Chapter XX

All things, god-willing, all things may be achieved by mortals. From the hands of the blessed come tasks most easy, and that find their accomplishment.

MOSCHUS

OUR only certain information about Moschus is contained in his own Dirge for Bion. He speaks of his verse as ‘Ausonian song,’ and of himself as Mion’s pupil and successor. It is plain that he was acquainted with the poems of Theocritus.

IDYL I LOVE THE RUNAWAY

CYPRIS was raising the hue and cry for Love, her child,—‘Who, where the three ways meet, has seen Love wandering? He is my runaway, whosoever has aught to tell of him shall win his reward. His prize is the kiss of Cypris, but if thou bringest him, not the bare kiss, O stranger, but yet more shalt thou win. The child is most notable, thou couldst tell him among twenty together, his skin is not white, but flame coloured, his eyes are keen and burning, an evil heart and a sweet tongue has he, for his speech and his mind are at variance. Like honey is his voice, but his heart of gall, all tameless is he, and deceitful, the truth is not in him, a wily brat, and cruel in his pastime. The locks of his hair are lovely, but his brow is impudent, and tiny are his little hands, yet far he shoots his arrows, shoots even to Acheron, and to the King of Hades.

‘The body of Love is naked, but well is his spirit hidden, and winged like a bird he flits and descends, now here, now there, upon men and women, and nestles in their inmost hearts. He hath a little bow, and an arrow always on the string, tiny is the shaft, but it carries as high as heaven. A golden quiver on his back he bears, and within it his bitter arrows, wherewith full many a time he wounds even me.

‘Cruel are all these instruments of his, but more cruel by far the little torch, his very own, wherewith he lights up the sun himself.

‘And if thou catch Love, bind him, and bring him, and have no pity, and if thou see him weeping, take heed lest he give thee the slip; and if he laugh, hale him along.

‘Yea, and if he wish to kiss thee, beware, for evil is his kiss, and his lips enchanted.

‘And should he say, “Take these, I give thee in free gift all my armoury,” touch not at all his treacherous gifts, for they all are dipped in fire.’

IDYL II EUROPA AND THE BULL

TO Europa, once on a time, a sweet dream was sent by Cypris, when the third watch of the night sets in, and near is the dawning; when sleep more sweet than honey rests on the eyelids, limb-loosening sleep, that binds the eyes with his soft bond, when the flock of truthful dreams fares wandering.

At that hour she was sleeping, beneath the roof-tree of her home, Europa, the daughter of Phoenix, being still a maid unwed. Then she beheld two Continents at strife for her sake, Asia, and the farther shore, both in the shape of women. Of these one had the guise of a stranger, the other of a lady of that land, and closer still she clung about her maiden, and kept saying how ‘she was her mother, and herself had nursed Europa.’ But that other with mighty hands, and forcefully, kept haling the maiden, nothing loth; declaring that, by the will of Ægis-bearing Zeus, Europa was destined to be her prize.

But Europa leaped forth from her strown bed in terror, with beating heart, in such clear vision had she beheld the dream. Then she sat upon her bed, and long was silent, still beholding the two women, albeit with waking eyes; and at last the maiden raised her timorous voice

‘Who of the gods of heaven has sent forth to me these phantoms? What manner of dreams have scared me when right sweetly slumbering on my strown bed, within my bower? Ah, and who was the alien woman that I beheld in my sleep? How strange a longing for her seized my heart, yea, and how graciously she herself did welcome me, and regard me as it had been her own child.

‘Ye blessed gods, I pray you, prosper the fulfilment of the dream.’

Therewith she arose, and began to seek the dear maidens of her company, girls of like age with herself, born in the same year, beloved of her heart, the daughters of noble sires, with whom she was always wont to sport, when she was arrayed for the dance, or when she would bathe her bright body at the mouths of the rivers, or would gather fragrant lilies on the leas.

And soon she found them, each bearing in her hand a basket to fill with flowers, and to the meadows near the salt sea they set forth, where always they were wont to gather in their company, delighting in the roses, and the sound of the waves. But Europa herself bore a basket of gold, a marvel well worth gazing on, a choice work of Hephaestus. He gave it to Libya, for a bridal-gift, when she approached the bed of the Shaker of the Earth, and Libya gave it to beautiful Telephassa, who was of her own blood; and to Europa, still an unwedded maid, her mother, Telephassa, gave the splendid gift.

