'mid all. 
 The handsome, active bachelor they call ; 
 A kiss from those rich lips, that sweetly pout, 
 Had been enough ; but had you shut me out, 
 And your barred doors had interposed delay, 
 Axes and torches then had forced a way." 
 
 (Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend :) 
 " To Cypris first in gratitude I bend. 
 Thou, next to her, hast snatched me from the fire, 
 In calling me half burnt with fierce desire ; 
 
214 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 For Eros oft a fiercer flame awakes 
 
 Than those Sicilian fires Hephaestus makes.' 
 
 (Whence grew my love, divinest Moon ! attend :) 
 " He from her bed the virgin oft doth send, 
 Stung by his furies ; and the new-made bride 
 Scares from the warm couch and her husband's side." 
 
 These words he spoke ; but I with credulous mind 
 Held his dear hand, and on the bed reclined : 
 Our bodies did by touching warmer grow. 
 And on our cheeks there came a hotter glow : 
 Sweetly we whispered ; and, in short, dear Moon ! 
 By Eros fired, we gained Cythera's boon. 
 Nor any blame on me could Delphis lay, 
 Nor haply I on him — 'till yesterday. 
 I only learned to-day his yester ill : 
 While yet up-prancing the high eastern hill, 
 Her fiery-footed steeds from ocean's dew 
 With rosy-armed Aurora upward flew. 
 There came the mother of the festive pair. 
 Sweet-voiced Philista and Melixo fair. 
 And told me : — " Delphis loves elsewhere, I know, 
 But whom I know not ; yet enamoured so. 
 That from the banquetjuddenly he fled, 
 To hang his lady's house with flowers, he said." 
 My old friend told me this, and told me truth : 
 For twice or thrice a day once came my youth. 
 And often left his Dorian pyx with me ; 
 This the twelfth day since him I last did see. 
 Has he forgot me for another love ? 
 With philters will I try his soul to move ; 
 But if he still will grieve, betray me, mock. 
 He shall, by fate ! the door of Hades knock. 
 That chest has drugs shall make him feel my rage ; 
 The art I learned from an Assyrian sage. 
 Thy steeds to ocean now, bright Queen, direct ; 
 What I have sworn to do I will effect. 
 Farewell, clear Moon ! and skyey cressets bright. 
 That follow the soft-gliding wheels of Night. 
 
^ 
 
 IDYLL III. 
 
 AM AR YLLI S. 
 
 I GO to serenade my charming fair, 
 
 Sweet Amaryllis ; Tityrus, to your care 
 
 I leave my goats, that on the mountain feed ; 
 
 But of yon Libyan tawny ram take heed. 
 
 Lest with his horn he butt you ; careful tend. 
 
 And to the fountain drive them, heart-dear friend ! 
 
 Sweet Amaryllis ! why dost thou no more, 
 Peeping from out thy cavern as before. 
 Espy and call to thee thy little lover ? 
 Dost hate me ? or do I myself discover 
 Flat-nosed, or with a length of chin, when near ? 
 Thy scorn will make me hang myself, I swear. 
 Behold, ten apples, nymph ! I bring for thee, 
 Plucked from the place where thou didst order mo 
 To pluck them ; others will I bring to-morrow. 
 Consider now my heart-devouring sorrow : 
 Oh ! that I were a little humming bee. 
 To pass through fern and ivy in to thee, 
 Where in thy cave thou dost thyself conceal ! 
 I now know love — a grievous god to feel ; 
 He surely sucked a savage lioness. 
 Reared in the wild, who works me such distress, 
 Eating into the marrow of the bone. 
 O sweet in aspect ! altogether stone ! 
 Nymph ! with thine eye-brows of a raven hue, 
 Clasp me, that I may suck the honey-dew 
 From off thy lip : mere kisses yield some joy. 
 Now wilt thou make me the sweet crown destroy. 
 This wreath of ivy which for thee I brought. 
 With rose-buds and with parsley sweet inwrouglit. 
 Ah me ! what shall I do ? I plead in vain — 
 Thou hearest not : I'll plunge into the main. 
 My jerkin stript, where Olpis sits on high, 
 Watching the tunnies. Should I even die, 
 
216 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 'Twill please thee. This the sigrx I lately found 
 For the struck pop-bell gave me back no sound, 
 (When by that proof thy doubtful love I tried,) 
 But v^rithering on my elbovs^ shrunk and dried. 
 Agraeo, the diviner by the sieve, 
 Forewarned me also what I now believe, 
 (Binding the sheaves, the reapers followed she,) 
 That I loved wholly one who loved not me. 
 A white twin-bearing goat, which the brunette, 
 Old Memnon's child, Erithacis, would get 
 By wheedling from me, I have kept as thine ; 
 But since thou scornest me with airs so fine. 
 It shall be hers. A throbbing, I declare. 
 In my right eye — shall I behold my fair ? 
 My ditty, leaning on this pine, I'll chant ; 
 She'll haply look, since she's not adamant. 
 
 When in the race, mistrustful of his knees, 
 To win the virgin ran Hippomenes ; 
 Three golden apples in his hand he took, 
 And Atalanta could not help but look — 
 She saw, and maddened instant at the sight. 
 And rushed into the gulf of love outright. 
 The seer Melampus from Mount Othrys drove 
 The stolen herd to Pylos. Thence did Love 
 His brother Bias crown — for in his arms 
 Alphesibsea's mother lodged her charms. 
 Did not Adonis, the fair shepherd youth. 
 So madden Cypris that for very ruth. 
 E'en when she had received his dying gasp. 
 She could not bear to loose him from her clasp ? 
 Thrice blest, methinks, was that Endymion, 
 Now laid asleep ; thrice blest lasion. 
 Who in his life did those sweet joys obtain. 
 Of which ye must not, shall not hear, profane ! 
 
 - How my head aches ! my anguish doth not move thee j 
 1 I'll sing no more, and since in vain I love thee, 
 I Here will I lie.— me here the wolves shall eat ; 
 'Twill be to thee like melting honey sweet. 
 
IDYLL IV, 
 
 THE HERDSMEN ; OR, BATTUS AND CORYDON. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Whose are these kine ? Philondas's, my friend ? 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 No — iEgon's, and he gave them me to tend. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Do you not milk them privily at eve ? 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 I could not the old man's quick eyes deceive ; 
 And her own calf he puts to every one. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 But whither has the master cowherd gone ? 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Have you not heard ? with ^gon by his side, 
 Milon has gone where Alpheus loves to glide. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 When did e'er ^gon see th' Olympian oil ? 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 In strength for every feat of manly toil, 
 They say he is a match for Hercules. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 My mother said, believe her if you please, 
 That I surpassed e'en Pollux. 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Hence he hied. 
 Taking a spade, and twenty sheep beside. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Nor needed much persuasion, I engage, 
 -^gon to wrestle — and the wolf to rage. 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 His lowing heifers for their master pine. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 They have a worthless keeper — wretched kine t 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Poor creatures ! they no longer wish to feed. 
 
218 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Here is a calf but skin and bones indeed — 
 Like a cicada, does she feed on dew ? 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Not she, by Earth ! but whiles the fodder new 
 Eats from my hand ; or else with us she goes, 
 Cropping the verdant bank, where ^sar flows ; 
 Or up Latymnus bounds away at will. 
 Frisking along the thickly wooded hill. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 How lean that red bull is ! just such another 
 May Lampra have to offer to the mother 
 Of Mars ! it is a tribe compact of ill. 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Yet at the lake-mouth he doth take his fill. 
 Browses on Physcus, or at times doth go 
 Where the sweet waters of Neoethus flow ; 
 There the best herbs are freshened by the shower, 
 Wild thyme, and fleabane, and the honey-flower. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Ah, wretched ^gon ! thy poor kine will die, 
 Whilst thou dost aim at evil victory. 
 Even the pipe, which thou didst whilom make. 
 Lying neglected, doth defilement take. 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 No ! by the Nymphs ! he gave it me the day 
 
 When he to glorious Pisa went away. 
 
 The songs of Pyrrhus and dear Glauca's lays 
 
 I know to sing, and Croton love to praise. 
 
 Fair is Zacynthus ; lovely ever shone 
 
 To the bright east up-heaved Lacinion, 
 
 Where the bold boxer ^gon at a meal 
 
 Ate eighty cakes ; where from the mountain's heel 
 
 He seized and dragged a proud bull by the hoof, 
 
 And gave it Amaryllis ; then aloof 
 
 Shouted the women, and the cowherd smiled 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Sweet Amaryllis ! though by death defiled; 
 Thee shall I ne'er forget : dear to my heart 
 As are my frisking goats, thou didst depart. 
 To what a lot was I, unhappy, born ! 
 
IDYLL V. 219 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Take heart ; there will be yet a brighter morn. 
 While there is life there's hope ; the dead, I ween, 
 Are hopeless. One while Zeus shines out serene, 
 Another while is hid in mist and shower. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 I do take heart. But see ! yon calves devour 
 The olive branches : pelt them off, I pray ; 
 Confound the calves ! you white-skin thief, away ! 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Hist ! to the hill, Cymaetha ! don't you hear ? 
 If you don't get away, by Pan ! I swear 
 I will so give it you ! now only look ! 
 She comes again — I wish I had my crook ! 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Here, Corydon ! a thorn has wounded me— 
 How long and sharp these distaff- thistles be ! 
 Confound the calf ! gaping at her I got 
 The wound : under the ankle — see you not ? 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Ay ! I have hold of it ; see ! here it is ! 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 How small a wound tames man so tall as this ! 
 
 CORYDON. 
 
 Unshod you must not on the mountain go ; 
 For on the mountain thorns and prickles grow. 
 
 IDYLL V. 
 
 THE WAYFARERS, OR COMPOSERS OF PASTORALS 
 
 Comatas and Lacon. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Lacon my goat-skin filched ; by timely flight 
 Avoid, my goats ! the thievish Sybarite. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Lambs ! from the fountain, do you not perceive 
 Comatas, who my pipe did lately thieve ? 
 
220 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 What sort of pipe ? when, slave of Sybaris ! 
 Didst own a pipe ? are you not fain to hiss 
 Still through a pipe of straw with Corydon ? 
 
 LACON. 
 
 'Twas Lycon's gift, good freeman ! worthy one f 
 From you when and what sort of skin stole I ? 
 Your master has not one whereon to lie. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 The gift of Crocylus, when late he gave 
 The Nymphs a goat in sacrifice : you, slave 
 Did steal my spotted skin from envy sheer. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 No I no ! by the shore-guarding Pan I swear— 
 Or from that rock into the waters deep 
 Of rapid Crathis may I madly leap ! 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Nor, by the Nymphs, the guardians of the lake, 
 
 Did ever I the pipe of Lacon take — 
 
 So may the Nymphs look kindly to my weal. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 If I believe you, be it mine to feel 
 
 The griefs of Daphnis ! will you stake a kid, 
 
 (It is none enterprise to men forbid,) 
 
 And I'll out-sing you, till you cry " Enough ! " 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Athene challenged by a sow of scruff ! 
 
 Here is my kid, which, when you beat me, take | 
 
 A lamb, fat from the pasture, be your stake. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 How is this fair ? in this you are no fool ; 
 Who ever thought of shearing hair for wool. 
 Or passed a goat to milk a sorry bitch ? 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Who has for conquest a prevailing itch. 
 Like you conceited, is a wasp that rings 
 His buzzing horn when the cicada sings. 
 But since my^d seems insuffigient stake, 
 Behold this ram ! at once the song awake. 
 
 LACON. • 
 
 Softly ! you are not walking over fire : 
 
IDYLL V. 221 
 
 Here you may sing whate'er your muse inspire 
 More sweetly in this grove, beneath the shade 
 Of the wild olive ; here a couch is laid 
 Of softest herbage ; locusts babble here ; 
 Cool water flows a little onward there. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 I'm cool — but feel annoyance at your daring 
 
 To look at me, yourself with me comparing, 
 
 Who taught you when a boy. What thanks one gains I 
 
 Rear a wolf-whelp — to rend you for your pains ! 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Envious and shameless babbler ! any thing 
 Learnt, heard 1 from you worth remembering ? 
 Come hither, now, and learn from your defeat 
 No more with pastoral singers to compete. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Not thither — here are oaks and galingale ; 
 
 And round their hives the bees, soft-humming, sail ; 
 
 Two springs of coolest water murmur near ; 
 
 A deeper shade and singing birds are here ; 
 
 And from aloft her nuts the pine-tree throws. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 On fleece and lambskins here your may repose, 
 Softer than sleep ! your goat-skins smell more ill— 
 E'en than yourself. I for the Nymphs will fill 
 A bowl of white milk, of sweet oil an urn. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 On flowering pennyroyal and soft fern 
 You here may tread ; on skins of kids lie down 
 Softer than lambskins. I to £an will crown 
 Eight jars of white milk, and as many more 
 Of honeycombs with honey running o'er. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Each from his place pour out his rival strain ; 
 Keep to your oaks, and I will here remain. 
 But who shall judge between us ? How I wish 
 The herdsman, good Lycopas, with us — 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Pish! 
 I want him not : but, if you please, we'll cry, 
 And summon to us yonder man doth tie 
 
222 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 The broom in bundles near you. What dost say ? 
 *Tis Morson. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 I'm agreed. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Then bawl away. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Ho ! Morson ! hasten hither, and decide 
 Which sings the best — a wager to be tried 
 With you for judge : only impartial be ! 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Now, by the Nymphs ! nor favour him nor me. 
 Thurian Sybartas owns the sheep in sight ; 
 The goats Eumaras claims — the Sybarite. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 You good-for-nothing babbler ! answer this, 
 
 Who asked you whose the sheep were, mine or his ? 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 I vaunt not, and I speak the simple truth ; 
 But you are very scurrilous, in sooth. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Sing — if you hav-e a song : don't kill with babble 
 Our friend here ; by Ap^Alo ! how you gabble ! 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Me more than Daphnis love the Muses true : 
 Two yearling kids to them I lately slew. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Apollo loves me much ; for him I rear 
 A goodly ram — his festival is near. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 I milk my goats, twin-bearing all but twain : 
 
 A sweet girl cries, " Why milk alone, fond swain ?'* 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Some twenty baskets Lacon fills with cheese. 
 And gets him kisses wheresoe'er he please. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Me with sweet apples Clearista pelts, 
 While round her lips a honey-murmur melts. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 On me a blooming beauty fondly dotes, 
 
 Bound whose white neck the hair bright-shining floats. 
 
IDYLL V. 223 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 With the screened garden-roses cannot vie 
 The common dog-rose, nor anemony. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 The mountain -apples most delicious are — 
 
 Who crabbed beech-nuts would with them compare ? 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 I for my love will snare, and give to her 
 A ring-dove brooding on a juniper. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Wool for a mantle will I give my dear. 
 Soon as my sober-suited sheep I shear. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 From the wild-olive, bleaters ! feed at will, 
 Where grow the tamarisks, on this sloping hill. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Off from that oak Cynaetha and Conarus ! 
 Feed eastward — yonder where you see Phalarus. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 A cypress milk-pail for my girl I have. 
 And bowl — which old Praxiteles did grave. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 A hound, wolf-strangling keeper of the sheep, 
 A faithful guardian, for my love I keep. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Locusts, that overleap my fences, spare 
 
 My vines — their shoots yet weak and tender are. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Cicadae ! see this goatherd I provoke : 
 So to their toil ye wake the reaping folk. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 I hate the bush-tailed foxes — nightly troop. 
 That Mycon's vineyard, grape-devouring, swoop. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 I hate the scarabs — air-borne host, that mow 
 Philonda's fig-trees, fig-devouring foe. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Do you remember when I smote you, fellow. 
 How you did wriggle round the oak, and bellow ? 
 
 LACON. 
 
 No ! but I do remember when with scourge 
 Eumaras did your peccant humours purge. 
 
224 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Some one, my Morson, into rage is dashing ; 
 
 Go ! from the tomb pluck gray squills — for a lashing. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 I too prick some one, Morson ; do you take ? 
 Hasten to Hales ; and for sowbread rake. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Flow Himera with milk, and Crathis flow 
 Purple with wine ! and fruit on cresses grow ! 
 
 LAC ON. 
 
 Fountain of Sybaris, to honey turn, 
 
 And fill with honeycombs the maiden's urn ! 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 On goat's-rue feed, my goats, and cytisus ; 
 On lentisk tread, and lie on arbutus ! 
 
 LACON. 
 
 Of the rose-eglantine there blooms a heap, 
 And eke the honey -flower — to feed my sheep. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Alcippe for my ring-dove gave no kiss, 
 Holding my ears — I love her not for this. 
 
 LACON. 
 
 I love my love because a sweet lip paid 
 With kisses for my pipe — the gift I made. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 Nor whoop the swan, nor j ay the nightingale 
 May rival ; still you challenge, still to fail. 
 
 3I0RS0N. 
 
 Cease, shepherd ! Morson gives the lamb to thee, 
 Comatas ; fail not to remember me. 
 And let my portion of the flesh be nice, 
 When to the Nymphs you make your sacrifice. 
 
 COMATAS. 
 
 By Pan ! I'll send it. Snort and gambol round. 
 My buck-goats all ! hark ! what a mighty sound 
 I peal of ringing laughter at the cost 
 Of Lacon, who to me his lamb has lost ! 
 I too will skip. My horned goats, good cheer! 
 To-morrow in the fountain, cool and clear, 
 Of Sybaris I'll bathe you. Hark ! I say, 
 White butting ram ! be modest, till I pay 
 
IDYLL VI. 225 
 
 The Nymphs my offering. Ha ! then blows I'll try — 
 Or may I like the curst Melanthius die. 
 
 IDYLL VL 
 
 THE SINGERS OF PASTORALS. 
 
 To the same field, Aratus, bard divine ! 
 Once Daphnis and Damoetas drove their kine. 
 This on the chin a yellow beard did show : 
 On that the down had just begun to grow. 
 During the noontide of the summer heat, 
 They by a fountain sung their ditties sweet. 
 But Daphnis first (to whom it did belong 
 As challenger) began the pastoral song. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 " With apples Galatea pelts thy sheep, 
 
 Inviting one, whose pulses never leap 
 
 To love, whilst thou, cold Polypheme ! dost pipe, 
 
 Regardless of the sea-born beauty ripe. 
 
 And lo ! she pelts the watch-dog — with a bound 
 
 He barking starts, and angry looks around — 
 
 Then bays the sea ; the waves soft-murmuring show 
 
 An angry dog fast running to and fro. 
 
 Take heed he leap not on her, coming fresh 
 
 From the sea-wave, and tear her dainty flesh. 
 
 But like the thistle-down, when summer glows, 
 
 The sportive nymph, soft moving, comes and goes ; 
 
 Pursues who flies her, her pursuer flies, 
 
 And moves the landmark of love's boundaries. 
 
 What is not lovely, lovely oft doth seem 
 
 To the bewildered lover, Polypheme." 
 
 Preluding then, Damoetas thus began. 
 
 DAMCETAS. 
 
 " I saw her pelt my flock, by mighty Pan ! 
 Not unobserved by my dear single eye. 
 Through which I see, and shall see till I die. 
 Prophet of ill ! let Telemus at home 
 Keep for his own sons all his woes to come. 
 
226 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 I, to provoke her, look not in return, 
 
 And say that for another girl I burn. . 
 
 At hearing which with envy, by Apollo ! 
 
 The sea-nymph pines ; and her eye-quest doth follow^ 
 
 Leaping from out the sea like one that raves, 
 
 Amid my flocks, and peeps into the caves. 
 
 I make the dog bark just to discompose her ; 
 
 He, when I loved her, whining used to nose her. 
 
 Noting my action, she perchance will find 
 
 Some messenger to let me know her mind. 
 
 I'll shut my door, till she on oath agree 
 
 To make her sweet bed on this isle with me. 
 
 Nor am I that unsightly one they say : 
 
 For in the calm, smooth wave the other day 
 
 I saw myself : and handsome was my beard, 
 
 And bright, methought, my single eye appeared. 
 
 And from the beautiful sea-mirror shone 
 
 My white teeth, brighter than the Parian stone. 
 
 To screen myself from influence malign, 
 
 Thrice on my breast I spat. This lesson fine 
 
 I learned from that wise crone Cotyttaris." 
 
 This sung, Damoetas gave his friend a kiss. 
 Of pipe and flute their mutual gifts they made— 
 Daphnis the pipe, the flute Damoetas played. 
 Thereto the heifers frisked in gambols rude : 
 And neither conquered ; both were unsubdued. 
 
 IDYLL VII. 
 
 THE THALYSIA. 
 
 'TwAS when Amyntas, Eucritus, and I, 
 Did from the city to sweet Haleus hie ; 
 The harvest-feast by that abounding river 
 Was kept, in honour of the harvest-giver. 
 By Phrasidamus and Antigenes, 
 Sons of Lycopeus both, and good men these. 
 If good there is from old and high descent, ^ 
 From Clytia and from Calchon, who, knee-bent 
 
IDYLL Yll. 227 
 
 Firmly against the rock, did make outflow 
 VThe spring Burinna with a foot-struck blow, 
 P^Tear which a thickly wooded grove is seen, 
 n^oplars and elms, high overarching greenj 
 1 Midway not reached, nor tomb of Brasilas, 
 
 We chanced upon Cydonian Lycidas, 
 
 By favour of the Muses : who not knew 
 
 That famous goatherd as he came in view ? 
 
 A tawny, shaggy goat-skin on his back. 
 
 That of the suppling pickle yet did smack ; 
 
 Bound by a belt of straw the traveller wore 
 
 An aged jerkin ;/Tn his hand he bore 
 K A crook of the wild olive j] coming nigh, 
 
 With widely parted lips, and smiling eye — 
 
 The laughter on his lip was plain to see — 
 
 He quietly addressed himself to me : 
 
 " Whither so fast at noon-tide, when no more 
 The crested larks their sunny paths explore, 
 And in the thorn-hedge lizards lie asleep ? 
 To feast or to a wine-press do you leap ? 
 The stones ring to your buskins as you pass." 
 
 To him I made reply — " Dear Lycidas ! 
 All say you are the piper — far the best 
 'Mid shepherds and the reapers ; this confest 
 Gladdens my heart ; and yet (to put in speech 
 My fancy) I expect your skill to reach. 
 Our way is to a harvest-feast, which cater 
 Dear friends of ours for richly robed Damater, 
 Oifering their first-fruits — since their garner-floor 
 Her bounteous love hath filled to running o'er. 
 Let us with pastoral song beguile the way ; 
 Common the path, and common is the day. 
 We shall each other, it may be, content ; 
 For I, too, am a mouth-piece eloquent 
 Of the dear Muses ; and all men esteem, 
 And call me minstrel good — not that I deem, 
 Not I, by Earth ! Philetas I surpass, 
 Nor the famed Samian bard, Sicelidas, 
 A frog compared with locusts, I beguile 
 The time with sonir." He answered with a smile ;— 
 
22H THEOCRITUS 
 
 •■* This crook I give thee — for thou art all over 
 An imp of Zeus, a genuine truth-lover. 
 Who strives to build, the lowly plain upon, 
 A mansion high as is Oromedon, 
 I hate exceedingly ; and for that matter 
 The muse-birds, who like cuckoos idly chatter 
 Against the Chian minstrel, toil in vain : 
 Let us at once begin the pastoral strain ; 
 Here is a little song, which I did late, 
 Musing along the highlands, meditate : 
 
 " To Mitylene sails my heart-dear love : 
 Safe be the way, and fair the voyage prove. 
 E'en when the south the moist wave dashes high on 
 The setting Kids, and tempest-veiled Orion 
 Places his feet on ocean ; and, returned. 
 My love be kind to me by Cypris burned ; 
 For hot love burns me : may the Halcyons smooth 
 The swell o' the sea, the south and east winds soothe, 
 That from the lowest deep the sea-weed stir — 
 Best Halcyons ! whom of all the birds that skir 
 The waves for prey, the Nereids love the most. 
 Safe may my loved one reach the Lesbian coast, 
 And on the way be wind and weather fair ! 
 With dill or roses will I twine my hair. 
 Or on my head will put a coronet. 
 Wreathed with the fragrance of the violet. 
 I by the fire will quaff the Ptelean wine. 
 And one shall roast me beans, while I recline 
 Luxurious, lying on a fragrant heap 
 Of asphodel and parsley, elbow deep ; 
 And mindful of my love the goblet clip, 
 Until the last lees trickle to my lip. 
 Two swains shall play the flute ; and Tityrus sing 
 How love for Xenea did our Daphnis sting. 
 How on the mountain he was wont to stray, 
 How wailed for him the oaks of Himera, 
 When he, dissolving, passed away from us, 
 Like snow on Haemus, or far Caucasus, 
 Athos or Rhodope : or in his song 
 Recite, how by his master's cruel wrong 
 
IDTIT, VTT. 229 
 
 The swain was in a cedar ark shut up, 
 While quick — and how from many a flower-cup 
 The flat-nosed bees to his sweet prison flew, 
 And there sustained him with the honey-dew. 
 For that the Muse into his lip distilled 
 Sweet nectar : blest Comatas ! that fulfilled 
 A whole spring, feeding on the bag o' the bee, 
 Shut in an ark ! How had it gladdened me, 
 (Would only thou wert of the living now !) 
 To tend thy goats along the mountain's brow, 
 And hear thee sweetly sing, O bard divine ! 
 Lying at leisure under oak or pine ! " 
 
 He ceased : I in my turn : " Dear Lycidas ! 
 Whilst on the highlands with my herd I pass. 
 The Nymphs have taught me precious ditties oft. 
 Which haply Fame has borne to Zeus aloft. 
 I choose for you the very best I know ; 
 Now listen, since the Muses love you so : 
 
 " The Loves, ill omen ! sneezed on me, who dote 
 On lovely Myrtis, as on spring the goat. 
 Aratus, whom of men I love the best, 
 Loves a sweet girl. Aristis, minstrel blest. 
 And worthiest man, whom his own tripod near 
 Phoebus himself would not disdain to hear 
 Sing to the harp, knows that Aratus feels 
 This scorching flame. Pan ! whose rich music peais 
 On Homolus, place in his longing arms 
 Of her own will the blushing bloom of charms. 
 So may the youth of Arcady forbear 
 With squills thy shoulders and thy side to tear. 
 When fails the chase. If thou wilt not, then weep, 
 By nails all mangled, and on nettles sleep ! 
 Where Hebrus flows, in frost-time of the year 
 Dwell on the mountains 'neath the polar bear ; 
 In summer with swart JEthiop, at the pile 
 Of Blemyan rocks, beyond the springs of Nile ! 
 Ye loves ! from Hyetis and Byblis flown, 
 Who make Dione's lofty seat your own ; 
 Ye loves ! that are to blushing apples like, 
 The blooming Phyllis with your arrows strike— 
 
230 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Strike her, because she pities not my friend ; 
 Though softer than a pear, her bloom shall end : 
 Ah, Phyllis ! Phyllis ! now the bachelors say, 
 Behold thy flower of beauty drops away ! 
 Let us, my friend Aratus ! pace no more, 
 Nor keep our painful watch beside her door ; 
 Let Chanticleer, that crows at dawn, behold 
 Some other lover there benumbed with cold : 
 Such watch be Melon's, and be his alone ; 
 But rest be ours — and eke a friendly crone. 
 Who may by spitting and by magic skill 
 Quick disenchant us from foreshadowed ill." 
 
