Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

AS beautiful Daphnis was following his kine, and Menalcas shepherding his flock, they met, as men tell, on the long ranges of the hills. The beards of both had still the first golden bloom, both were in their earliest youth, both were pipe-players skilled, both skilled in song. Then first Menalcas, looking at Daphnis, thus bespoke him.

‘Daphnis, thou herdsman of the lowing kine, art thou minded to sing a match with me? Methinks I shall vanquish thee, when I sing in turn, as readily as I please.’

Then Daphnis answered him again in this wise, ‘Thou shepherd of the fleecy sheep, Menalcas, the pipe-player, never wilt thou vanquish me in song, not thou, if thou shouldst sing till some evil thing befall thee!’

_Menalcas_. Dost thou care then, to try this and see, dost thou care to risk a stake?

_Daphnis_. I do care to try this and see, a stake I am ready to risk.

_Menalcas_. But what shall we stake, what pledge shall we find equal and sufficient?

_Daphnis_. I will pledge a calf, and do thou put down a lamb, one that has grown to his mother’s height.

_Menalcas_. Nay, never will I stake a lamb, for stern is my father, and stern my mother, and they number all the sheep at evening.

_Daphnis_. But what, then, wilt thou lay, and where is to be the victor’s gain?

_Menalcas_. The pipe, the fair pipe with nine stops, that I made myself, fitted with white wax, and smoothed evenly, above as below. This would I readily wager, but never will I stake aught that is my father’s.

_Daphnis_. See then, I too, in truth, have a pipe with nine stops, fitted with white wax, and smoothed evenly, above as below. But lately I put it together, and this finger still aches, where the reed split, and cut it deeply.

_Menalcas_. But who is to judge between us, who will listen to our singing?

_Daphnis_. That goatherd yonder, he will do, if we call him hither, the man for whom that dog, a black hound with a white patch, is barking among the kids.

Then the boys called aloud, and the goatherd gave ear, and came, and the boys began to sing, and the goatherd was willing to be their umpire. And first Menalcas sang (for he drew the lot) the sweet-voiced Menalcas, and Daphnis took up the answering strain of pastoral song—and ’twas thus Menalcas began:

_Menalcas_. Ye glades, ye rivers, issue of the Gods, if ever Menalcas the flute-player sang a song ye loved, to please him, feed his lambs; and if ever Daphnis come hither with his calves, nay he have no less a boon.

_Daphnis_. Ye wells and pastures, sweet growth o’ the world, if Daphnis sings like the nightingales, do ye fatten this herd of his, and if Menalcas hither lead a flock, may he too have pasture ungrudging to his full desire!

_Menalcas_. There doth the ewe bear twins, and there the goats; there the bees fill the hives, and there oaks grow loftier than common, wheresoever beautiful Milon’s feet walk wandering; ah, if he depart, then withered and lean is the shepherd, and lean the pastures

_Daphnis_. Everywhere is spring, and pastures everywhere, and everywhere the cows’ udders are swollen with milk, and the younglings are fostered, wheresoever fair Nais roams; ah, if she depart, then parched are the kine, and he that feeds them!

_Menalcas_. O bearded goat, thou mate of the white herd, and O ye blunt-faced kids, where are the manifold deeps of the forest, thither get ye to the water, for thereby is Milon; go, thou hornless goat, and say to him, ‘Milon, Proteus was a herdsman, and that of seals, though he was a god.’

_Daphnis_. . . .

_Menalcas_. Not mine be the land of Pelops, not mine to own talents of gold, nay, nor mine to outrun the speed of the winds! Nay, but beneath this rock will I sing, with thee in mine arms, and watch our flocks feeding together, and, before us, the Sicilian sea.

_Daphnis_ . . . .

_Menalcas_ . . . .

_Daphnis_. Tempest is the dread pest of the trees, drought of the waters, snares of the birds, and the hunter’s net of the wild beasts, but ruinous to man is the love of a delicate maiden. O father, O Zeus, I have not been the only lover, thou too hast longed for a mortal woman.

Thus the boys sang in verses amoebaean, and thus Menalcas began the crowning lay:

_Menalcas_. Wolf, spare the kids, spare the mothers of my herd, and harm not me, so young as I am to tend so great a flock. Ah, Lampurus, my dog, dost thou then sleep so soundly? a dog should not sleep so sound, that helps a boyish shepherd. Ewes of mine, spare ye not to take your fill of the tender herb, ye shall not weary, ’ere all this grass grows again. Hist, feed on, feed on, fill, all of you, your udders, that there may be milk for the lambs, and somewhat for me to store away in the cheese-crates.

Then Daphnis followed again, and sweetly preluded to his singing:

_Daphnis_. Me, even me, from the cave, the girl with meeting eyebrows spied yesterday as I was driving past my calves, and she cried, ‘How fair, how fair he is!’ But I answered her never the word of railing, but cast down my eyes, and plodded on my way.

Sweet is the voice of the heifer, sweet her breath, {50} sweet to lie beneath the sky in summer, by running water.

Acorns are the pride of the oak, apples of the apple tree, the calf of the heifer, and the neatherd glories in his kine.