Many bright and cunning things were wrought in the basket: therein was Io, daughter of Inachus, fashioned in gold; still in the shape of a heifer she was, and had not her woman’s shape, and wildly wandering she fared upon the salt sea-ways, like one in act to swim; and the sea was wrought in blue steel. And aloft upon the double brow of the shore, two men were standing together and watching the heifer’s sea-faring. There too was Zeus, son of Cronos, lightly touching with his divine hand the cow of the line of Inachus, and her, by Nile of the seven streams, he was changing again, from a horned heifer to a woman. Silver was the stream of Nile, and the heifer of bronze and Zeus himself was fashioned in gold. And all about, beneath the rim of the rounded basket, was the story of Hermes graven, and near him lay stretched out Argus, notable for his sleepless eyes. And from the red blood of Argus was springing a bird that rejoiced in the flower-bright colour of his feathers, and spreading abroad his tail, even as some swift ship on the sea doth spread all canvas, was covering with his plumes the lips of the golden vessel. Even thus was wrought the basket of the lovely Europa.

Now the girls, so soon as they were come to the flowering meadows, took great delight in various sorts of flowers, whereof one would pluck sweet-breathed narcissus, another the hyacinth, another the violet, a fourth the creeping thyme, and on the ground there fell many petals of the meadows rich with spring. Others again were emulously gathering the fragrant tresses of the yellow crocus; but in the midst of them all the princess culled with her hand the splendour of the crimson rose, and shone pre-eminent among them all like the foam-born goddess among the Graces. Verily she was not for long to set her heart’s delight upon the flowers, nay, nor long to keep untouched her maiden girdle. For of a truth, the son of Cronos, so soon as he beheld her, was troubled, and his heart was subdued by the sudden shafts of Cypris, who alone can conquer even Zeus. Therefore, both to avoid the wrath of jealous Hera, and being eager to beguile the maiden’s tender heart, he concealed his godhead, and changed his shape, and became a bull. Not such an one as feeds in the stall nor such as cleaves the furrow, and drags the curved plough, nor such as grazes on the grass, nor such a bull as is subdued beneath the yoke, and draws the burdened wain. Nay, but while all the rest of his body was bright chestnut, a silver circle shone between his brows, and his eyes gleamed softly, and ever sent forth lightning of desire. From his brow branched horns of even length, like the crescent of the horned moon, when her disk is cloven in twain. He came into the meadow, and his coming terrified not the maidens, nay, within them all wakened desire to draw nigh the lovely bull, and to touch him, and his heavenly fragrance was scattered afar, exceeding even the sweet perfume of the meadows. And he stood before the feet of fair Europa, and kept licking her neck, and cast his spell over the maiden. And she still caressed him, and gently with her hands she wiped away the deep foam from his lips, and kissed the bull. Then he lowed so gently, ye would think ye heard the Mygdonian flute uttering a dulcet sound.

He bowed himself before her feet, and, bending back his neck, he gazed on Europa, and showed her his broad back. Then she spake among her deep-tressed maidens, saying—

‘Come, dear playmates, maidens of like age with me, let us mount the bull here and take our pastime, for truly, he will bear us on his back, and carry all of us; and how mild he is, and dear, and gentle to behold, and no whit like other bulls. A mind as honest as a man’s possesses him, and he lacks nothing but speech.’

So she spake, and smiling, she sat down on the back of the bull, and the others were about to follow her. But the bull leaped up immediately, now he had gotten her that he desired, and swiftly he sped to the deep. The maiden turned, and called again and again to her dear playmates, stretching out her hands, but they could not reach her. The strand he gained, and forward he sped like a dolphin, faring with unwetted hooves over the wide waves. And the sea, as he came, grew smooth, and the sea-monsters gambolled around, before the feet of Zeus, and the dolphin rejoiced, and rising from the deeps, he tumbled on the swell of the sea. The Nereids arose out of the salt water, and all of them came on in orderly array, riding on the backs of sea-beasts. And himself, the thund’rous Shaker of the World, appeared above the sea, and made smooth the wave, and guided his brother on the salt sea path; and round him were gathered the Tritons, these hoarse trumpeters of the deep, blowing from their long conches a bridal melody.