 Ended my song, he, smiling as before. 
 The friendly muse-gift gave — the crook he bore ; 
 Then turning to the left pursued the way 
 To Pyxa ; speeding, presently we lay. 
 Where Phrasidamus dwelt, on loosened sheaves 
 Of lentisk, and the vine's new-gathered leaves. 
 (Near by, a fountain murmured from its bed, 
 A cavern of the Nymphs : elms overhead. 
 And poplars rustled ; and the summer-keen 
 Cicadae sung aloft amid the green ; 
 Afar the tree-frog in the thorn-bush cried ; ^ 
 Nor larks nor goldfinches their song denied ; 
 The yellow bees around the fountains flew ; 
 And the lone turtle-dove wasjieard to coo: 
 Of golden summer all was redolent. 
 And of brown autumn ; boughs with damsons bent. 
 We had ; and pears were scattered at our feet. 
 And by our side a heap of apples sweet. 
 A four -year cask was broached. Ye Nymphs excelling 
 Of Castaly, on high Parnassus dwelling, 
 Did ever Chiron in the Centaur's cave 
 Give draught so rich to Hercules the brave ? 
 Through Polypheme did such sweet nectar glance, 
 That made the shepherd of Anapus dance. 
 The huge rock-hurler — as the generous foam. 
 Which, Nymphs, ye tempered at that harvest-home ? 
 O be it mine again her feast to keep, 
 And fix the fan in good Damater's heap ; ^ 
 
IDYLL vm. 231 
 
 And may she sweetly smile, while spikes of corn 
 And up-torn poppies either hand adorn ! 
 
 IDYLL YIII. 
 
 THE SINGERS OP PASTORALS. 
 Daphrns. Menalcas. A goatherd. 
 
 Menalcas met, while pasturing his sheep, 
 The cowherd Daphnis on the highland steep ; 
 Both yellow-tressed, and in their life's fresh spring, — 
 Both skilled to play the pipe, and both to sing. 
 
 Menalcas, with demeanour frank and free. 
 Spoke first : " Good Daphnis, will you sing with me ? 
 I can out-sing you, whensoe'er I try. 
 Just as I please." Then Daphnis made reply : 
 
 daphnis. 
 Shepherd and piper ! that may never be. 
 Happen what will, as you on proof will see. 
 
 menalcas. 
 Ah, will you see it, and a wager make ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 I will to see this, and to pledge a stake. 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 And what the wager, worthy fame like ours ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 A calf my pledge, a full-grown lamb be yours. 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 At night my cross-grained sire and mother use 
 To count the sheep — that pledge I must refuse. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 What shall it be then ? What the victor's prize ? 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 I'll pledge a nine-toned pipe, that even lies 
 In the joined reeds, with whitest wax inlaid, 
 The musical sweet pipe I lately made ; 
 This will I pledge — and not my father's things. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 I, too, have got a pipe that nine-toned rings, 
 
232 • THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Compact with white wax, even -jointed, new, — 
 Made by myself : a split reed sudden flew, 
 And gashed this finger — it is painful still. 
 But who shall judge which has the better skill ? 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 Suppose we call that goatherd hither — see ! 
 Yon white dog at his kids barks lustly. 
 
 He came when called ; and, hearing their requesi 
 Was willing to decide which sung the best. 
 Clearly their rival tones responsive rung, 
 Each in his turn, but first Menalcas sung. 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 Ye mountain-vales and rivers ! race divine ! 
 
 If aught Menalcas ever sung was sweet, 
 Feed ye these lambs ; and feed no less his kine, 
 
 When Daphnis drives them to this dear retreat. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Fountains and herbs, growth of the lively year ! 
 
 If Daphnis sings like any nightingale. 
 Fatten this herd ; and if Menalcas here 
 
 Conduct his flock, let not their pasture fail. 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 Pastures and spring, and milkful udders swelling, 
 And fatness for the lambs, is every where 
 
 At her approach : but if the girl excelling 
 
 Departs, both herbs and shepherd wither there. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 The sheep and goats bear twins ; the bees up-lay 
 Full honey-stores, the spreading oaks are higher, 
 
 Where Milto walks : but if she goes away. 
 
 The cowherd and his cows themselves are drier. 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 Uxorious ram, and flat-nosed kids, away 
 For water to that wilderness of wood : 
 
 There, ram without a horn ! to Milto say, 
 Proteus, a god too, fed the sea-calf brood. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Nor Pelops' realm be mine, nor piles of gold, 
 Nor speed fleet as the wind ; but at this rock 
 
 To sing, and clasp my darling, and behold 
 
 The seas blue reach, and many a pasturing flock. 
 
IDYLL vni. 233 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 To forest-beast the net, to bird the noose, 
 
 Winter to trees, and drought to springs is bad ; 
 
 To man the sting of beauty. Mighty Zeus ! 
 Not only I — thou, too, art woman-mad. 
 
 Their sweet notes thus, in turn, they did prolong ; 
 Menalcas then took up the closing song. 
 
 MENALCAS. 
 
 Spare, wolf ! my sheep and lambs ; nor injure me, 
 Because I many tend, though small I be. 
 Sleepest, Lampurus ? up ! no dog should sleep 
 That with the shepherd-boy attends his sheep. 
 Be not to crop the tender herbage slow, 
 Feed on, my sheep ! the grass again will grow. 
 Fill ye your udders, that your lambs may have 
 Their share of milk, — I some for cheese may save. 
 
 Then Daphnis next his tones preluding rung. 
 Gave to the music voice, and sweetly sung. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 As yesterday I drove my heifers by, 
 A girl, me spying from a cavern nigh. 
 Exclaimed, " How handsome ! " I my way pursued 
 With down-cast eyes, nor made her answer rude. 
 Sweet is the breath of cows and calves — and sweet 
 To bask by running stream in summer heat. 
 Acorns the oak ; and apples on the bough 
 Adorn the apple-tree ; her calf the cow ; 
 His drove of kine, depasturing the field, 
 His proper honour to the cowherd yield. 
 
 Th' admiring goatherd then his judgment spake : 
 Sweet is thy mouth, and sweetest tones awake 
 From thy lips, Daphnis ! I would rather hear 
 Thee sing, than suck the honeycomb, I swear. 
 Take thou the pipe, for thine the winning song. 
 If thou wilt teach me here my goats among 
 Some song, I will that hornless goat bestow, 
 That ever fills the pail to overflow. 
 
234 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Glad Daphnis clapped his hands, and on the lawn 
 He leaped, as round her mother leaps the fawn. 
 But sad Menalcas fed a smouldering gloom, 
 As grieves a girl betrothed to unknown groom. 
 And first in song was Daphnis from that time, 
 And wived a Naiad in his blooming prime. 
 
 IDYLL IX. 
 
 THE PASTOR, OR THE HERDSMEN. 
 
 Daphnis ' Menalcas. 
 
 Daphnis ! begin the pastoral song for me ; 
 Begin, and let Menalcas follow thee. 
 Meanwhile the calves the mother-cows put under, 
 Let the bulls feed — but not roam far asunder, 
 Scorning the herd — and crop the leafy spray ; 
 And leave the heifers to their frolic play. 
 Begin for me the sweet bucolic strain, 
 And let Menalcas take it up again. 
 
 daphnis. 
 " Sweet low the cow and calf — the tones are sweet. 
 The pipe, the cowherd and myself repeat. 
 My couch is by cool water, and is strown 
 With skins of milk-white heifers ; them threw down. 
 While they cropt arbutus, the south-west wind 
 From the bluff crag. There stretched, no more I mind 
 The scorching summer than a loving pair 
 Their parents sage, who bid them each * beware !'" 
 
 Thus Daphnis sweetly sung at my request ; 
 Menalcas next his dulcet tones exprest. 
 
 menalcas. 
 *' jEtna ! my mother ! in the hollow rock 
 My pleasant mansion is ; I own a flock 
 Of many yearlings and of many sheep, 
 Numerous as those the dreamer sees in sleep. 
 Fleeces are lying at my head and feet ; 
 On an oak-fire are boiling entrails sweet ; 
 
IDYLL IX. 235 
 
 And on my hearth in winter-time I burn 
 Fagots of beech. I have no more concern 
 For winter — than the toothless elder cares 
 For walnuts, whose old dame his pap prepares," 
 
 SHEPHERD. 
 
 Both I applauded, and made gifts to both, 
 A crook to Daphnis — the spontaneous growth 
 Of my own father's field, yet turned so well. 
 None could find fault with it ; a sounding shell 
 I gave Menalcas ; four besides myself 
 Fed on its flesh — I snared it from a shelf 
 Amid th' Icarian rocks. The conch he blew. 
 And far abroad the blast resounding flew. 
 
 Hail, pastoral Muses ! and the song declare, 
 Which then I chanted for that friendly pair. 
 " On your tongue's tip may pustules never grow. 
 For speaking falsely what for false you know ! 
 Cicale the cicale loves ; and ant loves ant ; 
 Hawk, hawk ; and me the muse and song enchant. 
 Of this my house be full ! nor sudden spring, 
 Nor sleep is sweeter ; nor to bees on wing 
 The bloom of flowers more dear delight diffuses, 
 Than to myself the presence of the Muses. 
 On whomsoe'er they look and sweetly smile, 
 Him Circe may not harm with cup or wile." 
 
 IDYLL X. 
 
 THE WORKMEN, OR REAPERS. 
 Milon and Battus, 
 
 MILON. 
 
 Ploughman, what is the matter with you, pray ? 
 You cannot draw the furrow straight to-day, 
 Nor with your neighbour even do you keep, 
 But lag behind like a thorn-wounded sheep. 
 If you cannot the furrow now devour, 
 What will you be, my friend, at evening hour ? 
 
236 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 You rock- chip, reaping till the sun's descent, 
 Did you some absent darling ne'er lament ? 
 
 MILON. 
 
 Never. A labourer's heart with love-grief ache ! 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Did you ne'er chance for love to lie awake ? 
 
 MILON. 
 
 No — never may I ! When a dog has eaten 
 Meat for his master, the poor dog is beaten. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 I'm deep in love — almost eleven days. 
 
 MILON. 
 
 From a full wine-cask you your fancies raise ; 
 I have not even vinegar enough. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 Thence lie the sweepings of all sort of stuff 
 Before my door. 
 
 MILON. 
 
 Who is your mischief-bringer ? 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 The child of Polybotas — the sweet singer, 
 Who for the mowers at Hippocoon's chaunted. 
 
 MILON. 
 
 Sinners heaven pricks — you have what long you wanted ; 
 A dry tree-frog will hug you close in bed. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 None of your jibes : care-breeding Love is said, 
 And not old Plutus only, to be blind. 
 Don't talk too big. 
 
 MILON. 
 
 I do not — only mind 
 To cut the corn down, and some love-song try 
 About your girl ; you'll work more pleasantly : 
 And Battus once, at least, was musical. 
 
 BATTUS. 
 
 To sing my charmer, slender, straight, and tall. 
 Best Muses ! aid me ; for, with skill divine, 
 Ye, whatsoe'er ye please to touch, refine. 
 Lovely Bombyce ! though all men beside 
 Call you a Syrian sun-embrowned, and dried, 
 
IDYLL X. 237 
 
 I call you a transparent sweet brunette. 
 
 The lettered hyacinth and violet 
 
 Are dark ; yet these are chosen first of all 
 
 For the sweet wreath and festive coronal. 
 
 The goat the cytisus, the wolf the goat, 
 
 And cranes pursue the plough — on thee I dote. 
 
 Would that I had the wealth report hath told 
 
 Belonged to Croesus ! wrought in purest gold, 
 
 Statues of both of us should then be seen, 
 
 Due dedications to the Cyprian Queen : 
 
 Thou with a flute, an apple, and a rose ; 
 
 I sandalled, in a robe that proudly flows. 
 
 Lovely Bombyce ! beautiful your feet. 
 
 Twinkling like the quick dice ; your voice is sweet ; 
 
 But your sweet nature language cannot tell. 
 
 MILON. 
 
 He privily hath learned to sing — how well ! 
 
 But my poor chin in vain this great beard nurses ; 
 
 List to a snatch or two of Lytierses. 
 
 Damater ; fruit-abounding ! grant this field 
 Be duly wrought, and rich abundance yield. 
 
 Bind without waste, sheaf-binder ! lest one say, 
 These men of fig-wood are not worth their pay. 
 
 Let the sheaf-hillock look to north or west ; 
 The corn, so lying, fills and ripens best. 
 
 Ye threshers ! let not sleep steal on your eyes 
 At noon — for then the chaff most freely flies. . 
 
 Up with the lark to reap, and cease as soon 
 As the lark sleeps — but rest yourself at noon. 
 
 Happy the frog's life ! none, his drink to pour, 
 He looks for — he has plenty evermore. 
 
 Boil, niggard steward ! the lentil ; and take heed, 
 Don't cut your hand — to split a cumin-seed. 
 
 Men toiling in the sun such songs befit ; 
 
 Your puling love, poor rustic little-wit ! 
 
 Is only fit — to whisper in her ears. 
 
 When your old mother wakes as dawn appears. 
 
IDYLL XL 
 
 THE CYCLOPS. 
 
 NiciAS ! there is no remedy for love, 
 Except the Muses ; this alone doth prove 
 A sweet and gentle solace for the mind 
 Of love-sick man — not easy though to find. 
 Full knowledge of this truth I deem is thine, 
 Physician, and beloved of all the Nine ! 
 
 Thus, Polypheme of yore, our Cyclops, found 
 The power of song on love's uneasy wound ; 
 With the first down that budding youth discloses 
 On cheek and chin, he doted — not with roses 
 And apples for his love, and the trim curl 
 To please her eye, but with delirious whirl. 
 Neglecting all things else. Oft to the stall 
 His sheep from pasture came without his call. 
 While he from dawn mid sea-weeds and the spray 
 Of Galatea sung, and pined away, 
 By mighty Cypris wounded at the heart, 
 Who in his liver fixed her cruel dart. 
 He found the cure while from the clifi* he flung 
 His glances seaward, and his ditty sung : — 
 
 " Why, Galatea, scorn for love dost render ? 
 Whiter than fresh curds, than the lamb more tender ; 
 More skittish than the calf, more clearly bright 
 Than unripe grape transparent in the light ! 
 Here dost thou show thyself when sleeps thy lover, 
 Still flying ever as my sleep is over, 
 E'en as the sheep, the gray wolf seeing, flees. 
 I loved when with my mother from the seas 
 Thou first didst come, and seek the mountain-side 
 To gather hyacinths — and I thy guide. 
 Since then I never yet have ceased to love thee. 
 Although my passion never yet did move thee. 
 I know the reason why the beauty flies — 
 One shaggy eye-brow on my forehead lies 
 Over one eye, stretched out from tip to tip 
 Of either ear, and overhangs my lip 
 
IDYLL XI 239 
 
 A nostril broad. Such as I am, I keep, 
 Drinking their best of milk, a thousand sheep ; 
 My cheeses fail not in their hurdled row- 
 In depth of winter nor in summer's glow. 
 No Cyclops here can breathe the pipe like me, 
 Who sing, when I should sleep, myself and thee, 
 Sweet^apple ! I for thee four bear-whelps rear, 
 And eke eleven fawns that collars wear. 
 Come live (thou shalt not fare the worse) with me, 
 And to its murmurs leave that azure sea. 
 Thy nights will sweeter pass within my cave, 
 Where the tall cypress and the laurel wave ; 
 The sweet-fruit vine and ivy dark are there ; 
 From the white snow its waters cool and clear 
 Thick-wooded ^tna sends : whom would it please 
 In sea to dwell, when land has joys like these ? 
 Though rough I seem in Galatea's eyes, 
 My wealth of oak a constant fire supplies ; 
 fire of love ! I could be well content 
 That life and precious eye at once were brent. 
 Had I but fins ! then would I dive and kiss 
 Thy dainty hand, though daintier lip I miss ; 
 In different seasons take thee different flowers, 
 The summer lily white in summer hours, 
 And while it winter was, what winter bred, 
 The tender poppy with its pop-bells red. 
 From some sea-ranger I will learn to swim, 
 To see what charms you in your ocean dim. 
 Come, Galatea ! sparkling from the foam, 
 And then, like me, forget to turn thee home. 
 Would that the shepherd and his life could please — 
 To milk my ewes, with runnet fix the cheese. 
 My mother is in fault, and only she — 
 She never spake a friendly word for me ; 
 Although she sees me pining fast away, 
 Thinner and thinner still from day to day. 
 I'll tell her that my feet and temples throb. 
 That she, as I have done, with grief may sob. 
 O Cyclops ! Cyclops ! whither dost thou hover ? 
 To weave thy baskets would more wit discover. 
 And get thy lambs green leaves. Milk the near ewe ; 
 
240 THEOCRITUS 
 
 Why one that faster flies in vain pursue ? 
 A fairer Galatea you may find ; 
 Others are fair, and all are not unkind : 
 For many a damsel, when eve's shadow falls, 
 Me to sport with her fondly, sweetly calls ; 
 And all of them, with eyes that brightly glisten, 
 Giggle most merrily, whene'er I listen : 
 That I am somebody on earth is plain." 
 
 Thus Polypheme with song relieved love's pain 
 And from his ails himself did safer free. 
 Than had he given a leech a golden fee. 
 
 IDYLL XIL 
 
 AITES. 
 
 Art come, dear youth ? Two days and nights away I 
 
 For love who passion, wax old — in a day. 
 
 As much as apples sweet the damson crude 
 
 Excel ; the bloomy spring the winter rude ; 
 
 In fleece the sheep her lamb ; the maid in sweetness 
 
 The thrice- wed dame ; the fawn the calf in fleetness ; 
 
 The nightingale in song all feathered kind — 
 
 So much thy longed-for presence cheers my mind. 
 
 To thee I hasten, as to shady beech 
 
 The traveller, when from the heaven's reach 
 
 The sun fierce blazes. May our love be strong, 
 
 To all hereafter times the theme of song ! 
 
 " Two men each other loved to that degree, 
 
 That either friend did in the other see 
 
 A dearer than himself. They lived of old, 
 
 Both golden natures in an age of gold." 
 
 O father Zeus ! ageless Immortals aU ! 
 Two hundred ages hence may one recall, 
 Down-coming to the irremeable river. 
 This to my mind, and this good news deliver : 
 " E'en now from east to west, from north to south. 
 Your mutual friendship lives in every mouth." 
 This, as they please, the Olympians will decide : 
 
IDYLL XIIL 241 
 
 Of thee, by blooming virtue beautified, 
 
 My glowing song shall only truth disclose ; 
 
 With falsehood's pustules I'll not shame my nose. 
 
 If thou dost sometime grieve me, sweet the pleasure 
 
 Of reconcilement, joy in double measure 
 
 To find thou never didst intend the pain, 
 
 And feel myself from all doubt free again. 
 
 And, ye Megarians, at Nisaea dwelling, 
 Expert at rowing, mariners excelling. 
 Be happy ever ! for with honours due 
 Th' Athenian Diodes, to friendship true. 
 Ye celebrate. With the first blush of spring 
 The youth surround his tomb : there who shall bring 
 The sweetest kiss, whose lip is purest found. 
 Back to his mother goes with garlands crowned. 
 Nice touch the arbiter must have, indeed. 
 And must, methinks, the blue-eyed Ganymede 
 Invoke with many prayers — a mouth to own 
 True to the touch of lips, as Lydian stone 
 To proof of gold, — which test will instant show 
 The pure or base, as money-changers know. 
 
 IDYLL XIII. 
 
 HYLAS. 
 
 Friend ! not for us alone was love designed, 
 
 Whoe'er his parent of immortal kind ; 
 
 Nor first to us fair seemeth fair to be, 
 
 Who mortal are, nor can the morrow see. 
 
 But e'en Amphitryon's brazen-hearted son. 
 
 Who stood the lion's rage, did dote upon 
 
 The curled and lovely Hylas — made his joy 
 
 To train him as a father would his boy. 
 
 And taught him all whereby himself became 
 
 A minstrel-praised inheritor of fame ; 
 
 Nor left him when the sun was in mid-air. 
 
 Or Morn to Jove's court drove her milk-white pair ; 
 
242 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Or when the twittering chickens were betaking 
 Themselves to rest, her wings their mother shaking, 
 Perched on the smoky beam ; that, trained to go 
 In the right track, he might a true man grow. 
 
 When Jason sailed to find the golden fleece, 
 And in his train the choicest youth of Greece ; 
 Then with the worthies from the cities round, 
 Came Hercules, for patient toil renowned, 
 And Hylas with him : from lolcos they, 
 In the good Argo ploughed the watery way. 
 Touched not the ship the dark Cyanean rocks, 
 That justled evermore with crashing shocks, 
 But bounded through, and shot the swell o' the flood, 
 Like to an eagle, and in Phasis stood : 
 Thence either ridgy rock in station lies. 
 
 But at what times the Pleiades arise : 
 When to the lamb the borders of the field 
 (The spring to summer turning) herbage yield ; 
 The flower of heroes minded then their sailing ; 
 And the third day, a steady south prevailing, 
 They reached the Hellespont ; and in the bay 
 Of long Propontis hollow Argo lay : 
 Their oxen for Cianians dwelling there 
 The ploughshare in the broadening furrow wear. 
 They land at eve.; in pairs their mess they keep ; 
 And many strow a high and rushy heap : 
 A meadow broad convenient lay thereby. 
 With various rushes prankt abundantly. 
 And gold-tressed Hylas is for water gone 
 For Hercules and sturdy Telamon, 
 Who messmates were : a brazen urn he bore. 
 And soon perceived a fountain straight before. 
 It was a gentle slope, round which was seen 
 A multitude of rushes, parsley green, 
 And the close couch-grass, creeping to entwine 
 Green maiden-hair, and pale-blue celandine. 
 Their choir the wakeful Nymphs, the rustics' dread, 
 In the mid sparkle of the fountain led ; 
 Malis, and young Nychea looking spring. 
 And fresh Eunica. There the youth did bring, 
 
IDYLL XIII., 2 
 
 And o'er the water hold his goodly urn, 
 
 Eager at once to dip it and return. 
 
 The Nymphs all clasped his hand ; for love seized all, 
 
 Love for the Argive boy ; and he did fall 
 
 Plumping at once into the w^ater dark, 
 
 As when a meteor glides with many a spark 
 
 Plumping from out the heavens into the seas — 
 
 And then some sailor cries, " A jolly breeze, 
 
 Up with the sail, boys ! " Him upon their knees 
 
 The Nymphs soft held ; him dropping many a tear 
 
 With soft enticing words they tried to cheer. 
 
 Anxious Alcides lingered not to go, 
 Armed like a Scythian with his curved bow. 
 He grasped his club ; and thrice he threw around 
 His deep, deep voice at highest pitch of sound ; 
 Thrice called on Hylas ; thrice did Hylas hear, 
 And from the fount a thin voice murmured near ; 
 Though very near, it very far appeared : 
 As when a lion, awful with his beard. 
 Hearing afar the whining of a fawn, 
 Speeds to his banquet from the mountain-lawn ; 
 In such wise. Hercules, the boy regretting, 
 Off at full speed through pathless brakes was setting. 
 Who love, much suffer : what fatigue he bore ! 
 What thickets pierced ! what mountains clambered o'er I 
 What then to him was Jason's enterprise ? 
 
 With sails aloft the ship all ready lies ; 
 Midnight they sweep the decks and oft repeat, 
 " Where, where is Hercules ?" Where'er his feet 
 Convey him, there the frantic mourner hurries. 
 For a fierce god his liver tears and worries. 
 Fair Hylas thus is numbered with the blest : 
 Their friend, as ship-deserter, all the rest 
 Reproach ; while trudges he (and sad his case is) 
 To Colchos and inhospitable Phasis. 
 
 a m 
 
IDYLL XIV. 
 
 THE LOVE OF CYNISCA, OR THTONICHUS. 
 
 JEschines. Thyonicus. 
 
 JESCHINES. 
 
 Health to Thyonichus ! 
 
 THYONIOHUS. 
 
 The same to you. 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 How late you are ! 
 
 THYONICHUS. 
 
 Late ? what concernment new ? 
 
 ^SOHINES. 
 
 It is not well with me. 
 
 THYONICHUS. 
 
 And therefore lean, 
 With beard untrimmed and dry straight hair you're seen. 
 But lately one, in seeming much the same, 
 Who called himself Athenian, hither came, 
 A barefoot, pale Pythagorean oaf. 
 In love, methought, and longing — for a loaf. 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 You'll have your jest : Cynisca flouts me so, 
 
 That I shall madden unawares, I know — 
 
 There's but a hair's-breadth now 'twixt me and madness. 
 
 THYONICHUS. 
 
 Extreme in changes ever — ^brooding sadness. 
 Or moody violence — as the whim makes you 
 Sport of the time : but what new care o'ertakes you ? 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 The Argive, I, and the Thessalian knight 
 Good Apis, and Cleunicus, brave in fight. 
 Were drinking at my farm. We had for fare 
 Two pullets and a sucking pig ; and rare 
 Rich Biblian wine (near four years old) I drew, 
 And fragrant still, as from the wine-press new. 
 A Colchian onion gave the brewage zest ; 
 As mirth with drink advanced, we thought it best 
 
IDYLL XIV. 245 
 
 To quaff the wine's pure juice, each to his flame, 
 
 And every one was bound to tell her name. 
 
 So said, so done : we drank to them we loved : 
 
 But she, my she ! by all my love unmoved. 
 
 Said nothing, though I then and there named her. 
 
 Think what a tempest did my temper stir ! 
 
 "Won't speak ?" I said : " or, as the wise man spoke, 
 
 Hast seen a wolf ? " another said in joke. 
 
 From her red burning face (it kindled so) 
 
 You might have lit a lamp. Lycus, you know, 
 
 Is name for wolf ; and there is such an one. 
 
 Tall, delicate, my neighbour Laba's son ; 
 
 And many think him handsome : for this youth, 
 
 And his fine love my damsel pined in sooth. 
 
 I heard a whisper, nor I sifted it, 
 
 Having a man's beard without manly wit. 
 
 But Apis — we were at our cups again — 
 
 Sang out " My Lycus ! " a Thessalian strain. 
 
 Then sudden into tears Cynisca burst — 
 
 The girl of six years for the breast that nurst 
 
 Her tender infancy, not so much weeps. 
 
 You know me, how no bound my temper keeps ; 
 
 With doubled fist once and again I struck 
 
 Both of her cheeks. She thereat did up-tuck 
 
 Her skirts and quickly bolted through the door. 
 
 Do I not please thee ? hast a paramour 
 
 Nearer thy heart ? plague o' my life ! go, go ! 
 
 Hug him for whom your tears, like beads, thick flow. 
 
 As for her callow brood, that nested lies 
 
 Under the roof, the swallow swiftly flies 
 
 To bring them food, and flies for more again ; 
 
 From her soft couch more swift she fled amain. 
 
 Through hall, court, gate, as fast as she was able : 
 
 " The bull into the wood," as runs the fable. 
 
 Add two to this, the eight and fiftieth day, 
 
 'Twill be two full months since she went away ; 
 
 And since we parted, as a sign of woe. 
 
 My hair has, Thracian-like, been left to grow. 
 
 But only Lycus is her sole delight ; 
 
 For him her door is open e'en at night. 
 
 But hapless I, with the Megarian lot, 
 
246 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Am held in none account, and quite forgot. 
 All would be well, could I my love restrain ; 
 But mice, they say, the taste of pitch retain. 
 I cannot cure myself, howe'er I try ; 
 For hapless love I know no remedy ; 
 Except that Simus sailed across the water, 
 When smitten with old Epichalcus' daughter, 
 And came back whole. I too will cross the wave. 
 Nor best nor worst of soldiers, but a brave. 
 
 THYONICHUS. 
 
 May all be as you wish, my iEschines ! 
 But if you will depart beyond the seas. 
 Gladly king Ptolemy brave hearts engages, 
 Best man of all that gives the soldier wages. 
 
 ^SCHINES. 
 
 What sort of man is he in other things ? 
 
 THYONICHUS. 
 
 To brave and noble souls the best of kings ; 
 
 Has a discerning spirit ; takes delight 
 
 In all the Muses ; courteous to the height ; 
 
 Who loves him and who loves him not, he knows ; 
 
 And many gifts on many men bestows. 
 
