Humanistica Digitalia

THYRSIS Something sweet is the whisper of the pine that makes her music by yonder springs, and sweet no less, master Goatherd, the melody of your pipe. Pan only shall take place and prize afore you; and if they give him a horny he-goat, then a she shall be yours; and if a she be for him, why, you shall have her kid; and kid’s meat’s good eating till your kids be milch-goatds.

GOATHERD As sweetly, good Shepherd, falls your music as the resounding water that gushes down from the top o’ yonder rock. If the Muses get the ewe-lamb to their meed, you shall carry off the cosset,1 the ewe-lamb come to you.

THYRSIS ‘Fore the Nymphs I pray you, master Goatherd, come now and sit ye down here by this shelving bank and these brush tamarisks and play me a tune. I’ll keep your goats the while.

GOATHERD No, no man; there’s no piping for me at high noon. I go in too great dread of Pan for that. I wot high noon’s his time for taking rest after the swink o’ the chase; and he’s one o’ the tetchy sort; his nostril’s ever sour wrath’s abiding-place. But for singing, you, Thyrsis, used to sing The Affliction of Daphnis as well as any man; you are no ‘prentice in the art of country music. So let’s come and sit yonder beneath the elm, this way, over against Priapus and the fountain-goddesses,2 where that shepherd’s seat is and those oak-trees. And if you but sing as you sang that day in the match with Chromis of Libya, I’ll not only grant you three milkings of a twinner goat that for all her two young yields two pailfuls, but I’ll give you a fine great mazer3 to boot, well scoured with sweet beeswax, and of two lugs, bran-span-new and the smack of he graver upon it yet.

The lip of it is hanged about with curling ivy, ivy freaked4 with a cassidony5 which goes twisting and twining among the leaves in the pride of her saffron fruitage. And within this bordure there’s a woman, fashioned as a god might fashion her, lapped in a robe and snood about her head. And either side the woman a swain with fair and flowing locks, and they bandy words the one with the other. Yet her heart is not touched by aught they say; for now ‘tis a laughing glance to this, and anon a handful of regard to that, and for all their eyes have been so long hollow for love of her, they spend their labour in vain. Besides these there’s an old fisher wrought on’t and a rugged rock, and there stands gaffer gathering up his great net for a cast with a right good will like one that toils might and main. You would say that man went about his fishing with all the strength o’s limbs, he stands every sinew in his neck, for all his grey hairs, puffed and swollen; for his strength is the strength of youth. [45] And but a little removed from master Weather-beat there’s a vineyard well laden with clusters red to the ripening, and a little lad seated watching upon a hedge. And on either side of him two foxes; this ranges to and fro along the rows and pilfers all such grapes as be ready for eating, while that setteth all his cunning at the lad’s wallet, and vows he will not let him be till he have set him breaking his fast6 with but poor victuals to his drink.7 And all the time the urchin’s got star-flower-stalks a-platting to a reed for to make him a pretty gin for locusts, and cares never so much, not he, for his wallet or his vines as he takes pleasure in his platting. And for an end, mark you, spread all about he cup goes the lissom bear’s-foot, a sight worth the seeing with its writhen leaves; ‘tis a marvellous work, ‘twill amaze your heart.

Now for that cup a ferryman of Calymnus8 had a goat and a gallant great cheese-loaf of me, and never yet hath it touched my lip; it still lies unhandselled by. Yet right welcome to it art thou, if like a good fellow thou’lt sing me that pleasing and delightful song. Nay, not so; I am in right earnest. To’t, good friend; sure thou wilt not be hoarding that song against thuo be’st come where all’s forgot?

‘Tis Thyrsis sings, of Etna, and a rare sweet voice hath he. Where were ye, Nymphs, when Daphnis pined? ye Nymphs, O where were ye? Was it Peneius’9 pretty vale, or Pindus’9 glens? ‘twas never Anápus’10 flood nor Etna’s pike nor Acis’10 holy river.

When Daphnis died the foxes wailed and the wolves they wailed full sore, The lion from the greenward wept when Daphnis was no more.

O many the lusty steers at his feet, and may the heifers slim, Many the claves and many the kine that made their moan for him.

Came Hermes first, from the hills away, and said “O Daphnis tell, “Who is’t that fretteth thee, my son? whom lovest thou so well?”

The neatherds came, the shepherds came, and the goatherds him beside, All fain to hear what ail’d him; Priápus came and cried “Why peak and pine, unhappy wight, when thou mightest bed a bride? “For there’s nor wood nor water but hath seen her footsteps flee –

“In search o’ thee. O a fool-in-love and a feeble is here, perdye! “Neatherd, forsooth? ‘tis goatherd now, or ‘faith, ‘tis like to be; “When goatherd in the rutting-time the skipping kids doth scan, “His eye grows soft, his eye grows sad, because he’s born a man; –

“So you, when ye see the lasses laughing in gay riot, “Your eye grows soft, your eye grows sad, because you share it not.” But never a word said the poor neathérd, for a bitter love bare he; And he bare it well, as I shall tell, to the end that was to be.

But and the Cyprian came him to, and smiled on him full sweetly – For thou she fain would foster wrath, she could not choose but smile – And cried “Ah, braggart Daphnis, that wouldst throw Love so featly! “Thou’rt thrown, methinks, thyself of Love’s so grievous guile.”

Then out he spake; “O Cypris cruel, Cypris vengeful yet, “Cypris hated of all flesh! think’st all my sun be set? “I tell thee even ‘mong the dead Daphnis shall work thee ill: –

“Men talk of Cypris and the hind; begone to Ida hill, “Begone to hind Anchises; sure bedstraw there doth thrive “And fine oak-trees and pretty bees all humming at the hive.

“Adonis too is ripe to woo, for a ‘tends his sheep o’ the lea “And shoots the hare and a-hunting goes of all the beasts there be.

And then I’ld have thee take thy stand by Diomed, and say “’I slew the neatherd Daphis; fight me thou to-day.’

“But ‘tis wolf farewell and fox farewell and bear o’ the mountain den, “Your neatherd fere, your Daphnis dear, ye’ll never see agen, “By glen no more, by glade no more. And ‘tis o farewell to thee “Sweet Arethuse,11 and all pretty watérs down Thymbris vale that flee.

“For this, O this is that Daphnis, your kine to field did bring, “This Daphnis he, led stirk and steer to you a-watering.

“And Pan, O Pan, whether at this hour by Lycee’s mountain-pile “Or Maenal steep thy watch thou keep, come away to the Sicil isle, “Come away from the knoll of Helicè12 and the howe lift high i ’ the lea, “The howe of Lycáon’s child,12 the howe that Gods in heav’s envye;

“Come, Master, and take this pretty pipe, this pipe of honey breath, “Of wax well knit round lips to fit; for Love hales mé to my death.

“Bear violets now ye briers, ye thistles violets too; “Daffodilly may hang on the juniper, and all things go askew; “Pines may grow figs now Daphnis dies, and hind tear hound if she will, “And the sweet nightingále be outsung i ’ the dale by the scritch-owl from the hill.”

Such words spake he, and he stayed him still; and O, the Love-Ladye, She would fain have raised him where he lay, but that could never be. For the thread was spun and the days were done and Daphnis gone to the River,13 And the Nymphs’ good friend and the Muses’ fere was whelmed i ’ the whirl14 for ever.

There; give me the goat and the tankard man; and the Muses shall have a libation of her milk. Fare you well, ye Muses, and again fare you well, and I’ll e’en sing you a sweeter song another day.

GOATHERD Be your fair mouth filled with honey and the honeycomb, good Thyrsis; be your eating of the sweet figs of Aegilus; for sure your singing’s as delightful as the cricket’s chirping in spring. Here’s the cup (taking it from his wallet). Pray mark how good it smells; you’ll be thinking it hath been washed at the well o’ the Seasons. Hither, Browning; and milk her, you. A truce to your skipping, ye kids yonder, or the buckgoat will be after you.

Where are my bay-leaves? Come, Thestylis; where are my love-charms? Come crown me the bowl with the crimson flower o’ wool; I would fain have the fire-spell to my cruel dear that for twelve days hath not so much as come anigh me, the wretch, nor knows not whether I be alive or dead, nay nor even hath knocked upon my door, implacable man. I warrant ye Love and the Lady be gone away with his feat fancy. In the morning I’ll to Timagetus’ school and see him, and ask what he means to use me so; but, for to-night, I’ll put the spell o’ fire upon him.

So shine me fair, sweet Moon; for to thee, still Goddess, is my song, to thee and that Hecat infernal who makes e’en the whelps to shiver on her goings to and fro where these tombs be and the red blood lies. All hail to thee, dread and awful Hecat! I prithee so bear me company that this medicine of my making prove potent as any of Circe’s or Medea’s or Perimed’s of the golden hair.

First barley-meal to the burning. Come, Thestylis; throw it on. Alack, poor fool! whither are thy wits gone wandering? Lord! am I become a thing a filthy drab like thee may crow over? On, on with the meal, and say “These be Delphis’ bones I throw.”

As Delphis hath brought me pain, so I burn the bay against Delphis. And as it crackles and then lo! is burnt suddenly to nought and we see not so much as the ash of it, e’en so be Delphis’ body whelmed in another flame.

As this puppet melts for me before Hecat, so melt with love, e’en so speedily, Delphis of Myndus.1 And as this wheel of brass turns by grace of Aphrodite, so turn he and turn again before my threshold.2

Now to the flames the bran. O Artemis, as thou movest the adamant that is at the door of Death, so mayst thou move all else that is unmovable. Hark, Thestylis, where the gods howl in the town. Sure the Goddess is at these cross-roads. Quick beat the pan.

Lo there! now wave is still and wind is still, though never still the pain that is in my breast; for I am all afire for him, afire alas! for him that hath made me no wife and left me to my shame no maid.

Thrice this libation I pour, thrice, Lady, this prayer I say: be woman at this hour or man his love-mate, O be that mate forgotten even as old Theseus once forgat the fair-tressed damsel in Dia.3

Horse-madness is a herb that grows in Arcady, and makes every filly, every flying mare run a-raving in the hills. In like case Delphis may I see, aye, coming to my door from the oil and the wrestling-place like one that is raving mad.

This fringe hath Delphis lost from his cloak, and this now pluck I in pieces and fling away into the ravening flame. Woe’s me, remorseless Love! why hast clung to me thus, thou muddy leech, and drained my flesh of the red blood every drop?

I’ll bray thee an eft to-morrow, and an ill drink thou shalt find it. But for to-night take thou these ashes, Thestylis, while ‘tis yet dark, and smear them privily upon his lintel above, and spit for what thou doest4 and say “Delphis’ bones I smear.”

Now I am alone. Where shall I begin the lament of my love? Here b’t begun; I’ll tell who ‘twas brought me to this pass.

One day came Anaxo daughter of Eubulus our way, came a-basket-bearing in procession to the temple of Artemis, with a ring of man beasts about her, a lioness one.

Now Theumaridas’ Thracian nurse that dwelt next door, gone ere this to her rest, had begged and prayed me to gout and see the pageant, and so – ill was my luck – I followed her, in a long gown of fine silk, with Clearista’s5 cloak over it.

I was halfway o’ the road, beside Lycon’s, when lo! I espied walking together Delphis and Eudamippus, the hair o’ their chins as golden as cassidony,6 and the breasts of them, for they were on their way from their pretty labour at the school, shone full as fair as thou, great Moon.

And O the pity of it! in a moment I looked and was lost, lost and smit i’ the heart7; the colour went from my cheek; of that brave pageant I bethought me no more. How I got me home I know not; but this I know, a parching fever laid me waste and I was ten days and ten nights abed.