Meanwhile Europa, riding on the back of the divine bull, with one hand clasped the beast’s great horn, and with the other caught up the purple fold of her garment, lest it might trail and be wet in the hoar sea’s infinite spray. And her deep robe was swelled out by the winds, like the sail of a ship, and lightly still did waft the maiden onward. But when she was now far off from her own country, and neither sea-beat headland nor steep hill could now be seen, but above, the air, and beneath, the limitless deep, timidly she looked around, and uttered her voice, saying—

‘Whither bearest thou me, bull-god? What art thou? how dost thou fare on thy feet through the path of the sea-beasts, nor fearest the sea? The sea is a path meet for swift ships that traverse the brine, but bulls dread the salt sea-ways. What drink is sweet to thee, what food shalt thou find from the deep? Nay, art thou then some god, for godlike are these deeds of thine? Lo, neither do dolphins of the brine fare on land, nor bulls on the deep, but dreadless dost thou rush o’er land and sea alike, thy hooves serving thee for oars.

‘Nay, perchance thou wilt rise above the grey air, and flee on high, like the swift birds. Alas for me, and alas again, for mine exceeding evil fortune, alas for me that have left my father’s house, and following this bull, on a strange sea-faring I go, and wander lonely. But I pray thee that rulest the grey salt sea, thou Shaker of the Earth, propitious meet me, and methinks I see thee smoothing this path of mine before me. For surely it is not without a god to aid, that I pass through these paths of the waters!’

So spake she, and the horned bull made answer to her again—

‘Take courage, maiden, and dread not the swell of the deep. Behold I am Zeus, even I, though, closely beheld, I wear the form of a bull, for I can put on the semblance of what thing I will. But ’tis love of thee that has compelled me to measure out so great a space of the salt sea, in a bull’s shape. Lo, Crete shall presently receive thee, Crete that was mine own foster-mother, where thy bridal chamber shall be. Yea, and from me shalt thou bear glorious sons, to be sceptre-swaying kings over earthly men.

So spake he, and all he spake was fulfilled. And verily Crete appeared, and Zeus took his own shape again, and he loosed her girdle, and the Hours arrayed their bridal bed. She that before was a maiden straightway became the bride of Zeus, and she bare children to Zeus, yea, anon she was a mother.

IDYL III THE LAMENT FOR BION

WAIL, let me hear you wail, ye woodland glades, and thou Dorian water; and weep ye rivers, for Bion, the well beloved! Now all ye green things mourn, and now ye groves lament him, ye flowers now in sad clusters breathe yourselves away. Now redden ye roses in your sorrow, and now wax red ye wind-flowers, now thou hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee graven, and add a deeper _ai ai_ to thy petals; he is dead, the beautiful singer.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Ye nightingales that lament among the thick leaves of the trees, tell ye to the Sicilian waters of Arethusa the tidings that Bion the herdsman is dead, and that with Bion song too has died, and perished hath the Dorian minstrelsy.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Ye Strymonian swans, sadly wail ye by the waters, and chant with melancholy notes the dolorous song, even such a song as in his time with voice like yours he was wont to sing. And tell again to the Œagrian maidens, tell to all the Nymphs Bistonian, how that he hath perished, the Dorian Orpheus.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

No more to his herds he sings, that beloved herdsman, no more ’neath the lonely oaks he sits and sings, nay, but by Pluteus’s side he chants a refrain of oblivion. The mountains too are voiceless: and the heifers that wander by the bulls lament and refuse their pasture.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Thy sudden doom, O Bion, Apollo himself lamented, and the Satyrs mourned thee, and the Priapi in sable raiment, and the Panes sorrow for thy song, and the fountain fairies in the wood made moan, and their tears turned to rivers of waters. And Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, and no more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded. From the ewes hath flowed no fair milk, nor honey from the hives, nay, it hath perished for mere sorrow in the wax, for now hath thy honey perished, and no more it behoves men to gather the honey of the bees.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Not so much did the dolphin mourn beside the sea-banks, nor ever sang so sweet the nightingale on the cliffs, nor so much lamented the swallow on the long ranges of the hills, nor shrilled so loud the halcyon o’er his sorrows;

(_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.)

