Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, Rendered into English Prose

IDYL IV

A sad dialogue between Megara the wife and Alcmena the mother of the wandering Heracles. Megara had seen her own children slain by her lord, in his frenzy, while Alcmena was constantly disquieted by ominous dreams.

My mother, wherefore art thou thus smitten in thy soul with exceeding sorrow, and the rose is no longer firm in thy cheeks as of yore? why, tell me, art thou thus disquieted? Is it because thy glorious son is suffering pains unnumbered in bondage to a man of naught, as it were a lion in bondage to a fawn? Woe is me, why, ah why have the immortal gods thus brought on me so great dishonour, and wherefore did my parents get me for so ill a doom? Wretched woman that I am, who came to the bed of a man without reproach and ever held him honourable and dear as mine own eyes, – ay and still worship and hold him sacred in my heart – yet none other of men living hath had more evil hap or tasted in his soul so many griefs. In madness once, with the bow Apollo’s self had given him – dread weapon of some Fury or spirit of Death – he struck down his own children, and took their dear life away, as his frenzy raged through the house till it swam in blood. With mine own eyes, I saw them smitten, woe is me, by their father’s arrows – a thing none else hath suffered even in dreams. Nor could I aid them as they cried ever on their mother; the evil that was upon them was past help. As a bird mourneth for her perishing little ones, devoured in the thicket by some terrible serpent while as yet they are fledglings, and the kind mother flutters round them making most shrill lament, but cannot help her nestlings, yea, and herself hath great fear to approach the cruel monster; so I unhappy mother, wailing for my brood, with frenzied feet went wandering through the house. Would that by my children’s side I had died myself, and were lying with the envenomed arrow through my heart. Would that this had been, O Artemis, thou that art queen chief of power to womankind. Then would our parents have embraced and wept for us and with ample obsequies have laid us on one common pyre, and have gathered the bones of all of us into one golden urn, and buried them in the place where first we came to be. But now they dwell in Thebes, fair nurse of youth, ploughing the deep soil of the Aonian plain, while I in Tiryns, rocky city of Hera, am ever thus wounded at heart with many sorrows, nor is any respite to me from tears. My husband I behold but a little time in our house, for he hath many labours at his hand, whereat he laboureth in wanderings by land and sea, with his soul strong as rock or steel within his breast. But thy grief is as the running waters, as thou lamentest through the nights and all the days of Zeus.

Nor is there any one of my kinsfolk nigh at hand to cheer me: for it is not the house wall that severs them, but they all dwell far beyond the pine-clad Isthmus, nor is there any to whom, as a woman all hapless, I may look up and refresh my heart, save only my sister Pyrrha; nay, but she herself grieves yet more for her husband Iphicles thy son: for methinks ’tis thou that hast borne the most luckless children of all, to a God, and a mortal man. 70

Thus spake she, and ever warmer the tears were pouring from her eyes into her sweet bosom, as she bethought her of her children and next of her own parents. And in like manner Alcmena bedewed her pale cheeks with tears, and deeply sighing from her very heart she thus bespoke her dear daughter with thick-coming words:

‘Dear child, what is this that hath come into the thoughts of thy heart? How art thou fain to disquiet us both with the tale of griefs that cannot be forgotten? Not for the first time are these woes wept for now. Are they not enough, the woes that possess us from our birth continually to our day of death? In love with sorrow surely would he be that should have the heart to count up our woes; such destiny have we received from God. Thyself, dear child, I behold vext by endless pains, and thy grief I can pardon, yea, for even of joy there is satiety. And exceedingly do I mourn over and pity thee, for that thou hast partaken of our cruel lot, the burden whereof is hung above our heads. For so witness Persephone and fair-robed Demeter (by whom the enemy that wilfully forswears himself, lies to his own hurt), that I love thee no less in my heart than if thou hadst been born of my womb, and wert the maiden darling of my house: nay, and methinks that thou knowest this well. Therefore say never, my flower, that I heed thee not, not even though I wail more ceaselessly than Niobe of the lovely locks. No shame it is for a mother to make moan for the affliction of her son: for ten months I went heavily, even before I saw him, while I bare him under my girdle, and he brought me near the gates of the warden of Hell; so fierce the pangs I endured in my sore travail of him. And now my son is gone from me in a strange land to accomplish some new labour; nor know I in my sorrow whether I shall again receive him returning here or no. Moreover in sweet sleep a dreadful dream hath fluttered me; and I exceedingly fear for the ill-omened vision that I have seen, lest something that I would not be coming on my children.

