Excellent subjects; and the best of all
I'll tell you now, since you are dear to them.
Theocritus here commences his recitation in turn, the subject of which is an unsuccessful passion of his friend Aratus, supposed to be the contemporary poet of that name, author of the "Phænomena :"
"T was on the unlucky side the Loves sneez'd to me,
For I love Myrto, as the goats love spring,
But to no purpose. Meanwhile too, Aratus,
My best of friends, becomes in love with Pholoe.
Aristis has long known it,-good Aristis,
To whom Apollo's self would not disdain
To play his harp from his own golden seat.-
O Pan, who gained by lot the lovely grounds
Of Homole,-O send her to his arms,
Her, or another girl as beautiful!
O do but so, and the Arcadian youth
Shall scourge thee not with squills, when they have miss'd
Their hunted game:-but if thou dost it not,
Thou shalt be flayed, and sent to sleep in straw :
In mountains and by rivers of the north
Mid winter shalt thou pass; and then in summer
Be changed to utmost Ethiopia, there
To tend thy flocks under the Blemyan rock,
Where thou canst see not Nile.*-But you, ye Loves,
With your sweet apple cheeks, leave the moist nooks
Of Hyetis and Byblis, and fly up
To Venus's own heaven, and thence, ah thence,
Shoot with your arrows for me this desir'd one,
Shoot, since she pities not my friend and guest.
Riper is she than the moist pear; and yet
* This sample, strange as it may appear, of the familiarity which breeds contempt, even towards objects of worship, and which Theocritus must have smiled while he was describing, has not been confined to Paganism.
The women say to her, 'Alas, alas,
Your flower will wither, Pholoe, on the stalk!'
Come then, Aratus; let us lie no more
At these proud doors, nor wear our feet with journeys;
But let another, if he chooses, start
With sleepless eyes to hear the crowing cock;
And leave such labours to the wrestler Molon.
Care we for nought but comfort: let us seek
Some ancient dame, who, muttering o'er a charm,
Shall keep away from us all things unkindly."
I ended; and with one of his old smiles,
He gave me his poetic gift, the olive-stick;
And turning to the left, struck off for Pyxa.
We then went on to Phrasidamus's,—
Eucritus, I, and the good little Amyntas,-
And gladly rested upon deep thick couches
Of lentisk, and of vine-leaves freshly cut.
Above our heads a throng of elms and poplars
Kept stirring; and from out a cave o' the Nymphs
A sacred runnel, pouring forth, ran gurgling.
Hot in the greenest leaves, labour'd away
Those chatterers the cicadas; the sad tree-frog
Kept his good distance in the thorny bush;
The larks and linnets sang; the stock-dove mourned;
And round the fountains spun the yellow bees:
All things smelt rich of summer, rich of autumn:
Pears were about our feet, and by our side
Apples on apples roll'd; the boughs bent down.
To the very earth with loads of damson plums;
And from the casks of wine of four years old,
We broke the corking pitch.-O ye who keep
Parnassus' top, ye Nymphs of Castaly,
Did ever Chiron, in the rocky cave
Of Pholos, set such goblets before Hercules?
Did ever that old shepherd of Anapus,
Great Polyphemus, who could throw the rocks,
Compose such nectar to go dance withal,-
As on that day ye broached for us, O Nymphs,
Before the altar of Earth's generous Mother?
Oh may I riot in her heaps again
With a great winnow; while she stands and smiles,
Holding, in either hand, poppies and wheat.
ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF BION.
THE chief characteristic both of this Sicilian poet Moschus and his friend Bion was a tender and elegant sweetness. have endeavoured to modulate our version accordingly.
This is the pastoral poetry of books, as distinguished from that of real life; yet it has a real echo in the minds of those who can pass from one region to the other; nor is it wanting in some touches exquisitely human, as we have seen in the famous passage already quoted from the Elegy respecting the (supposed) difference between the transitory nature of man and the rejuvenescence of flowers:
Moan with me, moan, ye woods and Dorian waters,
And weep, ye rivers, the delightful Bion;
Ye plants, now stand in tears; murmur, ye groves;
Ye flowers, sigh forth your odours with sad buds;
Flush deep, ye roses and anemones;
And more than ever now, oh hyacinth, show
Your written sorrows: *—the sweet singer's dead.
* Alluding to the letters AI, which simply signifies "Alas," and which are to be found (so to speak) in the dark lines or specks observable in the petals of the Turk's Cap Lily; which Professor Martyn has shown to be the true Hyacinth of the ancients.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales, that mourn in the thick leaves,
Tell the Sicilian streams of Arethuse,
Bion the shepherd's dead; and that with him
Melody's dead, and gone the Dorian song.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Weep on the waters, ye Strymonian swans,
And utter forth a melancholy song,
Tender as his whose voice was like your own ;
And say to the Oeagrian girls, and say
To all the nymphs haunting in Bistony,
The Doric Orpheus is departed from us.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
No longer pipes he to the charmed herds,
No longer sits under the lonely oaks,
And sings; but to the ears of Pluto now
Tunes his Lethean verse; and so the hills
Are voiceless; and the cows that follow still
Beside the bulls, low and will not be fed.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Apollo, Bion, wept thy sudden fate:
The Satyrs too, and the Priapuses
Dark-veiled, and for that song of thine the Pans,
Groan'd; and the fountain-nymphs within the woods
Mourn'd for thee, melting into tearful waters;
Echo too mourn'd among the rocks that she
Must hush-and imitate thy lips no longer;
Trees and the flowers put off their loveliness;
Milk flows not as 'twas used; and in the hive
The honey moulders, for there is no need,
Now that thy honey 's gone, to look for more.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Not so the dolphins mourn'd by the salt sea,
Not so the nightingale among the rocks,
Not so the swallow over the far downs,
Not so Ceyx called for his Halcyone,
Not so in the eastern valleys Memnon's bird Scream'd o'er his sepulchre for the Morning's son, As all have mourned for the departed Bion.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales and swallows every one
Whom he once charm'd and taught to sing at will,
Plain to each other midst the green tree boughs,
With other birds o'erhead. Mourn too, ye doves.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Who now shall play thy pipe, oh most desir'd one!
Who lay his lip against thy reeds? who dare it?
For still they breathe of thee and of thy mouth,
And Echo comes to seek her voices there.
Pan's be they; and ev'n he shall fear perhaps
To sound them, lest he be not first hereafter.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
And Galatea weeps, who loved to hear thee,
Sitting beside thee on the calm sea-shore;
For thou did'st play far better than the Cyclops,
And him the fair one shunn'd: but thee, but thee,
She used to look at sweetly from the water.
But now forgetful of the deep, she sits
On the lone sands, and feeds thy herd for thee.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
The Muse's gifts all died with thee, O shepherd,
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