So sang the lads; and the goatherd thus bespoke them, ‘Sweet is thy mouth, O Daphnis, and delectable thy song! Better is it to listen to thy singing, than to taste the honeycomb. Take thou the pipe, for thou hast conquered in the singing match. Ah, if thou wilt but teach some lay, even to me, as I tend the goats beside thee, this blunt-horned she-goat will I give thee, for the price of thy teaching, this she-goat that ever fills the milking pail above the brim.’

Then was the boy as glad,—and leaped high, and clapped his hands over his victory,—as a young fawn leaps about his mother. But the heart of the other was wasted with grief, and desolate, even as a maiden sorrows that is newly wed.

From this time Daphnis became the foremost among the shepherds, and while yet in his earliest youth, he wedded the nymph Nais.

IDYL IX

_Daphnis and Menalcas_, _at the bidding of the poet_, _sing the joys of the neatherds and of the shepherds life_. _Both receive the thanks of the poet_, _and rustic prizes_—_a staff and a horn_, _made of a spiral shell_. _Doubts have been expressed as to the authenticity of the prelude and concluding verses_. _The latter breathe all Theocritus’s enthusiastic love of song_.

* * * * *

SING, Daphnis, a pastoral lay, do thou first begin the song, the song begin, O Daphnis; but let Menalcas join in the strain, when ye have mated the heifers and their calves, the barren kine and the bulls. Let them all pasture together, let them wander in the coppice, but never leave the herd. Chant thou for me, first, and on the other side let Menalcas reply.

_Daphnis_. Ah, sweetly lows the calf, and sweetly the heifer, sweetly sounds the neatherd with his pipe, and sweetly also I! My bed of leaves is strown by the cool water, and thereon are heaped fair skins from the white calves that were all browsing upon the arbutus, on a time, when the south-west wind dashed me them from the height.

And thus I heed no more the scorching summer, than a lover cares to heed the words of father or of mother.

So Daphnis sang to me, and thus, in turn, did Menalcas sing.

_Menalcas_. Aetna, mother mine, I too dwell in a beautiful cavern in the chamber of the rock, and, lo, all the wealth have I that we behold in dreams; ewes in plenty and she-goats abundant, their fleeces are strown beneath my head and feet. In the fire of oak-faggots puddings are hissing-hot, and dry beech-nuts roast therein, in the wintry weather, and, truly, for the winter season I care not even so much as a toothless man does for walnuts, when rich pottage is beside him.

Then I clapped my hands in their honour, and instantly gave each a gift, to Daphnis a staff that grew in my father’s close, self-shapen, yet so straight, that perchance even a craftsman could have found no fault in it. To the other I gave a goodly spiral shell, the meat that filled it once I had eaten after stalking the fish on the Icarian rocks (I cut it into five shares for five of us),—and Menalcas blew a blast on the shell.

Ye pastoral Muses, farewell! Bring ye into the light the song that I sang there to these shepherds on that day! Never let the pimple grow on my tongue-tip. {53}

Cicala to cicala is dear, and ant to ant, and hawks to hawks, but to me the Muse and song. Of song may all my dwelling be full, for sleep is not more sweet, nor sudden spring, nor flowers are more delicious to the bees—so dear to me are the Muses. {54} Whom they look on in happy hour, Circe hath never harmed with her enchanted potion.

IDYL X THE REAPERS

_This is an idyl of the same genre as Idyl IV_. _The sturdy reaper_, _Milon_, _as he levels the swathes of corn_, _derides his languid and love-worn companion_, _Buttus_. _The latter defends his gipsy love in verses which have been the keynote of much later poetry_, _and which echo in the fourth book of Lucretius_, _and in the Misanthrope of Molière_. _Milon replies with the song of Lityerses_—_a string_, _apparently_, _of popular rural couplets_, _such as Theocritus may have heard chanted in the fields_.

* * * * *

_Milan_. Thou toilsome clod; what ails thee now, thou wretched fellow? Canst thou neither cut thy swathe straight, as thou wert wont to do, nor keep time with thy neighbour in thy reaping, but thou must fall out, like an ewe that is foot-pricked with a thorn and straggles from the herd? What manner of man wilt thou prove after mid-noon, and at evening, thou that dost not prosper with thy swathe when thou art fresh begun?

_Battus_. Milon, thou that canst toil till late, thou chip of the stubborn stone, has it never befallen thee to long for one that was not with thee?

_Milan_. Never! What has a labouring man to do with hankering after what he has not got?

_Battus_. Then it never befell thee to lie awake for love?

_Milan_. Forbid it; ’tis an ill thing to let the dog once taste of pudding.

_Battus_. But I, Milon, am in love for almost eleven days!

_Milan_. ’Tis easily seen that thou drawest from a wine-cask, while even vinegar is scarce with me.

_Battus_. And for Love’s sake, the fields before my doors are untilled since seed-time.

_Milan_. But which of the girls afflicts thee so?

_Battus_. The daughter of Polybotas, she that of late was wont to pipe to the reapers on Hippocoon’s farm.

_Milan_. God has found out the guilty! Thou hast what thou’st long been seeking, that grasshopper of a girl will lie by thee the night long!

_Battus_. Thou art beginning thy mocks of me, but Plutus is not the only blind god; he too is blind, the heedless Love! Beware of talking big.

_Milan_. Talk big I do not! Only see that thou dust level the corn, and strike up some love-ditty in the wench’s praise. More pleasantly thus wilt thou labour, and, indeed, of old thou wert a melodist.

