Complete Works of Theocritus

by Theocritus

  FIRST STRANGER

  [72] I really can’t help what happens; but I’ll do my best.

  PRAXINOA

  [72] The crowd’s simply enormous; they’re pushing like a drove of pigs.

  FIRST STRANGER

  [73] Don’t be alarmed, madam; we’re all right.

  PRAXINOA

  [73] You deserve to be all right to the end of your days, my dear sir, for the care you’ve been taking of us (to Gorgo) What a kind considerate man! Poor Eunoa’s getting squeezed. (to Eunoa) Push, you coward, can’t you? (they pass in)

  That’s all right. All inside, as the bridegroom said when he shut the door.

  GORGO (referring, as they move forward towards the dais, to the draperies which hang between the pillars)

  [78] Praxinoa, do come here. Before you do anything else I insist upon your looking at the embroideries. How delicate they are! and in such good taste! They’re really hardly human, are they?

  PRAXINOA

  [80] Huswife Athena! the weavers that made that material and the embroiderers who did that close detailed work are simply marvels. How realistically the things all stand and move about in it! they’re living! It is wonderful what people can do. And then the Holy Boy; how perfectly beautiful he looks lying on his silver couch, with the down of manhood just showing on his cheeks, – (religioso) the thrice-beloved Adonis, beloved even down below!

  SECOND STRANGER

  [87] Oh dear, oh dear, ladies! do stop that eternal cooing. (to the bystanders) They’ll weary me to death with their ah-ah-ah-ing.

  PRAXINOA

  [89] My word! where does that person come from? What business is it of yours if we do coo? Buy your slaves before you order them about, pray. You’re giving your orders to Syracusans. If you must know, we’re Corinthians by extraction, like Bellerophon himself. What we talk’s Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorians may speak Doric, mayn’t they? Persephone! let’s have no more masters than the one we’ve got. I shall do just as I like. Pray don’t waste your breath.

  GORGO

  [96] Be quiet, Praxinoa. She’s just going to being the song, that Argive person’s daughter, you know, the “accomplished vocalist” that was chosen to sing the dirge last year. You may be sure she’ll give us something good. Look, she’s making her bow.

  THE DIRGE

  [100] Lover of Golgi and Idaly and Eryx’ steepy hold,

  O Lady Aphrodite with the face that beams like gold,

  Twelve months are sped and soft-footéd Heav’n’s pretty laggards, see,

  Bring o’er the never-tarrying stream Adonis back to thee.

  The Seasons, the Seasons, full slow they go and come,

  But some sweet thing for all they bring, and so they are welcome home.

  O Cypris, Dion’s daughter, of thee annealed, ’tis said,

  Our Queen that was born of woman is e’en immortal made;

  And now, sweet Lady of many names, of many shrines Ladye,

  They guerdon’s giv’n; for the Queen’s daughtér, as Helen fair to see,

  Thy lad doth dight with all delight upon this holyday;

  For there’s not a fruit the orchard bears but is here for his hand to take,

  And cresses trim all kept for him in many a silver tray,

  And Syrian balm in vials of gold; and O, there’s every cake

  That ever woman kneaded of bolted meal so fair

  With blossoms blent of every scent or oil or honey rare –

  Here’s all outlaid in semblance made of every bird and beast.

  [119] Two testers green they have plight ye, with dainty dill well dressed,

  Whereon, like puny nightingales that flit from bough to bough

  Trying their waxing wings to spread, the Love-babes hovering go.

  How fair the ebony and the gold, the ivory white how fair,

  And eagles twain to Zeus on high bringing his cup-bearer!

  Aye, and he coverlets spread for ye are softer spread than sleep –

  Forsooth Miletus town may say, or the master of Samian sheep,

  “The bridal bed of Adonis spread of my own making is;

  Cypris hath this for her wrapping, Adonis that for his.”

  [129] Of eighteen years or nineteen is turned the rose-limbed groom;

  His pretty lip is smooth to sip, for it bears but flaxen bloom.

