Complete Works of Theocritus

by Theocritus

[136] ’Tis nature’s law that no jackdaw with nightingale shall bicker,

  Nor owl with swan, but poor Lacòn was born a quarrel-picker.

  MORSON

  [138] I bid the shepherd cease. You, Comatas, may take the lamb; and when you offer her to the Nymphs be sure you presently send poor Morson a well-laden platter.

  COMATAS

  [140] That will I, ‘fore Pan. Come, snort ye, my merry buck-goats all. Look you how great a laugh I have of shepherd Lacon for that I have at last achieved the lamb. Troth, I’ll caper you to the welkin. Horned she-goats mine, frisk it and be merry; tomorrow I’ll wash you one and all in Sybaris’ lake. What, Whitecoat, thou butt-head! if thou leave not poke the she’s, before ever I sacrifice the lamb to the Nymphs I’ll break every bone in thy body. Lo there! he’s at it again. If I break thee not, be my last end the end of Melanthius.

  IDYLL VI. A COUNTRY SINGING MATCH

  Theocritus dedicates the poem to the Aratus of whom he speaks in the Harvest-Home. The scene is a spring in the pastures, and the time of summer noon. The theme is a friendly contest between a certain Damoetas and ‘the neatherd Daphnis.’ This is probably the Daphnis of the Thyrsis. If so , the two singers are meant to be contemporary with the persons of whom they sing, as are the singers of IV, V, and X. Each sings one song. Daphnis, apostrophising Polyphemus, asks why he is blind to the love of the sea-nymph Galatea. Damoetas, personating him, declares that his apathy is all put on, to make her love secure.

  [1] Damoetas and neatherd Daphnis, Aratus, half-bearded one, the other’s chin ruddy with the down, had driven each his herd together to a single spot at noon of a summer’s day, and sitting them down side by side at a water-spring began to sing. Daphnis sang first, for from hi came the challenge:

  [6] See Cyclops! Galatéa’s at thy flock with apples, see!

  The apples fly, and she doth cry ‘A fool’s-in-love are ye’;

  But with never a look to the maid, poor heart, thou sit’st and pipest so fine.

  Lo yonder again she flings them amain at that good flock-dog o’ thine!

  See how he looks to seaward and bays her from the land!

  See how he’s glassed where he runs so fast i’ the pretty wee waves o’ the strand!

  Beware of he’ll leap as she comes from the deep, leap on her legs so bonny,

  And towse her sweet pretty flesh – But lo where e’en now she wantons upon ye!

  O the high thistle-down and the dry thistle-down i’ the heat o’the pretty summer O! –

  She’ll fly ye and deny ye if ye’ll a-wooing go,

  But cease to woo and she’ll pursue, aye, then the king’s the move;

  For oft the foul, good Polypheme, is fair i’ the eyes of love.

  [20] Then Damoetas in answer lifted up his voice, singing:

  [21] I saw, I saw her fling them, Lord Pan my witness be;

  I was not blind, I vow, by this my one sweet – this

  Wherewith Heav’n send I see to the end, and Télemus when he

  Foretells me woe, then be it so, but woe for him and his! – ;

  ’Tis tit for tat, to tease her on I look not on the jade

  And say there’s other wives to wed, and lo! she’s jealous made,

  Jealous for me, Lord save us! and ‘gins to pine for me

  And glowers from the deep on the cave and the sheep like a want-wit lass o’ the sea

  And the dog that bayed, I hissed him on; for when ’twas I to woo

  He’ld lay his snout to her lap, her lap, and whine her friendly to.

  Maybe she’ll send me messages if long I go this gate;

  But I’ll bar the door till she swear o’ this shore to be my wedded mate.

  Ill-favoured? nay, for all they say; I have looked i’ the glassy sea,

  And, for aught I could spy, both beard and eye were pretty as well could be,

  And the teeth all a-row like marble below, – and that none should o’erlook me of it,

  As Goody Cotyttaris taught me, thrice in my breast I spit.

  [42] So far Damoetas, and kissed Daphnis, and that to this gave a pipe and this to that a pretty flue. Then lo! the piper was neatherd Daphnis and the flute-player Damoetas, and the dancers were the heifers who forthwith began to bound mid the tender grass. And as for the victory, that fell to neither one, being they both stood unvanquished in the match.