It seemed to me that my son, the might of Heracles, held in both hands a well-wrought spade, wherewith, as one labouring for hire, he was digging a ditch at the edge of a fruitful field, stripped of his cloak and belted tunic. And when he had come to the end of all his work and his labours at the stout defence of the vine-filled close, he was about to lean his shovel against the upstanding mound and don the clothes he had worn. But suddenly blazed up above the deep trench a quenchless fire, and a marvellous great flame encompassed him. But he kept ever giving back with hurried feet, striving to flee the deadly bolt of Hephaestus; and ever before his body he kept his spade as it were a shield; and this way and that he glared around him with his eyes, lest the angry fire should consume him. Then brave Iphicles, eager, methought, to help him, stumbled and fell to earth ere he might reach him, nor could he stand upright again, but lay helpless, like a weak old man, whom joyless age constrains to fall when he would not; so he lieth on the ground as he fell, till one passing by lift him up by the hand, regarding the ancient reverence for his hoary beard. Thus lay on the earth Iphicles, wielder of the shield. But I kept wailing as I beheld my sons in their sore plight, until deep sleep quite fled from my eyes, and straightway came bright morn. Such dreams, beloved, flitted through my mind all night; may they all turn against Eurystheus nor come nigh our dwelling, and to his hurt be my soul prophetic, nor may fate bring aught otherwise to pass.

IDYL V

When the wind on the grey salt sea blows softly, then my weary spirits rise, and the land no longer pleases me, and far more doth the calm allure me. 71 But when the hoary deep is roaring, and the sea is broken up in foam, and the waves rage high, then lift I mine eyes unto the earth and trees, and fly the sea, and the land is welcome, and the shady wood well pleasing in my sight, where even if the wind blow high the pine-tree sings her song. Surely an evil life lives the fisherman, whose home is his ship, and his labours are in the sea, and fishes thereof are his wandering spoil. Nay, sweet to me is sleep beneath the broad-leaved plane-tree; let me love to listen to the murmur of the brook hard by, soothing, not troubling the husbandman with its sound.

IDYL VI

IDYL VII

Alpheus, when he leaves Pisa and makes his way through beneath the deep, travels on to Arethusa with his waters that the wild olives drank, bearing her bridal gifts, fair leaves and flowers and sacred soil. Deep in the waves he plunges, and runs beneath the sea, and the salt water mingles not with the sweet. Nought knows the sea as the river journeys through. Thus hath the knavish boy, the maker of mischief, the teacher of strange ways – thus hath Love by his spell taught even a river to dive.

IDYL VIII

IDYL IX

1

This fragment is from the collection of M. Fauriel; Chants Populaires de le Grèce.

2

Empedocles on Etna.

3

Ballet des Arts, dansé par sa Majesté; le 8 janvier, 1663. A Paris, par Robert Ballard, MDCLXIII.

4

These and the following ditties are from the modern Greek ballads collected by MM. Fauriel and Legrand.

5

See Couat, La Poesie Alexandrine, p. 68 et seq., Paris 1882.

6

See Couat, op. cit. p. 395.

7

Couat, p. 434.

8

See Helbig, Campenische Wandmalerie, and Brunn, Die griechischen Bukoliker und die Bildende Kunst.

9

The Hecale of Callimachus, or Theseus and the Marathonian Bull, seems to have been rather a heroic idyl than an epic.

10

Or reading Αίολικόν=Aeolian, cf. Thucyd. iii. 102.

11

These are places famous in the oldest legends of Arcadia.

12

Reading, καταδήσομαι. Cf. Fritzsche’s note and Harpocration, s.v.

13

On the word ραμβος, see Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 700; and ‘The Bull Roarer,’ in the translator’s Custom and Myth.

14

Reading καταδήσομαι. Cf. line 3, and note.

15

He refers to a piece of folk-lore.

16

The shovel was used for tossing the sand of the lists; the sheep were food for Aegon’s great appetite.

17

Reading έρίσδεις.

18

Melanthius was the treacherous goatherd put to a cruel death by Odysseus.

19

Ameis and Fritzsche take νιν (as here) to be the dog, not Galatea. The sex of the Cyclops’s sheep-dog makes the meaning obscure.

20

Or, δόμον Ώρομέδοντος. Hermann renders this domum Oromedonteam a gigantic house.’ Oromedon or Eurymedon was the king of the Gigantes, mentioned in Odyssey vii. 58.

21

έσχατα. This is taken by some to mean algam infimam, ‘the bottom weeds of the deepest seas’, by others, the sea-weed highest on the shore, at high watermark.

22

Comatas was a goatherd who devoutly served the Muses, and sacrificed to them his masters goats. His master therefore shut him up in a cedar chest, opening which at the year’s end he found Comatas alive, by miracle, the bees having fed him with honey. Thus, in a mediaeval legend, the Blessed Virgin took the place, for a year, of the frail nun who had devoutly served her.

23

Sneezing in Sicily, as in most countries, was a happy omen.

24

A superfluous and apocryphal line is here omitted.

25

An allusion to the common superstition (cf. Idyl xii. 24) that perjurers and liars were punished by pimples and blotches. The old Irish held that blotches showed themselves on the faces of Brehons who gave unjust judgments.

26

Spring in the south, like Night in the tropics, comes ‘at one stride’; but Wordsworth finds the rendering distasteful ‘neque sic redditum valde placet.’

27

‘Quant à ta manière, je ne puis la rendre.’ – Sainte-Beuve.

28

Reading μηνοφόρως.

29

Cf. Wordsworth’s proposed conjecture —

Meineke observes ‘tota haec carminis pars luxata et foedissime depravata est’. There seems to be a rude early pun in lines 73, 74.

