Part 11

_The Maiden_. I will not come; ay, ere now with a sweet tale didst thou beguile me.

_Daphnis_. Come hither, beneath the elms, to listen to my pipe!

_The Maiden_. Nay, please thyself, no woful tune delights me.

_Daphnis_. Ah maiden, see that thou too shun the anger of the Paphian.

_The Maiden_. Good-bye to the Paphian, let Artemis only be friendly!

_Daphnis_. Say not so, lest she smite thee, and thou fall into a trap whence there is no escape.

_The Maiden_. Let her smite an she will; Artemis again would be my defender. Lay no hand on me; nay, if thou do more, and touch me with thy lips, I will bite thee. {148}

_Daphnis_. From Love thou dost not flee, whom never yet maiden fled.

_The Maiden_. Escape him, by Pan, I do, but thou dost ever bear his yoke.

_Daphnis_. This is ever my fear lest he even give thee to a meaner man.

_The Maiden_. Many have been my wooers, but none has won my heart.

_Daphnis_. Yea I, out of many chosen, come here thy wooer.

_The Maiden_. Dear love, what can I do? Marriage has much annoy.

_Daphnis_. Nor pain nor sorrow has marriage, but mirth and dancing.

_The Maiden_. Ay, but they say that women dread their lords.

_Daphnis_. Nay, rather they always rule them,—whom do women fear?

_The Maiden_. Travail I dread, and sharp is the shaft of Eilithyia.

_Daphnis_. But thy queen is Artemis, that lightens labour.

_The Maiden_. But I fear childbirth, lest, perchance, I lose my beauty.

_Daphnis_. Nay, if thou bearest dear children thou wilt see the light revive in thy sons.

_The Maiden_. And what wedding gift dost thou bring me if I consent?

_Daphnis_. My whole flock, all my groves, and all my pasture land shall be thine.

_The Maiden_. Swear that thou wilt not win me, and then depart and leave me forlorn.

_Daphnis_. So help me Pan I would not leave thee, didst thou even choose to banish me!

_The Maiden_. Dost thou build me bowers, and a house, and folds for flocks?

_Daphnis_. Yea, bowers I build thee, the flocks I tend are fair.

_The Maiden_. But to my grey old father, what tale, ah what, shall I tell?

_Daphnis_. He will approve thy wedlock when he has heard my name.

_The Maiden_. Prithee, tell me that name of thine; in a name there is often delight.

_Daphnis_. Daphnis am I, Lycidas is my father, and Nomaea is my mother.

_The Maiden_. Thou comest of men well-born, but there I am thy match.

_Daphnis_. I know it, thou art of high degree, for thy father is Menalcas. {150a}

_The Maiden_. Show me thy grove, wherein is thy cattle-stall.

_Daphnis_. See here, how they bloom, my slender cypress-trees.

_The Maiden_. Graze on, my goats, I go to learn the herdsman’s labours.

_Daphnis_. Feed fair, my bulls, while I show my woodlands to my lady!

_The Maiden_. What dost thou, little satyr; why dost thou touch my breast?

_Daphnis_. I will show thee that these earliset apples are ripe. {150b}

_The Maiden_. By Pan, I swoon; away, take back thy hand.

_Daphnis_. Courage, dear girl, why fearest thou me, thou art over fearful!

_The Maiden_. Thou makest me lie down by the water-course, defiling my fair raiment!

_Daphnis_. Nay, see, ’neath thy raiment fair I am throwing this soft fleece.

_The Maiden_. Ah, ah, thou hast snatched my girdle too; why hast thou loosed my girdle?

_Daphnis_. These first-fruits I offer, a gift to the Paphian.

_The Maiden_. Stay, wretch, hark; surely a stranger cometh; nay, I hear a sound.

_Daphnis_. The cypresses do but whisper to each other of thy wedding.

_The Maiden_. Thou hast torn my mantle, and unclad am I.

_Daphnis_. Another mantle I will give thee, and an ampler far than thine.

_The Maiden_. Thou dost promise all things, but soon thou wilt not give me even a grain of salt.

_Daphnis_. Ah, would that I could give thee my very life.

_The Maiden_. Artemis, be not wrathful, thy votary breaks her vow.

_Daphnis_. I will slay a calf for Love, and for Aphrodite herself a heifer.