  IDYLL VII. THE HARVEST-HOME

  The poet tells in the first person how three friends went out from Cos to join in a harvest-home at a farm in the country. On the way they overtake a Cretan goatherd named Lycidas, and the conversation leads to a friendly singing-match between him and the narrator Simichidas. Lycidas’ song, which was apparently composed the previous November, is primarily a song of good wishes for the safe passage of his beloved Ageanax to Mitylenè, but the greater part of it is concerned with the merrymaking which will celebrate his safe arrival, and includes an address to the mythical goatherd-poet Comatas, whose story is to be sung by Tityrus on the festive occasion. Simichidas replies with a prayer to Pan and the Loves to bring the fair Philinus to his lover Aratus, a prayer which passes, however, into an appeal to Aratus to cease such youthful follies. Lycidas now bestows the crook which he had laughingly offered as a stake, and leaves the three friends at the entrance to the farm. The rest of the poem is a description of the feast. The scholia preserve a tradition that Simichidas is Theocritus himself, and indeed there is great probability that we are dealing throughout the poem with real persons.

  [1] Once upon a time went Eucritus and I, and for a third, Amyntas, from the town of Haleis. ’Twas to a harvest-feast holden that day unto Deo by Phrasidamas and Antigenes the two sons of Lycopeus, sons to wit of a fine piece of the good old stuff that came of Clytia, of Clytia and of that very Chalcon whose sturdy knee planted once against the rock both made Burina fount to gush forth at his feet and caused elm and aspen to weave above it a waving canopy of green leaves and about it a precinct of shade. Ere we were halfway thither, ere we saw the tomb of Brasilas, by grace of the Muses we overtook a fine fellow of Cydonia, by name Lycidas and by profession a goatherd, which indeed any that saw him must have known him for, seeing liker could not be. For upon his shoulders there hung, rank of new rennet, a shag-haired buck-goat’s tawny fleece, across his breast a broad belt did gird an ancient shirt, and in’s hand he held a crook of wild olive. Gently, broadly, and with a twinkling eye he smiled upon me, and with laughter possessing his lip, “What Simichidas,” says he; “whither away this sultry noontide, when e’en the lizard will be sleeping i’ the’ hedge and the created larks go not afield? Is ‘t even a dinner you be bidden to or a fellow-townsman’s vintage-rout that makes you scurry so? for ‘faith, every stone i’ the road strikes stinging against your hastening brogues.”

  [28] “’Tis said, dear Lycidas,” answered I, “you beat all comers, herdsman or harvester, at the pipe. So ’tis said, and right glad am I it should be said; howbeit to my thinking I’m as good a man as you. This our journey is to a harvest-home; some friends of ours make holyday to the fair-robed Demeter with first-fruits of their increase, because the Goddess hath filled their threshing-floor in measure so full and fat. So come, I pray you, since the way and the day be yours as well as ours, and let you and me make country-music. And each from the other may well take some profit, seeing I, like you, am a clear-voiced mouthpiece of the Muses, and, like you, am accounted best of musicians everywhere, – albeit I am not so quick, Zeus knows, to believe what I’m told, being to my thinking no match in music yet awhile for the excellent Sicelidas of Samos nor again for Philitas, but I am even as a frog that is fain to outvie the pretty crickets.”

  [42] So said I of set purpose, and master Goatherd with a merry laugh “I offer you this crook,” says he, “as to a sprig of great Zeus that is made to the pattern of truth. Even as I hate your mason who will be striving to rear his house high as the peak of Mount Oromedon, so hate I likewise your strutting cocks o’ the Muses’ yard whose crowing makes so pitiful c
ontention against the Chian nightingale. But enough; let’s begin our country-sons, Simichidas. First will I – pray look if you approve the ditty I made in the hills ‘tother day: (sings)

  [52] What though the Kids above the flight of wave before the wind

  Hang westward, and Orion’s foot is e’en upon the sea?

  Fair voyage to Mitylenè town Agéanax shall find,

  Once from the furnace of his love his Lycidas be free.

  The halcyons – and of all the birds whose living’s of the seas

  The sweet green Daughters of the Deep love none so well as these –

  O they shall still the Southwind and the tangle-tossing East,

  And lay for him wide Ocean and his waves along to rest.