 When asked a boon, he king-like not denies -, 
 
 But oft to ask is neither right nor wise. 
 
 Then if you wish a martial cloak to fold 
 
 Around your shoulders, and in station bold, 
 
 Firm on both feet, abide the shielded foe 
 
 On-rushing — instantly to Egypt go. 
 
 Soon we grow old, and Time steals on apace, 
 
 Whitening the hair, and withering the face. 
 
 We ought to do what us behoves, I ween, 
 
 While yet our knee is firm, our strength is greeri 
 
roYLL XV- 247 
 
 IDYLL XV. 
 
 THE STRACUSAN WOMEN ; OR, ADONIAZUS^. 
 
 CHARACTERS. 
 
 Gorgo. Praxinoa. Old woman. First stranger. Second 
 stranger. Singing woman. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Is Praxinoa at home ? 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Dear Gorgo, yes ! 
 How late you are ! I wonder, I confess. 
 That you are come e'en now. Quick, brazen-front ! 
 
 [To EUNOA. 
 A chair there — stupid ! lay a cushion on't. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Thank you, 'tis very well. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Be seated, pray. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 My untamed soul ! what dangers on the way ! 
 1 scarce could get alive here : such a crowd ! 
 So many soldiers with their trappings proud ! 
 A weary way it is — you live so far. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 The man, whose wits with sense are aye at war. 
 Bought at the world's end but to vex my soul 
 This dwelling — no ! this serpent's lurking-hole, 
 That we might not be neighbours : plague o' my life, 
 His only joy is quarrelling and strife. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Talk not of Dinon so before the boy ; 
 See ! how he looks at you ! 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 My honey-joy ! 
 My pretty dear ! 'tis not papa I mean. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Handsome papa ! the urchin, by the Queen, 
 
248 THEOCRIITJS. 
 
 Knows every word you say. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 The other day— 
 For this in sooth of every thing we say — 
 The mighty man of inches went and brought me 
 Salt — ^which for nitre and ceruse he bought me. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 And so my Diocleide — a brother wit, 
 
 A money-waster, lately thought it fit 
 
 To give seven goodly drachms for fleeces five — 
 
 Mere rottenness, but dog's hair, as I live. 
 
 The plucking of old scrips — a work to make. 
 
 But come, your cloak and gold-claspt kirtle take, 
 
 And let us speed to Ptolemy's rich hall, 
 
 To see the fine Adonian festival. 
 
 The queen will make the show most grand, I hear. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 All things most rich in rich men's halls appear. 
 To those who have not seen it, one can tell 
 What one has seen. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 'Tis time to go — 'tis well 
 For those who all the year have holidays. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Eunoa ! my cloak — you wanton ! quickly raise, 
 
 And place it near me — cats would softly sleep ; 
 
 And haste for water — how the jade does creep ! 
 
 The water first — now, did you ever see ? 
 
 She brings the cloak first : well, then, give it me. 
 
 You wasteful slut, not too much — pour the water ! 
 
 What ! have you wet my kirtle ! sorrow's daughter ? 
 
 Stop, now : I'm washed — gods love me : where's the key 
 
 Of the great chest ? be quick, and bring it me. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 The gold-claspt and full-skirted gown you wear 
 Becomes you vastly. May I ask, my dear. 
 How much in all it cost you from the loom ? 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Don't mention it : I'm sure I did consume 
 More than two minae on it : and I held on 
 The work with heart and soul. 
 
IDYLL XV. 249 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 But when done, well done ! 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Truly — you're right. My parasol and cloak — 
 Arrange it nicely. Cry until you choke, 
 I will not take you, child ; horse bites, you know — 
 Boo ! Boo ! no use to have you lame. Let's go. 
 Play with the little man, my Phrygian ! call 
 The hound in ; lock the street-door of the hall. 
 
 Gods, what a crowd : they swarm like ants, how ever 
 Shall we work through them with our best endeavour ? 
 From when thy sire was numbered with the blest, 
 Many fine things, and this among the rest, 
 Hast thou done, Ptolemy ! No villain walks 
 The street, and picks your pocket, as he talks 
 On some pretence with you, in Egypt's fashion : 
 As once complete in every style, mood, passion. 
 Resembling one another, rogues in grain. 
 Would mock and pilfer, and then — mock again. 
 What will become of us, dear Gorgo ? see ! 
 The king's war-horses ! Pray, don't trample me. 
 Good sir ! the bay -horse rears ! how fierce a one ! 
 Eunoa, stand from him : dog-heart ! won't you run ? 
 He'll kill his leader ! what a thought of joy. 
 That safe at home remains my precious boy ! 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Courage ! they're as they were — and we behind them. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 I nearly lost my senses ; now I find them. 
 
 And am myself again. Two things I hold 
 
 In mortal dread — a horse and serpent cold. 
 
 And have done from a child. Let us keep moving ; 
 
 O ! what a crowd is on us, bustling, shoving. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 ( To an old woman.) 
 Good mother, from the palace ? 
 
 OLD WOMAN. 
 
 Yes, my dear. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Is it an easy thing to get in there ? 
 
250 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 OLD WOMAN. 
 
 Th' Achaeans got to Troy, there's no denying ; 
 All things are done, as they did that — by trying 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 The old dame spoke oracles. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Our sex, as you know, 
 Know all things — e'en how Zeus espoused his Juno. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Praxinoa ! what a crowd about the gates ! 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Immense ! your hand ; and, Eunoa, hold your mate's ; 
 
 Do you keep close, I say, to Eutychis, 
 
 And close to us, for fear the way you miss. 
 
 Let us, together all, the entrance gain : 
 
 Ah me ! my summer-cloak is rent in twain. 
 
 Pray, spare my cloak, heaven bless you, gentleman ! 
 
 STRANGER. 
 
 'Tis not with me — I will do what I can. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 The crowd, like pigs, are thrusting. 
 
 STRANGER. 
 
 Cheer thy heart, 
 'Tis well with us. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 And for your friendly part. 
 This year and ever be it well with you ! 
 A kind and tender man as e'er I knew. 
 See ! how our Eunoa is prest — push through — 
 Well done ! all in — as the gay bridegroom cried, 
 And turned the key upon himself and bride. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 What rich, rare tapestry ! Look, and you'll swear 
 The fingers of the goddesses were here. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 August Athene ! who such work could do ? 
 Who spun the tissue, who the jfigures drew ? 
 How life-like are they, and they seem to move ! 
 True living shapes they are, and not inwove ! 
 How wise is man ! and there he lies outspread 
 In all his beauty on his silver bed, 
 
IDYLL XV. 2.51 
 
 Thrice -loved Adonis ! in his youth's fresh glow, 
 Loved even where the rueful stream doth flow. 
 
 A STRANGER. 
 
 Cease ye like turtles idly thus to babble : 
 They'll torture all of us with brogue and gabble. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Who's you ? what's it to you our tongues we use ? 
 Rule your own roost, not dames of Syracuse. 
 And this too know we were in times foregone 
 Corinthians, sir, as was Bellerophon. 
 We speak the good old Greek of Pelop's isle : 
 Dorians, I guess, may Dorian talk the while. 
 
 PRAXINOA. 
 
 Nymph ! grant we be at none but one man's pleasure ; 
 A rush for you — don't wipe my empty measure. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Praxinoa, hush ! behold the Argive's daughter. 
 The girl who sings as though the Muses taught her, 
 That won the prize for singing Sperchis' ditty. 
 Prepares to chaunt Adonis ; something pretty 
 I'm sure she'll sing : with motion, voice, and eye, 
 She now preludes — how sweetly, gracefully ! 
 
 SINGING GIRL. 
 
 Of Eryx, Golgos, and Idalia, Queen ! 
 
 My mistress, sporting in thy golden sheen, 
 
 Bright Aphrodite ! as the month comes on 
 
 Of every year, from dureful Acheron 
 
 What an Adonis — from the gloomy shore 
 
 The tender-footed Hours to thee restore ! 
 
 Hours, slowest of the Blest ! yet ever dear, 
 
 That wished-for come, and still some blessing bear. 
 
 Cypris ! Dione's daughter ! thou through portal 
 
 Of death, 'tis said, hast mortal made immortal, 
 
 Sweet Berenice, dropping, ever blest ! 
 
 Ambrosial dew into her lovely breast. 
 
 Wherefore her daughter, Helen -like in beauty, 
 
 Arsinoe thy love repays with duty ; 
 
 For thine Adonis fairest show ordains. 
 
 Bright Queen, of many names and many fanes ! 
 
 All seasonable fruits ; in silver cases 
 
 His gardens sweet ; and alabaster vases 
 
252 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Of Syrian perfumes near his couch are laid ; 
 
 Cakes, which with flowers and wheat the women made $ 
 
 The shapes of all that creep, or take the wing, 
 
 With oil or honey wrought, they hither bring ; 
 
 Here are green shades, with anise shaded more ; 
 
 And the young Loves him ever hover o'er, 
 
 As the young nightingales, from branch to branch, 
 
 Hover and try their wings, before they launch 
 
 Themselves in the broad Air. But, O ! the sight 
 
 Of gold and ebony ! of ivory white 
 
 Behold the pair of eagles ! up they move 
 
 With his cup-bearer for Saturnian Jove. 
 
 And see yon couch with softest purple spread, 
 
 Softer than sleep, the Samian born and bred 
 
 Will own, and e'en Miletus : that pavilion 
 
 Queen Cypris has — the nearer one her minion, 
 
 The rosy-armed Adonis ; whose youth bears 
 
 The bloom of eighteen or of nineteen years ; 
 
 Nor pricks the kiss — the red lip of the boy ; 
 
 Having her spouse, let Cypris now enjoy. 
 
 Him will we, ere the dew of dawn is o'er. 
 
 Bear to the waves that foam upon the shore ; 
 
 Then with bare bosoms and dishevelled hair, 
 
 Begin to chant the wild and mournful air. 
 
 Of all the demigods, they say, but one 
 
 Duly revisits Earth and Acheron — 
 
 Thou, dear Adonis ! Agamemnon's might, 
 
 Nor Aias, raging like one mad in fight ; 
 
 Nor true Pairoclus ; nor his mother's boast. 
 
 Hector, of twenty sons famed, honoured most ; 
 
 Nor Pyrrhus, victor from the Trojan siege — 
 
 Not one of them enjoyed this privilege ; 
 
 Nor the Deucalions ; nor Lapithae ; 
 
 Argive Pelasgi ; nor Pelopidse. 
 
 Now, dear Adonis, fill thyself with glee. 
 
 And still returning, still propitious be. 
 
 GORGO. 
 
 Praxinoa, did ever mortal ear 
 A sweeter song from sweeter minstrel hear ? 
 O happy girl ! to know so many things — 
 Thrice happy girl, that so divinely sings ! 
 
IDYLL XVI. 253 
 
 But now 'tis time for home : let us be hasting ; 
 
 My man's mere vinegar, and most when fasting : 
 
 Nor has he broken yet his fast to-day ; 
 
 When he's a-hungered, come not in his way. 
 
 Farewell, beloved Adonis ! joy to see ! 
 
 When come, well come to those who welcome thee. 
 
 IDYLL XVI. 
 
 THE GRACES ; OR, HIERO. 
 
 Jove's daughters hymn the gods ; and bards rehearse 
 
 The deeds of worthies in their glowing verse. 
 
 The heaven-born Muses hymn the heavenly ring ; 
 
 Of mortals, then, let mortal poets sing. 
 
 Yet who — as many as there be that live 
 
 Under the grey dawn, will a welcome give 
 
 To our sweet Graces, or the door-latch lift, 
 
 Or will not send them off without a gift ? 
 
 Barefoot, with wrinkled brows, and mien deject, 
 
 They chide me for the way of chill neglect ; 
 
 Though loath, into their empty chest they drop, 
 
 And on cold knees their heavy heads they prop ; 
 
 And dry their seat is, when no good they earn, 
 
 But from a fruitless journey back return. 
 
 What living man the poet will repay 
 
 With generous love for his ennobling lay ? 
 
 I know not : men no longer, as before, 
 
 Would live for good deeds in poetic lore ; 
 
 But are o'ercome by detestable gain ; 
 
 Close-fisted, every one doth fast retain 
 
 His money, thinking how to make it grow, 
 
 Nor freely would the smallest mite bestow ; 
 
 But says : " the knee is nearer than the shin ; 
 
 Some good be mine ! from gods bards honour win. 
 
 But who will hear another ? one will do — 
 
 Homer, best poet, and the cheapest too — 
 
 He costs me nothing." Fools ! what boots the gold 
 
 Hid within doors in heaps cannot be told ? 
 
 Not so the truly wise their wealth employ : 
 
254 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 With some 'tis fit one's natural man to joy ; 
 
 Some to the bard should freely be assigned, 
 
 To kin — and many others of mankind. 
 
 The gods their offerings ; guests should have their dues, 
 
 Welcome to come and go whene'er they choose. 
 
 But most of all the generous mind prefers 
 
 The Muses' consecrate interpreters. 
 
 So may you live to fame, when life is done, 
 
 Nor mourn inglorious at cold Acheron, 
 
 Like one from birlh to poverty betrayed. 
 
 Whose palms are horny from the painful spade. 
 
 To many a serf Antiochus the great, 
 
 To many king Aleuas in his state, 
 
 Measured the monthly dole. Much kine to see 
 
 Lowed at the full stalls of the Scopada^. 
 
 Innumerous flocks to some cool green retreat 
 
 The shepherds drove, to screen them from the heat, 
 
 O'er Cranon's plain — choice flocks in choicest place. 
 
 The wealth of Creon's hospitable race. 
 
 No pleasure had been theirs these things about, 
 
 When once their sweet souls they had emptied out 
 
 Into the broad raft of drear Acheron ; 
 
 But they, sad with the thoughts of life foregone. 
 
 Had lain — their treasures left and memory hid — 
 
 Long ages lain the wretched dead amid. 
 
 Had not the glorious Ceian breathed the fire 
 
 Of his quick spirit to the stringed lyre. 
 
 And would not let them altogether die. 
 
 But made them famous to posterity : 
 
 And e'en their swift-foot steeds obtained renown, 
 
 Which in the sacred race-course won the crown. 
 
 Who would have known the noble Lycian pair — 
 
 The sons of Priam with their pomp of hair — 
 
 Or Cycnus, as a woman fair to ken. 
 
 Had no bard sung the wars of former men ? 
 
 Nor that Odysseus, who went wandering round, 
 
 Twice sixty moons, wherever man is found. 
 
 And, while alive, to farthest Hades sped. 
 
 And from the cavern of the Cyclops fled. 
 
 Had been aye famed ; the keeper of the swine, 
 
 Eumseus, and the man the herded kine 
 
IDYLL XVI. 255 
 
 Had in his watchful care, Philoetiua, 
 And e'en Laertes the magnanimous, 
 Had been in a perpetual silence pent. 
 But for that old Ionian eloquent. 
 
 The Muses best renown on men bestow : 
 The living waste the wealth of those below. 
 It were all one the waves to number o'er. 
 As many as wind and blue sea drive ashore. 
 Or wash with water from the spring's dark urn 
 The clay of unbaked brick, as try to turn 
 The money-lover from his wretched pelf — 
 But let us leave the miser to himself. 
 May countless pieces swell his silver store ! 
 And let him ever have a wish for more ! 
 But may I still prefer bright honour's meed. 
 And man's good will, to many a mule and steed ! 
 
 I am in quest of one whose willing mind 
 I may, by favour of the Muses, find. 
 Without the Jove-born sisters, harsh and hard 
 Are all approaches found by every bard. 
 Not weary yet revolving heaven appears 
 Of bringing round the months and circling years. 
 The car shall yet be moved by many a steed ; 
 And me shall some one as a minstrel need ; 
 Than him more deeds heroic never wrought 
 Achilles, or stout Aias, when they fought. 
 Where in his tomb the Phrygian Ilus lies. 
 On the broad plain of mournful Simoeis. 
 Who, where the sun sets, dwell — on Libya's heei. 
 The bold Phoenicians shuddering terror feel ; 
 For Syracuse against them takes the field, 
 Each with his ready spear and willow shield. 
 Amidst them arms heroic Hieron, 
 Equal to heroes of the times foregone ; 
 Floats o'er his helm, in wavy darkness loose. 
 His horse-hair crest — Athene ! mightiest Zeus ! 
 And thou, who with thy mother reignest queen 
 O'er Ephyra the wealthy, where is seen 
 Lysimeleia's water, may the blow 
 Of harsh Necessity rebuke the foe» 
 
256 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 And scatter them from our sweet island back 
 
 0*er the Sardonian ocean's yeasty track ; 
 
 And out of many, few return to tell 
 
 Their wives and children how the perished fell I 
 
 In the foe-ruined cities of the plain 
 
 Soon may their former dwellers live again, 
 
 And till the fruitful fields ! unnumbered sheep. 
 
 And fat, bleat cheerily ! the cattle creep 
 
 Herded in safety to the wonted stalls. 
 
 Warning the traveller that evening falls ! 
 
 For sowing-time be wrought the fallow lea, 
 
 When the cicada, sitting on his tree. 
 
 Watches the shepherds in the open day. 
 
 And blithely sings, perched on the topmost spray 5 
 
 O'er martial arms may spiders draw their train, 
 
 And of fierce war not e'en the name remain ; 
 
 And famous Hieron illustrious be. 
 
 By poets hymned, beyond the Scythian sea ; 
 
 Or where Semiramis her station chose. 
 
 And her huge walls, asphaltos-built, arose ! 
 
 I am but one : but many others are 
 Dear to the Muses — may it be their care 
 To praise the warrior-king (as poets use), 
 And people, and Sicilian Arethuse ! 
 Ye goddesses ! whose loving favours wait 
 On that Orchomenos, the Thebans' hate. 
 No where unbidden, but to court or hall 
 Bidden, with you will I attend the call. 
 Through your dear presence confident to please, 
 Enchanting daughters of Eteocles ! 
 What good, what fair can men without you see ? 
 Oh ! may I ever with the Graces be ! 
 
 IDYLL XVIL 
 
 THE PRAISE OF PTOLEMT. 
 
 Muses ! begin and end the song with Zeua, 
 When of immortals we the chief extol : 
 
IDYLL XVIL 257 
 
 Of men the name of Ptolemy produce 
 First, last, and midst — for he is chief of all. 
 For their exploits the seed heroical 
 Of demigods life-giving minstrels found : 
 I, skilled to sing, will Ptolemy install 
 Theme of my song — and glowing hymns redound 
 E'en to their praise, who dwell th' Olympian heights around. 
 
 ■ In Ida's thick of wood, perplexed with choice, 
 Which to begin with, the wood-cutter flings 
 His glance around : to what shall I give voice 
 First out of all the many blessed things, 
 With which the gods have graced the best of kings ? 
 How great the son of Lagus from his birth ! 
 Born for what deeds ! what great imaginings 
 His mind conceived beyond the sons of earth ! 
 Up to the gods by Zeus exalted for his worth I 
 
 In Jove's own house his golden couch is spread. 
 And by him sits his friend in royal pride, 
 Great Alexander, the portentous dread 
 Of Persians glittering with the turban pied : 
 And Hercules, the vast Centauricide, 
 Sits opposite on adamantine throne ; 
 There with the gods he banquets gratified, 
 In his sons' sons rejoicing as his own, 
 Made free of age by Zeus, and as immortals known. 
 
 For from heroic Hercules the twain 
 Descended : therefore when he goes content 
 From the gods' banquet to his wife again, 
 Sated with nectar of a fragrant scent, 
 To one his quiver and his bow unbent 
 Ever he hands, and to that other blest 
 His iron-shotted club, with knobs besprent ; 
 And so they marshal him unto his rest 
 111 his ambrosial home, white-ankled Hebe's nest. 
 
 How excellent of dames was Berenice ! 
 
 To her dear parents what a wealth of pleasure 1 
 
 Dionis wiped her fingers on the spicy 
 
 Swell of her bosom. No man in such measure 
 
 E'er loved his wife, as Ptolemy's best leisure 
 
258 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Doted on lier ; and she with him contended 
 In love — yea ! loved him more : his house and treasure 
 Thus to his sons he with full trust commended, 
 Since, loving, he the couch of loving wife ascended. 
 
 Some stranger draws the wanton's fancy flighty — 
 Her children many, like the father none ! 
 Loveliest of goddesses ! bright Aphrodite ! 
 Through thee, the way of wailful Acheron 
 Was ne'er by lovely Berenice gone : 
 Her, thy sweet care, from the Cyanean river, 
 And death's grim ferryman, the gloomy one ! 
 Thou didst, soft-placing in thy fane, deliver. 
 And a conceded share of thine own honours give her. 
 
 Soft loves on mortal kind she breathes benign, 
 And makes his love-care light to every lover. 
 Thou, who in Argos didst with Tydeus twine, 
 Dark brows thy gentle eye-lids arching over, 
 Didst Diomede to light of day discover ; 
 To Peleus the full-bosomed Thetis bore 
 Achilles ; thee, (for there the birth-pang drove her 
 The aid of Eileithuia to implore,) 
 Bright Berenice brought forth on the Coan shore: 
 
 The Woman-helper stood benignant by. 
 Her limbs from pain composing, till she smiled 
 On thee new-born to warrior Ptolemy — 
 And like his father was the lovely child. 
 Exulting Cos, with jubilant rapture wild. 
 Fondled the babe, loud-hymning at the sight : — 
 " Boy ! be thou blest ; for me be honours piled 
 On thy account, such as the Delian bright 
 Hung round the blue-crowned isle, on which he sprung to 
 light. 
 
 " From thee to Triop's hill such honour follow, 
 And no less to the Dorians dwelling nigh. 
 As his Rhenaea had from King Apollo ! " 
 Thus Cos : the bird of Zeus, up-poised on high, 
 Under the clouds, well-omened thrice did cry : 
 From king-protecting Zeus the sign was sent ; 
 But when from birth he marks a royalty, 
 
IDYLL xvn. 259 
 
 That king surpassingly is excellent 
 For wealth, wide rule by sea and o'er much continent. 
 
 In many a region many a tribe doth till 
 The fields, made fruitful by the shower of Zeus ; 
 None like low-lying Egypt doth fulfil 
 Hope of increase, when Nile the clod doth loose, 
 O'er-bubbling the wet soil : no land doth use 
 So many workmen of all sorts, enrolled 
 In cities of such multitude profuse. 
 More than three myriads, as a single fold 
 Under the watchful sway of Ptolemy the bold. 
 
 Part of Phoenicia ; some Arabian lands ; 
 Some Syrian ; tribes of swart ^thiopes ; 
 All the Pamphylians, Lycians he commands. 
 And warlike Carians ; o'er the Cyclades 
 His empire spreads ; his navies sweep the seas ; 
 Ocean and rivers, earth within her bounds 
 Obeys him : and a host of chivalries. 
 And shielded infantry, with martial sounds 
 Of their far-glittering brass, the warrior-king surrounds:, 
 
 His wealth, that daily flows from every side, 
 The treasure of all other kings outweighs ; 
 His busy people's days in quiet glide : 
 The monster-breeding Nile no hostile blaze 
 Doth overpass, the war-shout there to raise. 
 Nor hath armed foeman from swift ship outleapt 
 To seize the kine Egyptian pastures graze ; 
 For o'er the broad lands of that happy sept 
 The bright-haired Ptolemy strict ward hath ever kept. 
 
 His whole inheritance he cares to keep, 
 As a good king : himself hath garnered more : 
 Nor useless in his house the golden heap. 
 Increased like that of ants ; for of his store 
 The gods have much, since them he doth adore 
 Ever with first-fruits, and his love commends 
 With other gifts ; his bounty ne'er is poor ; 
 To noble-minded princes much he sends, 
 .And gives to cities much, and much to worthy friends. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 None in the sacred games e'er took a part, 
 Skilled the melodious song to modulate, 
 Without a royal recompense of art : 
 Whence Ptolemy the muse-priests celebrate 
 For his munificence. What meed more great 
 Than good renown can wealthy man befall ? 
 This meed doth on the dead Atridae wait ; 
 Their infinite spoil from Priam's ravaged hall 
 In the thick gloom lies hid, from whence is no recall. 
 
 Only this prince hath in his fathers' ways 
 Exactly walked, and doth their stamp retain ; 
 Whence he to both his parents loved to raise 
 Temples, and placed their statues in each fane. 
 Of gold and ivory — never sought in vain 
 By prayer of mortals ; on their altars red 
 Fat thighs of oxen burn the royal twain. 
 Himself and consort — one more furnished 
 With love and excellence ne'er clasped her spouse in bed. 
 
 Such were the nuptials of the royal pair. 
 Whom Rhea bore, the royalties divine 
 Of blest Olympus : Iris spread with care. 
 Iris the virgin yet, whose fingers shine 
 With fragrant brightness, when they would recline 
 The marriage couch. Hail, Ptolemy ! to thee 
 And other demigods I will assign 
 Due praise. One word for after-men ; to me 
 It seems, whatever good there is, from Zeus must be. 
 
 IDYLL XVIII. 
 
 THE EPITHALAMIUM OF HELEN. 
 
 TvTELVE Spartan virgins, the Laconian bloom. 
 Choired before their Helen's bridal room. 
 New hung with tapestry : entwined the fair 
 With hyacinths their hyacinthine hair ; 
 When Menelaus, Atreus' younger pride. 
 Locked in sweet Tyndaris, his lovely bride ; 
 To the same time with cadence true they beat 
 
iioYLL xvm. 261 
 
 The rapid round of intertwining feet ; 
 
 One measure tript, one song together sung — 
 
 Their hymensean all the palace rung. 
 
 So early, bridegroom ! fix'd in slumber deep ? 
 So heavy-limbed, with such a love for sleep ? 
 Thyself, wine-heavy, on the bed hast thrown 
 For only rest ? thou shouldst have slept alone, 
 And with her mother left the girl to play 
 With only girls until the break of day. 
 She's thine from day to day, and year to year — 
 Thrice-happy bridegroom ! on thy way 'tis clear 
 Good demon sneezed, that only thou shouldst gain 
 The prize so many princes would obtain, 
 Only of demigods, whose bosomed love 
 Her husband makes the son-in-law of Jove ! 
 Jove's daughter, peerless beauty-bud of Greece, 
 Now lies with thee beneath one broidered fleece. 
 What offspring to thy hopes will she prefer — 
 Could her dear offspring but resemble her ! ' 
 
 Where flows Eurotas in his pleasant place. 
 Thrice eighty virgins, we pursued the race, 
 Like men, anointed with the glistering oil, 
 A bloom of maiden buds — love's blushing spoil ; 
 Of equal years ; but, seen by Helen's side. 
 Not one in whom some blemish was not spied. 
 As rising Morn, oh, venerable Night ! 
 Shows from thy bosom dark her face of light ; 
 As the clear spring, when winter's gloom is gone, 
 So mid our throng the golden Helen shone. 
 As of a field or garden ornament. 
 The lofty cypress shoots up eminent ; 
 As of the chariot the Thessalian steed, 
 So rosy Helen of the Spartan breed 
 Is ornament and grace. Like Helen none 
 Draws the fine thread around the spindle spun, 
 And in the ready basket piles so much ; 
 None interlaces with so quick a touch 
 The woof and warp ; for other never came 
 A web so perfect from the broidering frame. 
 Like Helen none the cithern knows to ring, 
 
262 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Of Artemis or tall Athene sing, 
 
 Like Helen, in whose liquid-shining ejes 
 
 Desire, the light of love, dissolving lies. 
 
 O fair and lovely girl ! a matron now — 
 
 Where meadow-flowers in dewy brightness grow, 
 
 We'll hie with early dawn, and fondly pull 
 
 Sweets to twine garlands for our beautiful ; 
 
 Remembering Helen with our fond regrets, 
 
 As for the absent ewe her suckling frets. 
 