_The Maiden_. A maiden I came hither, a woman shall I go homeward.

_Daphnis_. Nay, a wife and a mother of children shalt thou be, no more a maiden.

So, each to each, in the joy of their young fresh limbs they were murmuring: it was the hour of secret love. Then she arose, and stole to herd her sheep; with shamefast eyes she went, but her heart was comforted within her. And he went to his herds of kine, rejoicing in his wedlock.

IDYL XXVIII

_This little piece of Aeolic verse accompanied the present of a distaff which Theocritus brought from Syracuse to Theugenis_, _the wife of his friend Nicias_, _the physician of Miletus_. _On the margin of a translation by Longepierre_ (_the famous book-collector_), _Louis XIV wrote that this idyl is a model of honourable gallantry_.

* * * * *

O DISTAFF, thou friend of them that spin, gift of grey-eyed Athene to dames whose hearts are set on housewifery; come, boldly come with me to the bright city of Neleus, where the shrine of the Cyprian is green ’neath its roof of delicate rushes. Thither I pray that we may win fair voyage and favourable breeze from Zeus, that so I may gladden mine eyes with the sight of Nicias my friend, and be greeted of him in turn;—a sacred scion is he of the sweet-voiced Graces. And thee, distaff, thou child of fair carven ivory, I will give into the hands of the wife of Nicias: with her shalt thou fashion many a thing, garments for men, and much rippling raiment that women wear. For the mothers of lambs in the meadows might twice be shorn of their wool in the year, with her goodwill, the dainty-ankled Theugenis, so notable is she, and cares for all things that wise matrons love.

Nay, not to houses slatternly or idle would I have given thee, distaff, seeing that thou art a countryman of mine. For that is thy native city which Archias out of Ephyre founded, long ago, the very marrow of the isle of the three capes, a town of honourable men. {153} But now shalt thou abide in the house of a wise physician, who has learned all the spells that ward off sore maladies from men, and thou shalt dwell in glad Miletus with the Ionian people, to this end,—that of all the townsfolk Theugenis may have the goodliest distaff and that thou mayst keep her ever mindful of her friend, the lover of song.

This proverb will each man utter that looks on thee, ‘Surely great grace goes with a little gift, and all the offerings of friends are precious.’

IDYL XXIX

_This poem_, _like the preceding one_, _is written in the Aeolic dialect_. _The first line is quoted from Alcaeus_. _The idyl is attributed to Theocritus on the evidence of the scholiast on the Symposium of Plato_.

* * * * *

‘WINE and truth,’ dear child, says the proverb, and in wine are we, and the truth we must tell. Yes, I will say to thee all that lies in my soul’s inmost chamber. Thou dost not care to love me with thy whole heart! I know, for I live half my life in the sight of thy beauty, but all the rest is ruined. When thou art kind, my day is like the days of the Blessed, but when thou art unkind, ’tis deep in darkness. How can it be right thus to torment thy friend? Nay, if thou wilt listen at all, child, to me, that am thine elder, happier thereby wilt thou be, and some day thou wilt thank me. Build one nest in one tree, where no fierce snake can come; for now thou dost perch on one branch to-day, and on another to-morrow, always seeking what is new. And if a stranger see and praise thy pretty face, instantly to him thou art more than a friend of three years’ standing, while him that loved thee first thou holdest no higher than a friend of three days. Thou savourest, methinks, of the love of some great one; nay, choose rather all thy life ever to keep the love of one that is thy peer. If this thou dost thou wilt be well spoken of by thy townsmen, and Love will never be hard to thee, Love that lightly vanquishes the minds of men, and has wrought to tenderness my heart that was of steel. Nay, by thy delicate mouth I approach and beseech thee, remember that thou wert younger yesteryear, and that we wax grey and wrinkled, or ever we can avert it; and none may recapture his youth again, for the shoulders of youth are winged, and we are all too slow to catch such flying pinions.

Mindful of this thou shouldst be gentler, and love me without guile as I love thee, so that, when thou hast a manly beard, we may be such friends as were Achilles and Patroclus!