And I would go as wan and pale as any dyer’s boxwood; the hairs o’ my head began to fall; I was nought but skin and bone. There’s not a charmer in the town to whom I resorted not, nor witch’s hovel whither I went not for a spell. But ‘twas no easy thing to cure a malady like that, and time sped on apace.

At last I told my woman all the truth. “Go to, good Thestylis,” cried I, “go find me some remedy for a sore distemper. The Myndian, alack! he possesseth me altogether. Go thou, pray, and watch for him by Timagetus’ wrestling-place: ‘tis thither he resorts, ‘tis there he loves well to sit.

“And when so be thou be’st sure he’s alone, give him a gentle nod o’ the head and say Simaetha would see him, and bring him hither.” So bidden she went her ways and brought him that was so sleek and gay to my dwelling. And no sooner was I ware of the light fall o’s foot across my threshold, –

than I went cold as ice my body over, and the sweat dripped like dewdrops from my brow; aye, and for speaking I could not so much as the whimper of a child that calls on’s mother in his sleep; for my fair flesh was gone all stiff and stark like a puppet’s.

When he beheld me, heartless man!8 he fixed his gaze on the ground, sat him upon the bed, and sitting thus spake: “Why, Simaetha, when thou bad’st me hither to this thy roof, marry, thou didst no further outrun my own coming than I once outran the pretty young Philinus.9

“For I had come of myself, by sweet Love I had, of myself the very first hour of night, with comrades twain or more, some of Dionysus’ own apples in my pocket, and about my brow the holy aspen sprig of Heracles with gay purple ribbons wound in and out.

“And had ye received me so, it had been joy; for I have a name10 as well for beauty of shape as speed of foot with all the bachelry o’ the town, and I had been content so I had only kissed thy pretty lips. But and if ye had sent me packing with bolt and bar, then I warrant ye axes and torches had come against you.

“But seeing thou hadst sent for me, I vowed my thanks to the Cyprian first – but after the Cyprian ‘tis thou, in calling me to this roof, sweet maid, didst snatch the brand from a burning that was all but done; for i’ faith, Cupid’s flare oft will outblaze the God o’ Lipara11 himself, –

“And with the dire frenzy of him bride is driven from groom ere his marriage-bed by cold, much more a maid from the bower of her virginity.” So he ended, and I, that was so easy to win, took him by the hand and made him lie along the bed. Soon cheek upon cheek grew ripe, our faces waxed hotter, and lo! sweet whispers went and came. My prating shall not keep thee too long, good Moon: enough that all was done, enough that both desires were sped.

And till ‘twas but yesterday, he found never a fault in me nor I in him. But lo! to-day, when She o’ the Rose-red Arms began her swift charioting from sea to sky, comes me the mother of Melixo and of our once flute-girl12 Philista, and among divers other talk would have me believe Delphis was in love. And she knew not for sure, so she said, whether this new love were of maid or of man, only “he was ever drinking” quoth she “to the name of Love, and went off in haste at the last saying his love-garlands were for such-and-such a house.” So ran my gossip’s story, and sure ‘tis true; tor ah! though time was, i’ faith, when he would come thrice and four times a day, and often left his Dorian flask with me to fetch again, now ‘tis twelve days since I so much as set eyes upon him. I am forgot, for sure; his joy doth lie otherways.

To-night these my fire-philtres shall lay a spell upon him; but if so be they make not an end of my trouble, then, so help me Fate, he shall be found knocking at the gate of Death; for I tell thee, good Mistress, I have in my press medicines evil enough, that one out of Assyria13 told me of. So fare thee well, great Lady; to Ocean with thy team. And I, I will bear my love as best I may. Farewell sweet Lady o’ the Shining Face,14 and all ye starry followers in the train of drowsy Night, farewell, farewell.

I go a-courting of Amyrallis, and my goats they go browsing on along the hill with Tityrus to drive them on. My well-beloved Tityrus, pray feed me my goats; pray lead them to watering, good Tityrus, and beware or the buckgoat, the yellow Libyan yonder, will be butting you.

Beautiful Amaryllis, why peep you no more from your cave and call me in? Hate you your sweet-heart? Can it be a near view hath shown him snub-nosed, Nymph, and over-bearded? I dare swear you’ll be the death of me. See, here have I brought you half a score of apples plucked yonder where you bade me pluck them, and to-morrow I’ll bring you so many again . . .

Look, ah! look upon me; my heart is torn with pain. I wish I were yon humming bee to thread my way through the ivy and the fern you do prink your cave withal and enter in! O now know I well what Love is. ‘Tis a cruel god. I warrant you a she-lion’s dugs it was he sucked and in a forest was reared, so doth he slow-burn me, aye, pierce me to the very bone. O Nymph of the pretty glance, but all stone; O Nymph of the dark dark eyebrow, come clasp thy goatherd that is so fain to be kissing thee. E’en in an empty kiss there’s sweet delight. You’ll make me tear in pieces the ivy-wreath I have for you, dear Amaryllis; of rosebuds twined it is, and of fragrant parsley leaves . . .

Alas and well-a-day! what’s to become of me? Ay me! you will not answer. I’ll doff my plaid and go to Olpis’ watching-place for tunnies and leap from it into the waves; and if I die not, ‘twill be though no fault of yours.1 I found it out t’other day; my thoughts were of you and whether or no you loved me, and when I played slap to see, the love-in-absence2 that should have stuck on, shrivelled up forthwith against the soft of my arm. Agroeo too, the sieve-witch that was out the other day a-simpling beside the harvesters, she spoke me true when she said you made me of none account, though I was all wrapt up in you. Marry, a white twinner-goat have I to give you, which that nut-brown little handmaiden of Mermnon’s is fain to get of me – and get her she shall seeing you choose to play me the dainty therein . . .

Lo there! a twitch o’ my right eye.3 Shall I be seeing her? I’ll go lean me against yon pine-tree and sing awhile. It may be she’ll look upon me then, being she’s no woman of adamant.

(sings) When Schoenus’ bride-race4 was begun, apples fell from one that run; She looks, she’s lost, and lost doth leap, into love so dark and deep. When the seer5 in’s brother’s name with those kin to Pylus came, Bias to the joy-bed hies whence sprang Alphesibee the wise. When Adonis o’er the sheep in the hills his watch did keep, The Love-Dame proved so wild a wooers, e’en in death she clips him to her.6 O would I were Endymion7 that sleeps the unchanging slumber on, Or, Lady, knew thy Jasion’s7 glee which prófane eyes may never see! . . .

My head aches sore, but ‘tis nought to you. I’ll make an end, and throw me down, aye, and stir not if the wolves devour me – the which I pray be as sweet honey in the throat to you.

CORYDON Nay, Aegon’s; he hath given me the feeding of them in his stead.

BATTUS And I suppose, come evening, you give them all a milking hugger-mugger?2

CORYDON Not so; the old master sees me to that; he puts the calves to suck, himself.

BATTUS But whither so far was their own proper herdsman gone?

CORYDON Did you never hear? Milon carried him off with him to the Alpheus.

BATTUS Lord! When had the likes of him ever so much as set eyes upon a flask of oil?3

CORYDON Well, he took a score of sheep4 and a spade with him, when he went.

CORYDON And his heifers miss him sore; hark to their lowing.

BATTUS Look you now, yonder beast, she’s nought but skin and bone. Pray, doth she feed on dewdrops like the cricket?

Zeus! No. Why, sometimes I graze her alone the Aesarus and give her a brave bottle of the tenderest green grass, and oftentimes her play-ground’s in the deep shade of Latymnus.

BATTUS Aye, and the red-poll bull, he’s lean as can be. (bitterly again) I only would to god, when there’s a sacrifice to Hera in their ward, the sons of Lampriadas might get such another6 as he: they are a foul mixen sort, they o’ that ward.

CORYDON All the same that bull’s driven to the sea-lake and the Physcian border, and to that garden of good things, goat-flower, mullet,7 sweet odorous balsam, to with Neaethus.

CORYDON Nay, by the Nymphs, not it. He bequeathed it to me when he set out for Pisa. I too am something of a musician. Mark you, I’m a dabster at Glaucè’s snatches and those ditties Pyrrhus makes: (sings) O Croton is a bonny town as Zacynth by the sea, And a bonny sight on her eastward height is the fane of Laciny, Where boxer Milon one fine morn made fourscore loaves his meal, And down the hill another day, while lasses holla’d by the way, To Amaryllis, laughing gay led the bull by the heel.

CORYDON Soft you, good Battus; be comforted. Good luck comes with another morn; while there’s life there’s hope; rain one day, shine the next.

BATTUS Let be. ‘tis well. (changing the subject) Up with you, ye calves; up the hill! They are at the green of those olives, the varlets.

CORYDON Hey up, Snowdrop! hey up, Goodbody! to the hill wi’ ye! Art thou deaf? ‘Fore Pan I’ll presently come thee an evil end if thou stay there. Look ye there; back she comes again. Would there were but a hurl-bat in my hand! I had had at the.

BATTUS Zeus save thee, Corydon; see here! It had at me as thou sadist the word, this thorn, here under my ankle. And how deep the distaff-thistles go! A plague o’ thy heifer! It all came o’ my gaping after her. (Corydon domes to help him) Dost see him, lad?

CORYDON Aye, aye, and have got him ‘twixt my nails; and lo! here he is.

BATTUS Pray tell me, Corydon, comes gaffer yet the gallant with that dark-browed piece o’love he was smitten of?

CORYDON Aye, what does he, ill’s his luck. I happened of them but two days agone, and near the byre, too, and faith, gallant was the word.

COMATAS Beware, good my goats, of yonder shepherd from Sybaris, beware of Lacon; he stole my skin-coat yesterday.

LACON Hey up! my pretty lambkins; away from the spring. See you not Comatas that stole my pipe two days agone?

COMATAS Pipe? Sibyrtas’ bondman possessed of a pipe? he that was content to sit with Corydon and too t upon a parcel o’ straws?

LACON Yes, master freeman, the pipe Lycon gave me. And as for your skin-coat, what skin-coat and when has ever Lacon carried off o’ yours? Tell me that, Comatas; why, your lord Eumaras, let alone his bondman, never had one even to sleep in.

COMATAS ‘Tis that Crocylus gave me, the dapple skin, after that he sacrificed that she-goat to the Nymphs. And as your foul envious eyes watered for it then, so your foul envious hands have bid me go henceforth naked now.

LACON Nay, nay by Pan o’ the Shore; Lacon son of Calaethis never filched coat of thine, fellow, may I run raving mad else and leap into the Crathis from yonder rock.

COMATAS No, no, by these Nymphs o’ the lake, man; so surely as I wish ‘em kind and propitious, Comatas never laid sneaking hand on pipe o’ thine.

LACON Heaven send me the affliction of Daphnis if e’er I believe that tale. But enough of this; if thou’lt wage me a kid – ‘tis not worth the candle, but nevertheless come on; I’ll have a contention o’ song with thee till thou cry hold.

COMATAS ‘Tis the old story – teach thy grandam.1 There; my wage is laid. And thou, for thine, lay me thy fine fat lamb against it.

LACON Thou fox! prithee how shall such laying fadge?2 As well might one shear himself hair when a’ might have wool, as well choose to milk a foul bitch before a young milch-goat.

COMATAS He that’s as sure as thou that he’ll vanguish his neighbour is like the wasp buzzing against the cricket’s song. But ‘tis all one; my kid it seems is no fair stake. So look, I lay thee this full-grown he-goat; and now begin.

LACON Soft, soft; no fire’s burning thee. You’ll sing better sitting under the wild olive and this coppice. There’s cool water falling yonder, and here’s grass and a greenbed, and the locusts at their prattling.

COMATAS I’m in no haste, not I, but in sorrow rather that you dare look me in the face, I that had the teaching of you when you were but a child. Lord! look where kindness goes. Nurse a wolf-cub, – nay rather nurse a puppy-god – to be eaten for ‘t.