_Battus_. Ye Muses Pierian, sing ye with me the slender maiden, for whatsoever ye do but touch, ye goddesses, ye make wholly fair.

They all call thee a _gipsy_, gracious Bombyca, and _lean_, and _sunburnt_, ’tis only I that call thee _honey-pale_.

Yea, and the violet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet these flowers are chosen the first in garlands.

The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows the plough, but I am wild for love of thee.

Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof once Croesus was lord, as men tell! Then images of us twain, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire, and new shoon of Amyclae on both my feet.

Ah gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them! {57}

_Milan_. Verily our clown was a maker of lovely songs, and we knew it not! How well he meted out and shaped his harmony; woe is me for the beard that I have grown, all in vain! Come, mark thou too these lines of godlike Lityerses

THE LITYERSES SONG.

_Demeter_, _rich in fruit_, _and rich in grain_, _may this corn be easy to win_, _and fruitful exceedingly_!

_Bind_, _ye bandsters_, _the sheaves_, _lest the wayfarer __should cry_, ‘_Men of straw were the workers here_, _ay_, _and their hire was wasted_!’

_See that the cut stubble faces the North wind_, _or the West_, _’tis thus the grain waxes richest_.

_They that thresh corn should shun the noon-day steep_; _at noon the chaff parts easiest from the straw_.

_As for the reapers_, _let them begin when the crested lark is waking_, _and cease when he sleeps_, _but take holiday in the heat_.

_Lads_, _the frog has a jolly life_, _he is not cumbered about a butler to his drink_, _for he has liquor by him unstinted_!

_Boil the lentils better_, _thou miserly steward_; _take heed lest thou chop thy fingers_, _when thou’rt splitting cumin-seed_.

’Tis thus that men should sing who labour i’ the sun, but thy starveling love, thou clod, ’twere fit to tell to thy mother when she stirs in bed at dawning.

IDYL XI THE CYCLOPS IN LOVE

_Nicias_, _the physician and poet_, _being in love_, _Theocritus reminds him that in song lies the only remedy_. _It was by song_, _he says_, _that the Cyclops_, _Polyphemus_, _got him some ease_, _when he was in love with Galatea_, _the sea-nymph_.

_The idyl displays_, _in the most graceful manner_, _the Alexandrian taste for turning Greek mythology into love stories_. _No creature could be more remote from love than the original Polyphemus_, _the cannibal giant of the Odyssey_.

* * * * *

THERE is none other medicine, Nicias, against Love, neither unguent, methinks, nor salve to sprinkle,—none, save the Muses of Pieria! Now a delicate thing is their minstrelsy in man’s life, and a sweet, but hard to procure. Methinks thou know’st this well, who art thyself a leech, and beyond all men art plainly dear to the Muses nine.

’Twas surely thus the Cyclops fleeted his life most easily, he that dwelt among us,—Polyphemus of old time,—when the beard was yet young on his cheek and chin; and he loved Galatea. He loved, not with apples, not roses, nor locks of hair, but with fatal frenzy, and all things else he held but trifles by the way. Many a time from the green pastures would his ewes stray back, self-shepherded, to the fold. But he was singing of Galatea, and pining in his place he sat by the sea-weed of the beach, from the dawn of day, with the direst hurt beneath his breast of mighty Cypris’s sending,—the wound of her arrow in his heart!

Yet this remedy he found, and sitting on the crest of the tall cliff, and looking to the deep, ’twas thus he would sing:—

_Song of the Cyclops_.

O milk-white Galatea, why cast off him that loves thee? More white than is pressed milk to look upon, more delicate than the lamb art thou, than the young calf wantoner, more sleek than the unripened grape! Here dust thou resort, even so, when sweet sleep possesses me, and home straightway dost thou depart when sweet sleep lets me go, fleeing me like an ewe that has seen the grey wolf.

I fell in love with thee, maiden, I, on the day when first thou camest, with my mother, and didst wish to pluck the hyacinths from the hill, and I was thy guide on the way. But to leave loving thee, when once I had seen thee, neither afterward, nor now at all, have I the strength, even from that hour. But to thee all this is as nothing, by Zeus, nay, nothing at all!

I know, thou gracious maiden, why it is that thou dust shun me. It is all for the shaggy brow that spans all my forehead, from this to the other ear, one long unbroken eyebrow. And but one eye is on my forehead, and broad is the nose that overhangs my lip. Yet I (even such as thou seest me) feed a thousand cattle, and from these I draw and drink the best milk in the world. And cheese I never lack, in summer time or autumn, nay, nor in the dead of winter, but my baskets are always overladen.

Also I am skilled in piping, as none other of the Cyclopes here, and of thee, my love, my sweet-apple, and of myself too I sing, many a time, deep in the night. And for thee I tend eleven fawns, all crescent-browed, {61} and four young whelps of the bear.

Nay, come thou to me, and thou shalt lack nothing that now thou hast. Leave the grey sea to roll against the land; more sweetly, in this cavern, shalt thou fleet the night with me! Thereby the laurels grow, and there the slender cypresses, there is the ivy dun, and the sweet clustered grapes; there is chill water, that for me deep-wooded Ætna sends down from the white snow, a draught divine! Ah who, in place of these, would choose the sea to dwell in, or the waves of the sea?