  Ageanax late though he be for Mitylene bound

  Heav’n bring him blest wi’ the season’s best to haven safe and sound;

  And that day I’ll make merry, and bind about my brow

  The anise sweet or snowflake neat or rosebuds all a-row,

  And there by the hearth I’ll lay me down beside the cheerful cup,

  And hot roast the beans shall make my bite and elmy wine my sup;

  And soft I’ll lie, for elbow-high my bed strown thick and well

  Shall be of crinkled parsley, mullet, and asphodel;

  And so t’ Ageanax I’ll drink, drink wi’ my dear in ind,

  Drink wine and wine-cup at a draught and leave no lees behind.

  [71] My pipers shall be two shepherds, a man of Acharnae he,

  And he a man of Lycópè; singer shall Tityrus be,

  And sing beside me of Xénea and neatherd Daphnis’ love,

  How the hills were troubled around him and the oaks sang dirges above,

  Sang where they stood by Himeras flood, when he a-wasting lay

  Like snow on Haemus or Athos or Caucasus far far away.

  [78] And I’ll have him sing how once a king, of wilful malice bent,

  In the great coffer all alive the goatherd-poet pent,

  And the snub bees came from the meadow to the coffer of sweet cedar-tree,

  And fed him there o’ the flowerets fair, because his lip was free

  O’ the Muses’ wine; Comàtas! ’twas joy, all joy to thee;

  Though thou wast hid ‘neath cedarn lid, the bees they meat did bring,

  Till thou didst thole, right happy soul, thy twelve months’ prisoning.

  And O of the quick thou wert this day! How gladly then with mine

  I had kept thy pretty goats i’ the hills, the while ‘neath oak or pine

  Thou ‘dst lain along and sun me a song, Comatas the divine!”

  [90] So much sang Lycidas and ended; and thereupon “Dear Lycidas” said I, “afield with my herds on the hills I also have learnt of the Nymphs, and there’s many a good song of mine which Rumour may well have carried up to the throne of Zeus. But this of all is far the choicest, this which I will sing now for your delight. Pray give ear, as one should whom the Muses love: (sings)

  [96] The Loves have sneezed, for sure they have, on poor Simichidas:

  For he loves maid Myrto as goats the spring: but where he loves a lass

  His dear’st Aratus sighs for a lad. Aristis, dear good man –

  And best in fame as best in name, the Lord o’ the Lyre on high

  Beside his holy tripod would let him make melody 0

  Aristis knows Aratus’ woes. O bring the lad, sweet Pan,

  Sweet Lord of lovely Homolè, bring him unbid to ‘s fere,

  Whether Philínus, sooth to say, or other be his dear.

  This do, sweet Pan, and never, when slices be too few,

  May the leeks o’ the lads of Arcady beat thee back black and blue;

  But O if othergates thou go, may nettles make thy bed

  And set thee scratching tooth and nail, scratching from heel to head,

  And be thy winter-lodging nigh the Bear up Hebrus way

  I’ the hills of Thrace; when summer’s in, mid furthest Africa

  Mayst feed thy flock by the Blemyan rock beyond Nile’s earliest spring.

  [115] O come ye away, ye little Loves like apples red-blushing,

  From Byblis’ fount and Oecus’ mount that is fair-haired Dion’s joy,

  Come shoot the fair Philinus, shoot me the silly boy

  That flouts my friend! Yet after all, the pear’s o’er-ripe to taste,

  And the damsels sigh and the damsels say ‘Thy bloom, child, fails thee fast’;

  So let’s watch no more his gate before, Aratus o’ this gear,

  But ease our aching feet, my friend, and let old chanticleer

  Cry ‘shiver’ to some other when he the dawn shall sing;

  One scholar o’ that school’s enough to have met his death i’ the ring.

  ’Tis peace of mind, lad, we must find, and have a beldame nigh

  To sit for us and spit for us and bid all ill go by.”

  [128] So far my song; and Lycidas, with a merry laugh as before, bestowed the crook upon me to be the Muses’ pledge of friendship, and so bent his way to the left-hand and went down the Pyxa road; and Eucritus and I and pretty little Amyntas turned in at Phrasidamus’s and in deep greenbeds of fragrant reeds and fresh-cut vine-strippings laid us rejoicing down.

  [135] Many an aspen, many an elm bowed and rustled overhead, and hard by, the hallowed water welled purling forth of a cave of the Nymphs, while the brown cricket chirped busily amid the shady leafage, and the tree-frog murmured aloof in the dense thornbrake. Lark and goldfinch sang and turtle moaned, and about he spring the bees hummed and hovered to and fro. All nature smelt of the opulent summer-time, smelt of the season of fruit. Pears lay at our feet, apples on either side, rolling abundantly, and the young branches lay splayed upon the ground because of the weight of their damsons.

