Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, Rendered into English Prose

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. 65 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

’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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 66 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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