 Of lotuses we'll hang thee many a wreath 
 
 Upon the shady plane, and drop beneath 
 
 Oil from the silver pyx ; and on the bark, 
 
 In Doric, shall be graved for all to mark, 
 
 " To me pay honour — I am Helen's tree." 
 
 Hail, bride ! high-wedded bridegroom, hail to thee I 
 
 Fruitful Latona fruit of marriage give ; 
 
 Cypris in bonds of mutual love to live ; 
 
 And Zeus the wealth that shall without an end 
 
 From high-born sire to high-born son descend ! 
 
 Sleep, happy pair ! in love enjoy your rest, 
 
 Breathing desire into each other's breast. 
 
 But wake at dawn ; for we'll present us here 
 
 At the first call of crested chanticleer. 
 
 Hymen, O Hymena3an ! joyful spread 
 
 With love's contentment sweet this marriage-bed. 
 
 IDYLL XIX. 
 
 THE STEALER OF HONEY-COMBS. 
 
 As from a hive the thieving Eros drew 
 
 A honey-comb, a bee his finger stung ; 
 Then in his anguish on his hand he blew, 
 
 Stamped, jumped — and then to Cytherea sprung ; 
 
 Showed her the wound, and cried : " A thing how wee, 
 How great a wound makes with its little sting ! " 
 
 His mother smiled : " Art thou not like a bee. 
 
 Such great wounds making — such a little thing ? " 
 
IDYLL XX. 
 
 THE HERDSMAN. 
 
 EuNiCA, smiling with a bitter scoff, 
 
 When I would sweetly kiss her, bade me " off ! 
 
 Fool cowherd ! would you kiss me ? not to kiss 
 
 Rude clowns, but city lips, I've learnt, I wis. 
 
 You never, man ! shall kiss my lovely mouth — ' 
 
 Not in a dream. You are — how uncouth ! 
 
 Your look offends me, and your speech provokes ; 
 
 Your play is horse-play ; vulgar are your jokes. 
 
 How smooth in speech ! how delicate an air ! 
 
 How soft your beard ! how odorous your hair ! 
 
 Your lips are sickly ; and your hands are black, 
 
 And you smell rank : don't foul me ; back, clown, back ! ** 
 
 Thrice on her breast she spat, these hard words saying. 
 Me scornfully from head to foot surveying ; 
 Pouting and muttering proudly looked askaunt. 
 Before mine eyes did plume her form and flaunt, 
 And mocking smiled with lips drawn far apart. 
 My blood boiled fiercely from my grief of heart, 
 And red my cheeks from passionate anguish grew, 
 As vernal roses from the morning dew. 
 She left me then : but angry feelings glow 
 Within my heart, because she used me so. 
 
 Am I not handsome, shepherds ? tell me truly ; 
 Or has some god transformed my person newly ? 
 For as lush ivy clips the stem o' the tree, 
 The bloom of beauty lately covered me. 
 My curls, like parsley, round my temples clung ; 
 A shining forehead my dark brows o'erhung ; 
 My eyes were bluer than Athene's own ; 
 My mouth than new cheese sweeter ; every tone 
 Sweeter than honeycombs : and sweet I take 
 My song to be ; the sweetest sounds I wake 
 From all wind instruments, in very deed — 
 Straight pipe or transverse, flute or vocal reed. 
 The girls upon the hills me handsome call ; 
 They kiss me lovingly — they leva me all. 
 
264 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 But all ! my city-madam never kist me ; 
 
 And for I am a cowherd she dismist me. 
 
 That Dionysus in the valleys green 
 
 Once tended kine, she never heard, I ween ; 
 
 Nor knows that Cypris on a cowherd doted, 
 
 And on the Phrygian hills herself devoted 
 
 To tend his herd ; nor how the same Dionis 
 
 In thickets kist, in thickets wept Adonis. 
 
 Who was Endymion ? him tending kine 
 
 Stooped down to kiss Selena the divine, 
 
 Who from Olympus to the Latmian grove 
 
 Glided to slumber with her mortal love. 
 
 Didst thou not, Rhea, for a cowherd weep ? 
 
 And didst thou not, high Zeus ! the heaven sweep, 
 
 In form of winged bird, and watch indeed 
 
 To carry off the cowherd Ganymede ? 
 
 Only Eunica (daintier she must be 
 
 Than were Selena, Cypris, Cybele,) 
 
 Won't kiss a cowherd. May'st thou ne'er uncover 
 
 Thyself, self-worshipt Beauty ! to a lover 
 
 In town or country ; but, vain poppet ! ever 
 
 Sleep by thyself — despite thy best endeavour. 
 
 IDYLL XXL 
 
 THE FISHERMEN. 
 
 Asphalion and a comrade. 
 
 The nurse of industry and arts is want ; 
 Care breaks the labourer's sleep, my Diophant ! 
 And should sweet slumber o'er his eyelids creep, 
 Dark cares stand over him, and startle sleep. 
 
 Two fishers old lay in their wattled shed, 
 Close to the wicker on one sea-moss bed ; 
 Near them the tools wherewith they plied their crafty 
 The basket, rush-trap, line, and reedy shaft, 
 Weed-tangled baits, a drag-net with its drops, 
 Hooks, cord, two oars, an old boat fixt on props. 
 Their rush-mat, clothes, and caps, propt either head ; 
 These were their implements by which they fed, 
 
IDYLL XXL 265 
 
 And this was all their wealth. They were not richer 
 
 By so much as a pipkin or a pitcher. 
 
 All else seemed vanity : they could not mend 
 
 Their poverty — which was their only friend. 
 
 They had no neighbours ; but upon the shore 
 
 The sea soft murmured at their cottage door. 
 
 The chariot of the moon was midway only, 
 
 When thoughts of toil awoke those fishers lonely : 
 
 And shaking sleep off they began to sing. 
 
 ASPHALION. 
 
 The summer-nights are short, when Zeus the king 
 
 Makes the days long, some say — and lie. This night ■ 
 
 I've seen a world of dreams, nor yet 'tis light. 
 
 What's all this ? am I wrong ? or say I truly ? 
 
 And can we have a long, long night in Ju]y ? 
 
 FRIEND. 
 
 Do you the summer blame ? The seasons change. 
 Nor willingly transgress their wonted range. 
 From care, that frightens sleep, much longer seems 
 The weary night. 
 
 ASPHALION. 
 
 Can you interpret dreams ? 
 I've seen a bright one, which I will declare, 
 That you my visions, as my toil, may share. 
 To whom should you in mother- wit defer ? 
 And quick wit is best dream-interpreter. 
 We've leisure, and to spare : what can one do, 
 Lying awake on leaves, as I and you. 
 Without a lamp ? they say the town-hall ever 
 Has burning lights — its booty fails it never. 
 
 FRIEND. 
 
 Well : let us have your vision of the night. 
 
 ASPHALION. 
 
 When yester-eve I slept, out wearied quite 
 
 With the sea-toil, not over-fed, for our 
 
 Commons, you know, were short at feeding hour, 
 
 I saw myself upon a rock, where I 
 
 Sat watching for the fish — so eagerly ! 
 
 And from the reed the tripping bait did shake, 
 
 Till a fat fellow took it — no mistake : 
 
 ('Twas natural-like that I should dream of fish. 
 
^6^ THEOCRITUS. 
 
 As hounds of meat upon a greasy dish :) 
 
 He hugged the hook, and then his blood did flow ; 
 
 His plunges bent my reed like any bow ; 
 
 I stretched both arms, and had a pretty bout, 
 
 To take with hook so weak a fish so stout. 
 
 I gently warned him of the wound he bore ; 
 
 " Ha ! will you prick me ? you'll be pricked much more. 
 
 But when he struggled not, I drew him in ; 
 
 The contest then I saw myself did win. 
 
 I landed him, a fish compact of gold ! 
 
 But then a sudden fear my mind did hold, 
 
 Lest king Poseidon made it his delight, 
 
 Or it was Amphitrite's favourite. 
 
 I loosed him gently from the hook, for fear 
 
 It from his mouth some precious gold might tear, 
 
 And with my line I safely towed him home, 
 
 And swore that I on sea no more would roam. 
 
 But ever after would remain on land. 
 
 And there my gold, like any king, command. 
 
 At this I woke ; your wits, good friend, awaken. 
 
 For much I fear to break the oath I've taken. 
 
 FRIEND. 
 
 Fear not : you swore not, saw not with your eyes 
 
 The fish you saw ; for visions all are lies. 
 
 But now no longer slumber : up, awake ! 
 
 And for a false a real vision take. 
 
 Hunt for the foodful fish that is, not seems ; 
 
 For fear you starve amid your golden dreams. 
 
 IDYLL XXII. 
 
 THE DIOSCURI. 
 
 The twins of Leda, child of Thestius, 
 Twice and again we celebrate in song. 
 The Spartan pair, stamped by jEgiochus, 
 Castor and Pollux, arming with the thong 
 His dreadful hands ; both merciful as strong 
 Saviours of men on danger's extreme edge, 
 And steeds tost in the battle's bloody throng, 
 
IDYLL XXIL 267 
 
 And star-defying ships on ruin's ledge, 
 Swept with their crews by blasts into the cruel dredge. 
 
 The winds, where'er they list, the huge wave drive, 
 Dashing from prow or stern into the hold ; 
 Both sides, sail, tackle, yard, and mast, they rive, 
 Snapping at random : from Night's sudden fold 
 Rushes a flood ; hither and thither rolled. 
 Broad ocean's heaving volumes roar and hiss, 
 Smitten by blasts and the hail- volley cold : 
 The lost ship and her crew your task it is. 
 Bright pair ! to rescue from the terrible abyss. 
 
 They think to die — but lo ! a sudden lull 
 O' the winds ; the clouds disperse ; and the hush'd sheen 
 Of the calmed ocean sparkles beautiful : 
 The Bears, and Asses with the Stall between, 
 Foreshow a voyage safe and skies serene. 
 Blest Brothers ! who to mortals safety bring, 
 Both harpers, minstrels, knights, and warriors keen : 
 Since both I hymn, with which immortal king 
 Shall I commence my song ? of Pollux first I'll sing. 
 
 The justling rocks, the dangerous Euxine's mouth. 
 Snow-veiled, when Argo safely passed, and ended 
 Her course at the Bebrycian shore, the youth 
 Born of the gods from both her sides descended. 
 And on the deep shore, from rude winds defended, 
 Their couches spread ; and strook the seeds of fire 
 From the pyreion. Forthwith unattended 
 Did Pollux, of the red-brown hue, retire 
 With Castor, whose renown for horsemanship was higher. 
 
 [j3n a high hill a forest did appear : 
 The brothers found there a perennial spring, 
 Under a smooth rock, filled with water clear. 
 With pebbles paved, which from below did fling 
 A crystal sheen like silver glistering : 
 The poplar, plane, tall pine, and cypress, grew 
 Hard byjj and odorous flowers did thither bring 
 Thick swarm of bees, their sweet toil to pursue, 
 As many as in the meads, when spring ends, bloom to v^ew. 
 
268 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 There lay at ease a bulky insolent, 
 Grim-looked : his ears by gauntlets scored and marred ; 
 His vast chest, like a ball, was prominent ; 
 His back was broad with flesh like iron hard. 
 Like anvil-wrought Colossus to regard ; 
 And under either shoulder thews were seen 
 On his strong arms, like round stones which, oft jarred 
 In the quick rush with many a bound between, 
 A winter torrent rolls down through the cleft ravine. 
 
 A lion's hide suspended by the feet 
 Hung from his neck and o'er his shoulders. fell : 
 Him the prize-winner Pollux first did greet : 
 " Hail, stranger ! in these parts what people dwell ? ** 
 " The hail of utter stranger sounds not well, 
 At least to me." " We're not malevolent. 
 Nor sons of such, take heart." " You need not tell 
 Me that — I in myself am confident." 
 " You are a savage, quick to wrath and insolent." 
 
 " You see me as I am ; upon your land 
 
 I do not walk." " Come thither, and return 
 
 With hospitable gifts." " I've none at hand 
 
 For you, nor want I yours." " Pray, let me learn, 
 
 Wilt let me drink from out this fountain urn ?" 
 
 " You'll know, if your thirst-hanging lips are dry." 
 
 " How may we coax you from your humour stern, 
 
 With silver or what else ? " " The combat tj-y — " 
 
 " How, pray, with gauntlets, foot to foot and eye to eye ?'* 
 
 " In pugilistic fight, nor spare your skill." 
 - " Who is my gauntlet-armed antagonist ? " 
 " At hand ! he's here ; you see him if you will, 
 I, Amycus, the famous pugilist." 
 " And what the prize of the victorious fist ? " 
 " The vanquished shall become the victor's thrall.* 
 " Red-crested cocks so fight, and so desist." 
 " Cock-like or lion-like the combat call ; 
 This is the prize for which we fight, or none at alL** 
 
 Then on a conch he blew a mighty blast : 
 The long-haired Bebryces, hearing the sound, 
 Under the shady planes assembled fast j 
 
IDYLL xxn. 269 
 
 And likewise Castor, in the fight renowned, 
 Hastened and called his comrades to the ground, 
 From the Magnesian ship. With gauntlets both 
 Armed their strong hands ; their wrists and arms they 
 
 bound 
 With the long thongs ; with one another wroth, 
 Each breathing blood and death, they stood up nothing loth. 
 
 First 'each contended which should get the sun 
 Of his antagonist ; but much in sleight 
 That huge man, Pollux ! was by thee outdone ; 
 And Amycus was dazzled with the light ; 
 But raging rushed straight forward to the fight, 
 Aiming fierce blows ; but wary Pollux met him, 
 Striking the chin of his vast opposite. 
 Who fiercer battled, for the blow did fret him, 
 And leaning forward tried unto the ground to get him. 
 
 Shouted the Bebryces ; and, for they feared 
 The man like Tityus might their friend down-weigh 
 In the scant place, the heroes Pollux cheered : 
 But shifting here and there Jove's son made play. 
 And struck out right and left, but kept away 
 From the fierce rush of Neptune's son uncouth. 
 Who, drunk with blows, reeled in the hot affray, 
 Out-spitting purple blood ; the princely youth 
 Shouted, when they beheld his battered jaws and mouth. 
 
 His eyes were nearly closed from the contusion 
 Of his swoln face ; the prince amazed him more 
 With many feints, and seeing his confusion, 
 Mid-front he struck a heavy blow and sore. 
 And to the bone his forehead gashing tore ; 
 Instant he fell, and at his length he lay 
 On the green leaves ; but fiercely as before, 
 On his uprising, they renewed the fray. 
 Aiming terrific blows, as with intent to slay. 
 
 But the Bebrycian champion strove to place 
 His blows upon the broad breast of his foe. 
 Who ceaselessly disfigured all his face : 
 His flesh with sweating shrunk, that he did show, 
 From huge, but small ; but larger seemed to grow 
 
270 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 The limbs of Pollux, and of fresher hue 
 The more he toiled : Muse ! for 'tis thine to know, 
 And mine to give interpretation true. 
 Tell how the son of Zeus that mighty bulk o'erthrew. 
 
 Aiming at something great, the big Bebrycian 
 The left of Pollux with his left hand caught, 
 Obliquely leaning out from his position, 
 And from his flank his huge right hand he brought, 
 And had he hit him would have surely wrought 
 Pollux much damage ; but escape he found, 
 Stooping his head, and smote him, quick as thought, 
 On the left temple ; from the gaping wound 
 A bubbling gush of gore out-spurted on the ground. 
 
 Right on his mouth his left hand then he dashed ; 
 Rattled his teeth ; and with a quicker hail 
 Of blows he smote him, till his cheeks he smashed : 
 Stretched out he lay ; his senses all did fail, 
 Save that he owned the other did prevail 
 By holding up his hands : nor thou didst claim 
 The forfeit, Pollux, taking of him bail 
 Of a great oath in his own father's name. 
 Strangers to harm no more with word or deed of shame. 
 
 To Castor now belongs my votive strain. 
 The brass-mailed, shake-spear knight. The twins of Zeus, 
 It chanced, had carried off the daughters twain 
 Of old Leucippus ; wroth for which abuse, 
 The two bold brothers, sons of Aphareus, 
 Pursued the ravishers incontinent — 
 Their plighted bridegrooms, Idas and Lynceus. 
 They overtook them at the monument 
 Of the dead Aphareus, as on their way they went. 
 
 With shields and spears all from their chariots leapt. 
 
 And Lynceus through his helmet loudly spoke : 
 
 " Why not let brides be by their bridegrooms kept ? 
 
 Why with your drawn swords, ready for the stroke, 
 
 Do you so eagerly the fight provoke ? 
 
 To us their sire betrothed them, and did swear 
 
 An oath thereto — which oath he only broke 
 
IDYLL XXIL 271 
 
 Persuaded by your gifts, (foul shame to hear 
 In case of others' brides,) kine, mules, and divers gear. 
 
 " Oft have I said, although no speechifier, 
 Before you both ; my friends ! it is not right 
 Princes for wives those maidens should desire, 
 Whose bridegrooms wait them and the nuptial night ; 
 Sparta, sweet Arcady with fleeces white, 
 Equestrian Elis, famous Argolis, 
 The Achaean towns, Messenia's ample site, 
 And all the shore-reach of rich Sisyphis, 
 Are all of great extent with choice of maids, I wis. 
 
 *' And you may pick and choose at will of these, 
 Who are in mind, form, feature, excellent ; 
 Good men for sons-in-law most fathers please, 
 And you 'mid heroes are pre-eminent, 
 On either side ennobled by descent. 
 Come, let our nuptials to their end proceed ; 
 We'll find brides for you to your heart's content : 
 The wind to wave swept off my useless rede ; 
 might as well have preached unto the winds indeed, 
 
 " You are ungentle in your wilful mood ; 
 Be now persuaded for your own behoof ; 
 Though we are cousins — if it seems you good 
 This strife to finish by the battle-proof, 
 Let Idas and brave Pollux stand aloof, 
 While Castor and myself, the younger, try 
 The battle ; thus to the parental roof 
 We shall not leave an utter misery — 
 One death is quite enough for one sad family. 
 
 " Those who survive shall gladden all their friends, 
 (Bridegrooms, not corses,) and these virgins wed: 
 Good is small ill that great contention ends." 
 And Providence fulfilled the words he said. 
 That elder pair their arms deposited ; 
 But Lynceus shook, under his shield's broad rest, 
 His quivering lance, and Castor likewise sped 
 To meet him : to the conflict fierce they prest ; 
 On either martial head nodded the horse-hair crest. 
 
£72 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 First with their spears they aimed full many a blow, 
 Where'er an exposed part came into sight, 
 But ere they injured one another so, 
 The spear-heads broke in either broad shield pight : 
 Then from the sheaths they drew their swords outright, 
 And fiercely on the other either prest, 
 Nor paused a moment in the furious fight ; 
 And each at shield or helm their blows addrest, 
 3ut quick-eyed Lynceus maimed — only the purple crest. 
 
 At Castor's left knee then he fiercely strook, 
 Who, 'scaping, smote the threatening hand away ; 
 He, running, to his father's tomb betook 
 Himself, dropping the hand : there Idas lay 
 Watching the cousins ply the bloody fray ; 
 But eager Castor drove his thirsty sword 
 Through flank and navel ; out-gushed to the day 
 His bowels, where out -spread he lay begored ; 
 And down his eyelids dim the heavy sleep was poured. 
 
 Nor was it fated that his mother dear 
 Should see the other wed to her content ; 
 For Idas at that hapless sight did tear 
 A pillar from his father's monument, 
 To slay his brother's slayer ; but Zeus sent, 
 In aid of Castor, his devouring fire, 
 Made drop the marble, and himself up-brent. 
 So they did to none easy task aspire, 
 Who fought those mighty ones — the sons of mighty sire. 
 
 Hail, sons of Leda ! give my hymns renown : 
 To you and Helen, dear the minstrel's claim. 
 And dear to all who threw proud Ilion down. 
 The Chian minstrel, princes ! gave you fame. 
 Of Troy, th' Achaean ships that thither came, 
 The war, and the war's tower, Achilles brave. 
 Hymning the song : may mine be free from blame ! 
 I give you what to me the Muses gave ; 
 And gods prefer the song to all the gifts they have ! 
 
IDYLL XXnL 
 
 THE LOVER : OR LOVE-SICK. 
 
 A YOUTH was love-sick for a maid unkind, 
 Whose form was blameless, but not so her mind. 
 She scorned her lover and his suit disdained ; 
 One gentle thought she never entertained. 
 She knew not Love — what sort of god, what darts 
 From what a bow he shoots at youthful hearts ! 
 Her lips were strangers to soft gentleness, 
 And she was difficult of all access. 
 She had no word to soothe his scorching fire. 
 No sparkle of the lip ; no moist desire 
 To her bright eyes a dewy lustre lent ; 
 Blushed on her cheek no crimson of consent ; 
 She breathed no word of sighing born — no kiss 
 That lightens love, and turns its pain to bliss. 
 But, as the wild game from his thicket spies 
 The train of hunters with suspicious eyes. 
 So she her lover ; ever did she turn 
 Toward him scornful lip, and eye-glance stern. 
 She was his fate : and on her glooming face. 
 The scorn that burned within her left its trace. 
 Her colour fled ; and every feature showed 
 Pale from the rage that in her bosom glowed. 
 Yet even so she was — how fair to see ! 
 The more she scorned him, still the more loved he. 
 At last by Cypris scorched without her cure. 
 He could no more the raging flame endure. 
 He went and kist her door, and tears he shed. 
 And, 'midst his tears and kisses, sadly said : — 
 
 " Harsh, cruel girl ! stone-heart and pitiless ! 
 The nurseling of some savage lioness. 
 Unworthy love ! my latest gift I bring. 
 This noose — no more will I thine anger sting. 
 But now I go where thou hast sentenced me — 
 The common road which all reports agree 
 Must at some time by all that live be gone, 
 And where love's cure is found — Oblivion. 
 
274 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Ah ! could I drink it all, I should not slake 
 
 My passionate longing : at thy gates I take 
 
 My last farewell, thereto commit indeed 
 
 My latest sigh. The future I can read — . 
 
 The rose is beautiful, the rose of prime, 
 
 But soon it withers at the touch of time ; 
 
 And beautiful in spring-time to behold 
 
 The violet, but ah ! it soon grows old ; 
 
 White are the lilies, but they soon decay ; 
 
 White is the snow, but soon it melts away ; 
 
 And beautiful the bloom of virgin youth, 
 
 But lives a very little time in sooth. 
 
 Thy time will come — thou too at last shalt proves 
 
 And weep most bitterly, the flames of love. 
 
 But grant, I pray thee, grant my latest prayer : 
 
 When thou shalt see me hanging high in air, 
 
 E'en at thy door — pass not heedless by ! 
 
 But drop a few tears to my memory. 
 
 From the harsh thong unloose thy hapless lover, 
 
 Aijd from thy limbs a garment take and cover 
 
 The lifeless body, and the last kiss give ; 
 
 Fear not that haply I may come alive 
 
 At thy lip's touch — I cannot live again ; 
 
 Thy kiss, if given in love, were given in vain ! 
 
 Hollow a mound to hide my love's sad end. 
 
 And thrice on leaving, cry, 'Here lie, my friend !' 
 
 And, if thou wilt, by thee this word be said, 
 
 * Here lies my love, my beautiful is dead.' 
 And let this epitaph mine end recall. 
 Just at the last I scratch it on thy wall : 
 
 * Love slew him : stop and say,— Who here is laid 
 Well but not wisely loved a cruel maid.' " 
 Then in the doorway for its cruel use 
 
 He set a stone ; he fitted next the noose ; 
 Put in his neck, and eagerly he sped, 
 Spurning the stone away — and swung there dead. 
 But when she saw the corse her doorway kept, 
 She was not moved in spirit, nor she wept : 
 She felt no ruth, but, scornful to the last, 
 She spat upon the body, as she past ; 
 And careless went to bathe her and adorn, 
 
.IDYLL XXIV. 275 
 
 Where stood a statue of the god, her scorn. 
 From the bath's marble edge whereon it stood, 
 The statue leapt and slew her : with her blood 
 The water was impurpled, and the sound 
 Of the girl's dying accent swam around : — 
 " Ah lovers ! she that scorned true love is slain ; 
 Love is revengeful : when loved, love again." 
 
 IDYLL XXIV. 
 
 THE LITTLE HERCULES. 
 
 Alcmena having washed her twin delight. 
 Her Hercules, who then was ten months old. 
 And her Iphicles, younger by a night. 
 Gave them the breast, then laid them in the hold 
 Of a brass shield won by Amphitryon bold — 
 The spoil of Pterelas in battle slain ; 
 And, touching either head, her blessing told : 
 " Sleep, healthful sleep enjoy my blessed twain ; 
 Sleep happy ! happy wake at coming dawn again." 
 
 And with these words she rocked the mighty shield. 
 And sleep came over them : in the midnight, 
 What time the Bear, watching Orion's field, 
 (Who then his shoulder shows uprising bright,) 
 To setting turns, vex'd Hera's wily spite, 
 With many threats of her revengeful ire, 
 To eat the infant Hercules outright, 
 Sent to the chamber-door two monsters dire, 
 Each bristling horribly with his dark-gleaming spire. 
 
 They their blood-gorging bellies on the ground 
 Uncoiling rolled ; their eyes shot baleful flame, 
 And evermore they spat their poison round ; 
 But when, quick brandishing with evil aim 
 Their forked tongues, they to the children came. 
 They both awoke : (what can escape Jove's eye ?) 
 Light in the chamber shone ; and who can blame 
 Or wonder that Iphicles did outcry. 
 Screaming, when he did their remorseless teeth espy ? 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 He kicked aside the woollen coverlet, 
 Struggling to flee ; but Hercules comprest, 
 Relaxing not the gripe his hand did get, 
 With a firm grasp the throat of either pest. 
 Where is their poison, which e'en gods detest. 
 The boy, that in the birth was long confined. 
 Who ne'er was known to cry, though at the breast 
 A suckling yet, they with their coils entwined : 
 Infolding him they strained their own release to find, 
 
 Till wearied in their spines they loosed their fold. 
 Alcmena heard the noise and woke in fear : — 
 " Amphitryon, up ! for me strange fear doth hold — 
 Up ! up ! don't wait for sandals ; don't you hear 
 Iphicles screaming ? see ! the walls appear 
 Distinctly shining in the dead of night. 
 As though 'twere dawn. There is some danger near ; 
 I'm sure there is, dear man !" He then outright 
 Did leap from off the bed to hush his wife's affright. 
 
 And hastily his costly sword he sought ; 
 Suspended near his cedar-bed it hung ; 
 With one hand raised the sheath of lotus wrought, 
 While with the other he the belt unswung. 
 The room was filled with night again : he sprung. 
 And for his household, breathing slumber deep, 
 He loudly called ; his voice loud echoing rung : 
 "Ho! from the hearth bring lights! quick! do not 
 creep ! 
 Fling wide the doors — awake ! this is no time for sleep." 
 
 They hastened all with lights at his command ; 
 But when they saw (their eyes they well might doubt) 
 A serpent clutched in either tender hand 
 Of suckling Hercules, they gave a shout. 
 And clapped their hands : he instantly held out 
 The serpents to Amphitryon, and wild 
 With child-like exultation leaped about. 
 And laid them at his father's feet and smiled — 
 Laid down those monsters grim, in sleep of death now mild, 
 
 Alcmena to her fragrant bosom drew 
 Iphicles screaming and with fear half-dead ; 
 
IDYLL XXIV. 2l77 
 
 The lamb-wool coverlet Amphitryon threw 
 0*er Hercules and went again to bed. 
 The cocks, the third time crowing, heralded 
 The daj-dawn : then Alcmena sent to call 
 Tiresias the seer, who truly said 
 Whate'er he said would be ; and told him all. 
 And bade him answer her what thing would thence befall : 
 
 " Hide not, I pray, from reverence for me 
 If aught of ill the gods design : 'tis clear 
 What fate has spun for him no man can flee ; 
 But saying this I teach the wise, good seer ! " 
 He answered : " Woman ! privileged to bear 
 The noblest offspring, princess of the blood 
 Of Perseus, by my own sweet light I swear, 
 Which once was in these eyes, as name for good 
 Shall be remembered long Alcmena's womanhood. 
 