  And now she’s in her husband’s arms, and so we’ll say good-night;

  But to-morrow we’ll come wi’ the dew, the dew, and take hands and bear him away

  Where plashing wave the shore doth lave, and there with locks undight

  And blosoms bare all shining fair will raise this shrilling lay; –

  “O sweet Adonis, none but thee of the children of Gods and men

  ‘Twixt overworld and underworld doth pass and pass agen;

  That cannot Agamemnon, nor the Lord o’ the Woeful Spleen,

  Nor the first of the twice-ten children that came of the Trojan queen,

  Nor Patroclus brave, nor Pyrrhus bold that home from the war did win,

  Nor none o’ the kith o’ the old Lapith nor of them of Deucalion’s kin –

  E’en Pelops line lacks fate so fine, and Pelasgian Argos’ pride.

  [143] Adonis sweet, Adonis dear, be gracious for another year;

  Thou’rt welcome to thine own alwáy, and welcome we’ll both cry to-day and next Adonis-tide.”

  GORGO

  O Praxinoa! what clever things we women are! I do envy her knowing all that, and still more having such a lovely voice. But I must be getting back. It’s Diocleidas’ dinner-time, and that man’s all pepper; I wouldn’t advise anyone to come near him even, when he’s kept waiting for his food. Goodbye, Adonis darling; and I only trust you may find us all thriving when you come next year.

  IDYLL XVI. THE CHARITES

  The traditional name of this poem, The Charites or Graces, may have been really the title Theocritus had given to the whole volume of a small collection of poems, for which this poem was now written as a special dedication. In it he bewails the indifference of a money-loving age, and asks for the patronage of Hiero, then general-in-chief, afterwards king, of Syracuse, even as Simonides had the patronage – not of the first Hiero, as he would have said had this Hiero then been king, but – of the great lords of Thessaly.

  [1] ’Tis ever the care of Zeus’ daughters and ever of the poets to magnify the Immortal Gods and eke to magnify the achievements of great men. But the Muses are Gods, and being Gods do sing of Gods, while as for us we are men, and being men let us sing of men.

  [5] Now who of all that dwell beneath the gray dawn, say who, will open his door to receive my pretty Graces gladly, and not rather send them away empty-handed, so that they get them home frowning and barefoot, there to fleer at me for sending them a fool’s errand, there to shrink once again into the bottom of an empty press, and sinking their heads upon their chill knees to abide where they ever lodge when they return unsuccessful from abroad? Who, I say, in this present world will let them in, and who in the present days will love one that hath spoke him well? I cannot tell. The praise once sought for noble acts is sought no more; pelf reigns conqueror of every heart; and every man looks hand in pocket where he may get him silver; nay, he would not give another so much as the off-scrapings of the rust of it, but straightway cries “Charity begins at home. What comes thereout for me? ’Tis the Gods that honour poets. Who would hear yet another? Homer is enough for all. Him rank I best of poets, who of me shall get nothing.”

  [22] Poor simple fools! what profits it a man that he have thousands of gold laid by? To the wise the enjoyment of riches is not that, but rather to give first somewhat to his own soul, and then something, methinks, to one of the poets; to wit, it is first to do much good as well to other men as to his kinsfolk, to make offering of sacrifice unceasingly upon the altars of the Gods, and, like on hospitably minded, to send his guests, when go they will, kindly entreated away; and secondly and more than all, it is to bestow honour upon th
e holy interpreters of the Muses, that so you may rather be well spoken of even when you lie hid in Death, than, like some horny-handed delving son of a poor father bewailing his empty penury, make your moan beside chill Acheron’s brink without either name or fame.

  [34] Many indeed were the bondmen earned their monthly meed in the houses of Antiochus and King Aleuas, many the calves that went lowing with the horned kine home to the byres of the Scopads, and ten thousand were the fine sheep that the shepherds of he plain of Crannon watched all night for the hospitable Creondae; but once all the sweet wine of their life was in the great cup, once they were embarked in the barge of the old man loathsome, the joyance and pleasure of those things was theirs no more: and though they left behind them all that great and noble wealth, they had lain among the vile dead long ages unremembered, had not the great Ceian cried sweet varied lays to the strings and famoused them in posterity, and had not the coursers that came home to them victorious out of the Games achieved the honour and glory which called the poet to this task.

  [48] Then too the lords of the old Lycians, then the long-haired children of Priam or that Cycnus that was wan as a woman, – say who had known aught of them, had not poets hymned the battle-cries of an elder day? Moreover Odysseus had wandered his hundred months and twenty through all the world, come to uttermost Hades alive, and gone safe from out the cave of the fell Cyclops, and then had never enjoyed the long and lasting glory of it all; and as well great-heart Laertes himself as Eumaeus the hog-ward and Philoetius the keeper of herded kine, all alike had been under silence had it not profited them of the lays of a man of Ionia.