But, if thou dost cast all I say to the winds to waft afar, and cry, in anger, ‘Why, why, dost thou torment me?’ then I,—that now for thy sake would go to fetch the golden apples, or to bring thee Cerberus, the watcher of the dead,—would not go forth, didst thou stand at the court-doors and call me. I should have rest from my cruel love.

FRAGMENT OF THE BERENICE.

_Athenaeus_ (_vii._ 284 _A_) _quotes this fragment_, _which probably was part of a panegyric on Berenice_, _the mother of Ptolemy Philadelphus_.

* * * * *

AND if any man that hath his livelihood from the salt sea, and whose nets serve him for ploughs, prays for wealth, and luck in fishing, let him sacrifice, at midnight, to this goddess, the sacred fish that they call ‘silver white,’ for that it is brightest of sheen of all,—then let the fisher set his nets, and he shall draw them full from the sea.

IDYL XXX THE DEAD ADONIS

_This idyl is usually printed with the poems of Theocritus_, _but almost certainly is by another hand_. _I have therefore ventured to imitate the metre of the original_.

* * * * *

WHEN Cypris saw Adonis, In death already lying With all his locks dishevelled, And cheeks turned wan and ghastly, She bade the Loves attendant To bring the boar before her.

And lo, the winged ones, fleetly They scoured through all the wild wood; The wretched boar they tracked him, And bound and doubly bound him. One fixed on him a halter, And dragged him on, a captive, Another drave him onward, And smote him with his arrows. But terror-struck the beast came, For much he feared Cythere. To him spake Aphrodite,— ‘Of wild beasts all the vilest, This thigh, by thee was ’t wounded? Was ’t thou that smote my lover?’ To her the beast made answer— ‘I swear to thee, Cythere, By thee, and by thy lover, Yea, and by these my fetters, And them that do pursue me,— Thy lord, thy lovely lover I never willed to wound him; I saw him, like a statue, And could not bide the burning, Nay, for his thigh was naked, And mad was I to kiss it, And thus my tusk it harmed him. Take these my tusks, O Cypris, And break them, and chastise them, For wherefore should I wear them, These passionate defences? If this doth not suffice thee, Then cut my lips out also, Why dared they try to kiss him?’

Then Cypris had compassion; She bade the Loves attendant To loose the bonds that bound him. From that day her he follows, And flees not to the wild wood But joins the Loves, and always He bears Love’s flame unflinching.

EPIGRAMS

_The Epigrams of Theocritus are_, _for the most part_, _either inscriptions for tombs or cenotaphs_, _or for the pedestals of statues_, _or_ (_as the third epigram_) _are short occasional pieces_. _Several of them are but doubtfully ascribed to the poet of the Idyls_. _The Greek has little but brevity in common with the modern epigram_.

I _For a rustic Altar_.

THESE dew-drenched roses and that tufted thyme are offered to the ladies of Helicon. And the dark-leaved laurels are thine, O Pythian Paean, since the rock of Delphi bare this leafage to thine honour. The altar this white-horned goat shall stain with blood, this goat that browses on the tips of the terebinth boughs.

II _For a Herdsman’s Offering_.

DAPHNIS, the white-limbed Daphnis, that pipes on his fair flute the pastoral strains offered to Pan these gifts,—his pierced reed-pipes, his crook, a javelin keen, a fawn-skin, and the scrip wherein he was wont, on a time, to carry the apples of Love.

III _For a Picture_.

THOU sleepest on the leaf-strewn ground, O Daphnis, resting thy weary limbs, and the stakes of thy nets are newly fastened on the hills. But Pan is on thy track, and Priapus, with the golden ivy wreath twined round his winsome head,—both are leaping at one bound into thy cavern. Nay, flee them, flee, shake off thy slumber, shake off the heavy sleep that is falling upon thee.

IV _Priapus_.

WHEN thou hast turned yonder lane, goatherd, where the oak-trees are, thou wilt find an image of fig-tree wood, newly carven; three-legged it is, the bark still covers it, and it is earless withal, yet meet for the arts of Cypris. A right holy precinct runs round it, and a ceaseless stream that falleth from the rocks on every side is green with laurels, and myrtles, and fragrant cypress. And all around the place that child of the grape, the vine, doth flourish with its tendrils, and the merles in spring with their sweet songs utter their wood-notes wild, and the brown nightingales reply with their complaints, pouring from their bills the honey-sweet song. There, prithee, sit down and pray to gracious Priapus, that I may be delivered from my love of Daphnis, and say that instantly thereon I will sacrifice a fair kid. But if he refuse, ah then, should I win Daphnis’s love, I would fain sacrifice three victims,—and offer a calf, a shaggy he-goat, and a lamb that I keep in the stall, and oh that graciously the god may hear my prayer.