 " The Achaean women while they spin, I wis, 
 Alcmena's name to latest eve shall sing ; 
 And famous shalt thou be in Argolis ; 
 For this thy son to star-paved heaven shall spring ! 
 All that contend with the broad-breasted king. 
 Or man or beast, shall yield the victory. 
 Twelve labours wrought, him Destiny shall bring 
 To Jove's own house, but all of him can die 
 On the Trachinian pyre shall perish utterly. 
 
 " And he the son-in-law of her shall be, 
 Who sent these dragons to destroy the child ; 
 Then in his lair the sharp-toothed wolf shall see 
 The fawn, nor harm it, wonderfully mild. 
 In the hearth-ashes let there now be piled 
 All sorts of thorn, bramble, and prickly pear, 
 And dry, wind-shaken twigs of buck-thorn wild ; 
 And at the midnight burn these dragons here, 
 Since they to slay the child at midnight did appear. 
 
 " A maid must cast these ashes with the wind 
 At morn from yon rock to the rushing tide, 
 Then hasten home and never look behind. 
 With sulphur let the house be purified ; 
 Pure water, mixed with salt, from side to side 
 
278 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Then from a full urn sprinkle on the floor : 
 For so the holy custom doth provide ; 
 And sacrifice to Zeus supreme a boar, 
 That o'er your foes you may be victors evermore." 
 
 Then, rising from the ivory chair, withdrew 
 Tiresias, and bent with years was he. 
 But Hercules with his fond mother grew. 
 As grows a young plant in a fruitful lea, 
 And still Amphitryon's boy was thought to be : 
 Linus, Apollo's son, heroic name ! 
 Instructed him in letters carefully. 
 And Eurytus, who from rich parents came. 
 Taught him to bend the bow and take unerring aim. 
 
 To move his fingers on the harp with ease, 
 And to the music minstrelsy to sing. 
 Him taught Eumolpus Philammonides : 
 And with what sleights the men of Argos fling 
 Each other, wrestling fiercely in the ring, 
 And every sort of pugilistic sleight. 
 Him taught the son of the Cyllenian king, 
 Harpalicus, whose dreadful brow did fright 
 Men from afar, that few would dare with him to fight. 
 
 To drive the chariot, and impel, control 
 The rapid-bounding steeds, and how to shun 
 Dashing his axle-nave against the goal. 
 He was instructed by Amphitryon, 
 Who willingly did teach his hopeful son : 
 In Argos oft, whose praises are far-spoken 
 For generous steeds, himself had prizes won ; 
 And of his skill there was this certain token. 
 Though time had marred the reins, his chariot was unbroken. 
 
 In stationary fight to aim the lance. 
 Shielding himself ; to bide swords flashing round ; 
 To draw his battle out, and bid advance 
 The cavalry ; to scan the foeman's ground, 
 While to the charge the troops impetuous bound,— 
 He learned from Castor, who, till he was old, 
 Of demigods was warrior most renowned. 
 Exiled from Argos then, which Tydeus bold 
 With all the vine-land broad did from Adrastus hold. 
 
IDYLL XXV 27$ 
 
 Alcmena thus had taught her Hercules. 
 His sleeping-place was near his father's bed ; 
 And, what did most of all his fancy please, 
 For the bold boy a lion's hide was spread. 
 His morning meal, roast meat and Dorian bread- 
 No ploughman would a larger loaf desire ; 
 His evening meal (the day already sped) 
 Was very light, nor such as needed fire. 
 He always wore, bare to his knees, a plain attire. 
 
 IDYLL XXV. 
 
 HERCULES THE LION-SLAYER, OR, THE VTEALTH OF AUGEIAS. 
 
 When, to perform his fated lord's behest, 
 Amphitryon's son, with toils and perils tried, 
 Hero with the prodigious breadth of breast, — 
 In his right hand his club, the lion's hide 
 Hung from his shoulders by the fore-feet tied, — 
 To the rich vale of fruitful Elis came. 
 Where the sweet waters of Alpheus glide. 
 Seeing herds, flocks, and pastures, none might claim, 
 But only wealthiest lord, some prince well known to fame, 
 
 He asked a countryman, whose watchful care 
 O'erlooked the grounds, (his task was his delight,) 
 ** Good friend ! wilt tell a traveller, whose are 
 These herds, and flocks, and pastures infinite ? 
 He is, I well may guess, the favourite 
 Of the Olympian gods. Here should abide 
 Those I am come to seek." The man, at sight 
 And claim of stranger, quickly laid aside 
 The work he had in hand, and courteously replied ; 
 
 " What thou dost ask I willingly will tell, 
 Good stranger ! for I fear the heavy wrath 
 Of Hermes, the way-god ; of all who dwell 
 Above us, most is he provoked, when scath 
 Or scorn is done to him who asks his path. 
 Not in one pasture nil the flocks appear, 
 
280 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Nor in one region, King Augeias hath : 
 Some pasture where Elisson glides j some, where 
 Alpheus ; at vine-clad Buprasion some ; some, here : 
 
 " And every flock has its particular fold. 
 Their pasture never fails his numerous kine 
 In the green lowlands that receiving hold 
 The gush of Peneus, and the dew divine : 
 As in the genial moisture they recline, 
 The meads throw up soft herbage, which supplies 
 The strength of the horned kine. Beyond the shine 
 Of the far-gliding river — turn your eyes 
 A little to the left — their stalled enclosure lies ; 
 
 " Yonder, where the perennial planes elate 
 Stand lordly, and the green wild-olives grow, — 
 A grove to King Apollo dedicate. 
 The pastoral god, most perfect god we know. 
 Hard by, our dwellings in a lengthened row ; 
 Our labour an immense revenue yields 
 To our good lord, as often as we sow, 
 When thrice or four times ploughed, the fallow fields 
 Each of his husbandmen the spade or hoe that wields, 
 
 " Earthing the vine-roots, or at vintage-tide 
 Toils at the wine-press, knows where the domain 
 Of rich Augeias ends on every side. 
 For his is all the far-extended plain. 
 Orchards thick-set with trees, and fields with grain, 
 E'en to the fount-full hill-tops far away ; 
 All which we work at (as behoves the swain. 
 Whose life is spent a-field) through all the day. 
 Why thou art come — to tell may be thy profit — say. 
 
 " Dost seek Augeias, or some one of those 
 Who serve him ? I will give an answer clear. 
 And to the point, as one that fully knows. 
 Not mean art thou, nor of mean sires, I'd swear, 
 So grand thy form. The sons of gods appear 
 Such among men." To him Jove's son replied : 
 " In truth, old man ! for that did bring me here, 
 Augeias I would see : if it betide 
 Th' Epean chief doth in the city now abide, 
 
IDYLL XXV. 281 
 
 " And, caring for the folk, as j udge fulfils 
 True judgment ; bid his trusty steward me speed, 
 With whom as guide I may converse. God wills 
 That mortal men should one another need." 
 To him the husbandman : " It seems, indeed, 
 Thy way was heaven-appointed : in thine aim> 
 E'en to thy wish, thou dost at once succeed ; 
 For yesterday Augeias hither came, 
 With his illustrious son, Phyleiis hight by name. 
 
 "After long time, his rural wealth to see, 
 He came : to this e'en princes are not blind, 
 The master there, his house will safer be. 
 But let us to the stall ; there shall we find 
 Augeias." Led the way that old man kind : 
 Seeing the great hand-filling club, and spoil 
 Of the wild beast, he puzzled muc]j his mind, 
 Who he could be, come from what natal soil ; 
 And with desire to ask him this did inward boil, 
 
 But caught the word just to his lips proceeding, 
 For fear he might with question indiscreet. 
 Or out of place, annoy the stranger speeding : 
 'Tis a hard thing another's thought to weet. 
 The hounds both ways, by scent and fall of feet, 
 Perceived them from afar. At Hercules 
 They flew, loud barking at him, but did greet 
 The old man, whining gently as you please. 
 And round him wagged their tails, and fawning licked his 
 knees. 
 
 But he with stones — to lift them was enough — 
 Scared back the hounds, their barking did restrain. 
 And scolded them ; but, though his voice was rough, 
 His heart was glad they did such guard maintain, 
 When he was absent. Then he spoke again : 
 " Gods ! what an animal ! what faithful suit 
 He 4oes to man ! if he where to abstain. 
 Where rage, but knew, none other might dispute 
 With him in excellence ; but 'tis too fierce a brute.'* 
 
 And soon they reached the stall. The sun his steeds 
 Turned to the west, bringing the close of day. 
 
282 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 The herds and flocks, returning from the meads, 
 Came to the stables where they niglitly lay. 
 The kine in long succession trod the way, 
 Innumerous ; as watery clouds on high. 
 By south or west wind driven in dense array, 
 One on another press, and forward fly, 
 Numberless, without end, along the thickened sky ; 
 
 So many upon so many impels the wind ; 
 Others on others drive their crests to twine : 
 So many herds so many pressed behind ; 
 The plain, the ways, were filled in breadth and line ; 
 The fields were straitened with the lowing kine. 
 The sheep were folded soon ; the cattle, too. 
 That inward, as they walk, their knees incline. 
 Were all installed, a multitude to view : 
 No man stood idle by for want of work to do. 
 
 Some to the kine their wooden shoes applied. 
 And bound with thongs ; while some in station near 
 To milk them took their proper place beside : 
 One to the dams let go their younglings dear, 
 Mad for the warm milk ; while another there 
 The milk-pail held, the curds to cheese one turned : 
 Meanwhile Angelas went by every where. 
 And with his own eyes for himself he learned 
 What revenue for him his cattle -keepers earned. 
 
 With him his son and mighty Hercules 
 Through his exceeding show of riches went. 
 And, though his mind Amphitryonides 
 Was wont to keep on balance and unbent. 
 At sight thereof he was in wonderment : 
 Had he not seen it, he'd have thought it fable. 
 That any one, however eminent 
 For wealth, or any ten, in fold, stall, stable. 
 The richest of all kings, to show such wealth were able, 
 
 Hyperion gave unto his son most dear. 
 That he should all in flocks and herds excel. 
 His care increased them more from year to year ; 
 
IDYLL XXV. 283 
 
 For on his herds no sort of ailment fell, 
 Such as destroys the cattle : his grew well, 
 In pith improving still. None cast their young, 
 Which almost all were female. He could tell 
 Three hundred white-skinned bulls his kine among, 
 And eke two hundred red, that to their pastime sprung. 
 
 Twelve swan -white bulls were sacred to the sun, 
 All inknee'd bulls excelling ; these apart 
 Cropped the green pasture, and were never done 
 Exulting ; when from thicket shag did dart 
 Wild beasts, among the herds to play their part, 
 These twelve first rushed, death-looking, to the war, 
 Roaring most terribly. In pride of heart 
 And strength great Phaethon (men to a star 
 Did liken him) was first, mid many seen afar. 
 
 When this bull saw the tawny lion's hide, 
 He rushed on watchful Hercules, intent 
 To plunge his armed forehead in his side : 
 But then the hero grasped incontinent 
 The bull's left horn, and to the ground back-bent 
 His heavy neck ; then backward pressed his might. 
 The bull, more struggling as more backward sent, 
 At last stood, stretching every nerve, upright. 
 The king, and prince, and swains, all marvelled at the sight. 
 
 But to the city, on the following day. 
 Bold Hercules and prince Phyleiis sped. 
 At first their path through a thick vineyard lay. 
 Narrow, and 'mid the green, through which it led^ 
 Half-hid. This past, Phyleiis turned his head 
 O'er his right shoulder, soon as they did reach 
 The public road, and to the hero said. 
 Who walked behind him : " Friend, I did impeach 
 Myself as having lost, concerning thee, some speech 
 
 " I long since heard : now I remember me, 
 A young Achaean hither on a day 
 From Argos came, from sea-shore Helice, 
 Who, many Epeans present, then did say 
 He saw an Argive man a monster slay, 
 
284 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 A lion, dread of all the country round, 
 Whose lair in grove of Zeus the Nemean lay : 
 I am not sure if on Tirynthian ground, 
 Or else in Argos born, or in Myeenian bound ; 
 
 "But said, if I remember rightly now, 
 The hero sprung from Perseus : I confess 
 Methinks none other Argive man but thou 
 Dared that adventure : yea ! that piece of dress, 
 The lion's hide, avows that hardiness. 
 Then, hero, first of all explain to me. 
 That I may know if right or wrong my guess, 
 Whether thou art in truth that very he, 
 Whose deed was told us by the man of Helice. 
 
 " Next, tell how thou didst slay the dreadful beast, 
 And how his way to Nemean haunt he found : 
 One, if he searched in Apian land at least, 
 Such monster could not find, though bears abound, 
 Boars and destructive wolves, the country round : 
 Wherefore all marvelled at the man's recital. 
 And thought the traveller, with idle sound 
 Of his invented wonders, in requital 
 Of hospitable rites, was striving to delight all.'* 
 
 Then from the mid-path to the road-side near 
 Phyleiis kept, that both abreast might find 
 Sufficient room, and he might better hear 
 What Hercules should say, who, still behind, 
 To him replied : " Not from the truth declined. 
 But with just balance thou hast judged it well : 
 Since thou would'st hear, I with a willing mind 
 Will tell, Phyleiis, how the monster fell. 
 But whence he came nor I, nor Argive else can tell. 
 
 " Only we think that some immortal sent, 
 
 For holy rites profaned or left undone. 
 
 That ill on the Phoronians ; forth he went, 
 
 And the Piseans, like a flood, o'errun : 
 
 The Bembinaeans least of all could shun 
 
 His fateful wrath ; they, nearest, fared the worst : 
 
 To slay that terrible redoubted one 
 
IDYLL XXV. 285 
 
 Was task enjoined me by Eurystheus erst ; 
 His wish I undertook, of my set toils the first. 
 
 " My flexile bow I took, and quiver full 
 Of arrows, and my club, the bark still on, 
 The stem of a wild olive I did pull 
 Up by the roots, when thither I was gone, 
 Under the brow of holy Helicon. 
 But when I came to the huge lion's lair, 
 I to the tip the string did straightway don, 
 And fix'd one of the arrows which I bare : 
 To see, ere I was seen, I looked around with care. 
 
 " It was the mid-day, and not yet I found 
 His traces ; nor could hear his mighty roar. 
 I saw no herdsman, ploughman on the ground. 
 To point me where I should his haunt explore : 
 Green fear kept every man within his door. 
 Nor till I saw him and his vigour tried. 
 Ceased I to search the sylvan mountain o'er ; 
 And ere came on the cool of eventide. 
 Back to his cavern, gorged with flesh and blood, he hied. 
 
 " His dew-lap, savage face, and mane, were gory ; 
 He licked his beard, while I, yet unespied. 
 Lurked in a thicket of the promontory ; 
 But as he nearer came, at his left side 
 I shot an arrow, but it did not glide. 
 Though sharp, into his flesh, but with rebound 
 Fell on the grass. The thick he closely eyed. 
 His bloody head up-lifting from the ground, 
 And ghastly grinned, showing his teeth's terrific round. 
 
 " Then on the string another shaft I placed, 
 And shot — vext that the former idly flew : 
 Mid-breast I hit him, where the lungs are placed : 
 His hide the sharp, sharp arrow pierced not through, 
 But at his feet fell ineffectual too : 
 Again a third I was in act to shoot. 
 Enraged to think in vain my bow I drew. 
 When I was seen by the blood-thirsty brute, 
 Who to the battle- thought his angry signs did suit. 
 
286 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 " With his long tail he lashed himself ; and all 
 His neck was filled with wrath : the fiery glow 
 Of his vext mane up-bristled ; in a ball 
 He gathered up himself, till like a bow 
 His spine was arched : as when one, who doth know 
 Chariots to build, excelling in his art, 
 Having first heated in a fire-heat slow 
 Bends for his wheel a fig-branch ; with a start 
 The fissile wild-fig flies far from his hands apart. 
 
 "Collected for the spring, and mad to rend me, 
 So leapt the lion from afar : I strove 
 With skin-cloak, bow, and quiver to defend me 
 With one hand ; with the other I up-hove 
 My weighty club, and on his temple drove, 
 But broke in pieces the rough olive wood 
 On his hard shaggy head : he from above 
 Fell ere he reached me, by the stroke subdued, 
 And nodding with his head on trembling feet he stood. 
 
 " Darkness came over both his eyes : his brain 
 Was shaken in the bone ; but when I spied 
 The monster stunned and reeling from his pain, 
 I cast my quiver and my bow aside, 
 And to his neck my throttling hands applied, 
 Before he could recover. I did bear me 
 With vigour in the death-clutch, and astride 
 His body from behind from scath did clear me, 
 So that he could not or with jaw or talons tear me. 
 
 " His hind feet with my heels I pressed aground ; 
 Of his pernicious throat my hands took care ; 
 His sides were for my thighs a safe-guard found 
 From his fore-feet : till breathless high in air 
 I lifted him new sped to hell's dark lair. 
 Then many projects did my thoughts divide. 
 How best I might the monster's carcass bare. 
 And from his dead limbs strip the shaggy hide : 
 Hard task it was indeed, and much my patience tried. 
 
 " I tried and failed with iron, wood, and flint ; 
 For none of these his skin could penetrate ; 
 Then some immortal gave to me a hint 
 
IDYLL XXVI. 287 
 
 "With his own talons I might separate 
 The carcass and the hide : success did wait 
 The trial of this thought ; he soon was flayed. 
 I wear his hide, that serves me to rebate 
 Sharp-cutting war. The Nemean beast was laid 
 Thus low, which had of men and flocks much havoc made." 
 
 IDYLL XXVI. 
 
 THE BACCHANALS. 
 
 Three troops three sisters to the mountain led ; 
 
 Agave with her cheeks that blossomed red 
 
 The bloom of apple ; and in wildest mood 
 
 Autonoa and Ino. From the wood 
 
 They stript oak-leaves and ivy green as well. 
 
 And from the ground the lowly asphodel ; 
 
 In a pure lawn with these twelve altars placed ; 
 
 Nine Dionysus, three his mother graced ; 
 
 Then from the chest the sacred symbols moved, 
 
 And, as their god had taught them and approved, 
 
 Upon the leafy altars reverent laid. 
 
 Hid in a native mastic's sheltering shade. 
 
 Them from a steep rock Pentheus then surveyed. 
 
 Him perched aloft Autonoa first discerned. 
 
 And dreadful shrieked, and spurning overturned 
 
 The sacred orgies of the frenzied one. 
 
 Which none profane may ever look upon. 
 
 She maddened, maddened all : scared Pentheus fled, 
 
 And they, with robes drawn up, pursued : He said : 
 
 " What want ye, dames ! " Autonoa then : " Thou, fellow I 
 
 Shalt know, not hear " — and mightily did bellow, 
 
 Loud as a lioness her brood defending ; 
 
 His mother clutched his head, whilst Ino rending 
 
 Tore off his shoulder, trod and trampled o'er him ; 
 
 Autonoa likewise : limb from limb they tore him. 
 
 Then all returned to Thebes ; defiled with gore. 
 
 They of their Pentheus only fragments bore. 
 
 Their after-grief. This troubles not my mind : 
 
 Not let another, impotent and blind, 
 
288 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Name Dionysus as hereby defiled, — 
 
 Nor though he harsher used some curious chiW. 
 
 May I my life to holy courses give, 
 
 Dear to the holy who reproachless live ! 
 
 This omen, sent from aegis-bearing Jove, 
 
 Shows what he hates, and what his thoughts approve ; 
 
 Blest are the children of the godly — ever ; 
 
 Blest are the children of the godless — never. 
 
 Hail, Blessed ! whom Jove's thigh enclosed for us, 
 
 Till thou wert born on snowy Dracanus. 
 
 Hail, Semele ! Cadmean sisters, hail ! 
 
 Whose names in songs of heroines prevail. 
 
 By Dionysus this (no need of shame) 
 
 Possest ye did. The gods let no man blame. 
 
 IDYLL XXVII. 
 
 THE FOND DISCOURSE OF DAPHNIS AND THE DAMSEL. 
 CHLOE. 
 
 A COVTHERD with chaste Helen ran away. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 This Helen here was kist by one to-day. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Boast not : they say there's nothing in a kiss. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 But in mere kissing is some touch of bliss. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 I wipe my mouth — and off thy kiss is ta'en. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Wipe you your mouth ? then let me kiss again. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Calves, not a maid, to kiss doth you beseem. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Boast not : thy youth is flying like a dream, 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Ripe grapes are raisins, and dry roses sweet. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Come to yon olives : I would fain repeat— 
 
IDYLL XXVII. 289 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 I will not : you deceived me once indeed. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Come to yon elms, and hear me play my reed. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Play to yourself ; nought wretched pleases me. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Take heed : the Paphian will be wroth with thee. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 A fig for her, if Artemis be kind. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Hush ! lest she smite you and for ever bind. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Not me — my guard is Artemis the wise. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Canst thou fly Love — none other virgin flies ? 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 By Pan ! I fly him : he doth ever drive you. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 I fear that Love to some worse man may give you, 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Many have woo'd me, but have pleased me — none. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 And I am come — of many wooers one. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 What can I do? marriage brings only care. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Not pain, nor grief, but joys which sweetest ara. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 They say that women fear their wedded dears. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 They rule them rather : show me one that fears. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Lucina*s bolt — ^the child-bed pang I dread. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Thy sovran, Artemis, puts wives to bed. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Child-bearing will my fine complexion blight. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Thy children will become thy bloom and light 
 
 u 
 
290 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 If I consent, what spouse-gifts shall be mine ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 My pastures, groves, and herd, shall all be thine. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Swear, when 'tis done, thou never wilt forsake me. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 By Pan ! not even shouldst thou try to make me. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Chamber and hall will you for me provide ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Chamber and hall, and fleeces fine beside. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 What ? what shall I my aged father tell ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Hearing my name, he'll like thy marriage well. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Repeat it : oft a name sweet influence has. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Daphnis, Nomsea's son by Lycidas. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 A good descent, but than mine own not higher. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 I know it well — Menalcas is thy sire. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Show me thy grove, where stands thy wealthy stall, 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 See where for me flowers many a cypress tall. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Feed, goats ! while I my lover's wealth inspect. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Feed, bulls ! while I the virgin's way direct. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Hands off ! what business have they in my dress ! 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 First these love-apples will I gently press. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 By Pan ! I shudder — take your hand away. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Dear little trembler ! your alarm allay. 
 
IDYLL XXVIL 291 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 The ditch is dirty : would you throw me down ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 I spread a soft white fleece beneath your gown. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Why do you loose my zone ? what do you mean ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 This first I offer to the Paphian queen. 
 
 CHLCE. 
 
 Some one will see us : hist ! I hear a sound. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 The cypresses thy marriage whisper round. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 My dress is spoiled : ah me ! what shall I do ? 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 I'll give thee, love, a better one and new. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Perhaps e'en salt you will not give to me. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Would I could give my very soul to thee ! 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 Pardon, Queen Artemis ! my broken vow. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Eros a calf, Cypris shall have a cow. 
 
 CHLOE. 
 
 I go a woman, who a virgin came. 
 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 For virgin thine a wife's and mother's name. 
 
 Thus whispered they, their youthful prime enjoying, 
 With their fresh limbs in furtive marriage toying. 
 She rose and to her flock went, seeming sad. 
 Blushing and shamefaced, but at heart was glad ; 
 And to his herd the happy Daphnis sped, 
 Rejoicing greatly in his marriage-bed. 
 
 ',j% 
 
IDYLL XXVin. 
 
 THE DISTAFF. 
 
 Distaff I quick implement of busy thrift, 
 
 Which housewives ply, blue-eyed Athene's gift ! 
 
 "VVe go to rich Miletus, where is seen 
 
 The fane of Cypris 'mid the rushes green : 
 
 Praying to mighty Zeus for voyage fair, 
 
 Thither to Nicias would I now repair, 
 
 Delighting and delighted by my host. 
 
 Whom the sweet-speaking Graces love the most 
 
 Of all their favourites ; thee, distaif bright ! 
 
 Of ivory wrought with art most exquisite, 
 
 A present for his lovely wife I take. 
 
 With her thou many various works shalt make ; 
 
 Garments for men, and such as women wear 
 
 Of silk, whose colour is the sea-blue clear. 
 
 And she so diligent a housewife is, 
 
 That ever for well-ankled Theugenis 
 
 Thrice in a year are shorn the willing sheep 
 
 Of the fine fleeces which for her they keep. 
 
 She loves what love right-minded women all ; 
 
 For never should a thriftless prodigal 
 
 Own thee with my consent : 'twere shame and pity ! 
 
 Since thou art of that most renowned city, 
 
 Built by Corinthian Archias erewhile, 
 
 The marrow of the whole Sicilian isle. 
 
 But in the house of that physician wise, 
 
 Instructed how by wholesome remedies 
 
 From human-kind diseases to repel, 
 
 Thou shalt in future with lonians dwell, 
 
 In beautiful Miletus ; that the fame 
 
 For the best distaff Theugenis may claim. 
 
 And thou may'st ever to her mind suggest 
 
 The memory of her song-loving guest. 
 
 The worth of offering from friend we prize 
 
 Not in the gift but in the giver lies. 
 
IDYLL XXIX. 
 
 LOVES. 
 
 They say, my dear, that wine and truth agree > 
 
 To speak truth in my cups beseemeth me. 
 
 And I will tell you all my secret thought ; 
 
 You do not wholly love me as you ought. 
 
 All of my life — the half that is not fled, 
 
 Lives only in your form — the rest is dead. 
 
 Just as you will, my life is one delight, 
 
 Like that of gods, — or glooms in thickest night. 
 
 How is it right to vex one loves you so ? 
 
 Take my advice ; you will hereafter know, 
 
 That I your elder taught you for the best, 
 
 And, to believe me, was your interest. 
 
 In one tree build one nest ; so shall not creep 
 
 Some crawling mischief to disturb your sleep. 
 
 See ! how you change about for ever now, 
 
 Never two days together on one bough. 
 
 And if one chance to praise your lovely face, 
 
 Him more than friend of three years proof you grace : 
 
 To him that loved you first you are as cold. 
 
 As to a mere acquaintance three days old. 
 
 But now you breathe of wantonness and pride ; 
 
 Like should love like ; in love be this your guide j 
 
 So do, and good renown you shall obtain, 
 
 And Love will never visit you with pain, 
 
 Who mortal hearts can easily subdue. 
 
 And made me, heart of iron, dote on you. 
 
 In all the changes of your fitful will. 
 
 Unchanged I live but in your kisses still. 
 
 Remember that you were last year, last week. 
 
 Younger than now : we grow old while we speak. 
 
 Wrinkles soon come ; and Youth speeds on amain, 
 
 Wings on her shoulders, ne'er to come again : 
 
 We, slow-foot mortals, cannot overtake 
 
 Birds, or what else a winged passage make. 
 
 Take thought, and be more mild : to me, who burn 
 
 In love for you, a guileless love return, 
 
294 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 That when your bloom of youthful beauty ends, 
 
 We may be time-enduring, faithful friends. 
 
 But if you cast my words unto the wind, 
 
 Or piqued to anger murmur in your mind, 
 
 " Why dost thou trouble me ? " I for thy sake, 
 
 And thy much scorn, myself will straight betake, 
 
 Where the gold apples their sweet fragrance spread, 
 
 To Cerberus, the keeper of the dead. 
 
 Then freed from love, and all its anxious pain, 
 
 E'en at thy call, I could not come again. 
 
 IDYLL XXX. 
 