  [58] Yes; good fame men may get of the Muses, but riches be wasted of their posterity after they are dead. But seeing one may as well strive to wash clean in clear water a sun-dried brick, as well stand on the beach and number the waves driven shore-ward of the wind from the blue sea, as seek to win by words one whose heart is wounded with the love of gain, I bid all such a very good day, and wish them silver beyond counting and long life to their craving for more. For myself, I would rather the esteem and friendship of my fellow-men than hundreds of mules and horses.

  [68] And so now I am on my way to seek to whom in all the world I with the Muses may come and be welcome; – with the Muses, for ’tis ill travelling for your poet if he have not with him the Daughters of the Great Counsellor. Not yet are the heavens wearied of bringing round the months nor the years; many the horses yet will roll the wheel of the day; and I shall yet find the man who therefore shall need me for his poet because he shall have done as doughtily as ever did great Achilles or dread Aias by the grave of Phrygian Ilus in Simoeis vale.

  [76] For lo! the Phoenician dweller in the foot of Lilybè in the west shudders already and shakes; the Syracusan hath already his spear by the middle of the wicker targe upon his warm; and there like one of the olden heroes stands Hiero girding his loins among his men, a horse-hair plume waving on his crest. And I would to thee, renowned Father, and to thee, Lady Athena, I would to thee, Maiden who with thy Mother dost possess by Lysimeleia’s side the great city of the rich Ephyreans, I would that evil necessities may clear our island of hostile folk and send them down the Sardinian wave with tidings of death to wives and children, a remnant easy to number of a mighty host; and I pray that all the towns the hands of enemies have laid so utterly waste, may be inhabited again of their ancient peoples, and their fields laboured and made to bring forth abundantly, their lowlands filled with the bleating of fat flocks in their tens of thousands, and the twilight traveller warned to hasten his steps to the home-going of innumerable herds; and I pray likewise that against the time when the cricket is fain to sing high in the twigs over head because of the noontide-resting shepherds, against that time, the time of sowing, none of the fallows be left unturned of the plough, and as for the weapons of war, may spiders weave over them their slender webs, and of the war-cry the very name be forgot. And the glory of Hiero, that may poets waft high both over the Scythian main and eke where Semiramis reigned within that broad wall she made with mortar of pitch; and of these poets I am one, one of the many beloved by the daughters of Zeus, which are concerned all of them to magnify Sicilian Arethuse with her people and her mighty man of war.

  [114] O holy Graces first adored of Eteocles, O lovers of that Minyan Orchomenus which Thebes had cause to hate of old, as, if I be called not, I will abide at home, so, if I be called, I will take heart and go with our Muses to the house of any that call. And you shall come too; for mortal man possesseth nothing desirable if he have not the Graces, and ’tis my prayer the Graces be with me evermore.

  IDYLL XVII. THE PANEGYRIC OF PTOLEMY

  A panegyric of Ptolemy II, Philadelphus, who reigned from 285 to 247. The references to historical personages and events, coupled with a comparison with XVI, point to 273 as the date of the poem. The Ptolemies, like Alexander, traced their descent from Heracles. Ptolemy I, son of Lagus, was deified about 283, and his queen Berenice between 279 and 275.

  [1] With Zeus let us begin, Muses, and with Zeus I pray you end when the greatest of Immortals is exalted in our song: but for me first, midst and last by the name of Ptolemy; for he is of men the chiefest.

  [5] The heroes that came of demigods of yore found skilly singers of the glorious deeds which they did; and in like manner a cunning teller of praises shall raise the hymn to Ptolemy, seeing hymns make the meed even of the Gods above.

  [9] Now when the feller goes up to thick woody Ida he looks about him where to begin in all that plenty; and so I, where no shall I take up my tale when I might tell of ten thousand ways wherein the Gods have done honour to the greatest of kings?