Nor so much, by the grey sea-waves, did ever the sea-bird sing, nor so much in the dells of dawn did the bird of Memnon bewail the son of the Morning, fluttering around his tomb, as they lamented for Bion dead.

Nightingales, and all the swallows that once he was wont to delight, that he would teach to speak, they sat over against each other on the boughs and kept moaning, and the birds sang in answer, ‘Wail, ye wretched ones, even ye!’

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Who, ah who will ever make music on thy pipe, O thrice desired Bion, and who will put his mouth to the reeds of thine instrument? who is so bold?

For still thy lips and still thy breath survive, and Echo, among the reeds, doth still feed upon thy songs. To Pan shall I bear the pipe? Nay, perchance even he would fear to set his mouth to it, lest, after thee, he should win but the second prize.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Yea, and Galatea laments thy song, she whom once thou wouldst delight, as with thee she sat by the sea-banks. For not like the Cyclops didst thou sing—him fair Galatea ever fled, but on thee she still looked more kindly than on the salt water. And now hath she forgotten the wave, and sits on the lonely sands, but still she keeps thy kine.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

All the gifts of the Muses, herdsman, have died with thee, the delightful kisses of maidens, the lips of boys; and woful round thy tomb the loves are weeping. But Cypris loves thee far more than the kiss wherewith she kissed the dying Adonis.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

This, O most musical of rivers, is thy second sorrow, this, Meles, thy new woe. Of old didst thou lose Homer, that sweet mouth of Calliope, and men say thou didst bewail thy goodly son with streams of many tears, and didst fill all the salt sea with the voice of thy lamentation—now again another son thou weepest, and in a new sorrow art thou wasting away.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Both were beloved of the fountains, and one ever drank of the Pegasean fount, but the other would drain a draught of Arethusa. And the one sang the fair daughter of Tyndarus, and the mighty son of Thetis, and Menelaus Atreus’s son, but that other,—not of wars, not of tears, but of Pan, would he sing, and of herdsmen would he chant, and so singing, he tended the herds. And pipes he would fashion, and would milk the sweet heifer, and taught lads how to kiss, and Love he cherished in his bosom and woke the passion of Aphrodite.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Every famous city laments thee, Bion, and all the towns. Ascra laments thee far more than her Hesiod, and Pindar is less regretted by the forests of Boeotia. Nor so much did pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcaeus, nor did the Teian town so greatly bewail her poet, while for thee more than for Archilochus doth Paros yearn, and not for Sappho, but still for thee doth Mytilene wail her musical lament;

[_Here seven verses are lost_.]

And in Syracuse Theocritus; but I sing thee the dirge of an Ausonian sorrow, I that am no stranger to the pastoral song, but heir of the Doric Muse which thou didst teach thy pupils. This was thy gift to me; to others didst thou leave thy wealth, to me thy minstrelsy.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Ah me, when the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and spring in another year; but we men, we, the great and mighty, or wise, when once we have died, in hollow earth we sleep, gone down into silence; a right long, and endless, and unawakening sleep. And thou too, in the earth wilt be lapped in silence, but the nymphs have thought good that the frog should eternally sing. Nay, him I would not envy, for ’tis no sweet song he singeth.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth, thou didst know poison. To such lips as thine did it come, and was not sweetened? What mortal was so cruel that could mix poison for thee, or who could give thee the venom that heard thy voice? surely he had no music in his soul.

_Begin_, _ye Sicilian Muses_, _begin the dirge_.

But justice hath overtaken them all. Still for this sorrow I weep, and bewail thy ruin. But ah, if I might have gone down like Orpheus to Tartarus, or as once Odysseus, or Alcides of yore, I too would speedily have come to the house of Pluteus, that thee perchance I might behold, and if thou singest to Pluteus, that I might hear what is thy song. Nay, sing to the Maiden some strain of Sicily, sing some sweet pastoral lay.

And she too is Sicilian, and on the shores by Aetna she was wont to play, and she knew the Dorian strain. Not unrewarded will the singing be; and as once to Orpheus’s sweet minstrelsy she gave Eurydice to return with him, even so will she send thee too, Bion, to the hills. But if I, even I, and my piping had aught availed, before Pluteus I too would have sung.