 THE DEATH OF ADONIS. 
 
 Cypris, when she saw Adonis 
 Cold and dead as any stone is, 
 All his dark hair out of trim. 
 And his fair cheek deadly dim. 
 Thither charged the Loves to lead 
 The cruel boar that did the deed. 
 And they, swiftly overflying 
 All the wood where he was lying, 
 Soon the hapless creature found. 
 And with cords securely bound. 
 One the captive dragged along 
 Holding at its end the thong ; 
 While another with his bow 
 Struck behind and made him go. 
 Path of fear they made him tread — 
 Aphrodite was his dread. 
 
 Him the goddess thus addrest : 
 " Of all beasts thou wickedest ! 
 Thou ! didst thou this white thigh tear ? 
 Didst thou smite my husband dear ? " 
 Fearfully, then, answered he : 
 " Cypris ! I do swear to thee 
 By thyself and husband dear, 
 By the very bonds I wear. 
 By these huntsmen, never I 
 
IDYLL XXX. 295 
 
 Meant to tear thy husband's thigh ; 
 Thinking there a statue stood, 
 In the fever of my blood, 
 I was mad a kiss to press 
 On the naked loveliness : 
 But my long tusk pierced the boy : 
 Punish these, and these destroy. 
 Tusks that worse then useless prove — 
 What had they to do with love ? 
 And if this suffice not, pray, 
 Cypris ! cut my lips away — 
 What had they to do with kissing ? ** 
 Cypris then, her wrath dismissing, 
 Pitied him that knew no better ; 
 And she bade them loose his fetter. 
 The boar, from that time of her train, 
 Went not to the wood again ; 
 But, approaching to the fire. 
 Fairly burned out his desire. 
 
 A FRAGMENT FROM THE BERENICE. 
 
 If for good sport one prays and lucky gains. 
 Who from the sea his livelihood obtains, 
 His nets his plough ; let him at evening-fall. 
 Offering a " white fish," on this goddess call — 
 The fish called " white" as brightest that doth swim ; 
 Nor shall his prayer be without fruit for him : 
 For let him throw his nets into the sea, 
 And he shall draw them full as they can be. 
 
 EPIGRAMS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Thick-groaying thyme, and roses wet with dew, 
 Are sacred to the sisterhood divine 
 
 Of Helicon : the laurel, dark of hue. 
 
 The Delphian laurel, Pythian Paean, thine I 
 
296 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 For thee shall bleed the white ram which doth chew 
 The downward hanging branch of turpentine. 
 
 II. 
 
 To Pan, the fair-cheeked Daphnis, whose red lip 
 To his sweet pipe the pastoral wild notes married, 
 
 Offered his pipe, crook, fawn-skin, spear, and scrip, 
 Wherein he formerly his apples carried. 
 
 III. 
 
 Daphnis ! thou sleepest on the leaf-strown ground — 
 Thy hunting-nets are on the mountain pight : 
 
 Thee Pan is hunting — thee Priapus crowned 
 With ivy and its golden berries bright : 
 
 Into the cavern both together bound : 
 
 Up ! shake off sleep, and safety find in flight, 
 
 IV. 
 
 Where yon oak-thicket by the lane appears, 
 
 A statue newly made of fig is seen, 
 TLree-legged, the bark on still, but without ears, 
 
 Witness of many a prank upon the green. 
 
 A sacred grove runs round ; soft-bubbling near, 
 A spring perennial from its pebbly seat 
 
 Makes many a tree to shoot and flourish there, 
 The laurel, myrtle, and the cypress sweet ; 
 
 And the curled vine with clusters there doth float : 
 Their sharp shrill tones the vernal blackbirds ring, 
 
 And yellow nightingales take up the note. 
 And, warbling to the others, sweetly sing. 
 
 There, goatherd ! sit, and offer up for me 
 Prayer to the rural god : if from my love 
 
 He only will consent to set me free, 
 
 A kid shall bleed in honour of his grove. 
 
 If I must love, then, should my love succeed 
 By his good grace, the fattest lamb I rear, 
 
 Jk. heifer, and a ram for him shall bleed : 
 Freely I offer, may he kindly hear ! 
 
EPiaRAMS. 297 
 
 V. 
 
 For the Nymphs' sake thy double flute provoke 
 To breathe some sweetness : I the harp will take, 
 
 And make it vocal to the quill's quick stroke ; 
 
 And Daphnis from the pipe sweet sounds will shake. 
 
 Come ! let us stand beside the thick-leaved oak, 
 Behind the cave, and goat-foot Pan awake. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What boots it thee to weep away both eyes, 
 Sad Thyrsis ! of thy pretty kid bereft : 
 
 The wild wolf seizes it, and bounding flies. 
 And the dog barks — at his successful theft. 
 
 What profit now from weeping can arise ? 
 For of the kid, nor bone nor dust is left. 
 
 VII. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OP ^SCULAPIUS. 
 
 The son of Paean to Miletus came, 
 
 And with the best physician, Nicias, staid. 
 
 Who, daily kindling sacrificial flame. 
 
 From fragrant cedar had this statue made. 
 
 The highest price was paid Eetion's fame. 
 Who all his skill upon the work outlaid. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF ORTHON. 
 
 Stranger ! the Syracusian Orthon gives thee charge : 
 Walk not o' winter nights, with many a cup 
 
 Reeling : from this, instead of country large, 
 I have a foreign mound — that shuts me up. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Man ! spare thy life, nor out of season be 
 A voyager : man's term of life soon flies. 
 
 For Thasus Cleonicus put to sea 
 
 From Coelesyria with his merchandise : 
 
298 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 What time the Pleiad hastes to set, went he, 
 And, with the Pleiad, sunk — no more to rise. 
 
 X. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OF THE MUSES. 
 
 To you, this marble statue. Muses nine ! 
 
 Xenocles placed ; the harmonist, whose skill 
 No man denies : owning your aid divine, 
 
 He by your aid is unforgotten still. 
 
 XL 
 
 AN EPITAPH ON EUSTHENES THE PHYSIOGNOMIST . 
 
 This is the monument of Eusthenes, 
 
 Who from one's face his mind and temper knew. 
 
 In a strange land all rites the dead can please 
 He had — and he was dear to poets too. 
 
 Nothing was wanting to his obsequies : 
 
 Homeless, he had dear friends and mourners true. 
 
 xn. 
 
 UPON A TRIPOD DEDICATED TO BACCHUS BY DEMOTELEa. 
 
 Sweet Dionysus ! sweetest god of all ! 
 To thee this tripod and thy statue placed 
 The leader of the choir, Damoteles. 
 Only small praise did on his boyhood fall. 
 But now his manhood is with victory graced. 
 And more, that him virtue and honour please 
 
 xin. 
 
 UPON AN IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY APHRODITE. 
 
 The heavenly Cypris, not the popular this : 
 
 So call her bending lowly on thy knees. 
 The chaste Chrysogona, for nuptial bliss. 
 
 Had it set in the house of Amphicles, 
 
 Her life-long spouse — his home, heart, children, hers : 
 Their life, begun with thee, from year to year 
 
EPIGRAMS. 299 
 
 Was happier, goddess ! They are ministers 
 Of their own blessings, who the gods revere. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AN EPITAPH OF EURYMEDON. 
 
 Leaving a little son, Eurymedon ! 
 
 Dead in thy prime, thou in this tomb dost lie ; 
 Thou dwellest with the blest : thy little son 
 
 The state will prize for thy dear memory. 
 
 XV. 
 
 UPON THE SAME. 
 
 Traveller ! by this it will be understood. 
 If thou dost equal hold the bad and good : 
 If not, then say : " Light lie this mound upon 
 The sacred head of good Eurymedon." 
 
 XVL 
 
 UPON A STATUE OP ANACREON. 
 
 Stranger ! this statue view with care, 
 And say, when homeward you repair : 
 "In Teos lately saw these eyes 
 The statue of Anacreon wise. 
 If ever bard in bower or hall 
 Sang sweetly, sweetest he of all. 
 Most of all things he loved in sooth 
 The unblown loveliness of youth." 
 Thus will you, stranger, in a little 
 Express the whole man to a tittle. 
 
 XVIL 
 
 UPON EPICHARMUS. 
 
 We Dorian Epicharmus praise in Dorian, 
 
 Who first wrote comedy, but now, alas ! 
 Instead of the true man, the race Pelorian, 
 
 Bacchus ! to thee present him wrought in brass. 
 
300 THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Here stands he in their wealthy Syracuse, 
 
 Known for his wealth and other service true ; 
 
 To all he many a saw of practic use 
 
 Declared : and mighty honour is his due. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF CLEITA, NURSE OF MEDEIUS. 
 
 Medeius to his Thracian nurse had made 
 
 This way-side monument, scored with her name : 
 
 Her nursing cares are to the woman paid ; 
 Why not ? her usefulness shall live to fame. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 UPON ARCHILOCHUS. '^ 
 
 Stay, and behold the old Iambic poet, 
 
 Archilochus, of infinite renown — "^ 
 
 That he is known to east and west doth show it : 
 The Muses and Apollo him did crown 
 
 With choicest gifts : his was the poet's fire, 
 
 And he could sing his verses to the lyre. 
 
 XX. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OF PISANDER, WHO COMPOSED " THE 
 LABOURS OF HERCULES." 
 
 The poet of Camirus, first to sing 
 The labours of the lion-slaying king, 
 The quick-hand son of Zeus omnipotent, 
 Was our Pisander : this his monument. 
 They suffered many months and years to pass 
 After his death — but now 'tis done in brass. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 UPON HIPPONAX, THE POET. 
 
 The bard Hipponax, traveller ! lies here : 
 If wicked, keep aloof ; if in the number 
 
 Of good men thou, of good men born, draw near, 
 Sit down, and, if thou wilt, in safety slumber. 
 
IDYLL I, 301 
 
 XXII. 
 
 AN EPIGRAM OF THEOCRITUS UPON HIS OWN BOOK. / 
 
 I am Theocritus, not he that was 
 
 Of Chios, but a man of Syracuse. 
 Philina bore me to Praxagoras : 
 
 I never flirted with another's muse. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 With stranger and with citizen the same 
 
 I deal : your own deposit take away. 
 Paying the charge : excuse let others frame ; 
 
 His debts Caicus e'en at night will pay. , 
 
 BION. 
 
 IDYLL I. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF ADONIS. 
 
 I AND the Loves Adonis dead deplore : 
 The beautiful Adonis is indeed 
 Departed, parted from us. Sleep no more 
 In purple, Cypris ! but in watchet weed. 
 All-wretched ! beat thy breast and all aread — 
 "Adonis is no more." The Loves and I 
 Lament him. Oh ! her grief to see him bleed, 
 Smitten by white tooth on his whiter thigh. 
 Out-breathing life's faint sugh upon the mountain high ! 
 
 Adown his snowy flesh drops the black gore ; 
 Stifien beneath his brow his sightless eyes ; 
 The rose is off his lip ; with him no more 
 Lives Cytherea's kiss — but with him dies. 
 He knows not that her lip his cold lip tries, 
 But she finds pleasure still in kissing him. 
 Deep is his thigh- wound ; hers yet deeper lies, 
 
302 BION. 
 
 E'en in her heart. The Oread's eyes are dim ; 
 His hounds whine piteouslj ; in most disordered trim, 
 
 Distraught, unkempt, unsandalled, Cypris rushes 
 Madly along the tangled thicket-steep ; 
 Her sacred blood is drawn by bramble-bushes ; 
 Her skin is torn ; with wailings wild and deep 
 She wanders through the valley's weary sweep, 
 Calling her boy-spouse, her Assyrian fere. 
 But from his thigh the purple jet doth leap 
 Up to his snowy navel ; on the clear 
 Whiteness beneath his paps the deep-red streaks appear. 
 
 " Alas for Cypris ! " sigh the Loves, " deprived 
 
 Of her fair spouse, she lost her beauty's pride ; 
 
 Cypris was lovely whilst Adonis lived. 
 
 But with Adonis all her beauty died." 
 
 (Mountains, and oaks, and streams, that broadly glide, 
 
 [Or wail or weep for her ; in tearful rills 
 
 pFor her gush fountains from the mountain side ; 
 
 Redden the flowers from grief; city and hills 
 With ditties sadly wild, lorn Cytherea fills. 
 
 Alas for Cypris ! dead is her Adonis, 
 And Echo " dead Adonis " doth resound. 
 Who would not grieve for her whose love so lone is ? 
 But when she saw his cruel, cruel wound, 
 The purple gore that ran his wan thigh round, 
 She spread her arms, and lowly murmured : " Stay thee, 
 That I may find thee as before I found. 
 My hapless own Adonis ! and embay thee, 
 And mingle lips with lips, whilst in my arms I lay thee. 
 
 " Up for a little ! ki ss me ^ back^gain ^ 
 Th e latest kiss — brief as itself thaTdies 
 In Igeing breathed, untiT I fundi)' " d Taiir^ 
 The last breath of my soul, and greedy-wise 
 Drink it into my core. I will devise 
 To guard it as Adonis — since from me 
 To Acheron my own Adonis flies. 
 And to the drear dread king ; but I must be 
 A goddess still and live, nor can I follow thee. 
 
y 
 
 IDYLL I. 
 
 " But thou, Persephona ! my spouse receive, 
 Mightier than I, since to thy chamber drear 
 All bloom of beauty falls : but I must grieve 
 Unceasingly. I have a jealous fear 
 Of thee, and weep for him. My dearest dear ! 
 Art dead, indeed ? away my love did fly. 
 E'en as a dream. At home my widowed cheer 
 Keeps the Loves idle ; with thy latest sigh 
 My cestus perished too ; thou rash one ! why, oh why 
 
 " Did'st hunt? so fair, contend with monsters grim?" 
 
 Thus Cypris wailed ; but dead Adonis lies ; 
 
 For every gout of blood that fell from him, 
 . She drops a tear ; sweet flowers each dew supplies — 
 I Ros es his^ blood, her Jtears anemonjes. 
 
 Uypris ! no longer iitTthe tliickets weep ; 
 
 The couch is furnished ! there in loving guise 
 
 Upon thy proper bed, that odorous heap, 
 'ihe lovely body lies — how lovely ! as in sleep. 
 
 Come ! in those softest vestments now array him 
 In which he slept the live-long night with thee ; 
 And in the golden settle gently lay him, — 
 A sad, yet lovely sight ; and let him be 
 High heaped with flowers ; though withered all when he 
 Surceased. With essences him sprinkle o'er 
 And ointments ; let them perish utterly. 
 Since he, who was thy sweetest, is no more. 
 He lies in purple ; him the weeping Loves deplore. 
 
 Their curls are shorn : one breaks his bow ; another 
 His arrows and the quiver ; this unstrings, 
 And takes Adonis' sandal off ; his brother 
 In golden urn the fountain water brings ; 
 This bathes his thighs ; that fans him with his wings. 
 The Loves, " Alas for Cypris !" weeping say: 
 Hymen hath quenched his torches ; shreds and flings 
 The marriage wreath away ; and for the lay 
 Of love is only heard the doleful " weal-awa^^ ^ *^ j S^-.*^ 
 
 Yet more than Hymen for Adonis weep ^ -^ 
 
 The G-races ; shriller than Dione vent 
 
 Their shrieks j for him the Muses wail and keep 
 
304 BION. 
 
 Singing the songs he hears not, with intent 
 To call him back : and would the nymph relent, 
 How willingly would he the Muses hear ! 
 Hush ! hush ! to-day, sad Cypris ! and consent 
 To spare thyself — no more thy bosom tear — 
 For thou must wail again, and weep another year. 
 
 IDYLL IL 
 
 EROS AND THE FOWLER. 
 
 Hunting the birds within a bosky grove, 
 
 A birder, yet a boy, saw winged Love 
 
 Perched on a box-tree branch ; rejoicing saw 
 
 What seemed a large bird, and began to draw 
 
 His rods together, and he thought to snare 
 
 Love, that kept ever hopping here and there. 
 
 Then fretting that he could not gain his end, 
 
 Casting his rods down, sought his aged friend, 
 
 Who taught him bird-catching — his story told, 
 
 And showed Love perching. Smiled the ploughman old. 
 
 And shook his head, replying to the boy . 
 
 " Against this bird do not your rods employ ; 
 
 It is an evil creature ; shun him — flee ; 
 
 Until you take him, happy will you be. 
 
 But if you ever come to manhood's day, 
 
 He that now flies you and still bounds away, 
 
 Will of himself, by no persuasion led, 
 
 Come suddenly and sit upon your head." 
 
 IDYLL IIL 
 
 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 
 
 By me in my fresh prime did Cypris stand, 
 Leading the child Love in her lovely hand ; 
 He kept his eyes fixt, downcast on the ground. 
 While in mine ears his mother's words did sound ; 
 " Dear herdsman, take and teach for me, I pray, 
 Eros to sing ; " she said, and went her way. 
 
 iJIs 
 
IDYLLS IV. V. 305 
 
 Him, as one fain to learn, without ado 
 I then began to teach whate'er I knew — 
 Fool that I was ! how first great Pan did suit 
 With numerous tones his new-invented flute ; 
 Athene wise the straight pipe's reedy hollow ; 
 Hermes his shell ; his cithern sweet Apollo. 
 I taught him this ; he heeded not my lore, 
 But sang me his love-ditties evermore — 
 His mother's doings — how Immortals yearn 
 With fond desires, and how poor mortals burn. 
 All I taught Eros I have quite forgot ; 
 But his love-ditties — I foro^et them not. 
 
 IDYLL IV. 
 
 THE POWER OF LOVE. 
 
 The Muses fear not, but with heart-love true 
 Aifect wild Eros, and his steps pursue. 
 And if one sings with cold and loveless heart. 
 They shun him, and will never teach their art. 
 But if one sings Love's agitated thrall, 
 To him in flowing stream they hasten all. 
 Of this myself am proof ; for whensoe'er 
 For some Immortal else or mortal here 
 I would the glowing path of song explore. 
 Stammers my tongue, and sings not as before ; 
 But glad and gushing flows the strain from me, 
 Whene'er I sing of Love or Clymene. 
 
 IDYLL V. 
 
 LITE TO BE ENJOYED. 
 
 If sweet my songs, or these sufficient be 
 Which I have sung to give renown to me, 
 I know not : but it misbeseems to stram 
 At things we have not learned, and toil in vain. 
 
806 BION. 
 
 If sweet these songs are not, what profit more 
 
 Have I to labour at them o'er and o'er ? 
 
 If Saturn's son and changeful Fate assigned 
 
 A double life-time to our mortal kind, 
 
 That one in joys and one in woes be past, 
 
 Who had his woes first would have joys at last. 
 
 But since Heaven wills one life to man should fall. 
 
 And this is very brief — too brief for all 
 
 We think to do, why should we fret and moil, 
 
 And vex ourselves with never-ending toil ? 
 
 To what end waste we life exhaust our health 
 
 On gainful arts, and sigh for greater wealth ? 
 
 We surely all forget our mortal state — 
 
 How brief the life allotted us by Fate ! 
 
 IDYLL VI. 
 
 CLEODAMUS AND MYRSON. 
 
 CLEODAMUS. 
 
 What sweet for you has Summer or the Spring, 
 What joy does Autumn or the Winter bring ? 
 Which season do you hail with most delight ? 
 Summer, whose fulness doth our toils requite ? 
 Or the sweet Autumn, when but slight distress 
 From hunger falls on mortal wretchedness ? 
 Or lazy Winter — since but few are loath 
 To cheer themselves with fire-side ease and sloth ? 
 Or the Spring, blushing with its bloom of flowers ? 
 Tell me your choice, since leisure-time is ours. 
 
 MYRSON. 
 
 For man to judge things heavenly is unmeet, 
 And all these seasons holy are and sweet. 
 But I to please you will indulge your ear. 
 And tell my favourite season of the year. 
 Not Summer — then I feel the scorching sun ; 
 Nor Autumn — then their course diseases run ; 
 And hard I find to bear the Winter frore. 
 The chilling snow I fear, and crystal hoar. 
 
IDYLL VII. — X. 301 
 
 Of all the year the Spring delights me most, 
 Free from the scorching sun, and bitter frost. 
 All life-containing shapes conceive in Spring, 
 And all sweet things are sweetly blossoming ; 
 And in that season of the year's delight 
 There is for men an equal day and night. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ON HYACINTHUS. 
 
 Phoebus tried all his means, and thought of new, 
 Scarce knowing what he did in his distress ; 
 
 With nectar bathed him, with ambrosial dew ; 
 But Fate made remedies remediless. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Happy is love or friendship when returned — 
 The lovers whose pure flames have equal burned, 
 Happy was Theseus, e'en in Tartarus, 
 With his true heart-friend, good Pirithous. 
 His Pylades Orestes lorn did bless 
 Amid th' inhospitable Chalybes. 
 Blest was Achilles in a friend long tried ; 
 Him living loved, for his sake gladly died ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Yourself to artists always to betake, 
 
 And on yourself in nothing to rely 
 Is misbeseeming : friend ! your own pipe mak^»«» 
 
 The work is easy, if you will but try. 
 
 X. 
 
 May Love the Muses evermore invite, 
 The Muses bring me Love ! and to requite 
 My passion, may they give sweet song to me. 
 Than which no sweeter remedy can be. 
 X 2 
 
308 BION. 
 
 XL 
 
 When drop on drop, they say, doth ever follow, 
 'Twill wear the stone at last into a hollow. 
 
 XII. 
 
 I to the sandy shore and seaward slope 
 
 Will go, and try with murmured song to bend 
 
 The cruel Galatea : my sweet hope 
 
 I'll cast away — when life itself doth end. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Oh, leave me not unhonoured ! Artists aim 
 And reach at excellence, provoked by Fame. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Woman's strength is in her beauty; — 
 Man's — to bear and dare for duty. 
 
 IDYLL XV. 
 
 I THE EPITHALAMIUM OF ACHILLES AND DEmAMLA. 
 
 Myrson. Lycidas. 
 
 MTRSON. 
 
 Will you, my Lycidas, now sing for me 
 A soothing, sweet Sicilian melody — 
 A love-song, such as once the Cyclops young 
 On the sea-shore to Galatea sung ? • 
 
 LYCIDAS. 
 
 I'll pipe or sing for you : what shall it be ? 
 
 MYRSON. 
 
 The song of Scyros dearly pleases me. 
 Sweet love — the pleasant life Pelides led — 
 His furtive kisses, and the furtive bed. 
 How he, a boy, put on a virgin's dress. 
 Assumed a virgin's mien, and seemed no less ; 
 And how Deidamia, maiden coy, 
 Found her girl bedmate was a wicked boy. 
 
IDYLL XVI. 309 
 
 LYCIDAS. 
 
 The herdsman, Paris, on an evil day, 
 
 To Ida bore the lovely Helena. 
 
 CEnone grieved ; and Lacedaemon raged, 
 
 And all th' Achaean s in the feud engaged : 
 
 Hellenes, Elians, and Mycenians, came, 
 
 And brave Laconians, to retake the dame. 
 
 When G-reece her battle led across the deep. 
 
 Himself at home no warrior then might keep. 
 
 Achilles only went not then, indeed, 
 
 Hid with the daughters of king Lycomede. 
 
 A seeming virgin with a virgin's bloom. 
 
 Instead of arms his white hand plied the loom. 
 
 No virgin of them all had airs more fine, 
 
 A rosier cheek, or step more feminine : 
 
 He veiled his hair ; but Mars and fiery Love, 
 
 That stings young manhood, all his thoughts did move. 
 
 He lingered by De'idamia's side, 
 
 Close as he could, from morn till eventide : 
 
 Often he kissed her hand, and often raised 
 
 Her broidered work : her work and fingers praised. 
 
 Of all the maids his only messmate she ; 
 
 And he would fain his bedmate have her be. 
 
 And thus he sued with furtive meaning deep : — 
 
 " With one another other sisters sleep ; 
 
 In station, love, and age, we twain are one. 
 
 Why should we, maidens both, each sleep alone ? 
 
 Since we together are all day, I wonder 
 
 Why we are made at night to sleep asunder ? ** 
 
 IDYLL XVL 
 
 TO THE EVENING STAR. 
 
 Hesper ! sweet Aphrodite's golden light ! 
 Hesper ! bright ornament of swarthy Night, 
 Inferior to the Moon's clear sheen, as far 
 As thou outshinest every other star ; 
 Dear Hesper, hail ! and give thy light to me, 
 Leading the festive shepherd company. 
 For her new course to-day began the Moon, 
 
310 MOSCHUS. 
 
 And is already set — much too soon ! 
 
 *Tis not for impious theft abroad I stir, 
 
 Nor to way-lay the nightly traveller : 
 
 I love ; and thou, bright star of love ! shouldst lend 
 
 The lover light — his helper and his friend. 
 
 IDYLL XVIL 
 
 LOVE RESISTLESS. 
 
 Bright Cypris ! goddess ever meek and mild. 
 Of mightiest Zeus and loveliest sea-nymph child, 
 Why with Immortals and our mortal kind 
 Art thou so wroth ? what stung thy gentle mind 
 To bring forth Love ? who wills at all to strike. 
 His cruel heart his person how unlike ! 
 Winged and far-darter why didst make him, why, 
 That we the cruel one can never fly ? 
 
 MOSCHUS. 
 
 IDYLL I. 
 
 LOVE A RUNAWAY. 
 
 Her Eros thus proclaimed the Cyprian Queen :— 
 
 " If any one has in the highway seen 
 
 My straying Eros, and reports to me 
 
 His whereabouts, he shall rewarded be ; 
 
 A kiss for him ; but if it shall betide 
 
 One bring him me, a kiss — and more beside. 
 
 Midst twenty he is notable to view ; 
 
 Not fair, but flamy, is his dazzling hue ; 
 
 Sharp are his eyes, and flame their glances fleet ; 
 
 His mind is wicked, but his speech is sweet. 
 
 His word and meaning are not like at all ; 
 
 His word is honey, and his meaning gall. 
 
IDYLL II. 311 
 
 He IS a mischievous, deceitful child ; 
 
 Beguiles with falsehood, laughs at the beguiled. 
 
 He has a lovely head of curling hair, 
 
 But saucy features, with a reckless stare. 
 
 His hands are tiny, but afar they throw, 
 
 E'en down to Dis and Acheron below. 
 
 Naked his form, his mind in covert lies ; 
 
 Winged as a feathered bird, he careless flies 
 
 From girls to boys, from men to women flits, 
 
 Sports with their heart-strings, on their vitals sits. 
 
 Small is his bow, his arrow small to sight. 
 
 But to Jove's court it wings its ready flight. 
 
 Upon his back a golden quiver sounds, 
 
 Full of sharp darts, with which e'en me he'wounds. 
 
 All cruel things by cruel Love are done ; 
 
 His torch is small, yet scorches e'en the sun. 
 
 But should you take him — fast and safely bind him, 
 
 And bring him to me with his hands behind him. 
 
 If he should weep, take heed — he weeps at will ; 
 
 But should he smile — then drag him faster still ;^ 
 
 And should he offer you a kiss, beware ! 
 
 Evil his kiss, his red lips poisoned are ! 
 
 And should he say, with seeming friendship hot, 
 
 * Accept my bow and arrows,' touch them not ! 
 
 Tears, smiles, words, gifts, deceitful wiles inspire, 
 
 And every thing he has is dipt in fire." 
 
 IDYLL II. 
 
 EUROPA. 
 
 Cypris, when all but shone the dawn's glad beam. 
 
 To fair Europa sent a pleasant dream ; 
 
 When sleep, upon the close-shut eyelids sitting, 
 
 Sweeter than honey, is eye-fetters knitting. 
 
 The limb-dissolving sleep ! when to and fro 
 
 True dreams, like sheep at pasture, come and go, 
 
 Europa, sleeping in her upper room. 
 