LACON And when, pray, do I mind me to have learnt of heard aught of good from thee? Fie upon thee for a mere envious and churlish piece of a man!

COMATAS When I was poking you and you were sore; and these she-kids were bleating and the billy-goat bored into them.

LACON I hope you won’t be buried, hunchback, deeper that polang! But a truce, man; hither, come thou hither, and thou shalt sing thy country-song for the last time.

COMATAS Thither will I never come. Here I have oaks and cyperus, and bees humming bravely at the hives, here’s two springs of cool water to thy one, and birds, not locusts, a-babbling upon the tree, and, for shade, thine’s not half so good; and what’s more the pine overhead is casting her nuts.

LACON An you’ll come here, I’ll lay you shall tread lambskins and sheep’s wool as soft as sleep. Those buckgoat-pelts of thine smell e’en ranker than thou. And I’ll set up a great bowl of whitest milk to the Nymphs, and eke I’ll set up another of sweetest oil.

COMATAS If come you do, you shall tread here taper fern and organy all a-blowing, and for your lying down there’s she-goat-skins four times as soft as those lambskins of thine. And I’ll set up to Pan eight pails of milk and eke eight pots of full honey-combs.

LACON Go to; be where you will for me for the match o’ country-song. Go your own gate; you’re welcome to your oaks. But who’s to be our judge, say who? Would God neatherd Lycopas might come this way along.

COMATAS I suffer no want of him. We’ll holla rather, an’t pleas ye, on yon woodcutter that is after fuel in the heather near where you be. Morson it is.

LACON We will.

COMATAS Call him, you.

LACON Ho, friend! hither and lend us your ears awhile. We two have a match toward, to see who’s the better man at a country-song. (Morson approaches) Be you fair, good Morson; neither judge me out of favour nor yet be too kind to him.

COMATAS ‘Fore the Nymphs, sweet Morson, pray you neither rule unto Comatas more than his due nor yet give your favour to Lacon. This flock o’ sheep, look you, is Sibyrtas’ of Thurii.

LACON Zeus! and who asked thee, foul knave,3 whether the flock was mine or Sibyrtas’? Lord, what a babbler is here!

COMATAS Most excellent blockhead, all I say, I, is true, though for my part, I’m no braggart; but Lord! what a railer is here!

LACON Come, come; say thy say and be done, and let’s suffer friend Morson to come off with his life. Apollo save us, Comatas! thou hast the gift o’ the gab.

COMATAS The Muses bear me greater love than Daphnis4 ere did see; And well they may, for t’other day they had two goats for me.

LACON But Apollo loves me all as well, and an offering too have I, A fine fat ram a-batt’ning; for Apollo’s feast draws nigh.

COMATAS Night all my goats have twins at teat; there’s only two with one; And the damsel sees and the damsel says ‘Poor lad, dost milk alone?’

LACON O tale of woe! here's Lacon, though, fills cheese-racks well-nigh twenty And fouls his dear not a youth but a boy mid flowers that blow so plenty.

COMATAS But when her goatherd boy goes by you should see my Cleärist Fling apples, and her pretty lips call pouting to be kissed.

LACON But madness ‘tis for the shepherd to meet the shepherd’s love, So brown and bright the tresses light that toss that shoulder above.

COMATAS Ah! but there’s no comparing windflower with rose at all, Nor wild dog-róse with her that blows beside the trim orchard’s wall.

LACON There’s no better likeness, neither, ‘twixt fruit of pear5 and holm; The acorn savours flat and stale, the pear’s like honeycomb.

COMATAS In yonder juniper-thicket a cushat sits on her nest; I’ll go this day and fetch her away for the maiden I love best.

LACON So soon as e’er my sheep I shear, a rare fine gift I’ll take; I’ll give yon black ewe’s pretty coat my darling’s cloak to make.

COMATAS Hey, bleaters! away from the olive; where would be grazing then? Your pasture’s where the tamarisk grows and the slope hill drops to the glen.

LACON Where are ye browsing, Crumple? and, Browning, where are ye? Graze up the hill as Piebad will, and let the oak-leaves be.

COMATAS I’ve laid up a piggin of cypress-wood and a bowl for mixing wine, The work of great Praxiteles,6 both for that lass of mine.

LACON And I, I have a flock-dog, a wolver of good fame, Shall go a gift to my dearest and hunt him all manner of game.

COMATAS Avaunt, avaunt, ye locusts o’er master’s fence that spring; These be none of your common vines; have done your ravaging.

LACON See, crickets, see how vexed he be! see master Goatherd boiling! ‘Tis even so you vex, I trow, the reapers at their toiling.7

COMATAS I hate the brush-tail foxes, that soon as day declines Come creeping to their vintaging mid goodman Micon’s vines.

LACON So too I hate the beetles come riding on the breeze, Guttle Philondas’ choicest figs, and off as quick as you please.

COMATAS Don’t you remember when I poked you, and you Grinning jerked your tail finely at me, and clung to that oak-tree?

LACON That indeed I don’t remember; however, when Eumaras fastened you up here and cleaned you out – that anyway I know all about.

COMATAS Somebody’s waxing wild, Morson; see you not what is plain? Go pluck him squills from an oldwife’s grave to cool his heated brain.

LACON Nay, I be nettling somebody; do you not see it, then? Be off to Haleis bank, Morson, and dig him some cyclamen.

COMATAS Let Himera’s stream run white with cream, and Crathis, as for thine, Mid apple-bearing beds or reed may it run red with wine.

LACON Let Sybaris’ well spring honey for me, and ere the sun is up May the wench that goes for water draw honeycombs for my cup.

COMATAS My goats eat goat-grass, mine, and browze upon the clover, Tread mastich green and lie between the arbutes waving over.

LACON It may be so, but I’ld have ye know these pretty sheep of mine Browze rock-roses in plenty and sweet as eglantine.

COMATAS When I brought the cushat ‘tother night ‘tis true Alcippa kissed me, But alack! she forgot to kiss by the pot,8 and since, poor wench, she’s missed me.

LACON When fair Eumédes took the pipe that was his lover’s token He kissed him sweet as sweet could be; his lover’s love unbroken.

COMATAS ‘Tis nature’s law that no jackdaw with nightingale shall bicker, Nor owl9 with swan, but poor Lacòn was born a quarrel-picker.

MORSON I bid the shepherd cease. You, Comatas, may take the lamb; and when you offer her to the Nymphs be sure you presently send poor Morson a well-laden platter.

COMATAS That will I, ‘fore Pan. Come, snort ye, my merry buck-goats all. Look you how great a laugh I have of shepherd Lacon for that I have at last achieved the lamb. Troth, I’ll caper you to the welkin. Horned she-goats mine, frisk it and be merry; tomorrow I’ll wash you one and all in Sybaris’ lake. What, Whitecoat, thou butt-head! if thou leave not poke the she’s, before ever I sacrifice the lamb to the Nymphs I’ll break every bone in thy body. Lo there! he’s at it again. If I break thee not, be my last end the end of Melanthius.10

Damoetas and neatherd Daphnis, Aratus, half-bearded one, the other’s chin ruddy with the down, had driven each his herd together to a single spot at noon of a summer’s day, and sitting them down side by side at a water-spring began to sing. Daphnis sang first, for from hi came the challenge:

See Cyclops! Galatéa’s at thy flock with apples, see! The apples1 fly, and she doth cry ‘A fool’s-in-love are ye’; But with never a look to the maid, poor heart, thou sit’st and pipest so fine. Lo yonder again she flings them amain at that good flock-dog o’ thine! See how he looks to seaward and bays her from the land! See how he’s glassed2 where he runs so fast i' the pretty wee waves o’ the strand! Beware of he’ll leap as she comes from the deep, leap on her legs so bonny, And towse her sweet pretty flesh – But lo where e’en now she wantons upon ye! O the high thistle-down and the dry thistle-down i' the heat o’the pretty summer O! – She’ll fly ye and deny ye if ye’ll a-wooing go, But cease to woo and she’ll pursue, aye, then the king’s3 the move; For oft the foul, good Polypheme, is fair i' the eyes of love.

Then Damoetas in answer lifted up his voice, singing:

I saw, I saw her fling them, Lord Pan my witness be; I was not blind, I vow, by this my one sweet – this Wherewith Heav’n send I see to the end, and Télemus4 when he Foretells me woe, then be it so, but woe for him and his! – ; ‘Tis tit for tat, to tease her on I look not on the jade And say there’s other wives to wed, and lo! she’s jealous made, Jealous for me, Lord save us! and ‘gins to pine for me And glowers from the deep on the cave and the sheep like a want-wit lass o’ the sea And the dog that bayed, I hissed him on; for when ‘twas I to woo He’ld lay his snout to her lap, her lap, and whine her friendly to. Maybe she’ll send me messages if long I go this gate; But I’ll bar the door till she swear o’ this shore to be my wedded mate. Ill-favoured? nay, for all they say; I have looked i' the glassy sea, And, for aught I could spy, both beard and eye were pretty as well could be, And the teeth all a-row5 like marble below, – and that none should o’erlook me6 of it, As Goody Cotyttaris taught me, thrice in my breast I spit.

So far Damoetas, and kissed Daphnis, and that to this gave a pipe and this to that a pretty flue. Then lo! the piper was neatherd Daphnis and the flute-player Damoetas, and the dancers were the heifers who forthwith began to bound mid the tender grass. And as for the victory, that fell to neither one, being they both stood unvanquished in the match.

Once upon a time went Eucritus and I, and for a third, Amyntas, from the town of Haleis. ‘Twas to a harvest-feast holden that day unto Deo1 by Phrasidamas and Antigenes the two sons of Lycopeus, sons to wit of a fine piece of the good old stuff that came of Clytia, of Clytia and of that very Chalcon2 whose sturdy knee planted once against the rock both made Burina3 fount to gush forth at his feet and caused elm and aspen to weave above it a waving canopy of green leaves and about it a precinct of shade. Ere we were halfway thither, ere we saw the tomb of Brasilas, by grace of the Muses we overtook a fine fellow of Cydonia, by name Lycidas and by profession a goatherd, which indeed any that saw him must have known him for, seeing liker could not be. For upon his shoulders there hung, rank of new rennet, a shag-haired buck-goat’s tawny fleece, across his breast a broad belt did gird an ancient shirt, and in’s hand he held a crook of wild olive. Gently, broadly, and with a twinkling eye he smiled upon me, and with laughter possessing his lip, “What Simichidas,” says he; “whither away this sultry noontide, when e’en the lizard will be sleeping i' the’ hedge and the created larks go not afield? Is ‘t even a dinner you be bidden to or a fellow-townsman’s vintage-rout that makes you scurry so? for ‘faith, every stone i' the road strikes stinging against your hastening brogues.”

“’Tis said, dear Lycidas,” answered I, “you beat all comers, herdsman or harvester, at the pipe.4 So ‘tis said, and right glad am I it should be said; howbeit to my thinking I’m as good a man as you. This our journey is to a harvest-home; some friends of ours make holyday to the fair-robed Demeter with first-fruits of their increase, because the Goddess hath filled their threshing-floor in measure so full and fat. So come, I pray you, since the way and the day be yours as well as ours, and let you and me make country-music. And each from the other may well take some profit, seeing I, like you, am a clear-voiced mouthpiece of the Muses, and, like you, am accounted best of musicians everywhere, – albeit I am not so quick, Zeus knows, to believe what I’m told, being to my thinking no match in music yet awhile for the excellent Sicelidas of Samos nor again for Philitas, but I am even as a frog that is fain to outvie the pretty crickets.”