IDYL IV

_A sad dialogue between Megara the wife and Alcmena the mother of the wandering Heracles_. _Megara had seen her own children slain by her lord_, _in his frenzy_, _while Alcmena was constantly disquieted by ominous dreams_.

* * * * *

MY mother, wherefore art thou thus smitten in thy soul with exceeding sorrow, and the rose is no longer firm in thy cheeks as of yore? why, tell me, art thou thus disquieted? Is it because thy glorious son is suffering pains unnumbered in bondage to a man of naught, as it were a lion in bondage to a fawn? Woe is me, why, ah why have the immortal gods thus brought on me so great dishonour, and wherefore did my parents get me for so ill a doom? Wretched woman that I am, who came to the bed of a man without reproach and ever held him honourable and dear as mine own eyes,—ay and still worship and hold him sacred in my heart—yet none other of men living hath had more evil hap or tasted in his soul so many griefs. In madness once, with the bow Apollo’s self had given him—dread weapon of some Fury or spirit of Death—he struck down his own children, and took their dear life away, as his frenzy raged through the house till it swam in blood. With mine own eyes, I saw them smitten, woe is me, by their father’s arrows—a thing none else hath suffered even in dreams. Nor could I aid them as they cried ever on their mother; the evil that was upon them was past help. As a bird mourneth for her perishing little ones, devoured in the thicket by some terrible serpent while as yet they are fledglings, and the kind mother flutters round them making most shrill lament, but cannot help her nestlings, yea, and herself hath great fear to approach the cruel monster; so I unhappy mother, wailing for my brood, with frenzied feet went wandering through the house. Would that by my children’s side I had died myself, and were lying with the envenomed arrow through my heart. Would that this had been, O Artemis, thou that art queen chief of power to womankind. Then would our parents have embraced and wept for us and with ample obsequies have laid us on one common pyre, and have gathered the bones of all of us into one golden urn, and buried them in the place where first we came to be. But now they dwell in Thebes, fair nurse of youth, ploughing the deep soil of the Aonian plain, while I in Tiryns, rocky city of Hera, am ever thus wounded at heart with many sorrows, nor is any respite to me from tears. My husband I behold but a little time in our house, for he hath many labours at his hand, whereat he laboureth in wanderings by land and sea, with his soul strong as rock or steel within his breast. But thy grief is as the running waters, as thou lamentest through the nights and all the days of Zeus.

Nor is there any one of my kinsfolk nigh at hand to cheer me: for it is not the house wall that severs them, but they all dwell far beyond the pine-clad Isthmus, nor is there any to whom, as a woman all hapless, I may look up and refresh my heart, save only my sister Pyrrha; nay, but she herself grieves yet more for her husband Iphicles thy son: for methinks ’tis thou that hast borne the most luckless children of all, to a God, and a mortal man. {205}

Thus spake she, and ever warmer the tears were pouring from her eyes into her sweet bosom, as she bethought her of her children and next of her own parents. And in like manner Alcmena bedewed her pale cheeks with tears, and deeply sighing from her very heart she thus bespoke her dear daughter with thick-coming words:

‘Dear child, what is this that hath come into the thoughts of thy heart? How art thou fain to disquiet us both with the tale of griefs that cannot be forgotten? Not for the first time are these woes wept for now. Are they not enough, the woes that possess us from our birth continually to our day of death? In love with sorrow surely would he be that should have the heart to count up our woes; such destiny have we received from God. Thyself, dear child, I behold vext by endless pains, and thy grief I can pardon, yea, for even of joy there is satiety. And exceedingly do I mourn over and pity thee, for that thou hast partaken of our cruel lot, the burden whereof is hung above our heads. For so witness Persephone and fair-robed Demeter (by whom the enemy that wilfully forswears himself, lies to his own hurt), that I love thee no less in my heart than if thou hadst been born of my womb, and wert the maiden darling of my house: nay, and methinks that thou knowest this well. Therefore say never, my flower, that I heed thee not, not even though I wail more ceaselessly than Niobe of the lovely locks. No shame it is for a mother to make moan for the affliction of her son: for ten months I went heavily, even before I saw him, while I bare him under my girdle, and he brought me near the gates of the warden of Hell; so fierce the pangs I endured in my sore travail of him. And now my son is gone from me in a strange land to accomplish some new labour; nor know I in my sorrow whether I shall again receive him returning here or no. Moreover in sweet sleep a dreadful dream hath fluttered me; and I exceedingly fear for the ill-omened vision that I have seen, lest something that I would not be coming on my children.