But if thou dust refuse because my body seems shaggy and rough, well, I have faggots of oakwood, and beneath the ashes is fire unwearied, and I would endure to let thee burn my very soul, and this my one eye, the dearest thing that is mine.

Ah me, that my mother bore me not a finny thing, so would I have gone down to thee, and kissed thy hand, if thy lips thou would not suffer me to kiss! And I would have brought thee either white lilies, or the soft poppy with its scarlet petals. Nay, these are summer’s flowers, and those are flowers of winter, so I could not have brought thee them all at one time.

Now, verily, maiden, now and here will I learn to swim, if perchance some stranger come hither, sailing with his ship, that I may see why it is so dear to thee, to have thy dwelling in the deep.

Come forth, Galatea, and forget as thou comest, even as I that sit here have forgotten, the homeward way! Nay, choose with me to go shepherding, with me to milk the flocks, and to pour the sharp rennet in, and to fix the cheeses.

There is none that wrongs me but that mother of mine, and her do I blame. Never, nay, never once has she spoken a kind word for me to thee, and that though day by day she beholds me wasting. I will tell her that my head, and both my feet are throbbing, that she may somewhat suffer, since I too am suffering.

O Cyclops, Cyclops, whither are thy wits wandering? Ah that thou wouldst go, and weave thy wicker-work, and gather broken boughs to carry to thy lambs: in faith, if thou didst this, far wiser wouldst thou be!

Milk the ewe that thou hast, why pursue the thing that shuns thee? Thou wilt find, perchance, another, and a fairer Galatea. Many be the girls that bid me play with them through the night, and softly they all laugh, if perchance I answer them. On land it is plain that I too seem to be somebody!

* * * * *

Lo, thus Polyphemus still shepherded his love with song, and lived lighter than if he had given gold for ease.

IDYL XII THE PASSIONATE FRIEND

_This is rather a lyric than an idyl_, _being an expression of that singular passion which existed between men in historical Greece_. _The next idyl_, _like the Myrmidons of Aeschylus_, _attributes the same manners to mythical and heroic Greece_. _It should be unnecessary to say that the affection between Homeric warriors_, _like Achilles and Patroclus_, _was only that of companions in arms and was quite unlike the later sentiment_.

* * * * *

HAST thou come, dear youth, with the third night and the dawning; hast thou come? but men in longing grow old in a day! As spring than the winter is sweeter, as the apple than the sloe, as the ewe is deeper of fleece than the lamb she bore; as a maiden surpasses a thrice-wedded wife, as the fawn is nimbler than the calf; nay, by as much as sweetest of all fowls sings the clear-voiced nightingale, so much has thy coming gladdened me! To thee have I hastened as the traveller hastens under the burning sun to the shadow of the ilex tree.

Ah, would that equally the Loves may breathe upon us twain, may we become a song in the ears of all men unborn.

‘Lo, a pair were these two friends among the folk of former time,’ the one ‘the Knight’ (so the Amyclaeans call him), the other, again, ‘the Page,’ so styled in speech of Thessaly.

‘An equal yoke of friendship they bore: ah, surely then there were golden men of old, when friends gave love for love!’

And would, O father Cronides, and would, ye ageless immortals, that this might be; and that when two hundred generations have sped, one might bring these tidings to me by Acheron, the irremeable stream.

‘The loving-kindness that was between thee and thy gracious friend, is even now in all men’s mouths, and chiefly on the lips of the young.’

Nay, verily, the gods of heaven will be masters of these things, to rule them as they will, but when I praise thy graciousness no blotch that punishes the perjurer shall spring upon the tip of my nose! Nay, if ever thou hast somewhat pained me, forthwith thou healest the hurt, giving a double delight, and I depart with my cup full and running over!

Nisaean men of Megara, ye champions of the oars, happily may ye dwell, for that ye honoured above all men the Athenian stranger, even Diodes, the true lover. Always about his tomb the children gather in their companies, at the coming in of the spring, and contend for the prize of kissing. And whoso most sweetly touches lip to lip, laden with garlands he returneth to his mother. Happy is he that judges those kisses of the children; surely he prays most earnestly to bright-faced Ganymedes, that his lips may be as the Lydian touchstone wherewith the money-changers try gold lest perchance base metal pass for true.

IDYL XIII HYLAS AND HERACLES

_As in the eleventh Idyl_, _Nicias is again addressed_, _by way of introduction to the story of Hylas_. _This beautiful lad_, _a favourite companion of Heracles_, _took part in the Quest of the Fleece of Gold_. _As he went to draw water from a fountain_, _the water-nymphs dragged him down to their home_, _and Heracles_, _after a long and vain search_, _was compelled to follow the heroes of the Quest on foot to Phasis_.

* * * * *

NOT for us only, Nicias, as we were used to deem, was Love begotten, by whomsoever of the Gods was the father of the child; not first to us seemed beauty beautiful, to us that are mortal men and look not on the morrow. Nay, but the son of Amphitryon, that heart of bronze, who abode the wild lion’s onset, loved a lad, beautiful Hylas—Hylas of the braided locks, and he taught him all things as a father teaches his child, all whereby himself became a mighty man, and renowned in minstrelsy. Never was he apart from Hylas, not when midnoon was high in heaven, not when Dawn with her white horses speeds upwards to the dwelling of Zeus, not when the twittering nestlings look towards the perch, while their mother flaps her wings above the smoke-browned beam; and all this that the lad might be fashioned to his mind, and might drive a straight furrow, and come to the true measure of man.