So said I of set purpose, and master Goatherd with a merry laugh “I offer you this crook,” says he, “as to a sprig5 of great Zeus that is made to the pattern of truth. Even as I hate your mason who will be striving to rear his house high as the peak of Mount Oromedon,6 so hate I likewise your strutting cocks o’ the Muses’ yard whose crowing makes so pitiful contention against the Chian nightingale.7 But enough; let’s begin our country-sons, Simichidas. First will I – pray look if you approve the ditty I made in the hills ‘tother day: (sings)

What though the Kids8 above the flight of wave before the wind Hang westward, and Orion’s foot is e’en upon the sea? Fair voyage to Mitylenè town Agéanax shall find, Once from the furnace of his love his Lycidas be free. The halcyons9 – and of all the birds whose living’s of the seas The sweet green Daughters of the Deep love none so well as these – O they shall still the Southwind and the tangle-tossing East, And lay for him wide Ocean and his waves along to rest. Ageanax late though he be for Mitylene bound Heav’n bring him blest wi’ the season’s best to haven safe and sound; And that day I’ll make merry, and bind about my brow The anise sweet or snowflake neat or rosebuds all a-row, And there by the hearth I’ll lay me down beside the cheerful cup, And hot roast the beans shall make my bite and elmy wine10 my sup; And soft I’ll lie, for elbow-high my bed strown thick and well Shall be of crinkled parsley, mullet,11 and asphodel; And so t’ Ageanax I’ll drink, drink wi’ my dear in ind, Drink wine and wine-cup at a draught and leave no lees behind.

My pipers shall be two shepherds, a man of Acharnae he, And he a man of Lycópè; singer shall Tityrus be, And sing beside me of Xénea and neatherd Daphnis’ love, How the hills were troubled around him and the oaks sang dirges above, Sang where they stood by Himeras flood, when he a-wasting lay Like snow on Haemus or Athos or Caucasus far far away.

And I’ll have him sing how once a king, of wilful malice bent, In the great coffer all alive the goatherd-poet pent, And the snub bees came from the meadow to the coffer of sweet cedar-tree, And fed him there o’ the flowerets fair, because his lip was free O’ the Muses’ wine12; Comàtas! ‘twas joy, all joy to thee; Though thou wast hid ‘neath cedarn lid, the bees they meat did bring, Till thou didst thole, right happy soul, thy twelve months’ prisoning. And O of the quick thou wert this day! How gladly then with mine I had kept thy pretty goats i' the hills, the while ‘neath oak or pine Thou ‘dst lain along and sun me a song, Comatas the divine!”

So much sang Lycidas and ended; and thereupon “Dear Lycidas” said I, “afield with my herds on the hills I also have learnt of the Nymphs, and there’s many a good song of mine which Rumour may well have carried up to the throne of Zeus. But this of all is far the choicest, this which I will sing now for your delight. Pray give ear, as one should whom the Muses love: (sings)

The Loves have sneezed,13 for sure they have, on poor Simichidas: For he loves maid Myrto as goats the spring: but where he loves a lass His dear’st Aratus sighs for a lad. Aristis, dear good man – And best in fame as best in name, the Lord o’ the Lyre14 on high Beside his holy tripod would let him make melody 0 Aristis knows Aratus’ woes. O bring the lad, sweet Pan, Sweet Lord of lovely Homolè, bring him unbid to ‘s fere, Whether Philínus, sooth to say, or other be his dear. This do, sweet Pan, and never, when slices be too few, May the leeks15 o’ the lads of Arcady beat thee back black and blue; But O if othergates thou go, may nettles make thy bed And set thee scratching tooth and nail, scratching from heel to head, And be thy winter-lodging nigh the Bear up Hebrus way I’ the hills of Thrace; when summer’s in, mid furthest Africa Mayst feed thy flock by the Blemyan rock beyond Nile’s earliest spring.

O come ye away, ye little Loves like apples red-blushing, From Byblis’ fount and Oecus’ mount that is fair-haired Dion’s16 joy, Come shoot the fair Philinus, shoot me the silly boy That flouts my friend! Yet after all, the pear’s o’er-ripe to taste, And the damsels sigh and the damsels say ‘Thy bloom, child, fails thee fast’; So let’s watch no more his gate before, Aratus o’ this gear,17 But ease our aching feet,18 my friend, and let old chanticleer Cry ‘shiver’ to some other when he the dawn shall sing; One scholar o’ that school’s19 enough to have met his death i' the ring. ‘Tis peace of mind, lad, we must find, and have a beldame nigh To sit for us and spit for us and bid all ill go by.”

So far my song; and Lycidas, with a merry laugh as before, bestowed the crook upon me to be the Muses’ pledge of friendship, and so bent his way to the left-hand and went down the Pyxa road; and Eucritus and I and pretty little Amyntas turned in at Phrasidamus’s and in deep greenbeds of fragrant reeds and fresh-cut vine-strippings laid us rejoicing down.

Many an aspen, many an elm bowed and rustled overhead, and hard by, the hallowed water welled purling forth of a cave of the Nymphs, while the brown cricket chirped busily amid the shady leafage, and the tree-frog murmured aloof in the dense thornbrake. Lark and goldfinch sang and turtle moaned, and about he spring the bees hummed and hovered to and fro. All nature smelt of the opulent summer-time, smelt of the season of fruit. Pears lay at our feet, apples on either side, rolling abundantly, and the young branches lay splayed upon the ground because of the weight of their damsons.

Meanwhile we broke the four-year-old seal from off the lips of the jars, and O ye Castalian20 Nymphs that dwell on Parnassus’ height, did ever the aged Cheiron in Pholus’ rocky cave set before Heracles such a bowlful as that? And the mighty Polypheme who kept sheep beside the Anapus and had at ships with mountains, was it for such nectar he footed it around his steading – such a draught as ye Nymphs gave us that day of your spring21 by the altar of Demeter22 o’ the Threshing-floor? of her, to wit, upon whose cornheap I pray I may yet again plant the great purging-fan while she stands smiling by with wheatsheaves and poppies in either hand.

Once on a day the fair Daphnis, out upon the long hills with his cattle, met Menalcas keeping his sheep. Both had ruddy heads, both were striplings grown, both were players of music, and both knew how to sing. Looking now towards Daphnis, Menalcas first ‘What, Daphnis,’ cries he, ‘thou watchman o’ bellowing kine, art thou willing to sing me somewhat? I’ll warrant, come my turn, I shall have as much the better of thee as I choose.’ And this was Daphnis’ answer: ‘Thou shepherd o’ woolly sheep, thou mere piper Menalcas, never shall the likes of thee have the better of me in song, strive he never so hard.’

MENALCAS Then will ‘t please you look hither? Will’t please you lay a wage?

DAPHNIS Aye, that it will; I’ll look you and lay you, too.

MENALCAS And what shall our wage be? what shall be sufficient for us?

DAPHNIS Mine shall be a calf, only let yours be that mother-tall fellow yonder.

MENALCAS He shall be no wage of mine. Father and mother are both sour as can be, and tell the flock to head every night.

DAPHNIS Well, but what is’t to be? and what’s the winner to get for’s pains?

MENALCAS Here’s a gallant nine-stop pipe I have made, with good white beeswax the same top and bottom; this I’m willing to lay, but I’ll not stake what is my father’s.

DAPHNIS Marry, I have a nine-stop pipe likewise, and it like yours hath good white beeswax the same top and bottom. I made it t’other day, and my finer here sore yet where a split reed cut it for me. (each takes a pipe)

MENALCAS But who’s to be our judge? who's to do the hearing for us?

DAPHNIS Peradventure that goatherd yonder, if we call him; him wi’ that spotted flock-dog a-barking near by the kids.

So the lads holla’d, and the goatherd came to hear them, the lads sang and the goatherd was fain to be their judge. Lots were cast, and ‘twas Menalcas Loud-o’-voice to begin the country-song and Daphnis to take him up by course.1 Menlacas thus began:

MENALCAS Ye woods and waters, wondrous race, lith and listen of your grace; If e’er my son was your delight feed my lambs with all your might; And if Daphnis wend this way, make his calves as fat as they.

DAPHNIS Ye darling wells and meadows dear, sweets o’ the earth, come lend an ear; If like the nightingales I sing, give my cows good pasturing; And if Menalcas e’er you see, fill his block and make him glee.

DAPHNIS Where sweet Naïs comes a-straying there the green meads go a-maying; Where’er her pathway lies along, there’s springing teats and growing young; If otherwhere her gate be gone, cows are dry and herd fordone.

MENALCAS Where sweet Milon trips the leas there’s fuller hives and loftier trees; Where’er those pretty footings fall goats and sheep come twinners all; If otherwhere those feet be gone, pasture’s lean and shepherd lone.

MENALCAS Buck-goat, husband of the she’s, hie to th’ wood’s infinities – Nay, snubbies,2 hither to the spring; this errand’s not for your running; – Go buck, and “Fairest Milon” say, “a god kept seals3 once on a day.”

MENALCAS I would not Pelops’ tilth untold nor all Croesus’ coffered gold, Nor yet t’ outfoot the storm-wind’s breath, so I may sit this rock beneath, Pretty pasture-mate, wi’ thee, and gaze on the Sicilian sea.

DAPHNIS Wood doth fear the tempest’s ire, water summer’s drouthy fire, Beasts the net and birds the snare. Man the love of maiden fair; Not I alone lie under ban; Zeus himself’s a woman’s man.4

So far went the lads’ songs by course. Now ‘twas the envoy, and Menalcas thus began:

MENALCAS Spare, good Wolf, the goats you see, spare them dam and kid for me; If flock is great and flockman small, is’t reason you should wrong us all? Come, White-tail, why so sound asleep? Good dogs wake when boys tend sheep. Fear not, ewes, your fill to eat; for when the new blade sprouteth sweet, Then ye shall no losers be; to’t, and fed you every she, Feed till every udder teem store for lambs and store for cream.

Then Daphnis, for his envoy, lifted up his tuneful voice, singing –

DAPHNIS Yestermorn a long-browed5 maid, spying from a rocky shade Neat and neatherd passing by, cries “What a pretty boy am I!” Did pretty boy the jape repay: Nay, bent his head and went his way. Sweet to hear and sweet to smell, god wot I love a heifer well, And sweet alsó ‘neath summer sky to sit where brooks go babbling by; But ‘tis berry and bush,6 ‘tis fruit and tree, ‘tis calf and cow, wi’ my kine and me.

So sang those two lads, and this is what the goatherd said of their songs: “You, good Daphnis, have a sweet and delightful voice. Your singing is to the ear as honey to the lip. Here’s the pipe; take it; your song has fairly won it you. And if you are willing to teach me how to sing while I share pasture with you, you shall have the little she-goat yonder to your school-money, and I warrant you she’ll fill your pail up the brim and further.”

At that the lad was transported, and capered and clapped hands for joy of his victory; so capers a fawn at the sight of his dam. At that, too, the other’s fire was utterly extinct, and his heart turned upside-down for grief; so mourns a maiden that is forced against her will.

From that day forth Daphnis had the pre-eminence of the shepherds, insomuch that he was scarce come to man’s estate ere he had to wife that Naïs7 of whom he sang.

Sing a country-song, Daphnis. Be you the first and Menalcas follow when you have let out the calves to run with the cows and the bulls with the barren heifers. As for the cattle, may they feed together and wander together among the leaves and never stray alone, but do you come and sing me your song on this side, and Menalcas stand for judgment against you on that.

So sang me Daphnis, and then Menalcas thus: –

MENALCAS Etna, mother o’ mine! my shelter it is a grot, A pretty rift in a hollow clift, and for skins to my bed, god wot, Head and foot ‘tis goats and sheep as many as be in a vision o’ sleep, And an oaken fire i' the winter days with chestnuts roasting at the blaze And puddings in the pot: And as little care I for the wintry sky as the toothless for nuts when porridge is by.