It seemed to me that my son, the might of Heracles, held in both hands a well-wrought spade, wherewith, as one labouring for hire, he was digging a ditch at the edge of a fruitful field, stripped of his cloak and belted tunic. And when he had come to the end of all his work and his labours at the stout defence of the vine-filled close, he was about to lean his shovel against the upstanding mound and don the clothes he had worn. But suddenly blazed up above the deep trench a quenchless fire, and a marvellous great flame encompassed him. But he kept ever giving back with hurried feet, striving to flee the deadly bolt of Hephaestus; and ever before his body he kept his spade as it were a shield; and this way and that he glared around him with his eyes, lest the angry fire should consume him. Then brave Iphicles, eager, methought, to help him, stumbled and fell to earth ere he might reach him, nor could he stand upright again, but lay helpless, like a weak old man, whom joyless age constrains to fall when he would not; so he lieth on the ground as he fell, till one passing by lift him up by the hand, regarding the ancient reverence for his hoary beard. Thus lay on the earth Iphicles, wielder of the shield. But I kept wailing as I beheld my sons in their sore plight, until deep sleep quite fled from my eyes, and straightway came bright morn. Such dreams, beloved, flitted through my mind all night; may they all turn against Eurystheus nor come nigh our dwelling, and to his hurt be my soul prophetic, nor may fate bring aught otherwise to pass.

IDYL V

WHEN the wind on the grey salt sea blows softly, then my weary spirits rise, and the land no longer pleases me, and far more doth the calm allure me. {208} But when the hoary deep is roaring, and the sea is broken up in foam, and the waves rage high, then lift I mine eyes unto the earth and trees, and fly the sea, and the land is welcome, and the shady wood well pleasing in my sight, where even if the wind blow high the pine-tree sings her song. Surely an evil life lives the fisherman, whose home is his ship, and his labours are in the sea, and fishes thereof are his wandering spoil. Nay, sweet to me is sleep beneath the broad-leaved plane-tree; let me love to listen to the murmur of the brook hard by, soothing, not troubling the husbandman with its sound.

IDYL VI

PAN loved his neighbour Echo; Echo loved
A gamesome Satyr; he, by her unmoved,
Loved only Lyde; thus through Echo, Pan,
Lyde, and Satyr, Love his circle ran.
Thus all, while their true lovers’ hearts they grieved,
Were scorned in turn, and what they gave received.
O all Love’s scorners, learn this lesson true;
Be kind to Love, that he be kind to you.

IDYL VII

ALPHEUS, when he leaves Pisa and makes his way through beneath the deep, travels on to Arethusa with his waters that the wild olives drank, bearing her bridal gifts, fair leaves and flowers and sacred soil. Deep in the waves he plunges, and runs beneath the sea, and the salt water mingles not with the sweet. Nought knows the sea as the river journeys through. Thus hath the knavish boy, the maker of mischief, the teacher of strange ways—thus hath Love by his spell taught even a river to dive.

IDYL VIII

LEAVING his torch and his arrows, a wallet strung on his back,
One day came the mischievous Love-god to follow the plough-share’s
track:
And he chose him a staff for his driving, and yoked him a sturdy
steer,
And sowed in the furrows the grain to the Mother of Earth most dear.
Then he said, looking up to the sky: ‘Father Zeus, to my harvest be
good,
Lest I yoke that bull to my plough that Europa once rode through the
flood!’

IDYL IX

WOULD that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep,
For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep,
Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep. {210}

FOOTNOTES

{0a} This fragment is from the collection of M. Fauriel; _Chants Populaires de le Grèce_.

{0b} _Empedocles on Etna_.

{0c} Ballet des Arts, dansé par sa Majesté; le 8 janvier, 1663. A Paris, par Robert Ballard, MDCLXIII.

{0d} These and the following ditties are from the modern Greek ballads collected by MM. Fauriel and Legrand.

{0e} See Couat, _La Poesie Alexandrine_, p. 68 _et seq._, Paris 1882.

{0f} See Couat, _op. cit._ p. 395.