But when Iason, Aeson’s son, was sailing after the fleece of gold (and with him followed the champions, the first chosen out of all the cities, they that were of most avail), to rich Iolcos too came the mighty man and adventurous, the son of the woman of Midea, noble Alcmene. With him went down Hylas also, to Argo of the goodly benches, the ship that grazed not on the clashing rocks Cyanean, but through she sped and ran into deep Phasis, as an eagle over the mighty gulf of the sea. And the clashing rocks stand fixed, even from that hour!

Now at the rising of the Pleiades, when the upland fields begin to pasture the young lambs, and when spring is already on the wane, then the flower divine of Heroes bethought them of sea-faring. On board the hollow Argo they sat down to the oars, and to the Hellespont they came when the south wind had been for three days blowing, and made their haven within Propontis, where the oxen of the Cianes wear bright the ploughshare, as they widen the furrows. Then they went forth upon the shore, and each couple busily got ready supper in the late evening, and many as they were one bed they strewed lowly on the ground, for they found a meadow lying, rich in couches of strown grass and leaves. Thence they cut them pointed flag-leaves, and deep marsh-galingale. And Hylas of the yellow hair, with a vessel of bronze in his hand, went to draw water against suppertime, for Heracles himself, and the steadfast Telamon, for these comrades twain supped ever at one table. Soon was he ware of a spring, in a hollow land, and the rushes grew thickly round it, and dark swallow-wort, and green maiden-hair, and blooming parsley, and deer-grass spreading through the marshy land. In the midst of the water the nymphs were arraying their dances, the sleepless nymphs, dread goddesses of the country people, Eunice, and Malis, and Nycheia, with her April eyes. And now the boy was holding out the wide-mouthed pitcher to the water, intent on dipping it, but the nymphs all clung to his hand, for love of the Argive lad had fluttered the soft hearts of all of them. Then down he sank into the black water, headlong all, as when a star shoots flaming from the sky, plumb in the deep it falls, and a mate shouts out to the seamen, ‘Up with the gear, my lads, the wind is fair for sailing.’

Then the nymphs held the weeping boy on their laps, and with gentle words were striving to comfort him. But the son of Amphitryon was troubled about the lad, and went forth, carrying his bended bow in Scythian fashion, and the club that is ever grasped in his right hand. Thrice he shouted ‘Hylas!’ as loud as his deep throat could call, and thrice again the boy heard him, and thin came his voice from the water, and, hard by though he was, he seemed very far away. And as when a bearded lion, a ravening lion on the hills, hears the bleating of a fawn afar off, and rushes forth from his lair to seize it, his readiest meal, even so the mighty Heracles, in longing for the lad, sped through the trackless briars, and ranged over much country.

Reckless are lovers: great toils did Heracles bear, in hills and thickets wandering, and Iason’s quest was all postponed to this. Now the ship abode with her tackling aloft, and the company gathered there, {70} but at midnight the young men were lowering the sails again, awaiting Heracles. But he wheresoever his feet might lead him went wandering in his fury, for the cruel Goddess of love was rending his heart within him.

Thus loveliest Hylas is numbered with the Blessed, but for a runaway they girded at Heracles, the heroes, because he roamed from Argo of the sixty oarsmen. But on foot he came to Colchis and inhospitable Phasis.

IDYL XIV

_This Idyl_, _like the next_, _is dramatic in form_. _One Aeschines tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress Cynisca_. _He speaks of taking foreign service_, _and Thyonichus recommends that of Ptolemy_. _The idyl was probably written at Alexandria_, _as a compliment to Ptolemy_, _and an inducement to Greeks to join his forces_. _There is nothing_, _however_, _to fix the date_.

* * * * *

_Aeschines_. All hail to the stout Thyonichus!

_Thyonichus_. As much to you, Aeschines.

_Aeschines_. How long it is since we met!

_Thyonichus_. Is it so long? But why, pray, this melancholy?

_Aeschines_. I am not in the best of luck, Thyonichus.

_Thyonichus_. ’Tis for that, then, you are so lean, and hence comes this long moustache, and these love-locks all adust. Just such a figure was a Pythagorean that came here of late, barefoot and wan,—and said he was an Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate of pancakes.

_Aeschines_. Friend, you will always have your jest,—but beautiful Cynisca,—she flouts me! I shall go mad some day, when no man looks for it; I am but a hair’s-breadth on the hither side, even now.

_Thyonichus_. You are ever like this, dear Aeschines, now mad, now sad, and crying for all things at your whim. Yet, tell me, what is your new trouble?

_Aeschines_. The Argive, and I, and the Thessalian rough rider, Apis, and Cleunichus the free lance, were drinking together, at my farm. I had killed two chickens, and a sucking pig, and had opened the Bibline wine for them,—nearly four years old,—but fragrant as when it left the wine-press. Truffles and shellfish had been brought out, it was a jolly drinking match. And when things were now getting forwarder, we determined that each of us should toast whom he pleased, in unmixed wine, only he must name his toast. So we all drank, and called our toasts as had been agreed. Yet She said nothing, though I was there; how think you I liked that? ‘Won’t you call a toast? You have seen the wolf!’ some one said in jest, ‘as the proverb goes,’ {72} then she kindled; yes, you could easily have lighted a lamp at her face. There is one Wolf, one Wolf there is, the son of Labes our neighbour,—he is tall, smooth-skinned, many think him handsome. His was that illustrious love in which she was pining, yes, and a breath about the business once came secretly to my ears, but I never looked into it, beshrew my beard!