V _The rural Concert_.

AH, in the Muses’ name, wilt thou play me some sweet air on the double flute, and I will take up the harp, and touch a note, and the neatherd Daphnis will charm us the while, breathing music into his wax-bound pipe. And beside this rugged oak behind the cave will we stand, and rob the goat-foot Pan of his repose.

VI _The Dead are beyond hope_.

AH hapless Thyrsis, where is thy gain, shouldst thou lament till thy two eyes are consumed with tears? She has passed away,—the kid, the youngling beautiful,—she has passed away to Hades. Yea, the jaws of the fierce wolf have closed on her, and now the hounds are baying, but what avail they when nor bone nor cinder is left of her that is departed?

VII _For a statue of Asclepius_.

EVEN to Miletus he hath come, the son of Paeon, to dwell with one that is a healer of all sickness, with Nicias, who even approaches him day by day with sacrifices, and hath let carve this statue out of fragrant cedar-wood; and to Eetion he promised a high guerdon for his skill of hand: on this work Eetion has put forth all his craft.

VIII _Orthon’s Grave_.

STRANGER, the Syracusan Orthon lays this behest on thee; go never abroad in thy cups on a night of storm. For thus did I come by my end, and far from my rich fatherland I lie, clothed on with alien soil.

IX _The Death of Cleonicus_.

MAN, husband thy life, nor go voyaging out of season, for brief are the days of men! Unhappy Cleonicus, thou wert eager to win rich Thasus, from Coelo-Syria sailing with thy merchandise,—with thy merchandise, O Cleonicus, at the setting of the Pleiades didst thou cross the sea,—and didst sink with the sinking Pleiades!

X _A Group of the Muses_.

FOR your delight, all ye Goddesses Nine, did Xenocles offer this statue of marble, Xenocles that hath music in his soul, as none will deny. And inasmuch as for his skill in this art he wins renown, he forgets not to give their due to the Muses.

XI _The Grave of Eusthenes_.

THIS is the memorial stone of Eusthenes, the sage; a physiognomist was he, and skilled to read the very spirit in the eyes. Nobly have his friends buried him—a stranger in a strange land—and most dear was he, yea, to the makers of song. All his dues in death has the sage, and, though he was no great one, ’tis plain he had friends to care for him.

XII _The Offering of Demoteles_.

’TWAS Demoteles the choregus, O Dionysus, who dedicated this tripod, and this statue of thee, the dearest of the blessed gods. No great fame he won when he gave a chorus of boys, but with a chorus of men he bore off the victory, for he knew what was fair and what was seemly.

XIII _For a statue of Aphrodite_.

THIS is Cypris,—not she of the people; nay, venerate the goddess by her name—the Heavenly Aphrodite. The statue is the offering of chaste Chrysogone, even in the house of Amphicles, whose children and whose life were hers! And always year by year went well with them, who began each year with thy worship, Lady, for mortals who care for the Immortals have themselves thereby the better fortune.

XIV _The Grave of Euryrnedon_.

AN infant son didst thou leave behind, and in the flower of thine own age didst die, Eurymedon, and win this tomb. For thee a throne is set among men made perfect, but thy son the citizens will hold in honour, remembering the excellence of his father.

XV _The Grave of Eurymedon_.

WAYFARER, I shall know whether thou dost reverence the good, or whether the coward is held by thee in the same esteem. ‘Hail to this tomb,’ thou wilt say, for light it lies above the holy head of Eurymedon.

XVI _For a statue of Anacreon_.

MARK well this statue, stranger, and say, when thou hast returned to thy home, ‘In Teos I beheld the statue of Anacreon, who surely excelled all the singers of times past.’ And if thou dost add that he delighted in the young, thou wilt truly paint all the man.

XVII _For a statue of Epicharmus_.