  [13] ’Twas in the blood. First what an achieve of mighty exploits was Ptolemy Lagid when his mind conceived a device such as no other mind could come by! Whom now the Father hath made of equal honour with the Blessed; a golden mansion is builded him in the house of Zeus, and seated friendly beside him is the Lord of the Glancing Baldric, that God of woe to the Persians, Alexander, while over against him is set the stark adamantine seat of Centaur-slayer Heracles, who taketh his meat with the other Sons of Heaven, rejoicing exceedingly that by grace of Zeus the children of his children’s children have old age now lift from their limbs and they that were born his posterity are named and known of the Immortals. For unto either king the valiant founder of his race was a son of Heracles; both in the long last reckon Heracles of their line. And therefore now when the same Heracles hath had enough of the fragrant nectar and goes from table to the chamber of the wife he loves, he gives the one his bow and hanging quiver and the other his knaggy iron-hard club, to carry beside him as he goes, this bush-bearded son of Zeus, to the ambrosial chamber of the white-ankle Hebè.

  [34] Then secondly for his mother; how bright among dames discreet shone the fame of Berenicè, what a boon to her progeny was she! Of whom the lady possessor of Cyprus that is daughter of Dionè laid taper fingers upon the sweet soft bosom, and such, they say, did make her that never woman gave man so great delight as Ptolemy took in his love of that his wife. Aye, he got all as much as he gave and more; for while the wife that loves not sets her heart ever upon tings lien, and has offspring indeed at her desire albeit the children favour not the father, ’tis when the love of the marriage-bed is each to each that with good courage one may leave, like Ptolemy, all his house to be ordered of his children. O Lady Aphrodite, chiefest beauty of the Goddeses, as ’twas thou that hadst made her to be such, so ’twas of thee that he fair Berenicè passed not sad lamentable Acheron, but or e’er she reached the murky ship and that ever-sullen shipman the ferrier of the departed, was rapt away to be a Goddess in a temple, where now participating in thy great prerogatives, with a gentle breath she both inspires all mankind unto soft desires and lightens the cares of him that hath loved and lost.

  [53] Even as the dark-browed Argive maid did bear unto Tydeus of Calydon Diomed the slayer of peoples, but and even as deep-bosom’d Thetis bare unto Peleus Aeacid javelineer Achilles,
in like manner, O my liege, did renowned Berenicè bear to warrior Ptolemy another warrior Ptolemy.

  [58] And when thou first saw’st the dawn, she that took the from thy mother and dandled thee, poor babe, on her lap, was the good lady Cos; for there in Cos island had the daughter of Antigonè cried aloud to the Girdle-Looser in the oppression of pain, there had the Goddess stood by to comfort her and to shed immunity from grief upon all her limbs, and there was born in the likeness of his father the beloved son. And when she beheld him, good Cos broke into a cry of joy, and clasping the babe in her loving arms ‘Heaven bless thee, boy,’ said she, ‘and grant I may have all as much honour of thee as blue-snooded Delos had of Phoebus Apollo; and not I only, but Heaven send thou assign equal privilege to all the neighbour Dorian cities in the joint honour of the Triopian Hill; for Apollo gave Rheneia equal love with Delos.’ Thus far the Island; and lo! from the clouds above came thrice over the boding croak of a great eagle. And ‘faith, ’twas of Zeus that sign; for Zeus Cronion, as he watches over all reverend kings, so especially careth he for a king that he hath loved from his earliest hour. Such an one is attendant of great good-fortune, and wins himself the mastery of much land and of many seas.

  [77] Ten thousand are the lands and ten thousand the nations that make the crops to spring under aid of the rain of Zeus, but there’s no country so fruitful as the low-country of Egypt when Nile comes gushing up to soak the soil and break it, nor no country, neither, possessed of so many cities of men learned in labour. The cities builded therein are three hundred and three thousands and three tens of thousands, and threes twain and nines three, and in them the lord and master of all is proud Ptolemy. Ay, and of Phoenician and Arabia he taketh to him a hantle, and eke of Syria and Libya and of the swart Aethiop’s country; and he giveth the word to all them of Pamphylia and all the warriors of Cilicia; and to the people of Lycia and warlike Caria and to the Cyclad Isles he giveth it; and this because he hath a noble navy sailing the main, so that all the sea, every land, and each of the sounding rivers doth acknowledge his dominion, and full many are the mighty warriors a-horseback and full many the burnished brass-clad targeteers afoot that rally for the battle around his standard.