Already, mark you, we four men were deep in our cups, when the Larissa man out of mere mischief, struck up, ‘My Wolf,’ some Thessalian catch, from the very beginning. Then Cynisca suddenly broke out weeping more bitterly than a six-year-old maid, that longs for her mother’s lap. Then I,—you know me, Thyonichus,—struck her on the cheek with clenched fist,—one two! She caught up her robes, and forth she rushed, quicker than she came. ‘Ah, my undoing’ (cried I), ‘I am not good enough for you, then—you have a dearer playfellow? well, be off and cherish your other lover, ’tis for him your tears run big as apples!’ {73}

And as the swallow flies swiftly back to gather a morsel, fresh food, for her young ones under the eaves, still swifter sped she from her soft chair, straight through the vestibule and folding-doors, wherever her feet carried her. So, sure, the old proverb says, ‘the bull has sought the wild wood.’

Since then there are twenty days, and eight to these, and nine again, then ten others, to-day is the eleventh, add two more, and it is two months since we parted, and I have not shaved, not even in Thracian fashion. {74a}

And now Wolf is everything with her. Wolf finds the door open o’ nights, and I am of no account, not in the reckoning, like the wretched men of Megara, in the place dishonourable. {74b}

And if I could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be. But now,—now,—as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not; except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus, went over seas, and came back heart-whole,—a man of my own age. And I too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last, perhaps, but a fair soldier as times go.

_Thyonichus_. Would that things had gone to your mind, Aeschines. But if, in good earnest, you are thus set on going into exile, PTOLEMY is the free man’s best paymaster!

_Aeschines_. And in other respects, what kind of man?

_Thyonichus_. The free man’s best paymaster! Indulgent too, the Muses’ darling, a true lover, the top of good company, knows his friends, and still better knows his enemies. A great giver to many, refuses nothing that he is asked which to give may beseem a king, but, Aeschines, we should not always be asking. Thus, if you are minded to pin up the top corner of your cloak over the right shoulder, and if you have the heart to stand steady on both feet, and bide the brunt of a hardy targeteer, off instantly to Egypt! From the temples downward we all wax grey, and on to the chin creeps the rime of age, men must do somewhat while their knees are yet nimble.

IDYL XV

_This famous idyl should rather_, _perhaps_, _be called a mimus_. _It describes the visit paid by two Syracusan women residing in Alexandria_, _to the festival of the resurrection of Adonis_. _The festival is given by Arsinoë_, _wife and sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus_, _and the poem cannot have been written earlier than his marriage_, _in_ 266 B.C. [?] _Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women_, _which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds_. _Theocritus is believed to have had a model for this idyl in the Isthmiazusae of Sophron_, _an older poet_. _In the Isthmiazusae two ladies described the spectacle of the Isthmian games_.

* * * * *

_Gorgo_. Is Praxinoë at home?

_Praxinoë_. Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been here! She _is_ at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoë, see that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it too.

_Gorgo_. It does most charmingly as it is.

_Praxinoë_. Do sit down.

_Gorgo_. Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoë! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless: yes, you really live _too_ far away!

_Praxinoë_. It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth and took—a hole, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbours. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite!

_Gorgo_. Don’t talk of your husband, Dinon, like that, my dear girl, before the little boy,—look how he is staring at you! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa.

_Praxinoë_. Our Lady! the child takes notice. {77}

_Gorgo_. Nice papa!

_Praxinoë_. That papa of his the other day—we call every day ‘the other day’—went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt—the great big endless fellow!

_Gorgo_. Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spendthrift—Diocleides! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings a piece for—what do you suppose?—dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash—trouble on trouble. But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the King, to see the Adonis; I hear the Queen has provided something splendid!

_Praxinoë_. Fine folks do everything finely.

_Gorgo_. What a tale you will have to tell about the things you have seen, to any one who has not seen them! It seems nearly time to go.

_Praxinoë_. Idlers have always holiday. Eunoë, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are. Cats like always to sleep soft! {78a} Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker. I want water first, and how she carries it! give it me all the same; don’t pour out so much, you extravagant thing. Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have washed my hands, as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big chest? Bring it here.

_Gorgo_. Praxinoë, that full body becomes you wonderfully. Tell me how much did the stuff cost you just off the loom?

_Praxinoë_. Don’t speak of it, Gorgo! More than eight pounds in good silver money,—and the work on it! I nearly slaved my soul out over it!

_Gorgo_. Well, it is _most_ successful; all you could wish. {78b}

_Praxinoë_. Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my hat on my head, the fashionable way. No, child, I don’t mean to take you. Boo! Bogies! There’s a horse that bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia take the child, and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door.

[_They go into the street_.

Ye gods, what a crowd! How on earth are we ever to get through this coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good deed have you done, Ptolemy; since your father joined the immortals, there’s never a malefactor to spoil the passer-by, creeping on him in Egyptian fashion—oh! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play. Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all! Dear Gorgo, what will become of us? Here come the King’s war-horses! My dear man, don’t trample on me. Look, the bay’s rearing, see, what temper! Eunoë, you foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? The beast will kill the man that’s leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat stays safe at home.