DORIAN is the strain, and Dorian the man we sing; he that first devised Comedy, even Epicharmus. O Bacchus, here in bronze (as the man is now no more) they have erected his statue, the colonists {165} that dwell in Syracuse, to the honour of one that was their fellow-citizen. Yea, for a gift he gave, wherefore we should be mindful thereof and pay him what wage we may, for many maxims he spoke that were serviceable to the life of all men. Great thanks be his.

XVIII _The Grave of Cleita_.

THE little Medeus has raised this tomb by the wayside to the memory of his Thracian nurse, and has added the inscription—

HERE LIES CLEITA.

THE woman will have this recompense for all her careful nurture of the boy,—and why?—because she was serviceable even to the end.

XIX _The statue of Archilochus_.

STAY, and behold Archilochus, him of old time, the maker of iambics, whose myriad fame has passed westward, alike, and towards the dawning day. Surely the Muses loved him, yea, and the Delian Apollo, so practised and so skilled he grew in forging song, and chanting to the lyre.

XX _The statue of Pisander_.

THIS man, behold, Pisander of Corinth, of all the ancient makers was the first who wrote of the son of Zeus, the lion-slayer, the ready of hand, and spake of all the adventures that with toil he achieved. Know this therefore, that the people set him here, a statue of bronze, when many months had gone by and many years.

XXI _The Grave of Hipponax_.

HERE lies the poet Hipponax! If thou art a sinner draw not near this tomb, but if thou art a true man, and the son of righteous sires, sit boldly down here, yea, and sleep if thou wilt.

XXII _For the Bank of Caicus_.

TO citizens and strangers alike this counter deals justice. If thou hast deposited aught, draw out thy money when the balance-sheet is cast up. Let others make false excuse, but Caicus tells back money lent, ay, even if one wish it after nightfall.

XXIII _On his own Poems_. {167}

THE Chian is another man, but I, Theocritus, who wrote these songs, am a Syracusan, a man of the people, being the son of Praxagoras and renowned Philinna. Never laid I claim to any Muse but mine own.

BION

Πίδακος έξ ίερης ολίγη λιβας ακρον αωτον.—_Callimachus_.

BION was born at Smyrna, one of the towns which claimed the honour of being Homer’s birthplace. On the evidence of a detached verse (94) of the dirge by Moschus, some have thought that Theocritus survived Bion. In that case Theocritus must have been a preternaturally aged man. The same dirge tells us that Bion was poisoned by certain enemies, and that while he left to others his wealth, to Moschus he left his minstrelsy.

I THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS

_This poem was probably intended to be sung at one of the spring celebrations of the festival of Adonis_, _like that described by Theocritus in his fifteenth idyl_.

* * * * *

WOE, woe for Adonis, he hath perished, the beauteous Adonis, dead is the beauteous Adonis, the Loves join in the lament. No more in thy purple raiment, Cypris, do thou sleep; arise, thou wretched one, sable-stoled, and beat thy breasts, and say to all, ‘He hath perished, the lovely Adonis!’

_Woe_, _woe for Adonis_, _the Loves join in the lament_!

Low on the hills is lying the lovely Adonis, and his thigh with the boar’s tusk, his white thigh with the boar’s tusk is wounded, and sorrow on Cypris he brings, as softly he breathes his life away.

His dark blood drips down his skin of snow, beneath his brows his eyes wax heavy and dim, and the rose flees from his lip, and thereon the very kiss is dying, the kiss that Cypris will never forego.

To Cypris his kiss is dear, though he lives no longer, but Adonis knew not that she kissed him as he died.

_Woe_, _woe for Adonis_, _the Loves join in the lament_!

A cruel, cruel wound on his thigh hath Adonis, but a deeper wound in her heart doth Cytherea bear. About him his dear hounds are loudly baying, and the nymphs of the wild wood wail him; but Aphrodite with unbound locks through the glades goes wandering,—wretched, with hair unbraided, with feet unsandaled, and the thorns as she passes wound her and pluck the blossom of her sacred blood. Shrill she wails as down the long woodlands she is borne, lamenting her Assyrian lord, and again calling him, and again. But round his navel the dark blood leapt forth, with blood from his thighs his chest was scarlet, and beneath Adonis’s breast, the spaces that afore were snow-white, were purple with blood.

_Woe_, _woe for Cytherea_, _the Loves join in the lament_!