  [147] Meanwhile we broke the four-year-old seal from off the lips of the jars, and O ye Castalian Nymphs that dwell on Parnassus’ height, did ever the aged Cheiron in Pholus’ rocky cave set before Heracles such a bowlful as that? And the mighty Polypheme who kept sheep beside the Anapus and had at ships with mountains, was it for such nectar he footed it around his steading – such a draught as ye Nymphs gave us that day of your spring by the altar of Demeter o’ the Threshing-floor? of her, to wit, upon whose cornheap I pray I may yet again plant the great purging-fan while she stands smiling by with wheatsheaves and poppies in either hand.

  IDYLL VIII. THE SECOND COUNTRY SINGING-MATCH

  The characters of this shepherd-mime are the mythical personages Daphnis the neatherd and Menalcas the shepherd, and an unnamed goatherd who play umpire in their contest of song. After four lines by way of stage-direction, the conversation opens with mutual banter between the two young countrymen, and leads to a singing-match with pipes for the stakes. Each sings four alternate elegiac quatrains and an envoy of eight hexameters. In the first three pairs of quatrains Menalcas sets the theme and Daphnis takes it up. The first pair is addressed to the landscape, and contains mutual compliments; the remainder deal with love. The last pair of quatrains and the two envoys do not correspond in theme. The resemblance of most of the competing stanzas has caused both loss and transposition in the manuscripts. From metrical and linguistic considerations the poem is clearly not the work of Theocritus.

  [1] Once on a day the fair Daphnis, out upon the long hills with his cattle, met Menalcas keeping his sheep. Both had ruddy heads, both were striplings grown, both were players of music, and both knew how to sing. Looking now towards Daphnis, Menalcas first ‘What, Daphnis,’ cries he, ‘thou watchman o’ bellowing kine, art thou willing to sing me somewhat? I’ll warrant, come my turn, I shall have as much the better of thee as I choose.’ And this was Daphnis’ answer: ‘Thou shepherd o’ woolly sheep, thou mere piper Menalcas, never shall the likes of thee have the better of me in song, strive he never so hard.’

  MENALCAS

  [11] Then will ‘t please you look hither? Will’t please you lay a wage?

  DAPHNI
S

  [12] Aye, that it will; I’ll look you and lay you, too.

  MENALCAS

  [13] And what shall our wage be? what shall be sufficient for us?

  DAPHNIS

  [14] Mine shall be a calf, only let yours be that mother-tall fellow yonder.

  MENALCAS

  [15] He shall be no wage of mine. Father and mother are both sour as can be, and tell the flock to head every night.

  DAPHNIS

  [17] Well, but what is’t to be? and what’s the winner to get for’s pains?

  MENALCAS

  [18] Here’s a gallant nine-stop pipe I have made, with good white beeswax the same top and bottom; this I’m willing to lay, but I’ll not stake what is my father’s.

  DAPHNIS

  [21] Marry, I have a nine-stop pipe likewise, and it like yours hath good white beeswax the same top and bottom. I made it t’other day, and my finer here sore yet where a split reed cut it for me. (each takes a pipe)

  MENALCAS

  [25] But who’s to be our judge? who’s to do the hearing for us?

  DAPHNIS

  [26] Peradventure that goatherd yonder, if we call him; him wi’ that spotted flock-dog a-barking near by the kids.

  [28] So the lads holla’d, and the goatherd came to hear them, the lads sang and the goatherd was fain to be their judge. Lots were cast, and ’twas Menalcas Loud-o’-voice to begin the country-song and Daphnis to take him up by course. Menlacas thus began:

  MENALCAS

  [33] Ye woods and waters, wondrous race, lith and listen of your grace;

  If e’er my son was your delight feed my lambs with all your might;

  And if Daphnis wend this way, make his calves as fat as they.

  DAPHNIS

  [37] Ye darling wells and meadows dear, sweets o’ the earth, come lend an ear;

  If like the nightingales I sing, give my cows good pasturing;

  And if Menalcas e’er you see, fill his block and make him glee.

  MENALCAS

  [45] Where sweet Milon trips the leas there’s fuller hives and loftier trees;

  Where’er those pretty footings fall goats and sheep come twinners all;