 The child of Phcenix, in her virgin bloom, 
 
 Thought that she saw a contest fierce arise 
 
 Betwixt two continents, herself the prize ; 
 
312 Mosciius. 
 
 They to the dreamer seemed like women quite, 
 Asia, and Asia's unknown opposite. 
 This was a stranger, that a native seemed. 
 And closer hugged her — so Europa dreamed ; 
 And called herself Europa's nurse and mother, 
 Said that she bore and reared her ; but that other 
 Spared not her hands, and still the sleeper drew, 
 With her good will, and claimed her as her due, 
 And said that Zeus ^giochus gave her, 
 By Fate's appointment, that sweet prisoner. 
 
 Up-started from her couch the maiden waking, 
 And felt her heart within her bosom quaking ; 
 She thought it true, and sat in hushed surprise — 
 Still saw those women with her open eyes ; 
 Then to her timid voice at last gave vent : — 
 *' Which of the gods to me this vision sent ? 
 What kind of dream is this that startled me, 
 And sudden made my pleasant slumber flee ? 
 Who was the stranger that I saw in sleep ? 
 What love for her did to my bosom creep ! 
 And how she hailed me, as her daughter even ! 
 But only turn to good my vision. Heaven ! " 
 
 So said, and bounded up, and sought her train 
 Of dear companions, all of noble strain, 
 Of equal years and stature ; gentle, kind. 
 Sweet to the sight, and pleasant to the mind ; 
 With whom she sported, when she led the choir. 
 Or in the river's urn-like reservoir 
 She bathed her limbs, or in the meadow stopt, 
 And from its bosom odorous lilies cropt. 
 And soon around her shone the lovely band, 
 Her flower-basket in each maiden's hand ; 
 And to the meadows near the pleasant shore 
 They sped, where they had often sped before. 
 Pleased with the roses growing in their reach. 
 And with the waves that murmured on the beach, 
 
 A basket by Hephaestus wrought of gold, 
 Europa bore — a marvel to behold ; 
 He gave it Libya, when, a blooming bride, 
 She went to grace the great Earth-shaker's side ; 
 
IDYLL n. 818 
 
 She gave it Telephassa fair and mild, 
 
 Who now had given it to her virgin child. 
 
 Therein were many sparkling wonders wrought— 
 
 The hapless 16 to the sight was brought ; 
 
 A heifer's for a virgin's form she wore ; 
 
 The briny paths she frantic wandered o'er, 
 
 And was a swimming heifer to the view. 
 
 While the sea round her darkened into blue.. 
 
 Two men upon a promontory stood. 
 
 And watched the heifer traversing the flood. 
 
 Again where seven-mouthed Nile divides his strand, 
 
 Zeus stood and gently stroked her with his hand, 
 
 And from her horned figure and imbruted 
 
 To her original form again transmuted. 
 
 In brass the heifer — Zeus was wrought in gold ; 
 
 Nile softly in a silver current rolled. 
 
 And to the life was watchful Hermes shown 
 
 Under the rounded basket's golden crown ; 
 
 And Argus near him with unsleeping eyes 
 
 Lay stretched at length ; then from his blood did rise 
 
 The bird, exulting in the brilliant pride 
 
 Of his rich plumes and hues diversified. 
 
 And like a swift ship with her out-spread sail, 
 
 Expanding proudly his resplendent tail. 
 
 The basket's golden rim he shadowed o'er : 
 
 Such was the basket fair Europa bore. 
 
 They reached the mead with vernal blossoms full, 
 And each began her favourite flowers to pull. 
 Narcissus one ; another thyme did get ; 
 This hyacinth, and that the violet ; 
 And of the spring-sweets in the meadow found 
 Much scented bloom was scattered on the ground. 
 Some of the troop in rivalry chose rather 
 The sweet and yellow crocuses to gather ; 
 Shining, as mid the Graces Cypris glows, 
 The princess in the midst preferred the rose : 
 Nor long with flowers her gentle fancy charmed. 
 Nor long she kept her virgin flower unharmed. 
 With love for her was Saturn's son inflamed, 
 By unexpected darts of Cypris tamed, 
 
314 MOSCHUS. 
 
 Who only tames e'en Zeus. To shun the rage 
 
 Of Here, and the virgin's mind engage, 
 
 To draw her ejes and her attention claim, 
 
 He hid his godhead and a bull became ; 
 
 Not such, as feeds at stall, or then or now. 
 
 The furrow cuts and draws the crooked plough ; 
 
 Not such as feeds the lowing kine among^ 
 
 Or trails in yoke the heavy wain along ; 
 
 His body all a yellow hue did own. 
 
 But a white circle in his forehead shone ; 
 
 His sparkling eyes with love's soft lustre gleamed ; 
 
 His arched horns like Dian's crescent seemed. 
 
 He came into the meadow, nor the sight 
 
 Fluttered the virgins into sudden flight. 
 
 But they desired to touch and see him near ; 
 
 His breath surpassed the meadow-sweetness there. 
 
 Before Europa's feet he halted meek, 
 
 Licked her fair neck, and eke her rosy cheek ; 
 
 Threw round his neck her arms the Beautiful, 
 
 Wiped from his lips the foam and kissed the bull ; 
 
 Softly he lowed ; no lowing of a brute 
 
 It seemed, but murmur of Mygdonian flute ; 
 
 Down on his knees he slunk ; and first her eyed, 
 
 And then his back, as asking her to ride. 
 
 The long-haired maidens she began to call : — 
 
 *' Come let us ride, his back will hold us all, 
 
 E'en as a ship ; a bull unlike the rest, 
 
 As if a human heart were in his breast, 
 
 He gentle is and tractable and meek. 
 
 And wants but voice his gentleness to speak." 
 
 She said, and mounted smiling, but before 
 Another did, he bounded for the shore. 
 The royal virgin, struck with instant fear. 
 Stretched out her hands and called her playmates dear ; 
 But how could they the ravished princess reach ? 
 He, like a dolphin, pushed out from the beach. 
 From their sea-hollows swift the Nereids rose, 
 Seated on seals, and did his train compose ; 
 Poseidon went before, and smooth did make 
 The path of waters for his brother's sake ; 
 
IDYLL IL 315 
 
 Around their king in close array did keep 
 
 The loud-voiced Tritons, minstrels of the deep, 
 
 And with their conchs proclaimed the nuptial song. 
 
 But on Jove's bull-back as she rode along. 
 
 The maid with one hand grasped his branching horn, 
 
 The flowing robe, that did her form adorn, 
 
 Raised with the other hand, and tried to save 
 
 From the salt moisture of the saucy wave ; 
 
 Her robe, inflated by the wanton breeze, 
 
 Seemed like a ship's sail hovering o'er the seas. 
 
 But when, her father-land no longer nigh. 
 
 Nor sea-dashed shore was seen, nor mountain high, 
 
 But only sky above, and sea below — 
 
 She said, and round her anxious glance did throw : — 
 
 " Whither with me, portentous bull ? discover 
 This and thyself: and how canst thou pass over 
 The path of waters, walking on the wave, 
 And dost not fear the dangerous path to brave ? 
 Along this tract swift ships their courses keep, 
 But bulls are wont to fear the mighty deep. 
 What pasture here ? what sweet drink in the brine ? 
 Art thou a god ? thy doings seem divine. 
 Nor sea-born dolphins roam the flowery mead, 
 Nor earth-born bulls through Ocean's realm proceed ; 
 Fearless on land, and plunging from the shores 
 Thou roamest ocean, and thy hoofs are oars. 
 Perchance anon, up-borne into the sky, 
 Thou without wings like winged birds wilt fly ! 
 Ah me unhappy ! who my father's home 
 Have left and with a bull o'er ocean roam, 
 A lonely voyager ! my helper be. 
 Earth-shaking regent of the hoary sea ! 
 I hope to see this voyage's cause and guide, 
 I^or n«t without a god these things betide." 
 
 To her the horned bull with accent clear : — 
 " Take courage, virgin ! nor the billow fear ; 
 The seeming bull is Zeus ; for I with ease 
 Can take at will whatever form I please ; 
 My fond desire for thy sweet beauty gave 
 To me this shape — my footstep to the wave. 
 
316 MOSCHUS. 
 
 Dear Crete, that nursed me, now shall welcome thee ; 
 In Crete Europa's nuptial rites shall be ; 
 From our embrace illustrious sons shall spring, 
 And every one of them a sceptred king." — 
 
 And instantly they were in Crete : his own 
 Form Zeus put on — and off her virgin zone. 
 Strowed the glad bed the Hours, of joy profuse ; 
 The whilom virgin was the bride of Zeus. 
 
 IDYLL in. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF BION, A LOVING HERDSMAN. 
 
 Ye mountain valleys, pitifully groan ! 
 
 Rivers and Dorian springs, for Bion weep I 
 
 Ye plants, drop tears ! ye groyes, lamenting moan I 
 
 Exhale your life, wan flowers ; your blushes deep 
 
 In grief, anemonies and roses, steep ! 
 
 In softest murmurs. Hyacinth ! prolong 
 r'The sad, sad woe thy lettered petals keep ; 
 
 Our minstrel sings no more his friends among — 
 Sicilian Muses ! now begin the doleful song. 
 
 Ye nightingales, that 'mid thick leaves let loose 
 The gushing gurgle of your sorrow, tell 
 The fountains of Sicilian Arethuse 
 That Bion is no more — with Bion fell 
 The song, the music of the Dorian shell. 
 Ye swans of Strymon, now your banks along 
 Your plaintive throats with melting dirges swell 
 For him who sang like you the mournful song : 
 Discourse of Bion's death the Thracian nymphs among ; 
 
 The Dorian Orpheus, tell them all, is dead. 
 His herds the song and darling herdsman miss, 
 And oaks, beneath whose shade he propt his head : 
 Oblivion's ditty now he sings for Dis : 
 The melancholy mountain silent is ; 
 His pining cows no longer wish to feed, 
 But mourn for him : Apollo, wept, I wis. 
 For thee, sweet Bion ! and in mourning weed 
 The brotherhood of Fauns, and all the Satyr breed. 
 
r 
 
 IDYLL in. 317 
 
 The tears by Naiads shed are brimful bourns ; 
 
 Afflicted Pan thy stifled music rues ; 
 
 Lorn Echo 'mid her rocks thy silence mourns, 
 
 Nor with her mimic tones th y voice renews v=r - 
 
 TEe~Howers'their btoom^'^e trees their fruitage lose 
 No more their milk the drooping ewes supply ; 
 The bees to press their honey now refuse ; 
 What need to gather it and lay it by, 
 When thy own honey-lip, my Bion ! thine is dry ? 
 
 Sicilian, Muses ! lead the doleful chaunt : 
 Not so much near the shore the dolphin moans ; 
 Nor so much wails within her rocky haunt 
 The nightingale ; nor on their mountain thrones 
 The swallows utter such lugubrious tones ; 
 Nor so much Ceyx wailed for Halcyon, 
 W^hose song the blue wave, where he perished, owns ; 
 Nor in the valley, neighbour to the sun. 
 The funeral birds so wail their Memnon's tomb upon — 
 
 As these moan, wail, and weep, their Bion dead. 
 The nightingales and swallows, whom he taught, 
 For him their elegiac sadness shed ; 
 And all the birds contagious sorrow caught ; 
 The sylvan realm was all with grief distraught. 
 Who bold of heart will play on Bion's reed. 
 Fresh from his lip, yet with his breathing fraught ? 
 For still among the reeds does Echo feed . /' • Vi^^-^ 
 On Bion's minstrelsy. Pan only may succeed \x^^^^ » IM 
 
 ^ 'jJ^^ ^ ^^^ 
 To Bion's pipe ; to him I make the gift : ^^^'^ ^ JU**-«^ ^ 
 
 But lest he second seem, e'en Pan may fear 
 The pipe of Bion to his mouth to lift. 
 For thee sweet Galatea drops the tear, 
 And thy dear song regrets, which sitting near 
 She fondly listed ; ever did she flee 
 The Cyclops and his song ; but far more dear 
 Thy song and sight than her own native sea : 
 On the deserted sands the nymph without her fee 
 
 Now sits and weeps, or weeping tends thy herd. 
 Away with Bion all the muse-gifts flew — 
 The chirping kisses breathed at every word : 
 
 / 
 
318 MOSCHUS. 
 
 Around thy tomb the Loves their playmate rue ; 
 Thee Cypris loved more than the kiss she drew 
 And breathed upon her dying paramour. 
 Most musical of rivers ! now renew 
 Thy plaintive murmurs : Meles ! now deplore 
 Another son of song, as thou didst wail of yore 
 
 That sweet, sweet mouth of dear Calliope : 
 The threne, 'tis said, thy waves for Homer spun 
 With saddest music filled the refluent sea ; 
 
 Now melting wail and weep another son 
 
 Both loved of fountains— that of Helicon 
 Gave Melesigenes his pleasant draught ; 
 To this sweet Arethuse did Bion run. 
 And from her urn the glowing rapture quaft : 
 Blest was the bard who sang how Helen bloomed and laught : 
 
 On Thetis' mighty son his descant ran, 
 And Menelaus ; but our Bion chose 
 Not arms and tears to sing, but Love and Pan ; 
 While browsed his herd, his gushing music rose ; 
 He milked his kine ; did pipes of reeds compose ; 
 Taught how to kiss ; and fondled in his breast 
 Young Love and Cypris pleased. For Bion flows 
 In every glorious land a grief confest : 
 A-Scra for her own bard, wise Hesiod, less exprest : 
 
 Boeotian Hylae mourned for Pindar less ; 
 Teos regretted less her minstrel hoar, 
 And Mytelene her sweet poetess ; 
 Nor for Alcseus Lesbos suffered more ; 
 Nor lovely Paros did so much deplore 
 Her own Archilochus. Breathing her fire 
 Into her sons of song, from shore to shore 
 For thee the Pastoral Muse attunes her lyre 
 To woeful utterance of passionate desire. 
 
 Sicelidas, the famous Samian star. 
 
 And he with smiling eye and radiant face, 
 
 Cydonian Lyyid as. renowned afar. 
 
 Lament thee ; where quick Hales runs his race, 
 
 Philetus wails ; Theocritus, the grace 
 
 Of Syracuse, thee mourns ; nor these among 
 
IDYLL in. 319 
 
 Am I remiss Ausonian wreaths to place 
 Around thy tomb : to me doth it belong 
 To chaunt for thee from whom I learnt the Dorian song. 
 
 Me with thy minstrel skill as proper heir 
 Cithers thou didst endow with thine estate. 
 Alas ! alas ! when in a garden fair 
 Mallows, crisp dill, or parsley yields to fate, 
 These with another year regerminate ; 
 But when of mortal life the bloom and crown, 
 The wise, the good, the valiant, and the great 
 Succumb to death, in hollow earth shut down 
 We sleep — for ever sleep — for ever lie unknown. 
 
 Thus art thou pent, while frogs may croak at will; > 
 
 I envy not their croak. Thee poison slew — ^ 
 
 How kept it in thy mouth its nature ill ? 
 If thou didst speak, what cruel wretch could brew 
 The draught ? He did, of course, thy song eschew. 
 But justice all o'ertakes. My tears fast flow 
 For thee, my friend ! Could I, like Orpheus true, 
 Odysseus, or Alcides, pass below 
 To gloomy Tartarus, how quickly would I go ! 
 
 To see and haply hear thee sing for Dis ! 
 But in the Nymph's ear warble evermore, 
 My dearest friend ! thy sweetest harmonies : 
 For whilom, on her own Etnoean shore, 
 She sang wild snatches of the Dorian lore. 
 Nor will thy singing unrewarded be ; 
 Thee to thy mountain haunts she will restore. 
 As she gave Orpheus his Eurydice. 
 Could I charm Dis with songs, I too would sing for thee. 
 
 IDYLL IV. 
 
 MEGARA., THE ^Y1FE OF HERCULES. 
 
 " Why dost thou vex thy spirit, mother mine? 
 Why fades thy cheek ? at what dost thou repine ? 
 Because thy son must serve a popinjay, 
 As though a lion did a fawn obey ? 
 
320 Mosciius. 
 
 Why have the gods so much dishonoured me ? 
 
 Why was I born to such a destiny ? 
 
 Spouse of a man I cherished as mine eyes, 
 
 For whom heart-deep my vowed affection lies, 
 
 Yet must I see him crossed by adverse fate. 
 
 Of mortal men the most misfortunate ! 
 
 Who with the arrows, which Apollo — no ! 
 
 Some Fate or Fury did on him bestow, 
 
 In his own house his own sons raging slew — 
 
 Where in the house was not the purple dew ? 
 
 I saw them slain by him ; I — I, their mother, 
 
 Did see their father slaughter them ; none other 
 
 Had e'er a dream like this ; to me they cried, 
 
 ' Mother ! save us ! ' what could I do ? they died. 
 
 As when a bird bewails her callow young, 
 
 O'er whom, unfeathered yet, she fondly hung, ^ 
 
 Which now a fierce snake in the bush devours — 
 
 Flies round and round — shrieks — cannot help them — cowers, 
 
 Nor nearer dares approach her cruel foe : 
 
 Thus I, most wretched mother ! to and fro 
 
 Rushed madly through the house, my children dear, 
 
 My dead, dead children wailing every where. 
 
 Would that I too had with my children died, 
 
 The poisoned arrow sticking in my side ! 
 
 Then with fast tears my mother and my sire 
 
 Had laid me with them on the funeral pyre ; 
 
 And to my birth -land given, on their return, 
 
 Our mingled ashes in one golden urn : 
 
 But they in Thebes, renowned for steeds, remain. 
 
 And still they farm their old Aonian plain ; 
 
 But in steep Tiryns I must dwell apart. 
 
 With many sorrows gnawing at my heart ; 
 
 Mine eyes are fountains, which I cannot close ; 
 
 I seldom see him, and but brief repose 
 
 My hapless husband is allowed at home ; 
 
 By sea or land he must for ever roam ; 
 
 None but a heart of iron, or of stone, 
 
 Could bear the labours he has undergone. 
 
 Thou, too, like water, meltest still away, 
 
 For ever weeping every night and day. 
 
 None of my kin is here to comfort me. 
 
IDYLL IV. 321 
 
 For they beyond the piny isthmus be ; 
 
 There's none to whom I may pour out my woes, 
 
 And like a woman all my heart disclose, 
 
 But sister Pyrrha ; — but she too forlorn 
 
 For her Iphicles, thine and hers doth mourn ; 
 
 Unhappiest mother thou ! in either son — 
 
 Twin stamps of Zeus, and of Amphitryon." 
 
 And, while she spoke, from either tearful well 
 The large drops faster on her bosom fell. 
 While she her slaught(*red children called to mind, 
 And parents in her country left behind. 
 With tear-stained cheek, and many a groan and sigh, 
 Alcmena to her son's wife made reply— 
 
 " Why, hapless mother ! with this train of thought 
 Dost thou provoke the grief that comes unsought ? 
 Why dost thou talk these dreadful sorrows o'er, 
 Now wept by us — as we have wept before ? 
 Are not the new griefs that we look to see 
 From day to day, enough for you and me ? 
 Lover of dole were he, who would recount 
 Our tale of woes, and find their whole amount ! 
 Take heart, and bear those ills we cannot cure, 
 But by the will of heaven we must endure. 
 And yet I cannot bid thee cease to grieve, 
 For even joy to spend itself has leave. 
 For thee I wail, why wert thou doomed, oh why, 
 To be a partner in our misery ? 
 I mourn that fate with ours thy fortune blends 
 Under the woe that over us impends. 
 Ye ! by whose names unpunished none forswear, 
 Persephona and dread Demeter, hear ! 
 Not less on thee has my true love reposed. 
 Than if my womb thy body had enclosed ; 
 I love thee, sweetest ! as an old-age child. 
 That has, beyond hope, on its mother smiled ; 
 Thou knowest this ; then say not, I implore, 
 I love thee not, or foster sorrow more. 
 Or in my grief I careless am of thee. 
 Though I weep more than e'er wept Niobe. 
 No blame is due to her with anguish wild, 
 
322 MOSCHUs. 
 
 Who hapless weeps for her unhappy child. 
 Ten weary months within my womb he lay— 
 What pains I suffered ere he came to day ! 
 What pangs ! I all but said farewell to earth, 
 While yet my unborn lingered in the birth. 
 New toils now task him in a foreign plain — 
 Oh shall I ever see my son again ? 
 Besides, an awful vision of the night, 
 Scaring my sleep, hath filled me with affright, 
 And much I fear, when I my dream recall. 
 Lest some untoward thing my sons befall. 
 Methought, aside his cloak and tunic laid. 
 My Hercules with both hands grasped a spade, 
 And round a cultured field a mighty dyke 
 He delved, as one that toils for hire belike. 
 But when the dyke around the vineyard run, 
 And he was just about (his task now done. 
 The shovel thrown on the projecting rim,) 
 With his attire again to cover him ; 
 Sudden above the bank a fire burst out. 
 Whose greedy flames enclosed him round about : 
 He to the flames with rapid flight did yield, 
 Holding the spade before him as a shield, 
 And here and there he turned his anxious eye. 
 If he might shun liis scorching enemy. 
 High-souled Iphicles, I remember well 
 As it me-seemed, rushing to help him, fell ; 
 Nor could he raise himself from where he rolled. 
 But helpless lay there like some weak man old, 
 Tript up by joyless age against his will; 
 Stretched on the ground lie was, and seeming still 
 Hopeless of rising, till a passer-by 
 In pity raised the hoar infirmity. 
 Thus helpless lay the warrior brave in fight ; 
 And I did weep to see that sorry sight — 
 This son stretched feeble, that engirt with flame. 
 Till sleep forsook me and the day-dawn came. 
 Such frightful visions on my sleep did fall ; 
 Ye gods ! on curst Eurystheus turn them all ! 
 Oh be this presage true my wish supplies, 
 And may no god ordain it otherwise ! " 
 
IDYLL V. / 
 
 THE CHOICE. 
 
 When on the wave the breeze soft kisses flings, 
 I rouse my fearful heart, and long to be 
 Floating at leisure on the tranquil sea ; 
 
 But when the hoary ocean loudly rings, 
 
 Arches his foamy back and spooming swings 
 Wave upon wave, his angry swell I flee : 
 Then welcome land and sylvan shade to me, 
 
 Where, if a gale blows, still the pine-tree sings. 
 
 Hard is his life whose nets the ocean sweep, 
 A bark his house — shy fish his slippery prey ; 
 
 But sweet to me the unsuspicious sleep 
 Beneath a leafy plane — the fountain's play, 
 
 That babbles idly, or whose tones, if deep, 
 Delight the rural ear and not affray. 
 
 IDYLL VI. 
 
 "LOVE THEM THAT LOVE YOU." 
 
 Pan Echo loved ; she loved the frisky Faun ; 
 The Faun to Lyda by strong love was drawn ; 
 As Echo Pan, the Faun did Echo burn. 
 And Lyda him : all fell in love in turn. 
 And with what scorn the loved the lover grieved 
 Was that one scorned, and like for like received. 
 Hear, heart-free ! let who love you love obtain. 
 That if you love, you may be loved again. 
 
 IDYLL VIL 
 
 ALPHEUS. 
 
 Alpheus, gliding by old Pisa's towers, 
 Deep in the sea his eager way pursues. 
 
 With sacred dust, and olive-leaves, and powers, 
 With which he hastens to his Axethuse. 
 
324 MoscHUs. 
 
 Smoothly he runs ; the sea not feels the river 
 With soft unmingled stream its water rive ; 
 
 Eros it was, that subtle counsel-giver, 
 Who taught a river how for love to dive. 
 
 EPIGRAM. 
 
 ON EUOS PLOUGHING. 
 
 His torch and quiver down sly Eros flung, ; ^ 
 
 An ox-goad took in hand, a wallet slung, 
 
 Then yoked strong bulls and made the plough to train, 
 
 And as he went the furrow sowed with grain. 
 
 And looking up he said to Zeus, " Make full 
 
 The harvest, or I'll yoke Eurooa's bull." 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 Would that my sire had brought me up to feed 
 The happy bleaters of the fleecy flocks ! 
 
 'Twould soothe my sorrow then to breathe the reed 
 Beneath the shade of elms or hanging rocks. 
 
 Now let us fly ; and other cities seek 
 
 To be our country, dear Pierides : 
 But I my mind to all will plainly speak — 
 
 Injurious drones have harmed the honey-bee». 
 
THE 
 
 WAR-SONGS OF TYRTJIOS. 
 
WAR-SONGS OF TYRTiEUS. 
 
 I. 
 
 * Now it is noble for a ^ brave man to die, having fallen 
 opposite the foremost ranks, whilst fighting for his father-land. 
 But most grievous of all is it for a man ^ to be a beggar, hav- 
 ing quitted his own city and fertile fields, and wandering 
 with a loved mother and aged father, with little children and 
 ^ wedded wife. For to whomsoever he shall have come, among 
 them will he be hateful, yielding to need and to wretched 
 poverty. He disgraces his race, and ^belies his fair beauty ; 
 and every kind of ^ dishonour and woe follows him. Besides, 
 for a man thus vagrant, look you, there is no care, nor has he 
 
 ^ This is not a fragment, though yap is so placed. Frequent examples 
 of the same usage occur in Homer and Herodotus. Cf. Matt. Gr. Gr. § 
 615. Compare the use of " Nam " among the Latins. Yirgil, Geor. iv. 
 445, Nam quis te, juvenum confidentissime, nostras jussit adire domos : 
 and of " quisnam " in Plautus, Curcul. 398, Nam quid id refert mea. 
 Terent. Andr. iii. 5, 6. — koXov, noble, Cf. Soph. Antig. 72, koXov fioi 
 TovTO 7roiov(nj OaveTv. Yirg. JEn. ii. 317, Pulchrumque mori succurrit 
 in armis. .^n. xi. 24 ; ix. 286. Horat. Od. ii. 2, 13, Dulce et decorum 
 est pro patria mori. 
 
 ' dyaObv, good in war, brave. Just as KUKog stands for the opposite. 
 Hom. II. iv. 299 ; ii. 365. Soph. Aj. 456. Horace uses '* melior " in this 
 sense, Od. i. 15, 28, Tydides melior patre. — Trtpt y TraTpidi. In verse 
 14, we have Trspl in this sense with a genitive. But Homer uses it thus 
 with a dative. Odyss. ii. 245. 
 
 3 TTTuix^vHv. This verb differs from irkvo}iai. See Aristoph. Plut. 549, 
 ovKOVv Cr]Tcov Trjg TTTiox^'ag irtviav (pafiev tlvai dSe\(priv. 
 
 * Kovpiciy, " wedded in youth." Eustath. But Butmann (Lexil. pp. 
 392 — 394) shows that it means rather " lawful," regular " wedded." 
 
 * alaxvvu. Bergler, in a note at Aristoph. Aves, 1451, {to ysvog ov 
 Karaiaxwut,) states, on the authority of Stobceus, that the youth of Athens 
 were obliged to swear ov KaraKTxvvC) rd oirXa. 
 
 ^ aTifiia. The severity of this punishment may be judged of by the 
 treatment which Aristodemus met at Sparta, after his inglorious return 
 from Thermopylae. Cf. Herodot. vii. 229. 
 