{0g} Couat, p. 434.

{0h} See Helbig, _Campenische Wandmalerie_, and Brunn, _Die griechischen Bukoliker und die Bildende Kunst_.

{0i} The _Hecale_ of Callimachus, or Theseus and the Marathonian Bull, seems to have been rather a heroic idyl than an epic.

{6} Or reading Αίολικόν=Aeolian, cf. Thucyd. iii. 102.

{9} These are places famous in the oldest legends of Arcadia.

{11} Reading, καταδήσομαι. Cf. Fritzsche’s note and Harpocration, s.v.

{13} On the word ραμβος, see Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ p. 700; and ‘The Bull Roarer,’ in the translator’s _Custom and Myth_.

{19} Reading καταδήσομαι. Cf. line 3, and note.

{21} He refers to a piece of folk-lore.

{24} The shovel was used for tossing the sand of the lists; the sheep were food for Aegon’s great appetite.

{26} Reading έρίσδεις.

{34} Melanthius was the treacherous goatherd put to a cruel death by Odysseus.

{36} Ameis and Fritzsche take νιν (as here) to be the dog, not Galatea. The sex of the Cyclops’s sheep-dog makes the meaning obscure.

{40} Or, δόμον Ώρομέδοντος. Hermann renders this _domum Oromedonteam_ a gigantic house.’ Oromedon or Eurymedon was the king of the Gigantes, mentioned in Odyssey vii. 58.

{41} έσχατα. This is taken by some to mean _algam infimam_, ‘the bottom weeds of the deepest seas’, by others, the sea-weed highest on the shore, at high watermark.

{42} Comatas was a goatherd who devoutly served the Muses, and sacrificed to them his masters goats. His master therefore shut him up in a cedar chest, opening which at the year’s end he found Comatas alive, by miracle, the bees having fed him with honey. Thus, in a mediaeval legend, the Blessed Virgin took the place, for a year, of the frail nun who had devoutly served her.

{43} Sneezing in Sicily, as in most countries, was a happy omen.

{50} A superfluous and apocryphal line is here omitted.

{53} An allusion to the common superstition (cf. Idyl xii. 24) that perjurers and liars were punished by pimples and blotches. The old Irish held that blotches showed themselves on the faces of Brehons who gave unjust judgments.

{54} Spring in the south, like Night in the tropics, comes ‘at one stride’; but Wordsworth finds the rendering distasteful ‘neque sic redditum valde placet.’

{57} ‘Quant à ta manière, je ne puis la rendre.’—SAINTE-BEUVE.

{61} Reading μηνοφόρως.

{70} Cf. Wordsworth’s proposed conjecture—

μετάρσι’, έτων παρεόντων.

Meineke observes ‘tota haec carminis pars luxata et foedissime depravata est’. There seems to be a rude early pun in lines 73, 74.

{72} The reading—

ού φθεγξη; λύκον εΐδες; επαιξέ τις, ως σοφός, εΐπε,—makes good sense. ως σοφός is put in the mouth of the girl, and would mean ‘a good guess’! The allusion of a guest to the superstition that the wolf struck people dumb is taken by Cynisca for a reference to young Wolf, her secret lover.

{73} Or, as Wordsworth suggests, reading δάκρυσι, ‘for him your cheeks are wet with tears.’

{74a} Shaving in the bronze, and still more, of course, in the stone age, was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like Aeschines, with his long gnawed moustache.

{74b} The Megarians having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all.

{77} Our Lady, here, is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily. The dialogue is here arranged as in Fritzsche’s text, and in line 8 his punctuation is followed.

{78a} If cats are meant, the proverb is probably Alexandrian. Common as cats were in Egypt, they were late comers in Greece.

{78b} Most of the dialogue has been distributed as in the text of Fritzsche.

{82} Reading πέρυσιν.

{89} _I.e._ Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter.

{93} Deipyle, daughter of Adrastus.

{98} Reading—πιείρα ατε λαον ανέδραμε κόσμος αρούρα. See also Wordsworth’s note on line 26.

{104} For αδέα Wordsworth and Hermann conjecture Ἄρεα. The sense would be that Eunica, who thinks herself another Cypris, or Aphrodite is, in turn, to be rejected by her Ares, her soldier-lover, as she has rejected the herdsman.