_Gorgo_. Courage, Praxinoë. We are safe behind them, now, and they have gone to their station.

_Praxinoë_. There! I begin to be myself again. Ever since I was a child I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake. Come along, the huge mob is overflowing us.

_Gorgo_ (_to an old Woman_). Are you from the Court, mother?

_Old Woman_. I am, my child.

_Praxinoë_. Is it easy to get there?

_Old Woman_. The Achaeans got into Troy by trying, my prettiest of ladies. Trying will do everything in the long run.

_Gorgo_. The old wife has spoken her oracles, and off she goes.

_Praxinoë_. Women know everything, yes, and how Zeus married Hera!

_Gorgo_. See Praxinoë, what a crowd there is about the doors.

_Praxinoë_. Monstrous, Gorgo! Give me your hand, and you, Eunoë, catch hold of Eutychis; never lose hold of her, for fear lest you get lost. Let us all go in together; Eunoë, clutch tight to me. Oh, how tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already! For heaven’s sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my shawl!

_Stranger_. I can hardly help myself, but for all that I will be as careful as I can.

_Praxinoë_. How close-packed the mob is, they hustle like a herd of swine.

_Stranger_. Courage, lady, all is well with us now.

_Praxinoë_. Both this year and for ever may all be well with you, my dear sir, for your care of us. A good kind man! We’re letting Eunoë get squeezed—come, wretched girl, push your way through. That is the way. We are all on the right side of the door, quoth the bridegroom, when he had shut himself in with his bride.

_Gorgo_. Do come here, Praxinoë. Look first at these embroideries. How light and how lovely! You will call them the garments of the gods.

_Praxinoë_. Lady Athene, what spinning women wrought them, what painters designed these drawings, so true they are? How naturally they stand and move, like living creatures, not patterns woven. What a clever thing is man! Ah, and himself—Adonis—how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved Adonis,—Adonis beloved even among the dead.

_A Stranger_. You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk! They bore one to death with their eternal broad vowels!

_Gorgo_. Indeed! And where may this person come from? What is it to you if we _are_ chatterboxes! Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command ladies of Syracuse? If you must know, we are Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume?

_Praxinoë_. Lady Persephone, never may we have more than one master. I am not afraid of _your_ putting me on short commons.

_Gorgo_. Hush, hush, Praxinoë—the Argive woman’s daughter, the great singer, is beginning the _Adonis_; she that won the prize last year for dirge-singing. {82} I am sure she will give us something lovely; see, she is preluding with her airs and graces.

_The Psalm of Adonis_.

O Queen that lovest Golgi, and Idalium, and the steep of Eryx, O Aphrodite, that playest with gold, lo, from the stream eternal of Acheron they have brought back to thee Adonis—even in the twelfth month they have brought him, the dainty-footed Hours. Tardiest of the Immortals are the beloved Hours, but dear and desired they come, for always, to all mortals, they bring some gift with them. O Cypris, daughter of Diônê, from mortal to immortal, so men tell, thou hast changed Berenice, dropping softly in the woman’s breast the stuff of immortality.

Therefore, for thy delight, O thou of many names and many temples, doth the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinoë, lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis with all things beautiful.

Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees’ branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden vessels are full of incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading-tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and of things that creep, lo, here they are set before him.

Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender anise, and children flit overhead—the little Loves—as the young nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from bough to bough.

O the ebony, O the gold, O the twin eagles of white ivory that carry to Zeus the son of Cronos his darling, his cup-bearer! O the purple coverlet strewn above, more soft than sleep! So Miletus will say, and whoso feeds sheep in Samos.

Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis, one bed Cypris keeps, and one the rosy-armed Adonis. A bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years is he, his kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips! And now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover! But lo, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among the waves that break upon the beach, and with locks unloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles, and bosoms bare will we begin our shrill sweet song.

Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods dost visit both this world and the stream of Acheron. For Agamemnon had no such lot, nor Aias, that mighty lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector, the eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecabe, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus, that returned out of Troyland, nor the heroes of yet more ancient days, the Lapithae and Deucalion’s sons, nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs of Pelasgian Argus. Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and propitious even in the coming year. Dear to us has thine advent been, Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.

_Gorgo_. Praxinoë, the woman is cleverer than we fancied! Happy woman to know so much, thrice happy to have so sweet a voice. Well, all the same, it is time to be making for home. Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all vinegar,—don’t venture near him when he is kept waiting for dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad at your next coming!

IDYL XVI

_In_ 265 B.C. _Sicily was devastated by the Carthaginians_, _and by the companies of disciplined free-lances who called themselves Mamertines_, _or Mars’s men_. _The hopes of the Greek inhabitants of the island were centred in Hiero_, _son of Hierocles_, _who was about to besiege Messana_ (_then held by the Carthaginians_) _and who had revived the courage of the Syracusans_. _To him Theocritus addressed this idyl_, _in which he complains of the sordid indifference of the rich_, _rehearses the merits of song_, _dilates on the true nature of wealth_, _and of the happy lift_, _and finally expresses his hope that Hiero will rid the isle of the foreign foe_, _and will restore peace and pastoral joys_. _The idyl contains some allusions to Simonides_, _the old lyric poet_, _and to his relations with the famous Hiero tyrant of Syracuse_.