Then clapped I the lads both, and then and there gave them each a gift, Daphnis a club which grew upon my father’s farm and e’en the same as it grew – albeit an artificer could not make one to match it – , and Menalcas a passing fine conch, of which the fish when I took it among the Icarian rocks furnished five portions for five mouths, – and he blew a blast upon the shell.

All hail, good Muses o' the countryside! and the song I did sing that day before those herdsmen, let it no longer raise pushes1 on the tip o' my tongue, but show it me you:

(the song) O cricket is to cricket dear, and ant for ant doth long, The hawk’s the darling of his fere, and o’ me the Muse and her song: Of songs be my house the home away, for neither sleep, nor a sudden spring-day, Nor flowers to the bees, are as sweet as they; I love the Muse and her song: For any the Muses be glad to see, is proof agen Circè’s witcheyre.

MILON Husbandman Bucaeus, what ails ye now, good drudge? you neither can cut your swath straight as once you did, nor keep time in your reaping with your neighbour. You’re left behind by the flock like a ewe with a thorn in her foot. How will it be wi’ you when noon is past and day o’ the wane, if thus early you make not a clean bite o’ your furrow?

BUCAEUS Good master early-and-late-wi’-sickle, good Sire chip-o’-the-flint, good Milon, hath it never befallen thee to wish for one that is away?

MILON Never, i' faith; what has a clown like me to do with wishing where there’s no getting?

BUCAEUS Then hath it never befallen thee to lie awake o’ nights for love?

MILON Nay, and god forbid it should. ‘Tis ill letting the dog taste pudding.

BUCAEUS But I’ve been in love, Milon, the better part of ten days; –

MILON Then ‘tis manifest thou draw’st thy wine from the hogshead the while I am short of vinegar-water.

BUCAEUS – And so it is that the land at my very door since was seed-time1 hath not felt hoe.

MILON And which o’ the lasses is they undoing?

BUCAEUS ‘Tis Polybotas’ daughter, she that was at Hippocion’s t’other day a-piping to the reapers.

MILON Lord! thy sin hath found thee out. Thou’dst wished and wished, and now, ‘faith, thou’st won. There’ll be a locust to clasp thee all night long.

BUCAEUS Thou bid’st fair to play me fault-finder. But there’s blind men in heaven besides Him o’ the Money-bags, fool Cupid for one. So prithee talk not so big.

MILON I talk not big, not I; pray be content, go thou on wi’ thy laying o’ the field, and strike up a song o’ love to thy leman. ‘Twill sweeten thy toil. Marry, I know thou wast a singer once.

MILON Marry, ‘twas no ‘prentice hand after all. Mark how cunningly he shaped his tune! Alackaday what a dolt4 was I to get me a beard! But come hear this of the divine Lityerses:

(sings) Demeter, Queen of fruit and ear, bless O bless our field; Grant our increase greatest be that toil therein may yield. Grip tight your sheaves, good Binders all, or passerby will say ‘These be men of elder-wood5; more wages thrown away.’ ‘Twixt Northwind and Westwind let straws endlong be laid; The breeze runs up the hollow and the ear is plumper made. For Threshers, lads, the noontide nap’s a nap beside the law. For noontide’s the best tide for making chaff of straw; But Reapers they are up wi’ the lark, and with the lark to bed; To rest the heat o’ the day, stands Reapers in good stead. And ‘tis O to be a frog,6 my lands, and live aloof from care! He needs no drawer to his drink; ‘tis plenty everywhere. Fie, fie, Sir Steward! Better beans, an’t please ye, another day; Thou’lt cut thy finger, niggard, a-splitting caraway.

That’s the sort o’ song for such as work i' the sun; but the starveling love-ditty o’ thine, Bucaeus, would make brave telling to thy mammy abed of a morning.

It seems there’s no medicine for love, Nicias, neither salve nor plaster, but only the Pierian Maids. And a gentle medicine it is and sweet for to use upon the world, but very hard to find, as indeed one like you must know, being both physician and well-belov’d likewise of the Nine. ‘Twas this, at least, gave best comfort to my countryman the Cyclops, old Polyphemus, when he was first showing beard upon cheek and chin and Galatea was his love. His love was no matter of apples, neither, nor of rosebuds nor locks of hair, but a flat frenzy which recked nought of all else. Time and again his sheep would leave the fresh green pasturage and come back unbidden to the fold, while their master must peak and pine alone upon the wrack-strown shore a-singing all the day long of Galatea, sick at heart of the spiteful wound the shaft of the great Cyprian had dealt him. Nevertheless he found the medicine for it, and sitting him down upon an upstanding rock looked seawards and sang:

O Galatea fair and white, white as curds in whey, Dapper as lamb a-frisking, wanton as calf at play, And plum o’ shape as ruddying grape, O why deny thy lover? O soon enow thou’rt here, I trow, when sweet sleep comes me over, But up and gone when sleeping’s done – O never flees so fast Ewe that doth spy gray wolf anight, as thou when slumber’s past. My love of thee began, sweeting, when thou – I mind it well – Wast come a-pulling luces wi’ my mother on the fell; I showed ye where to look for them, and from that hour to this I’ve loved ye true; but Lord! to you my love as nothing is.

O well I wot pretty maid, for why thou shun’st me so, One long shag eyebrow ear t o ear my forehead o’er doth go, And but one eye beneath doth lie, and the nose stands wide on the lip; Yet be as I may, still this I say, I feed full a thousand sheep, And the milk to my hand’s the best i' the land, and my cheese ‘tis plenty alsó; Come summer mild, come winter wild, my cheese-racks ever o’erflow. And, for piping, none o’ my kin hereby can pipe like my piping, And of thee and me, dear sweet-apple, in one song oft I sing, Often at dead of night. And O, there’s gifts in store for thee, Eleven fawns, all white-collárs, and cosset bear’s cubs four for thee.

O leave it be, the blue blue sea, to gasp an ‘t will o’ the shore, And come ye away to me, to me; I’ll lay ye’ll find no ill store. A sweeter night thou’lt pass i' the cave with me than away i' the brine; There’s laurel and taper cypress, swart ivy and sweet-fruit vine, And for thy drinking the cool watér woody Etna pours so free For my delight from his snow so white, and a heav’nly draught it be. Now who would choose the sea and his waves, and a home like this forgo?

But if so be the master o’ t too shag to thy deeming show, There’s wood in store, and on the floor a fire that smoulders still, And if thou would’st be burning, mayst burn my soul an thou will, Yea, and the dear’st of all my goods, my one dear eye. O me! That I was not born with fins to be diving down to thee, To kiss, if not thy lips, at least hey hand, and give thee posies Of poppies trim with scarlet rim or snow-white winter-roses! And if a stranger a-shipboard come, e’en now, my little sweeting, E’en now to swim I’ll learn of him, and then shall I be weeting Wherefore it be ye folk o’ the sea are so life to be living below.

Come forth and away, my pretty fay, and when thou comest, O Forget, as he that sitteth here, they ways again to go; Feed flock wi’ me, draw milk wi’ me, and if ‘t my darling please, Pour rennet tart the curds to part and set the good white cheese. ‘Tis all my mother’s doing; she sore to blame hath bin; Never good word hath spoke you o’ me, though she sees me waxing so thin. I’ll tell her of throbbing feet,1 I’ll tell her of aching eyne; I am fain that misery be hers sith misery be mine.

O Cyclops, Cyclops, where be your wits gone flying? Up, fetch you loppings for your lambs, or go a withy-plying; The wearier’s oft the wiser man, and that there’s no denying. Milk the staying, leave the straying, chase not them that shy; Mayhap you’ll find e’en sweeter Galateans by and by. There’s many a jill says ‘Come an you will and play all night wi’ me,’ And he laugh I hear when I give ear is soft and sweet as can be; E’en I, ‘tis plain, be somebody, ashore, if not ‘I the sea.

Thus did Polyphemus tend his love-sickness with music, and got more comfort thereout than he could have had for any gold.

Thou’rt come, dear heart; thou’rt come after two days and nights, albeit one will turn a lover gray. As spring is sweeter than winter, and pippin than damson-plum; as mother-ewe is shaggier than her lambkin, and maiden more to be desired than a thice-wed wife; as the fawn is nimbler-footed than the calf, and the nightingale clearest-tongued of all the wingèd songsters; so am I gladded above all at the sight of thee, and run to thee as a wayfarer runneth to the shady oak when the sun is burning hot. And ‘tis O that equal Loves might inspire thee and me, and we become this song and saying unto all them that follow after: –

Here were two men of might the antique years among, The one Inspirant hight i' th’ Amyclaean tongue, The t’other Fere would be in speech of Thessalye; Each lov’d each, even-peise: O other golden days, Wheas love-I love-you all men did hold for true!

O would to thee, Father Zeus, and to you, unaging Host of Heaven, that when a hundred hundred years shall be passed away, one bring me word upon the prisoning bank of Acheron our love is yet upon every lip, upon the young men’s most of all! Be that or no the People of Heaven shall stablish as they will; for theirs is the dominion; now, when I sing thy praises, there shall no push-o’-leasing1 rise upon the tip of this tongue; for if e’er thou giv’st me torment, thou healest the wound out of hand, and I am better off than before, seeing I come away with over-measure.

Heaven rest you glad, Nisaean masters o’ the oar, for that you have done such exceeding honour unto an Attic stranger – to with Diocles2 (who so loved his boys); about whose grave, so surely as Spring cometh round, your children vie in a kissing-match, and whosoever presseth lip sweetliest upon lip, cometh away to’s mother loaden with garlands. Happy the justicer holdeth that court of kissing! God wot he prays beamy Ganymed, and prays indeed, to make his lips like the touchstones which show the money-changer whether the gold be bold or dross.

From what god soever sprung, Nicias, Love was not, as we seem to think, born for us alone; nor first unto us of mortal flesh that cannot see the morrow, look things of beauty beautiful. For Amphitryon’s brazen-heart son that braved the roaring lion, he too once loved a lad, to wit the beauteous Hylas of the curly locks, and even as father his son, had taught him all the lore that made himself a good man and brought him fame; and would never leave him, neither if Day had risen to the noon, nor when Dawn’s white steeds first galloped up in to the home of Zeus, nor yet when the twittering chickens went scurrying at the flapping of their mother’s wings to their bed upon the smoky hen-roost. This did he that he might have the lad fashioned to his mind, and that pulling a straight furrow from the outset the same might come to be a true man.

Now when Jason son of Aeson was to go to fetch the Golden Fleece with his following of champions that were chosen of the best out of all the cities in the land, then came there with them to the rich Iolcus the great man of toil who was son of the high-born Alcmena of Midea, and went down with Hylas at his side to that good ship Argo, even to her that speeding ungrazed clean through the blue Clappers, ran into Phasis bay as an eagle into a great gulf whereafter those Clappers have stood still, reefs ever more.

And at the rising of the Pleiads, what time of the waning spring the young lambs find pasture in the uplands, then it was that that divine flower of hero-folk was minded of its voyaging, and taking seat in the Argo’s hull came after two days’ blowing of the Southwind to the Hellespont, and made haven within Propontis at the spot where furrow is broadened and share brightened by the oxen of the Cianians. Being gone forth upon the strand, as for their supper they were making it ready thwart by thwart; but one couch was strown them for all, for they found to their hand a meadow that furnished good store of litter, and thence did cut them taper rushes and tall bedstraw.