{105} Reading επιμύσσησι.

{106a} Reading τα φυκιοέντα τε λαίφη.

{106b} κώπα.

{106c} ουδος δ’ ουχι θύραν εΐχ’, and in the next line ά γαρ πενία σφας ετήρει.

{106d} αυδάν.

{107} Reading, with Fritzsche—

αλλ’ όνος εν ράμνω, το τε λύχνιον εν πρυτανείω

φαντι γαρ αγρυπνίαν τόδ’ εχειν

The lines seem to contain two popular saws, of which it is difficult to guess the meaning. The first saw appears to express helplessness; the second, to hint that such comforts as lamps lit all night long exist in towns, but are out of the reach of poor fishermen.

{108a} Reading ηρέμ’ ενυξα και νύξας εχάλαξα. Asphalion first hooked his fish, which ran gamely, and nearly doubled up the rod. Then the fish sulked, and the angler half despaired of landing him. To stir the sullen fish, he reminded him of his wound, probably, as we do now, by keeping a tight line, and tapping the butt of the rod. Then he slackened, giving the fish line in case of a sudden rush; but as there was no such rush, he took in line, or perhaps only showed his fish the butt (for it is not probable that Asphalion had a reel), and so landed him. The Mediterranean fishers generally toss the fish to land with no display of science, but Asphalion’s imaginary capture was a monster.

{108b} It is difficult to understand this proceeding. Perhaps Asphalion had some small net fastened with strings to his boat, in which he towed fish to shore, that the contact with the water might keep them fresher than they were likely to be in the bottom of the coble. On the other hand, Asphalion was fishing from a rock. His dream may have been confused.

{111} πυρεΐα appear to have been ‘fire sticks,’ by rubbing which together the heroes struck a light.

{118} Or εγχεα λοΰσαι, ‘wash the spears,’ as in the Zulu idiom.

{124} In line 57 for τηλε read Wordsworth’s conjecture τηδε = ενταΰθα.

{127} Odyssey. xix. 36 seq. (Reading απερ not ατερ.) ‘Father, surely a great marvel is this that I behold with mine eyes meseems, at least, that the walls of the hall . . . are bright as it were with flaming fire’ . . . ‘Lo! this is the wont of the gods that hold Olympus.’

{128} ξηρον, _prae timore non lacrymantem_ (Paley).

{129} Reading, after Fritzsche, ρωγάδος εκ πέτρας. We should have expected the accursed ashes (like those of Wyclif) to be thrown _into_ the river; cf. Virgil, Ecl. viii. 101, ‘Fer cineres, Amarylli, foras, rivoque fluenti transque caput lace nec respexeris.’ Virgil’s knowledge of these observances was not inferior to that of Theocritus.

{130} Reading εστεμμένω. If εστεμμνον is read, the phrase will mean ‘pure brimming water.’

{135} Reading οσσον.

{143} Reading αλλη, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, instead of υλη.

{144} Reading ποπανεύματα.

{145} Πένθημα και ου πενθηα, a play on words difficult to retain in English. Compare Idyl xiii. line 74.

{147} The conjecture εμα δ’ gives a good sense, _mea vero Helena me potius ultra petit_.

{148} Reading, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, μη ’πιβάλης ταν χεΐρα, και ει γ’ ετι χεΐλος, αμύξω.

{150a} Reading οΐδ’, ακρατιμίη εσσι, with Fritzsche. Compare the conjecture of Wordsworth, Ὀύδ’ ακρα τι μη εσσι.

{150b} See Wordsworth’s explanation.

{153} Syracuse.

{165} Reading, πεδοικισται (that is, the Corinthian founders of Syracuse), and following Wordsworth’s other conjectures.

{167} This epigram may have been added by the first editor of Theocritus, Artemidorus the Grammarian.

{176} This conjecture of Meineke’s offers, at least, a meaning.

{181} _Les hommes sont tous condamnés à mort_, _avec des sursis indéfinis_.—VICTOR HUGO.

{205} Alcmena bore Iphicles to Amphictyon, Hercules to Zeus.

{208} Reading, with Weise, ποτάγει δε πολυ πλεον αμμε γαλάνα.

{210} For the translations into verse I have to thank Mr. Ernest Myers.