* * * * *

EVER is this the care of the maidens of Zeus, ever the care of minstrels, to sing the Immortals, to sing the praises of noble men. The Muses, lo, are Goddesses, of Gods the Goddesses sing, but we on earth are mortal men; let us mortals sing of mortals. Ah, who of all them that dwell beneath the grey morning, will open his door and gladly receive our Graces within his house? who is there that will not send them back again without a gift? And they with looks askance, and naked feet come homewards, and sorely they upbraid me when they have gone on a vain journey, and listless again in the bottom of their empty coffer, they dwell with heads bowed over their chilly knees, where is their drear abode, when gainless they return.

Where is there such an one, among men to-day? Where is he that will befriend him that speaks his praises? I know not, for now no longer, as of old, are men eager to win the renown of noble deeds, nay, they are the slaves of gain! Each man clasps his hands below the purse-fold of his gown, and looks about to spy whence he may get him money: the very rust is too precious to be rubbed off for a gift. Nay, each has his ready saw; _the shin is further than the knee_; _first let me get my own_! _’Tis the Gods’ affair to honour minstrels_! _Homer is enough for every one_, _who wants to hear any other_? _He is the best of bards who takes nothing that is mine_.

O foolish men, in the store of gold uncounted, what gain have ye? Not in this do the wise find the true enjoyment of wealth, but in that they can indulge their own desires, and something bestow on one of the minstrels, and do good deeds to many of their kin, and to many another man; and always give altar-rites to the Gods, nor ever play the churlish host, but kindly entreat the guest at table, and speed him when he would be gone. And this, above all, to honour the holy interpreters of the Muses, that so thou mayest have a goodly fame, even when hidden in Hades, nor ever moan without renown by the chill water of Acheron, like one whose palms the spade has hardened, some landless man bewailing the poverty that is all his heritage.

Many were the thralls that in the palace of Antiochus, and of king Aleuas drew out their monthly dole, many the calves that were driven to the penns of the Scopiadae, and lowed with the horned kine: countless on the Crannonian plain did shepherds pasture beneath the sky the choicest sheep of the hospitable Creondae, yet from all this they had no joy, when once into the wide raft of hateful Acheron they had breathed sweet life away! Yea, unremembered (though they had left all that rich store), for ages long would they have lain among the dead forlorn, if a name among later men the skilled Ceian minstrel had spared to bestow, singing his bright songs to a harp of many strings. Honour too was won by the swift steeds that came home to them crowned from the sacred contests.

And who would ever have known the Lycian champions of time past, who Priam’s long-haired sons, and Cycnus, white of skin as a maiden, if minstrels had not chanted of the war cries of the old heroes? Nor would Odysseus have won his lasting glory, for all his ten years wandering among all folks; and despite the visit he paid, he a living man, to inmost Hades, and for all his escape from the murderous Cyclops’s cave,—unheard too were the names of the swineherd Eumaeus, and of Philoetius, busy with the kine of the herds; yea, and even of Laertes, high of heart; if the songs of the Ionian man had not kept them in renown.

From the Muses comes a goodly report to men, but the living heirs devour the possessions of the dead. But, lo, it is as light labour to count the waves upon the beach, as many as wind and grey sea-tide roll upon the shore, or in violet-hued water to cleanse away the stain from a potsherd, as to win favour from a man that is smitten with the greed of gain. Good-day to such an one, and countless be his coin, and ever may he be possessed by a longing desire for more! But I for my part would choose honour and the loving-kindness of men, far before wealth in mules and horses.

I am seeking to what mortal I may come, a welcome guest, with the help of the Muses, for hard indeed do minstrels find the ways, who go uncompanioned by the daughters of deep-counselling Zeus. Not yet is the heaven aweary of rolling the months onwards, and the years, and many a horse shall yet whirl the chariot wheels, and the man shall yet be found, who will take me for his minstrel; a man of deeds like those that great Achilles wrought, or puissant Aias, in the plain of Simois, where is the tomb of Phrygian Ilus.

Even now the Phoenicians that dwell beneath the setting sun on the spur of Libya, shudder for dread, even now the Syracusans poise lances in rest, and their arms are burdened by the linden shields. Among them Hiero, like the mighty men of old, girds himself for fight, and the horse-hair crest is shadowing his helmet. Ah, Zeus, our father renowned, and ah, lady Athene, and O thou Maiden that with the Mother dost possess the great burg of the rich Ephyreans, by the water of Lusimeleia, {89} would that dire necessity may drive our foemen from the isle, along the Sardinian wave, to tell the doom of their friends to children and to wives—messengers easy to number out of so many warriors! But as for our cities may they again be held by their ancient masters,—all the cities that hostile hands have utterly spoiled. May our people till the flowering fields, and may thousands of sheep unnumbered fatten ’mid the herbage, and bleat along the plain, while the kine as they come in droves to the stalls warn the belated traveller to hasten on his way. May the fallows be broken for the seed-time, while the cicala, watching the shepherds as they toil in the sun, in the shade of the trees doth sing on the topmost sprays. May spiders weave their delicate webs over martial gear, may none any more so much as name the cry of onset!