Meanwhile the golden-haired Hylas was gone to bring water against supper for his own Heracles and for the valiant Telamon – for they two did ever eat together at a common board – bone with a brazen ewer. Ere long he espied a spring; in a hollow it lay, whereabout there grew many herbs, as well blue swallow-wort and fresh green maidenhair as blooming parsley and tangled deergrass. Now in the midst of the water there was a dance of the Nymphs afoot, of those Nymphs who, like the water, take no rest, those Nymphs who are the dread Goddesses of the country-folk, Eunica to wit and Malis and Nycheia with the springtime eyes. And there, when the lad put forth the capacious pitcher in haste to dip it in, lo! with one accord they all clung fast to his arm, because love of the young Argive had fluttered all their render breasts. And down he sank into the black water headlong, as when a falling star will sink headlong in the main and a mariner cry to his shipmates ‘Hoist away, my lads; the breeze freshens.’ Then took the Nymphs the weeping lad upon their knees and offered him comfort of gentle speech.

Meantime the son of Amphitryon was grown troubled for the child, and gone forth with that bow of his that was bent Scythian-wise and the cudgel that was ever in the grasp of his right hand. Thrice cried he on Hylas as loud as his deep throttle could belch sound; thrice likewise did the child make answer, albeit his voice came thin from the water and he that was hard by seemed very far away. When a fawn cries in the hills, some ravening lion will speed from his lair to get him a meal so ready; and even so went Heracles wildly to and fro amid the pathless brake, and covered much country because of his longing for the child. As lovers know no flinching, so endless was the toil of his wandering by wood and wold, and all Jason’s business was but a by-end. And all the while the ship stood tackle aloft,1 and so far as might be, laden, and the heroes passed thee night a-clearing of the channel,2 waiting upon Heracles. But he alas! was running whithersoever his feet might carry him, in a frenzy, the god did rend so cruelly the heart within him.

Thus came fairest Hylas to be numbered of the Blest, and the heroes to gird at Heracles for a deserter because he wandered and left the good ship of the thirty thwarts. Nevertheless he made the inhospitable land of the Colchians afoot.

AESCHINAS A very good day to master Thyonichus.

THYONICHUS To Aeschinas the same.

AESCHINAS Well met!

THYONICHUS Well met it is; but what ails ye?

AESCHINAS Luck’s way’s not my way, Thyonichus.

THYONICHUS Ah! that’s for why thou’rt so lean and the hair o’ thy lip so lank, and thy love-locks all-to-bemoiled. Thou’rt like one of your Pythagoreaners that came t’other day, pale-faced and never a shoe to’s foot; hailed from Athens, he said.

AESCHINAS And was he, too, in love?

THYONICHUS Aye, marry, was he – with a dish o’ porridge.

AESCHINAS Thou’lt be ever at thy quips, good lad, With me ‘tis the pretty Cynisca, and she’s playing the jade. And I doubt ‘tis but a hair’s-breadth betwixt me and a madman.

THYONICHUS ‘Faith, that’s ever my Aeschinas; something hastier than might be; will have all his own way. But come, what is it?

AESCHINAS There was the Argive and I and Agis the jockey out o’ Thessaly, and Cleunicus the man-at-arms a-drinking at my farm. I’d killed a pair of pullets, look you, and a suckling pig, and broached ‘em a hogshead of Bibline fine and fragrant – four years in the cask, mark you, and yet, where new’s best, as good as new – and on the board a cuttlefish1 and cockles to boot; i' faith, a jolly bout.

To’t we went, and when things waxed warmer ‘twas agreed we should toast every man his fancy; only we should give the name. But when we came to drink, the wench would not keep the bond like the rest of us, for all I was there. How, think you, I liked of that? ‘Wilt be mum?’ says one, and in jest, 'Hast met a wolf?' 2 'O well said!' cries she, and falls a-blushing like fire; Lord! you might have lit a candle at her face. One Wolf there is, look you, tall and sleek sort, in some folks’ eyes a proper man. ‘Twas he she made so brave a show of pining for out o’ love. And I’d had wind o’t too, mind you, softly, somehow, and so-to-speak; but there! I never raised inquiry for all my beard’s so long.

Be that as it may, we four good men were well in, when he of Larissa, like the mischief he was, fell a-singing a Thessalian catch beginning ‘My friend the Wolf’; whereupon Cynisca bursts out a-weeping and a-wailing like a six-year-old maiden in want of a lap. Then – you know me, Thyonichus, – I up and fetched her a clout o’ the ear, and again a clout. Whereat she catched up her skirts and was gone in a twink. ‘Am I not good enough, my sweet mischief? Hast ever a better in thy lap? Go to, pack, and be warming another. Yons he thou wee’pst apples over.’ Now a swallow, mark you, that bringeth her young eaves-dwellers their pap, gives and is gone again to get her more; so quickly that piece was up from her cushions and off through door-place and through door, howsoever her feet would carry her. Aye, ‘tis an old story how the Centaur went through the wood.

Let me see, ‘twas the twentieth o’ the month. Eight, nine, ten; to-day’s the eleventh. You’ve only to add ten days and ‘twill be two months3 since we parted; and I may be Thracian-cropped4 for aught she knows. Ah! ‘tis all Wolf nowadays; Wolf hath the door left open for him o’ nights; as for me, I forsooth am altogether beside the reckoning, like miserable Megara,5 last i' the list. ‘Tis true, if I would but take my love off the wench, all would go well. But alack! how can that be? When mouse tastes pitch,6 Thyonichus – ; and what may be the medicine for love there’s no getting away from, ‘faith, I know not – sae that Simus that fell in love, as the saying is, with Mistress Brassbound7 and went overseas, he came home whole; a mate of mine he was. Suppose I cross the water, like him; your soldier’s life, as ‘tis not maybe o’ the highest, so is it not o’ the lowest, but ‘tis e’en as good as another.

THYONICHUS I would indeed thy desire had run smooth, Aeschinas. But if so be thy mind is made up to go thy ways abroad, I’ll e’en tell thee the best paymaster a freeman can have; King Ptolemy.

AESCHINAS And what sort of man is he in other ways.

THYONICHUS This pick o’ the best: a kind heart, man of parts, a true gallant, and the top o’ good-fellowship; knows well the colour of a friend, and still better the look of a foe; like a true king, gives far and wide and says no man nay – albeit one should not be for ever asking, Aeschians. (in mock-heroic strain) So an thou be’st minded to clasp the warrior’s cloak about thee, and legs astride to abide the onset of the hardy foeman, to Egypt with thee. To judge by our noddles we’re all waxing old, and old Time comes us grizzling line by line down the cheek. We must fain be up and doing while there’s sap in our legs.

PRAXINOA Do sit down.

PRAXINOA That’s my lunatic; came and took one at the end of the world, and more an animal’s den, too, than a place of a human being to live in, just to prevent you and me being neighbours, out of sheer spite, the jealous old wretch! He’s always the same.

GORGO My dear, pray don’t call your good Dinon such names before Baby. See how he’s staring at you. (to the child) It’s all right, Zopyrion, my pet. It’s not dad-dad she’s talking about.

PRAXINOA Upon my word, the child understands.

GORGO Nice dad-dad.

PRAXINOA And yet that dad-dad of his the other day – the other day, now I tell him ‘Daddy, get mother some soap and rouge from the shop,’ and, would you believe it? back he came with a packet of salt, the great six feet of folly!

GORGO Mine’s just the same. Diocleidas is a perfect spendthrift. Yesterday he gave seven shillings a piece for mere bits of dog’s hair, mere pluckings of old handbags, five of them, all filth, all work to be done over again. But come, my dear, get your cloak and gown. I want you to come with me (grandly) to call on our high and mighty Prince Ptolemy to see the Adonis. I hear the Queen’s getting up something quite splendid this year.

GORGO Yes; but sightseers make good gossips, you know, if you’ve been and other people haven’t. It’s time we were on the move.

PRAXINOA Don’t speak of it, Gorgo; it was more than eight golden sovereigns, and I can tell you I put my very soul into making it up.

GORGO Well, all I can say is, it’s most successful.

PRAXINOA I’m inclined to agree with you.3 (to Eunoa) Come, put on my cloak and hat for me, and mind you do it properly. (Eunoa puts her cloak about her head and shoulders and pins the straw sun-hat to it). (taking up the child) No; I’m not going to take you, Baby. Horse-bogey bites little boys. (the child cries) You may cry as much as you like; I’m not going to have you lamed for life. (to Gorgo, giving the child to the nurse) Come along. Take Baby and amuse him, Phyrgia, and call the dog indoors and lock he front-door.

PRAXINOA I must say, you’ve done us many a good turn, my good Ptolemy, since your father went to heaven. We have no villains sneaking up to murder us in the streets nowadays in the good old Egyptian style. They don’t play those awful games now – the thorough-paced rogues, every one of them the same, all queer! [51] Gorgo dearest! what shall we do? The Royal Horse! Don’t run me down, my good man. That bay’s rearing. Look, what temper! Stand back, Eunoa, you reckless girl! He’ll be the death of that man. Thank goodness I left Baby at home!

GORGO It’s all right, Praxinoa, We’ve got well behind them, you see. They’re all where they ought to be, now.

OLD WOMAN Yes, my dears.

GORGO Then we can get there all right, can we?

OLD WOMAN Trying took Troy, my pretty; don’t they say where there’s a will there’s a way?

GORGO That old lady gave us some oracles,6 didn’t she?

GORGO Do look, Praxinoa; what a crowd there is at the door! It’s marvellous!

PRAXINOA Give me your arm, Gorgo; and you take hold of Eutychis’ arm, Eunoa; and you take care, Eutychis, not to get separated. We’ll all go in together. Mind you keep hold of me, Eunoa. Oh dear, oh dear, Gorgo! my summer cloak’s8 torn right in two (to a stranger) For Heaven’s sake, as you wish to be saved, mind my cloak, sir.

FIRST STRANGER I really can’t help what happens; but I’ll do my best.

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

FIRST STRANGER Don’t be alarmed, madam; we’re all right.

PRAXINOA 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.

PRAXINOA 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 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 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.9

GORGO Be quiet, Praxinoa. She’s just going to being the song, that Argive person’s daughter, you know, the “accomplished vocalist” 10 that was chosen to sing the dirge last year.11 You may be sure she’ll give us something good. Look, she’s making her bow.

THE DIRGE 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,12 ‘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.

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 Miletus13 town may say, or the master of Samian sheep,13 “The bridal bed of Adonis spread of my own making is; Cypris hath this for her wrapping, Adonis that for his.”

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,14 Nor the first of the twice-ten children15 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.

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.”

‘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.

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.1 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.”

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 the 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.

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 Ceian2 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.

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.3

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,4 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.

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.

For lo! the Phoenician dweller in the foot of Lilybè5 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, Maiden6 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.

O holy Graces first adored of Eteocles,7 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,8 and ‘tis my prayer the Graces be with me evermore.

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.

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.

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?

‘Twas in the blood.1 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.

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 not2 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.

Even as the dark-browed Argive maid3 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.

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 Rheneia4 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.

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.

For wealth, his would outweigh the wealth of all the princes of the earth together, – so much comes into his rich habitation both day by day and from every quarter. And as for his peoples, they occupy their business without let or hindrance, seeing that no foeman hath crossed afoot that river of monsters to set up a cry in alien townships, nor none leapt from swift ship upon that beach all mailed to make havoc of the Egyptian kine, – of such noble sort is the flaxen-haired prince that is throne in these level plains, a prince who not only hath cunning to wield a spear, but, as a good king should, makes it his chiefest care both to keep all that he hath of his father and to add somewhat for himself. But not to no purpose doth his gold lie, like so much riches of the still-toiling emmet, in his opulent house; much of it – for never makes he offerings of firstfruits but gold is one – is spent upon the splendid dwellings of the Gods, and much of it again is given in presents to cities, to stalwart kings, or to the good friends that bear him company. Nay, no cunning singer of tuneful song that hath sought part in Dionysus’ holy contests but hath received of him a gift to he full worth of his skill.