30

The reading —

ού φθεγξη; λύκον εΐδες; επαιξέ τις, ως σοφός, εΐπε, – makes good sense. ως σοφός is put in the mouth of the girl, and would mean ‘a good guess’! The allusion of a guest to the superstition that the wolf struck people dumb is taken by Cynisca for a reference to young Wolf, her secret lover.

31

Or, as Wordsworth suggests, reading δάκρυσι, ‘for him your cheeks are wet with tears.’

32

Shaving in the bronze, and still more, of course, in the stone age, was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like Aeschines, with his long gnawed moustache.

33

The Megarians having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all.

34

Our Lady, here, is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily. The dialogue is here arranged as in Fritzsche’s text, and in line 8 his punctuation is followed.

35

If cats are meant, the proverb is probably Alexandrian. Common as cats were in Egypt, they were late comers in Greece.

36

Most of the dialogue has been distributed as in the text of Fritzsche.

37

Reading πέρυσιν.

38

I.e. Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter.

39

Deipyle, daughter of Adrastus.

40

Reading – πιείρα ατε λαον ανέδραμε κόσμος αρούρα. See also Wordsworth’s note on line 26.

41

For αδέα Wordsworth and Hermann conjecture Ἄρεα. The sense would be that Eunica, who thinks herself another Cypris, or Aphrodite is, in turn, to be rejected by her Ares, her soldier-lover, as she has rejected the herdsman.

42

Reading επιμύσσησι.

43

Reading τα φυκιοέντα τε λαίφη.

44

κώπα.

45

ουδος δ’ ουχι θύραν εΐχ’, and in the next line ά γαρ πενία σφας ετήρει.

46

αυδάν.

47

Reading, with Fritzsche —

The lines seem to contain two popular saws, of which it is difficult to guess the meaning. The first saw appears to express helplessness; the second, to hint that such comforts as lamps lit all night long exist in towns, but are out of the reach of poor fishermen.

48

Reading ηρέμ’ ενυξα και νύξας εχάλαξα. Asphalion first hooked his fish, which ran gamely, and nearly doubled up the rod. Then the fish sulked, and the angler half despaired of landing him. To stir the sullen fish, he reminded him of his wound, probably, as we do now, by keeping a tight line, and tapping the butt of the rod. Then he slackened, giving the fish line in case of a sudden rush; but as there was no such rush, he took in line, or perhaps only showed his fish the butt (for it is not probable that Asphalion had a reel), and so landed him. The Mediterranean fishers generally toss the fish to land with no display of science, but Asphalion’s imaginary capture was a monster.

49

It is difficult to understand this proceeding. Perhaps Asphalion had some small net fastened with strings to his boat, in which he towed fish to shore, that the contact with the water might keep them fresher than they were likely to be in the bottom of the coble. On the other hand, Asphalion was fishing from a rock. His dream may have been confused.

50

πυρεΐα appear to have been ‘fire sticks,’ by rubbing which together the heroes struck a light.

51

Or εγχεα λοΰσαι, ‘wash the spears,’ as in the Zulu idiom.

52

In line 57 for τηλε read Wordsworth’s conjecture τηδε = ενταΰθα.

53

Odyssey. xix. 36 seq. (Reading απερ not ατερ.) ‘Father, surely a great marvel is this that I behold with mine eyes meseems, at least, that the walls of the hall.. are bright as it were with flaming fire’.. ‘Lo! this is the wont of the gods that hold Olympus.’

54

ξηρον, prae timore non lacrymantem (Paley).

55

Reading, after Fritzsche, ρωγάδος εκ πέτρας. We should have expected the accursed ashes (like those of Wyclif) to be thrown into the river; cf. Virgil, Ecl. viii. 101, ‘Fer cineres, Amarylli, foras, rivoque fluenti transque caput lace nec respexeris.’ Virgil’s knowledge of these observances was not inferior to that of Theocritus.

56

Reading εστεμμένω. If εστεμμνον is read, the phrase will mean ‘pure brimming water.’

57

Reading οσσον.

58

Reading αλλη, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, instead of υλη.

59

Reading ποπανεύματα.

60

Πένθημα και ου πενθηα, a play on words difficult to retain in English. Compare Idyl xiii. line 74.

61

The conjecture εμα δ’ gives a good sense, mea vero Helena me potius ultra petit.

62

Reading, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, μη ’πιβάλης ταν χεΐρα, και ει γ’ ετι χεΐλος, αμύξω.

63

Reading οΐδ’, ακρατιμίη εσσι, with Fritzsche. Compare the conjecture of Wordsworth, Ὀύδ’ ακρα τι μη εσσι.

64

See Wordsworth’s explanation.

65

Syracuse.

66

Reading, πεδοικισται (that is, the Corinthian founders of Syracuse), and following Wordsworth’s other conjectures.

67

This epigram may have been added by the first editor of Theocritus, Artemidorus the Grammarian.

68

This conjecture of Meineke’s offers, at least, a meaning.

69

Les hommes sont tous condamnés à mort, avec des sursis indéfinis. – Victor Hugo.

70

Alcmena bore Iphicles to Amphictyon, Hercules to Zeus.