328 THE WAR-SONGS OF TYRT^US. 1. 
 
 respect in time to come. '^ With spirit let us figlit for this 
 land, and for our children die, being no longer chary of our 
 lives. Fight *then, young men, standing fast one by another, 
 nor ^be beginners of cowardly flight, or fear. But rouse a 
 great and valiant spirit in your breasts, and love not life, when 
 ye contend with men. And the elders, whose limbs are no 
 longer active, the old, 1 say, desert not or forsake. For surely 
 this ivere sliameful, that fallen amid the foremost champions, 
 in front of the youths, an older man should lie low, ^^ having 
 his head now white and his beard hoary, and breathing out 
 a valiant spirit in the dust ; whilst ^^he covers with his hands 
 his gory loins, (which were a shame, and would make one 
 wroth to behold with his eyes:) and is stript as to his person: 
 ^2yet all this befits the young, whilst, I wot, he enjoys the 
 '3 brilliant bloom of youth; to mortal men and women he is 
 lovely to look upon, whilst he lives ; and noble when he has 
 fallen in the foremost ranks. Then let ^'* every one with firm 
 
 "> Ovfjup. Cf. Yirg. JEn. ii. 617, Nunc animis opus, ^nea, nunc pectore 
 tolo. Thucyd. ii. 11, o'i Xoyia/L«p IXdxKfTa xpw/icvot, 6vfi(^ TrXeiora eg 
 (pyov KaBicTTavrai. 
 
 8 dXXd — itaque, igitur. See L. Kuster's notes ad Aristoph. Equit. 202. 
 He explains it as <pkp(, ays, age! Comp. Plut. 539 ; Nub. 1367 ; Pax, 
 425, &c. 
 
 *• apx^re, a periphrasis. Cf. Corn. Nep. Pausan. iv. 6, Tanto magis 
 orare coepit, ne enuntiaret. 
 
 ^" ijdi] XfVKOv, K. T. X. So Horn. II. xxiv. 516,oiKr£»pa>v iroXiovTt Kaprj 
 TToXiov Te ykvHov. Ov. Met. viii. 528, Pulvere canitiem genitor vultus- 
 que seniles Fcedat humi fusus. 
 
 " aiiiaTotvT — This regard of seemliness in death is a favourite point 
 with classical authors. Cf. iEsch. Agam. 241, &c. ; Ov. Met. xiii. 479; 
 Fast. ii. 833, 
 
 Tunc quoque jam moriens, ne non procumbat honeste, 
 Respicit : hoc etiam cura cadentis erat. 
 
 *' The scope of the passage is, no doubt, the contrast between the sight 
 of an old and a young hero dead on the battle-field. The young are 
 lovely to look on even in death. But the bald head cloven, and the 
 grey beard blood-stained, are sights which the young must not permit. 
 For the origin of the idea, see II. x. 71. 
 
 '2 ayXabv avQoq. This metaphor from vegetation is very common. 
 Theocr. Idyll, xiv. 70, ironh' tl del, olg yovv xXojpov. Horat. Epod. xiii. 
 4, Duraque virent genua. Ov. Trist. iii. 1, 7, Quod viridi quondam 
 male lugit in sevo. 
 
 '•* Tig, every one, vos, or quisque, as in Horn. II. ii. 39, 'AXXa tiq 
 iyyvg loJt' — Soph. Aj. 245, lopa nv' ijctj Kapa, k. t. X. Aristoph. Thesm. 
 603, &c. — ev Siafidg is said of a warrior standing firm to throw his spear 
 Cf. Aristoph. Eq. 77 ; ApoUon. Khod. iii. 1293 ; Xenoph. Eq. i. 14. 
 
II. THE WAR-SONGS OF TYRT^US. 329 
 
 stride await the foe, having both feet fixed on the ground, 
 1^ biting his lip with his teeth. 
 
 II. 
 
 But since ye are the race of ^ invincible Hercules, be ye 
 of good courage ; not yet halh Zeus ^ turned his neck aside 
 from you. Neither fear ye, nor be affrighted at a host of men, 
 but let hero hold his shield right against the foremost fighters ; 
 having counted life hostile, and ^ the dark fates of death dear 
 as the rays of the sun. For ye know that the ^ works of Ares 
 of-raany-tears are much-seen, and well have ye learned the 
 ^ temper of troublous war. Ye have been, O young men, with 
 the flying and the pursuing, and have pushed on to a full 
 measure of both. Now of those, who dare, abiding one be- 
 side another, to advance to the close fray, and the foremost 
 champions, fewer die, and they save the people in the rear ; 
 but in men ^that fear, all excellence is lost. No one could 
 ever in words go through those several ills, which befall a 
 man, '^if he has been actuated by cowardice. For 'tis grievous 
 
 '* X^'i^oQ bdovai SaKUiv. Cf. Eurip. Bacch. 610 ; Aristoph. Vesp. 
 1078. Virgil depicts his warrior as " dentibus infrendens." ^n. viii. 230 ; 
 X. 715. 
 
 ' dviKi)Tov — Hercules is styled " invictus," on several Latin inscrip- 
 tions. Propertius so calls him in the first book, El. 20, 23, At comes 
 invicti juvenis precesserat ultra. — ykvog. At the return of the Heracleids, 
 the descendants of Hercules, and the triple division of the Peloponnese, 
 which took place, according to tradition the sons of Aristodemus, Procles 
 and Eurysthenes, obtained Lacedaemon. Lycurgus was of this stock, as 
 were the Spartans generally. The poet urges the fact as a ground of 
 coTiiidence. 
 
 * avx^va Xo^ov tX£i, has withdrawn his favour. 
 
 * The ordinary reading here is inexplicable. Klotz prefers, as the 
 slightest alteration, Krjpag icr' avyaiaiv ■ijeXioio (piXag. laa' icwg. Grotius 
 suggests KFjpag bjxCjg avydig T^eXtoto (piXag. I have translated the former 
 reading. 
 
 * So the Greeks spoke o/ tpya Mo7J(Tu)v, tpya A^poS'iTijg, epya ydfioio, 
 tpya fidx'ng. Virgil, JEn. viii. 516, Militiam et grave Martis opus. 
 
 \ 6pyi)v, the nature, or temper. So Thuc. i. 130, Kai Ty opyy ovTutg 
 XaXfmj txPV^o, and i. 140. Soph. Aj. 646. So ingenium is used by 
 the Latins. Sil. Ital. iv. 90, CoUisque propinqui ingenium. Ov. Met. 
 574, Grande dolori ingenium est. 
 
 •^ Comp. Hom. II. v. 532, (pevyovTuiv d' ovt' dp' KXkog opvvrai, ovn riQ 
 d\ictj. 
 
 ' dv aiVxpa Trddy. " Qui turpiter se gesserit • Interpr." But it i» 
 
330 THE WAR-SONGS OF TYRT^US. II. 
 
 to wound in the rear the back of a flying man in hostile war. 
 Shameful too is a corpse ^ lying low in the dust, ^wounded 
 behind in the back by the point of a spear. Rather let every 
 one with firm stride await the enemy, having both feet fixed 
 on the ground, biting his lip with his teeth, and having covered 
 with the ^^ hollow of his broad shield thighs and shins below, 
 and breast and shoulders. But in his right hand let him 
 brandish a heavy lance, and ^^ shake above his head a threaten- 
 ing crest. Then let him learn war, by doing bold deeds, nor 
 let him stand with his shield out of the range of weapons. 
 But let each, drawing nigh in close fray, ^^hit his foe, wound- 
 ing him with long lance or sword. ^^And having set foot 
 beside foot, and having fixed shield against shield, and crest 
 on crest, and helmet on helmet, and breast against breast, 
 struggle in fight with his man, having seized eitlier the hilt of 
 his sword, or his long lance. But do ye, ^'*0 light-armed 
 soldiers, crouching under your shields, some from one quarter, 
 some from another, make them fall with huge stones, and with 
 polished spears, as ye dart at them, and stand near to the 
 ^^ heavy-armed troops. 
 
 not to be supposed that 7rdor%5tv is equivalent to irgaTTHv. See Liddell 
 and Scott's Lex. v. Traaxu). 
 
 * KaraKiifievog. II. xix. 389, Ktltrat 'OTpwreiSij Travrcjv tKTrayXo- 
 TUT dvdpwv. Cf. V. 4fi7 ; Eurip. Orest. 1489, &c. So " jacere " in 
 Latin. Virg. Mn. ii. 557, Jacet ingens littore truncus. Ov. Met. ii. 268, 
 Corpora — exanimata jacent. Phsedr. Fab. i. 24, 10, Rupto jacuit 
 corpore. 
 
 ' vwTov, K. T. X., a great disgrace. Cf. Horn. II. xiii. 288. Ov. Met 
 xiii. 262, Sunt et mihi vulnera, cives, Ipso pulchra loco. Fast. ii. 211, 
 Diffugiunt hostes iuhonestaque vulnera tergo Accipiunt. 
 
 '<* yaffTpL The Greeks were wont to apply toother matters the names 
 of various parts of the human body. Thus, yvdOoi;, to fire. ^sch. 
 Choeph. 325 ; Prom. 368. So x^'^oc, 6(ppvg (supercilium, Virg. Geor. i, 
 108) ofKpaXbg, (rrepva yjyc. — avxvi' (coUum) svpea vioTa OaXdcFffTjg. 
 
 ^' KivsLTio. So Horn. II. y. 337, deivbv Se Xocpog KaOv-ntpQev evtvsv. 
 ^sch. S. c. Thsb. 115, KVfjia ^o^ftoXo^wv dvcpiov. 
 
 '2 (XsToj. Klotz thinks this should be construed " choose out," " pick," 
 as in Virg. ^n. xi. 632, legitque virum vir. 
 
 " Kai TToda, k. r. X. So Hom. II. xiii. 130 ; Eurip. Heracl. 836, 7 : 
 Virg. ^n. X. 360, Trojanse acies, aciesque Latinae Concurriint, hseret 
 pede pes, densusque viro vir. Ov. Met. ix. 44. 
 
 ** yvfiviiTeg, i. e. oi 4"-^oK t'* o^fvdovrjrai Kal o'l ro^oTai. — iTTOKraovTig, 
 i. q. KpvTTToiitvoi. Cf. 11. xxii. 14, Tpo)tg Trrujaaov vtto Kprjjxvovg, 
 
 '* IlavoTrXioig, for /ravoirXiTaic. Abstract for concrete. So we very 
 often find oirXa for oTrXtVat. Eurip. Orest. 444 ; Soph. Ant. 115 ; Xen. 
 
nu THE WAR-SONGS OF TYRTiEUS. 331 
 
 III. 
 
 ' I AVOULD neither commemorate, nor hold in account a man, 
 either for excellence in running, or for wrestling; no, nor 
 though he should have the bulk and strength of the Cyclopes, 
 and in speed surpass ^Thracian Boreas. No, nor though he 
 should in personal appearance be more graceful than ^Titho- 
 nus, and should be more rich than Midas or '* Cinyras. Nor 
 though he should be more kingly than Pelops, son of Tantalus, 
 and have the ^ soft- voiced tongue of Adrastus ; nor yet if he 
 should have all glory, save that of resistless valour ; for he is 
 not a man brave in war, ^unless he have the courage to face 
 bloody slaughter, and standing near attack the foemen. But 
 this is excellence, this the best prize among men, and noblest 
 for a young man to carry off. And this is a common good to 
 a city, and all its people, name!?/, whatsoever man standing 
 
 Anab. ii. 2, 4, Arma for armati. Virg. ^n. i. 509, Septa armis ; ii. 238, 
 FoBta armis ; v. 409, Consequimur cuncti et densis incurrimus armis. In 
 the same manner " Vitara " is, in Phsedr. Prol. i, 3, equivalent to "vi- 
 ventes.'' " Consilia ;" Cic. Ep. viii. 4, 6, consilia agitantes. Flagitia, for 
 facinorosos. Sallust, B. C. xiv. 1. 
 
 ^ This line is quoted by Plato, de Leg. i. pp. 15, 16, (vol. vi. ed. Ast,) 
 and has been rendered into Latin by Erasmus, Adag. tit, ** Fortitudi- 
 ni-s," p. 259, ed. Francof 1670. Plato's quotation is read with riOeiixrjv, 
 which Stephanus would read here — ev Xoytp TiOtiTjv. Cf. Theocr. Idyll, 
 xiv. 48, djXiXEQ 6' ovri Xoyov rivbg d^ioi — aptri^ from "Aprjg, as virtua 
 from vir, signifies excellence of any kind. Arist. Nic. Eth. ii. 5. Lucret. 
 V. 964, et manuum mira freti virtute pedumque. 
 
 2 Boreas is called Thracian, because Thracian Hfemus was supposed 
 to be the dwelling of the blustering North wind. Callimach. H. to Dian. 
 114. At/iy Itti Opr)iKi, TToOev (3opedo KaraX^ tpxirai. For comparison 
 of swift runners with the wind, see Hom. II. x. 437 ; Virg. ^n. vii. 
 206, 207, " Cursuque pedum prsevertere ventos." 
 
 3 Tithonus. Horat. Od. ii. 16, 30, Longa Tithonum minuit senec- 
 tus. Virg. ^n. iv. 585, Tithoni croceum linquens Aurora cubile. 
 Tithonus, son of Laomedon and favourite of Aurora, attained a great 
 age, by favour of Jove. 
 
 * Cinyras, a king of Cyprus, whose wealth rendered his name a pro- 
 verb. Pindar, Nem. viii. otnrep Kai Kivvpav t/Spicc TrXoury irovriq. iv 
 TTOTS Kvirptf). 
 
 ^ [jLiiXixoy T]pvv — Compare Theocr. vii. 82, and the Song of Solomon, 
 iv. 11, quoted above. 
 
 " These lines are also quoted by Plato in the passage cited above, 
 TsrXaiT] bpSiV. For the use of the participle for the infin. after other 
 verbs signifying perseverance, endurance, &c. see Matt. Gr. Gr. § 650, 
 
332 THE WAR-SONGS OF TYRT^US. Ut. 
 
 firm bides unceasingly in the front ranks, and is wholly for- 
 getful of base flight, when he has ^ staked his life, and en- 
 during spirit ; but has the heart to fall, standing beside his 
 next neighbour. This man is good in war. And quickly does 
 he turn in flight the sturdy phalanxes of foemen, and ^zeal- 
 ously stem the wave of battle. He too himself having fallen 
 amid the foremost, loses his life, and (at the same time) having 
 brought renown to his city and people and sire : pierced in 
 many places through breast, and round shield, and through 
 his cuirass in the front. Him young alike and old lament, 
 and the whole state is distressed for him with painful regret. 
 His ^tomb and children are famous among men, ay, '^his 
 children's children, and his race after him. Never does his 
 fair fame or his name perish, but though he be on earth, he 
 becomes immortal, whom, bravely bearing himself, standing 
 firm, and fighting for country and for children, impetuous 
 Ares shall have destroyed. But should he have escaped the 
 fate of death that-lays-men-out-at-length ; and as victor, have 
 borne ofl" the splendid boast of battle won, all honour him, 
 young and old alike ; and *^ after tasting many delights, he comes 
 to Hades. Growing old, he is eminent amid the citizens, nor 
 does any one wish to hurt him in point of respect or justice. 
 
 ^ Ovfibv TrapOsfievoQ. Horn. Od. ii. 237, afag yap TrapOsfievoi KtpaXag. 
 Od. iii. 74. II. i. 372, TrapafiaWonevog, similarly used. 
 
 * (TTTOvdy, the opposite to aairovhi, II. x. 303. Odyss. xv. 209, 
 fTTTOvSy vvv avd^aivi. — (.axiBf — tx^ here is equivalent to KwXvia, tTrexw. 
 — Kvna fiaxrjg. For similar metaphors taken from the raging sea, com- 
 pare Eurip. Hippol. 823 ; Soph. Aj. 1082, 1083 ; Antig. 162, 163 ; 
 CEd. C. 1240—1245 ; (Ed. T. 23 ; Trach. 114 ; ^Esch. Prom. V. 1014 
 (Dind.) ; S. c. Theb. 63. Horat. Od. ii. 7, 15, 
 
 Te rursus in helium resorbens 
 Unda fretis tulit sestuosis. 
 
 ' TVfiPog — Compare with this passage Thuc. ii. 43, Koivy ydp rd 
 (TU)fiaTa didovreg, k. t. X. 
 
 '<> The laws of Athens ordained that the children of such as had fallen 
 in war, should be protected, publicly reared and educated, and have first 
 seats at the theatres. Cf. Lysias, Orat. Funebr. p. 521, cap. xx. ad med. 
 Tratdtg TraiSwv. Hom. II. xx. 308, Kai 'Trathg irai^iav Toi Ktv fitro- 
 TTia-Oe ysvwvTai. 
 
 " Tipirva iraBwv. Traax^iv is used " de bonis." See Budseus Comm. 
 de L. G. p. 74, (Paris, 1529,) who quotes Lysias, rig ovv iXirtg virb 
 TovTiov Ti ayaObv TrdaeaOat. — Aristoph. Eccles. 893 ; Eq. 876. Plautus 
 in Asinar. ii. 2, 58, Fortiter malum qui patitur, idem post patitur 
 bonum. 
 
IT. THE WAR-SONGS OF TYRT^US. 
 
 And all ^^ on the seats, alike young, and those of his age, and 
 they who are still older, give place to him. Let every one 
 now strive in his spirit to reach the summit of '^excellence 
 like this, not''^ slackening warfare. 
 
 IV. 
 
 How long lie ye inactive ? when will ye have a brave spi- 
 rit, young men ? and are ye not ' ashamed of the dwellers all 
 around, since ye dally thus exceedingly ? For ye think ye 
 ^sit secure in peace, yet war possesses the whole land. 
 
 2 And let a man, as he dies, discharge his javelin for the last 
 time. For it is both honourable and noble for a man to fight 
 for land, and children, and wedded wife, with his foes; and 
 death will come at some time, whensoever in truth the fates 
 shall have allotted. But let every one, having lifted aloft his 
 lance, and ^ gathered up his stout heart under his shield, go 
 
 '- OioKoiaiv — For this reverence to honourable age cf. Cic. de Senect. 
 c. 18, § 63, 64. Juvenal xiii. 54, 
 
 Credebant hoc grande nefas et morte piaudum 
 Si juvenis vetulo non assurrexerit. 
 Virg. Eel. vi. 66, Utque viro Phoebi chorus assurrexerit omnis. 
 
 '^ dptTTjg, glory. Thuc. i. 33, Kai Trpocreri <pkpovaa kg /xkv Toiig woX- 
 Xovg dpBTriv. 
 
 '* fii9ieig TToXefiov, al. iroXknov. But Dawes, Misc. Crit. p. 236, has 
 shown that fitOdvat, '*to let loose," has the ace. fnOieaOai, to loose hold 
 of— the genitive. Cf Porson ad Med. 734 ; Phcen. 529. 
 
 ' aiStlces. Cf. Horn. II. v. 630 ; Plato de Leg. lib. iii. 699 (pp. 
 200, line 12, Ast) ; Livy xxx. 18, Pudor, Romani nominis proprius, 
 qui saepe res perditas servavit in prseliis. — dfKpnreinKTiovag. This would 
 seem to mean the Perioeci, or Achasans of Laconia, called Lacedsemoni- 
 ans, as distinguished from the Dorians, or ^xapTirjTai, to whom these 
 words are addressed. 
 
 * TjaOai, to sit lazily. Cf. Horn. II. i. 133 ; iii. 134. Latin, sedere. 
 "Virg. ^n. xi. 460, Pacem laudate sedentes. xii. 237, Qui nunc lentia 
 consedimus armis. Liv. xxiv. 11, Qui cum ipse ad maenia urbis Romas 
 armatus sederet. 
 
 3 aTToOvrjaKuiv, Cf. Lucan. iii. 622, 
 
 EfFugientem animam lapsos collegit in artus, 
 Membraque contendit toto, quicunque manebat, 
 Sanguine, et hostilem defessis robore nervis 
 Insiliit solo nocturnus pondere puppim. 
 
 * iXvag, used by Homer several times in the Iliad, is tne aor. 1, part, 
 act. of ci\w, used in the signification of ** drawing oneself up." The 
 
S34 THE WAR-SONGS OP TYRT^US. T, 
 
 right forward, when the battle first is joined. For it is not 
 fated by any means that a man should escape death at least, 
 no, not though he be by family of immortal ancestry. Often 
 * he comes forth^ after having escaped battle-strife and din of 
 javelins, and in his home fated death found him. Now the 
 latter is not in like manner a friend ®to the commonalty, nor 
 regretted by iliem^ whilst the former, the brave man, small and 
 great bewail, if aught shall have happened to him. For the 
 whole people together regrets a stout-hearted hero, when he 
 dies, and living he is worthy of the demigods. For they be- 
 hold him with their eyes even as a '^ tower, since, though single- 
 handed, he performs deeds worth those of many. 
 
 * % * % * ^ 
 
 These twain were contending unceasingly for nineteen 
 years, ever having a stout-hearted spirit, warrior sires of our 
 sires. But in the twentieth year they indeed (the Messe- 
 nians) fled from the great mountains of Ithome, having 
 abandoned their ^rich fields. 
 
 Scholiasts explain it, 1. avvayayCjv Kal jcaracrxwv. 2. avyKXsiffatj, ku- 
 TaaxbJv. ffTop seems taken for the seat of bravery, the heart. Grotius 
 renders the line " Clypeo generosa recondens Pectora." — TroXsfiov, the 
 battle. So Homer II. ii. 443, KrjpvtrtTtiv TroXsfxov de KaprjKOfjiowvTas 
 Axdiovg. iv. 281 ; xii. 181. Florus and Velleius so use helium for prae- 
 hum, Flor. iii. 5 ; Veil. ii. 69. 
 
 ' epx^Tai, abit e pugna, e prselio, et incolumis domum redit. Klotz. II. 
 ii. 381. 
 
 ^ dr]fiog evidently stands for the plebs, not populus, in this place, as 
 is shown by the force of the next line. 
 
 ^ TTvpyov. A frequent simile among the Greek poets. Hom. Od. xi. 
 555, ToioQ yap (T(f)iv Trvpyog aTrwXto. Eurip. Med. 389, ijv jxtv tiq 
 if^Xv TTvpyoQ a<T<paX^Q <pavy. So among the Latins, Ov. Met. xiii. 281, . 
 Graivlm murus Achilles. Senec. Troad. 125, Tu praesidium Phrygibus 
 fessis, tu murus eras. Claudian in Rufin, i. 264, 
 
 Hie optata quies cunctis ; hie sola pericli 
 
 Turris erat clypeusque trucem porrectus in hostem. 
 
 * This fragment is found in Strabo, lib. vi., and from it we collect that 
 the first Messenian war lasted 19 years. The first three verses are found 
 in Pausan. in Messen. c. 15, with this diflPerence, aficp' avTTjv d' kfxdxovTO. 
 Comp. Hom. II. vi. 461, "Orf "iXiov dfi(psfidxovTO. For the end of the 
 first Messen. war, see Thirlwall, H. G. vol. i. p. 351. 
 
 * Iltova tpya, agri fertiles, loca culta. So Hom. II. v. 92 ; xii. 283. 
 Callim. H. in Dian. 156. Virg. Mn. ii. 306, Sternit agros, sternit 
 sata laeta, boumque lab ores. 
 
VI.— IX. THE WAR-SONGS OF TYRT^US. 335 
 
 VI. 1 
 
 For Zeus himself, son of Cronos, husband of beautiful- 
 crowned Her^, hath given this city to the Heracleids. Along 
 with whom, having left 2 windy Erine^s, we arrived at the 
 broad isle of Pelops.' 
 
 VII.3 
 
 Even as asses worn with heavy burdens, carrying to their 
 '* masters, by reason of sad constraint, ^the half entirely of 
 whatsoever the soil produces. 
 
 VIII.6 
 
 Mourning their masters, even though they are so, both 
 themselves and their wives, when the destructive fate of death 
 seizes any of them. 
 
 IX.7 
 
 To our king Theopompus, dear to the gods, through whom 
 we took Messene the spacious. 
 
 * This fragment appears in Strabo, lib. xiii., and is said by him to be 
 found Iv Ty rroiijaei iX(yei<ji rjv e7nypd(j)ovaiv evvofxiav. 
 
 2 rfveixoevra may perhaps signify " lying amid the hills," as in II. ii. 606 ; 
 Callimach. H. in Del. 11. 'Epivei^v, some read 'EpifC£i?7v, a deme of 
 Attica, 47th in order in the catalogue given in Smith's Diet, of Gr. and 
 Rom. Geography, p. 334. 
 
 ^ This fragment is from Pausanias, De Messen. c. 14, who proves by 
 it that wrongs were inflicted by Lacedsemon on the Messenians. 
 
 ■* StffTToavvoKJi, i. q. dio-TroTaig. jEsch. Pers. 587, ovk in datrfio^o- 
 povmv dicTTTOcrvvoKyiv dvdyKaig. 
 
 ^ r]fii(rv irdvO' oauiv. I have rendered this as if Travra was taken 
 adverbially. A better reading, suggested by Klotz, is rifiiav irav Kapiruiv 
 o<T(Tov. ^lian, Y. H. vi. 1, confirms the fact. AaKsSaifiovioi Mftrcrj;- 
 viojv KpaTrjcTavTtQ Tuiv fxev yivofxsviov d.7rdvT(A)v fv rg 'M.e<T(Tr]vi(f. rd ijfiiar} 
 i\dp.^avov avTol. 
 
 8 This distich is from the same source. Pausanias and ^lian both 
 state that the subjugated Messenians were constrained to wear mourn- 
 ing, and attend, themselves and their wives, the funerals of the noble 
 Lacedaemonians. 
 f For these verses see Pausan. Messen. c. 6, 
 
336 THE WAR-SONGS OP TYRTJEUS. X.— XIIX. 
 
 Having heard Phoebus from Pytho, ^they brought home 
 oracles and perfect words of a god. That divinely-honoured 
 kings should rule the senate, kings to whom the lovely city 
 of Sparta is a care ; and reverend old men, and afterwards 
 men of the people, ^ replying to straight-forward maxims. 
 
 XI.4 
 
 Youths, citizens of Sparta abounding in good men, first 
 with left hand indeed thrust forward shield and lance, throw- 
 ing them with good courage, and not sparing-life in behalf of 
 your father-land. 
 
 XTT5 
 
 Before he has drawn nigh the bounds of glory or death. 
 
 XIII.6 
 
 ' And having in his breast the courage of a fiery lion. 
 
 1 This fragment is found in Plut. Vit. Lycurg. i. 43. 
 
 ' 01 rddf. viKq,v, the Aldine reading. But the only intelligible emend- 
 ation is oiicddk ivuKav, domum attulerunt, which has been adopted here. 
 
 3 prjrpaiQ. These were the unwritten laws of Lycurgus. Suidas V. iii. p. 
 295, rrapd AaKedainovioig prjrpa Avicovpyov vofiog, wg Ik x9V<^f^ov rM- 
 fievog. 
 
 ♦ A fragment from Dio Chrysost. Orat. ii. p. 51, ed. Morell. 
 
 ' A fragment from a treatise of Plutarch, de Stoicorum repugnantiis. 
 
 • A fragment preserved by Galen. 
 
r 
 
^^^^■'W;''' 
 ■^■i"*^^---'^./ 
 
 
 D009-02Zt76 VO 'A313>1d3a 900 ON Hd 
 A313>ld39'VINdOdnVO dO AIISd3AINn 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6661 Z I N/ll 
 
 
 
 ^66t9;?>(t/M, 
 
 
 
 
 Moiaa aadiAivis sv ana 
 
 '90^e-Zt^ 6u!i|D3 Aq paMaua^i aq Adlu s>|0 
 ajop anp am o| joud sAop p apotu aq Aouu saOjOMoa^i puo sjMau 
 
 SAva I d3idv aanvoaa aa avi^ s>iooa i 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 
 e 
 
 Z 
 
 3Sn 3NOH 
 
 I aoidad Nvc 
 
 s>iOD4.s upiAl 96 L • AjDjqn upiAl 
 lN3IAIidVd3a NOIlVinOdIO 
 
 Ndnii 
 
/-; 
 
 GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 m 
 
 BDDD771SMM 
 
 
 HiVERSI 
 
 
 . •:-^?9:^^., 'w 
 
 
 T'^'iJJ^T'fiS'in-OF. GUIFOIl 
 
 Hit " unm "' ^«f iiNivfiis!! 
 
 ■t ■