But ‘tis not for his wealth that the interpreters of the Muses sing praise of Ptolemy; rather is it for his well-doing. And what can be finer for a wealthy and prosperous man than to earn a fair fame among his fellow-men? This it is which endureth even to the sons of Atreus, albeit all those ten thousand possessions that fell to them when they took Priam’s great house, they lie hid somewhere in that mist whence no return can be evermore. And this man hath done that which none before hath done, be he of them of old, be he of those whose footmarks are yet warm in the dust they trod; he hath builded incense-fragrant temples to his mother and father dear, and hath set therein images of them in gold and ivory, very beautiful, to be the aid of all that live upon the earth. And many are the thighs of fatted oxen that s the months go round he consumes upon the reddening altars, he and that his fine noble spouse, who maketh him a better wife than ever clasped bridegroom under any roof, seeing that she loveth with her whole heart brother and husband in one. So too in heaven was the holy wedlock accomplished of those whom august Rhea bare to be rulers of Olympus, so too the myrrh-cleansed hands of the ever-maiden Iris lay but one couch for the slumbering Zeus and Hera.

And now farewell, Lord Ptolemy; and I will speak of thee as of other demi-gods, and methinks what I shall say will not be lost upon posterity; ‘tis this – excellence asks from none but Zeus.

It seems that once upon a time at the house of flaxen-haired Menelaus in Sparta, the first twelve maidens of the town, fine pieces all of Laconian womanhood, came crowned with fresh flowering luces, and before a new-painted chamber took up the dance, when the younger child of Atreus shut the wedding door upon the girl of his wooing, upon the daughter of Tyndareüs, to wit the beloved Helen. There with their pretty feet criss-crossing all to the time of one tune they sang till the palace rang again with the echoes of this wedding-song: –

What Bridegroom! dear Bridegroom! thus early abed and asleep? Wast born a man of sluggardy, or is thy pillow sweet to thee, Or ere thou cam’st to bed maybe didst drink a little deep? If thou wert so fain to sleep betimes, ‘twere better sleep alone, And leave a maid with maids to play by a fond mother’s side till dawn of day, Sith for the morrow and its morn, for this and all the years unborn, This sweet bride is thine to own.

When thou like others of high degree cam’st here thy suit a-pressing, Sure some good body, well is thee, sneezed thee a proper blessing; For of all these lordings there’s but one shall be son of the High Godheád, Aye, ‘neath one coverlet with thee Great Zeus his daughter is come to be, A lady whose like is not to see where Grecian women tread. And if she bring a mother’s bairn ‘twill be of a wonderous grace; For sure all we which her fellows be, that ran with her the race, Anointed lasses like the lads, Eurótas’ pools beside – O’the four-times threescore maidens that were Sparta’s flower and pride There was none so fair as might compare with Menelaüs’ bride.

O Lady Night, ‘tis passing bright the face o’ the rising day; ‘Tis like the white spring1 o’ the year when winter is no longer here; But so shines golden Helen clear among our meinie2 so gay. And the crops that upstand in a fat ploughlánd do make it fair to see, And a cypress the garden where she grows, and a Thessaaly steed the chariot he knows; But so doth Helen red as the rose make fair her dear countrye. And never doth woman on bobbin wind such thread as her baskets teem, Nor shuttlework so close and fine cuts from the weaver’s beam, Nor none hath skill to ply the quill3 to the Gods of Women4 above As the maiden wise in whose bright eyes dwells all desire and love.

O maid of beauty, maid of grace, thou art a huswife now; But we shall betimes to the running-place i' the meads where flowers do blow, And cropping garlands sweet and sweet about our brows to do, Like lambs athirst for the mother’s teat shall long, dear Helen, for you For you afore all shall a coronal of the gray groundling trefoíl Hang to a shady platan-tree, and a vial of running oil His offering drip from a silver lip beneath the same platan-tree, And a Doric rede be writ i' the bark for him that passeth by to mark, ‘I am Helen’s; worship me.’

And ‘tis Bride farewell, and Groom farewell, that be son of a mighty sire, And Leto, great Nurse Leto, grant children at your desire, And Cypris, holy Cypris, an equal love alwáy, and Zeus, high Zeus, prosperitye That drawn of parents of high degree shall pass to a noble progenye For ever and a day. Sleep on and rest, and on either breast may the love-breath playing go; Sleep now, but when the day shall break forget not from your sleep to wake; For we shall come wi’ the dawn along soon as the first-waked master o’song Lift feathery neck to crow.

Sing Hey for the Wedding, sing Ho for the Wedder, and thanks to him that made it!

When the thievish Love one day was stealing honeycomb from the hive, a wicked bee stung him, and made all his finger-tips to smart. In pain and grief he blew on his hand and stamped and leapt upon the ground, and went and showed his hurt to Aphrodite, and made complaint that so a little a beast as a bee could make so great a wound. Whereat his mother laughing, ‘What?’ cries she, ‘art not a match for a bee, and thou so little and yet able to make wounds so great?

When I would have kissed her sweetly, Eunica fleered at me and flouted me saying, ‘Go with a mischief! What? kiss me miserable clown like thee? I never learned your countrified bussing; my kissing is in the fashion o’ the town. I will not have such as thee to kiss my pretty lips, nay, not in his dreams. Lord, how you look! Lord, how you talk! Lord, how you antic! Your lips are wet and your hands black, and you smell rank. Hold off and begone, or you’ll befoul me!’ Telling this tale she spit thrice in her bosom, and all the while eyed me from top to toe, and mowed at me and leered at me and made much she-play with her pretty looks, and anon did right broadly, scornfully, and disdainfully laugh at me. Trust me, my blood boiled up in a moment, and my face went as red with the anguish of it as the rose with the dewdrops. And so she up and left me, but it rankles in my heart that such a filthy drab should cavil at a well-favoured fellow like me.

Tell me true, master Shepherds; see you not here a proper man, or hath some power taken and transmewed him? Marry, ‘twas a sweet piece of ivy bloomed ere now on this tree, and a sweet piece of ivy bloomed ere now on this tree, and a sweet piece of beauty put fringe to this lip; the hair o’ these temples lay lush as the parsley; this forehead did shine me white above and these eyebrows black below; these eyes were beamy as the Grey-eyed Lady’s, this mouth trim as a cream-cheese; and the voice which came forth o’ this mouth was even as honeycomb. Sweet also is the music I make, be it o’ the flute or the crossflute. And there’s not a lass in the uplands but says I am good to look to, not one but kisses me, neither; but your city pieces, look you, never a kiss got I o’ them, but they ran me by and would not listen because I herd cows.

Doth not the beautiful Dionysus ride a bull i' the dells? Wist she not Cypris ran mad after a neatherd and tended cattle i' the Phrybian hills? And the same Cypris, loved she not Adonis in the woods and in the woods bewailed him? And what of Endymion? Was it not a neatherd the Lday Moon loved when he was at his labour, and came down from Olympus into Latmos vale to bow herself over him of her choice? Thou too, great Rhea, dost bewail a neatherd; and didst not e’en thou, thou Son of Cronus, become a wandering bird for the sake of a lad o’ the kine? Nay, ‘twas left to mistress Eunica to deny a neatherd her love, this piece that is a greater than Cybelè and Cypris and the Lady Moon! Wherefore I beseech thee, sweet Cypris, the same may never more whether in upland or in lowland come at the love of her leman, but may lie lone and sleep sole for the rest of her days.

A herdsman, who had been contemptuously rejected by Eunica, a girl of the town, protests that he is beautiful, and that Eunica is prouder than Cybele, Selene, and Aphrodite, all of whom loved mortal herdsmen. For grammatical and other reasons, some critics consider this idyl apocryphal.

EUNICA laughed out at me when sweetly I would have kissed her, and taunting me, thus she spoke: ‘Get thee gone from me! Wouldst thou kiss me, wretch; thou—a neatherd? I never learned to kiss in country fashion, but to press lips with city gentlefolks. Never hope to kiss my lovely mouth, nay, not even in a dream. How thou dost look, what chatter is thine, how countrified thy tricks are, how delicate thy talk, how easy thy tattle! And then thy beard—so soft! thy elegant hair! Why, thy lips are like some sick man’s, thy hands are black, and thou art of evil savour. Away with thee, lest thy presence soil me!’ These taunts she mouthed, and thrice spat in the breast of her gown, and stared at me all over from head to feet; shooting out her lips, and glancing with half-shut eyes, writhing her beautiful body, and so sneered, and laughed me to scorn. And instantly my blood boiled, and I grew red under the sting, as a rose with dew. And she went off and left me, but I bear angry pride deep in my heart, that I, the handsome shepherd, should have been mocked by a wretched light-o’-love.

Shepherds, tell me the very truth; am I not beautiful? Has some God changed me suddenly to another man? Surely a sweet grace ever blossomed round me, till this hour, like ivy round a tree, and covered my chin, and about my temples fell my locks, like curling parsley-leaves, and white shone my forehead above my dark eyebrows. Mine eyes were brighter far than the glance of the grey-eyed Athene, my mouth than even pressed milk was sweeter, and from my lips my voice flowed sweeter than honey from the honeycomb. Sweet too, is my music, whether I make melody on pipe, or discourse on the flute, or reed, or flageolet. And all the mountain-maidens call me beautiful, and they would kiss me, all of them. But the city girl did not kiss me, but ran past me, because I am a neatherd, and she never heard how fair Dionysus in the dells doth drive the calves, and knows not that Cypris was wild with love for a herdsman, and drove afield in the mountains of Phrygia; ay, and Adonis himself,—in the oakwood she kissed, in the oakwood she bewailed him. And what was Endymion? was he not a neatherd? whom nevertheless as he watched his herds Selene saw and loved, and from Olympus descending she came to the Latmian glade, and lay in one couch with the boy; and thou, Rhea, dust weep for thy herdsman.

And didst not thou, too, Son of Cronos, take the shape of a wandering bird, and all for a cowherd boy?

But Eunica alone would not kiss the herdsman; Eunica, she that is greater than Cybele, and Cypris, and Selene!

Well, Cypris, never mayst thou, in city or on hillside, kiss thy darling, and lonely all the long night mayst thou sleep!

— translation: Andrew Lang (1880, prose)

There’s but one stirrer-up of the crafts, Diophantus, and her name is Poverty. She is the true teacher of labour; for a man of toil may not so much as sleep for the disquietude of his heart. Nay, if he nod ever so little o’ nights, then is his slumber broke suddenly short by the cares that beset him.

One night against the leafy wall of a wattled cabin there lay together upon a bed of dry tangle two old catchers of fish. Beside them were laid the instruments of their calling; their creels, their rods their hooks, their weedy nets and lines, their weels and rush-woven lobster-pots, some net-ropes, a pair of oars, and upon its props an aged coble. Beneath their heads lay a little mat, and for coverlets they had their jackets of frieze. This was all the means and all the riches of these poor fishermen. Key, door, watchdog, had they none; all such things were ill-store to the likes of them, seeing in that house kept Poverty watch and ward; neither dwelt there any neighbour at their gates, but the very cabin-walls were hemmed by the soft and delicate upflowing of the sea.

Now or ever the chariot of the Moon was half-way of its course, the fishermen’s labour and trouble did rouse them, and thrusting slumber from their eyelids stirred up speech in their hearts.

ASPHALION It seems they speak not true, friend, that say the summer nights grow less when they bring us the long days. Already I have had a thousand dreams, and the dawn is not yet. Or am I wrong when I say how long the watches of these nights are?

FRIEND Asphalion, the pretty summer deserves not thy fault-finding. ‘Tis not that Time hath truly and in himself over-run his course, but Care makes thy night long by curtailing thy slumber.

ASPHALION Hast ever learnt to interpret a dream? I’ve had a good one this night, and am fain thou go shares in’t.

FRIEND Aye, we share our catch, and e’en let’s share all our dreams. For shall I not be making conjecture of thee according to the saying, the best interpreter of dreams is he that learns of understanding? And what’s more, we have time and to spare, for there’s little enough for a man to do lying sleepless in a greenbed beside the sea. ‘Faith, ‘tis the ass in the thorns and the lamp in the town-hall, and they are the morals for waking.1 Come, thy dream; for a friend, look you, is always told a man’s dreams.

ASPHALION When I fell asleep last night after my labours o’ the sea – and faith, ‘twas not for fulness, if you mind, seeing we supped early to give our bellies short commons – I dreamt I was hard at my work upon a rock, seated watching for the fish and dangling my piece of deception from my rod’s end, when there rose me a right gallant fellow – for mark you, I surmise a fish as a sleeping dog will a bear, – well hooked too, for ‘a showed blood, and my rod all bended wi’ the pull of him, bended straining and bowing in my hand, insomuch that I questioned me sore how I was to deal with so great a fish with so weak tools to my hand. Howbeeit I gently pricked him to mind him o’ the hook, and pricking let him have line,2 and when he ran not away showed him the butt. Now was the prize mine. I drew up a golden fish, a fish smothered in gold, such indeed that I feared me lest he were a fish favoured of Poseidon, or mayhap a treasured possession of sea-green Amphitritè; aye, and unhooked him very carefully and slow lest ever the tackle should come away with gold from his mouth. Then, standing over, I sang the praises of that my glorious catch, my seaman made landsman, and sware I’ld nevermore set foot o’ the sea, but I would rest ashore rather and king it there with my gold. And with that I awoke. And now, good friend, it remains for you to lend me your understanding; for troth, that oath I sware –

FRIEND Be of good cheer; never you fear that. ‘Twas no swearing when you sware that oath any more than ‘twas seeing when you saw the golden fish. Howbeit there’s wisdom to be hand of empty shows; for if you will make real and waking search in these places there’s hope of your sleep and your dreams.3 Go seek the fish of flesh and blood, or you’ll die of hunger and golden visions.

Our song is of the sons of Leda and the Aegis-Bearer, Castor to wit and with him Polydeuces, that dire wielder of the fist and of the wrist-harness of the leathern thong. Twice is our song and thrice of the boys of Thestius’ daughter, the two Spartan brethren which wont to save both men that are come upon the brink and horses that are beset in the bloody press; aye, and ships also, that because they sail in despite of rise or set of the stars do fall upon evil gales, which, or fore or aft or where they list, upraise a great surge, and both hurl it into the hold and rive with it their timbers whether on this side or on that. Then hang sail and shroud by the board; and night comes, and with it a great storm from the sky, and the broad sea rattles and plashes with the battery blast and of the irresistible hail. But for all that, ye, even ye, do draw both ship and despairing shipmen from out the hell; the winds abate, the sea puts on a shining calm, the clouds run asunder this way and that way; till out come the Bears peeping, and betwixt the Asses lo! that Manger so dim, which betokens all fair for voyaging on the sea. O helpers twain of men, O friends both of mortals, O horseman harpers, O boxer bards, whether of Castor first or Polydeuces shall I sing? Be my song of both, and yet the beginning of it of Polydeuces.

The Together-coming Rocks were safely passed and the baleful mouth of the snowy Pontic entered, and Argo with the dear children of the Gods aboard her had made the country of the Bebrycians. Down the ladders on either side went crowding the men of Jason’s ship, and soon as they were out upon the soft deep sand of that lee shore, set to making them greenbeds and rubbing fire-sticks for fire. Then when Castor of the nimble coursers and Polydeuces ruddy as the wine together wandering afield from the rest, for to see the wild woodland of all manner of trees among the hills. Now beneath a certain slabby rock they did find a freshet brimming ever with water pure and clear. The pebbles at the bottom of it were like to silver and crystal, and long and tall there grew beside it, as well firs and poplars and planes and spiry cypresses, as all fragrant flowers which abound in the meadows of outgoing spring to be loved and laboured of the shag bee. In that place there sat taking the air a man both huge and terrible. His ears were crushed shapeless by the hard fist, and his giant breast and great broad back were orbed with iron flesh like a sledge-wrought effigy; moreover the sinews upon his brawny arms upstood beside the shoulder like the boulder-stones some torrent hath rolled and rounded in his swirling eddies; and, to end all, over his neck and about his back there was hung by the claws a swinging lion-skin.

First spoke the champion Polydeuces. ‘Whoever you may be, Sir,’ says he, ‘I bid you good morrow. Pray tell me what people possesseth this country.’

AMYCUS Is it good-morrow, quotha, when I see strangers before me?

POLYDEUCES Be of good cheer. Trust me, we be no evil men nor come we of evil stock.

AMYCUS Of right good cheer am I, and knew it or ever I learnt it of you.

POLYDEUCES Pray are you a man o’ the wilds, a churl come what may, a mere piece of disdain?

AMYCUS I am what you see; and that’s no goer upon other’s ground, when all’s said.

POLYDEUCES Come you upon my ground and welcome; you shall not go away empty.

AMYCUS I’ll none of your welcomes and you shall none of mine.

POLYDEUCES Lord, man! would you have me denied even a drink of this water?

AMYCUS That shall you know when there comes you the parching languor o’ thirst on the lips.

POLYDEUCES Would you silver or aught else for price? Say what you’ll take.

AMYCUS Up hands fight me man against man.

POLYDEUCES Fisticuffs is ‘t? or feet and all? mind you, I have a good eye.1

AMYCUS Fists be it, and you may do all your best and cunningest.

POLDEUCES But who is he for whom I am to bind thong to arm?

AMYCUS You see him nigh; the man that shall fight you may be called a woman, but ‘faith, shall not deserve the name.

POLYDEUCES And pray is there a prize we may contend for in this our match?

AMYCUS Whethersoever shall win shall have the other to his possession.

POLYDEUCES But such be the mellays of the red-crested game-cock.

AMYCUS Whether we be like cock or lion there shall be no fight betwixt us on any other stake.

With these words Amycus took and blared upon his hollow shell, and quickly in answer to his call came the thick-haired Bebrycians and gathered themselves together beneath the shady platens. And in like manner all the heroes of the ship of Magnesia were fetched by Castor the peerless man-o’-war. And so the twain braced their hands with the leathern coils and twined the long straps about their arms, and forth and entered the ring breathing slaughter each against the other.

Now was there much ado which should have the sunshine at his back; but he cunning of my Polydeuces outwent the mighty man, and those beams did fall full in Amycus his face. So goes master Amycus in high dudgeon forward with many outs and levellings o’s fists. But the child of Tyndareüs was ready, and catched him a blow on the point o’ the chin; the which did the more prick him on and make him to betumble his fighting, so that he went in head-down and full-tilt. At that the Bebrycians holla’d him on, and they of the other part cried cheerily unto the stalwart Polydeuces for fear this Tityus of a man should haply overpeise him and so bear him down in that narrow room. But the son of Zeus stood up to him first on this side and then on that, and touched him left and right and left again; and for all his puissance the child of Poseidon was stayed in ‘s onset, insomuch that he stood all drunken with his drubbing and spit out the crimson blood. Whereat all the mighty men gave joyful tongue together by reason of the grievous bruises he had both by cheek and jowl; for his eyes were all-to-straitened with the puffing of their sockets. Next did my lord maze his man awhile with sundry feints and divers passes all about, and then, as soon as he had him all abroad, let drive at him to the bone, and laid him flatlong amid the springing flowers.

His rising was the renewing of the fray, and a bitter one; aye, now were those swingeing iron gloves to fight unto death. The high lord of Bebrycia, he was all for the chest and none for the head; but as for the never-to-be-beaten Polydeuces, he was for pounding and braying the face with ugly shameful blows: and lo! the flesh of the one began to shrink with the sweating, and eftsoons was a great man made little; but even as the other’s labour increased, so waxed his limbs ever more full and round and his colour ever better.

Now Muse, I pray thee tell – for thou knowest it – how the child of Zeus destroyed that glutton; and he that plays thy interpreter will say what thou willest and even as thou choosest.

Then did Amycus, as who should achieve some great thing, come from his ward and with his left hand grasp Polydeuces’ left, and going in with the other, drive the flat of his hand2 from his right flank. And had the blow come home, he had wrought harm to the king of Amyclae. But lo! my lord slips his head aside and the same moment struck out forth-right from the shoulder and smote him under the left temple; and from that gaping temple the red blood came spirting. Then his left hand did beat him in the mouth, so that the rows of teeth in ‘t crackled again; aye, and an ever livelier patter o’ the fists did maul the face of him till his visage was all one mash. Then down went he in a heap and lay like to swoon upon the ground; and up with both his hands for to cry the battle off, because he was nigh unto death. But thou, good boxer Polydeuces, for all thy victory didst nothing presumptuous. Only wouldst thou have him swear a great oath by the name of his father Poseidon in the sea, that he would nevermore do annoyance unto strangers.

The tale of thy praise, great Lord, is told; and now of thee, good my Castor, will I sing, Castor the Tyndarid, lord of coursers, wielder of spears, knight of the corselet of brass.

The twin children of Zeus were up and away with the daughters twain of Leucippus, and the two sons of Aphareus were hotfoot upon their track, Lynceus to wit and doughty Idas, the bridegrooms that were to be. But when they were got to the grave of Aphareus dead, they lighted all from their chariots together and made at once another in the accoutrement of spear and shield. Then up spake Lynceus and cried aloud from beneath his casque, saying: ‘Sirs, why so desirous of battle? How come you so unkind concerning other men’s brides? and wherefore these naked weapons in your hands? These daughters of Leucippus were plighted to us, to us long ere you came; we have his oath to it. But as for you, you have prevailed on him unseemly for other men’s wives with cattle and mules and what not; ye be stealing bridal with a gift. Yet time and again, god wot, albeit I am no man of many words, I have myself spoke to your face and said: “It ill becometh princes, good friends, to go a-wooing such as be betrothed already. Sparta is wide, and so is Elis o’ the coursers; wide likewise the sheep-walks of Arcady and the holds of Achaea; Messenè also and Argos and all the seaboard of Sisyphus3: there’s ten thousand maidens do well in them at the houses of their fathers, wanting nothing in beauty or in parts, of the which you may take whomso you will to your wives. For many there be would fain be made wife’s father unto a good man and true, and you are men of mark among all heroes, you and your fathers and all your fathers’ blood of yore. Nay then, my friends, suffer us to bring this marriage to fulfilment, and we’ll all devise other espousal for you.” Such was my often rede, but the wind’s breath was ever away with it unto the wet sea-wave, and no favour followed upon my words; for ye hard men both and relentless. Yet even at this hour I pray you give heed, seeing ye be our kin by the father.’

So he spake and, it seems, god was not to make his speaking vain. For the two that were the elder did off their armour and laid it upon the ground; but Lynceus, he stepped forth with his stout lance a-quiver hard beneath the target’s rim, and Castor, he levelled the point of his spear even in the same manner as Lynceus, the plumes nodding the while upon either’s crest. First made they play with the tilting of the lance, if haply they might spy a naked spot; but or ever one of them was wounded the lance-point stuck fast in the trusty buckler and was knapped in twain. Then drew they sword to make havoc of each other; for there was no surcease of battle. Many a time did Castor prick the broad buckler or horse-haired casque; many a time did the quick-eyed Lynceus come at the other’s targe or graze with the blade his scarlet crest. But soon, Lynceus making at his left knee, Castor back with his left foot and had off his fingers, so that his falchion dropped to the ground and he went scurrying towards his father’s grave, where stout Idas lay watching the kindred fray. Howbeit the son of Tyndareüs was after him in a trice and drave his good sword clean through flank and navel, so that he bowels were presently scattered upon his face, and lo! there sped down upon his eyelids profoundest sleep.