now thou dost know that my last sun too soon will set; yet Daphnis in realm of shades shall prove great grief to Love. Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay! "As to Cypris, is it not said that he who kept the herds 12 But get thee to Mount Ida. Haste thee to Anchises. There oak trees grow; here the marsh plants thrive, and here the sweet hum of the bees is heard at the hives! Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay! "Thy loved 13 Adonis, too, is still in the bloom of youth, for he tends the sheep and kills the hares, and hunts wild beasts in the deep, dark wood. Nay, go and take thy stand once more in the 14 fight with Diomed, and say, 'I have struck down Daphnis, him who kept the herds, come now and try thy strength with me!' ΙΟ Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay! "Ye wolves, ye bears, and ye wild beasts that lurk in dens and in the caves of the hills, fare ye well! By you no more shall Daphnis be seen in the wood, no more in 20 the groves where grow the oaks, no more in the dells between the hills. Fare thee well, 15 Arethusa; and ye brooks, good night, that pour down 16 Thymbris your clear, cool streams. Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay! "Here am I- Daphnis who tend in these fields my herd of young kine-Daphnis, who leads the bulls to the cool stream that they may drink. Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay! “Ọ Pan, Pan, if thou art on the high hills of 17 Lycæus, 30 or if thou dost range o'er great 18 Mænalus, haste thou to the Sicilian isle; or leave the far-off cape of 19 Helice, and the tall cairn that marks the tomb of 20 Lycaon's son a work which seems fair, yea, most fair, in the eyes of the blessed. Now cease, ye Muses dear, now cease the shepherd's lay! "Come, O my prince, and take this fair pipe, sweet to taste and smell from the wax-stopped joints; take it, 10 it will fit thy lips well! For, in truth, I am at last 21 dragged by Love to the dark land of Hades. 20 30 Now cease, ye Muses dear, now cease the shepherd's lay! 22 Now violets bear, ye sharp briars; and may ye thorns bear, violets. And may narcissus bloom on the juniper tree! May all things be changed in kind, and let the pine bear pears - for Daphnis dies! And may the stag hunt the hounds, and the owls from the hills sing songs more sweet than those of the nightingales." Now cease, ye Muses dear, now cease the shepherd's lay! Thus Daphnis spake, and thus he made an end: and fain would Aphrodite raise him up. But all the threads of the 23 Fates, I ween, were now spun out. And Daph nis went down the 24 stream. The swift wave washed far from the land the man the Muses loved, the man to the Nymphs most dear. Now cease, ye Muses dear, now cease the shepherd's lay! And now, give thou me the she-goat and the bowl, that I may milk her and pour it out, a thank-gift to the Muses. O hail, hail, ye Muses dear, and oft-times hail! And I to you a song more sweet than this will sing 25 in the days to come! NOTES. THE AUTHOR. "Theocritus, the Bucolic poet, was a Syracusan by extraction, and the son of Simichidas, as he says himself, ‘Simichidas, pray whither through the noon dost thou drag thy feet?' (Idyl vii.). Some say that this was an assumed name, for he seems to have been snub-nosed, and that his father was Praxagoras, and his mother Philinna. He became the pupil of Philetas and Asclepiades, of whom he speaks in his seventh Idyl, and flourished about the time of Ptolemy Lagus. He gained much fame for his skill in bucolic poetry. According to some, his original name was Moschus, and Theocritus was a name later assumed."-Notice usually prefixed to his Idyls, translated by Andrew Lang.. Of the life of Theocritus, but little is known. He was born probably at Syracuse about the year 315 B.C., and received at least a portion of his education at Alexandria. His early poetic efforts were so successful that he was rewarded by the patronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus, in whose honor some of his Idyls were written. He afterwards returned to Syrawhere he spent the latter part of his life, and where much of his best work in poetry was done. Of the date and manner of his death, there is no trustworthy record. He was the inventor of pastoral poetry. "He stands alone, with a crowd of imitators at a wide interval of merit." cuse, THE POEM. The Song of Thyrsis is a part, and the chief motif, of the first Idyl of Theocritus, of which the following is a brief analysis: "The shepherd Thyrsis meets a goatherd in a shady place beside a spring, and at his invitation, sings the Lament for Daphnis. This ideal hero of Greek pastoral song had won for his bride the fairest of the Nymphs. Confident in the strength of his passion, he boasted that Love could never subdue him to a new affection. Love avenged himself by making Daphnis desire a strange maiden, but to this temptation he never yielded. The song tells how the cattle and the wild things of the wood bewailed him; how Hermes and Priapus gave him counsel in vain; and how with his last breath he retorted the taunts of the implacable Aphrodite. The scene is in Sicily." 1. Begin, ye Muses dear. This form of invocation has been often imitated by the later poets. See Moschus's Lament for Bion (page 39) : — " 'Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge!" Compare also with Virgil, Eclogue viii. : Begin with me, my pipe, Mænalian strains!" And with Pope, Pastoral iii.: " Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains." Also with Milton, Lycidas, line 15 (see page 79). And with Spenser, Shepheards Calender, November:· "Morne now my Muse, now morne with heavy cheare." 2. Thyrsis. The name is very common in pastoral poetry. See Virgil, Eclogue vii., "In alternate verses the two began to contend. These Cory don, those Thyrsis, each in his turn recited." Also Milton, L'Allegro: — "Hard by a cottage chimney smokes Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, Are at their savoury dinner set." 3. Where were ye, Nymphs? Doubtless having reference to the nurturing care which the Nymphs had had for Daphnis. The line is imitated by Milton, Lycidas, line 50. Also by Pope in Pastoral ii. : — "Where stray ye, Nymphs, in what lawn or grove, While your Alexis pines in hopeless love?" See Virgil, Eclogue x.: — "What groves, ye virgin Naiads, or what lawns detained you, See also Shelley's Adonais, ii. 1, and Spenser's Astrophel, 128. Daphnis. The original Daphnis, whose grief is celebrated in this Idyl, was the son of Hermes and the friend of both Pan and Apollo. His mother was a Nymph, and he was placed while an infant in a laurel grove, whence his name (from Gr. daphne, a laurel tree). He was brought up by the Nymphs, and became a shepherd on the slopes of Mount Etna. There he tended his sheep, was taught music by Pan, and invented bucolic poetry with which to entertain Artemis while she was hunting. A Naiad, who fell in love with him, made him swear never to love any other maiden. He kept his promise for a time, but at length became hopelessly enamoured of a princess. Thereupon the Naiad, according to some, punished him with blindness. Others say that she changed him to a stone:— "This is that modest shepherd, he That only dare salute, but ne'er could be Brought to kiss any, hold discourse, or sing, Whisper, or boldly ask." See Virgil, Eclogue v.:— Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess. "The shepherds wept Daphnis, cut off by cruel death." Longos, a Greek sophist (4th or 5th century A.D.), wrote a prose-pastoral love story entitled Daphnis and Chloe. John Gay (1688-1732) wrote a poem with the same title; and William Browne published a pastoral called Daphnis and Lycidas in 1727. 4. Peneus. A river in Thessaly flowing through the vale of Tempe, between the mountains Ossa and Olympus. - Pindus. A range of mountains in northern Greece. If the Nymphs were here, they were about four hundred miles from Daphnis, on Mount Etna. 5. Anapus and Acis were rivers in Sicily, near the foot of Mount Etna. In his Seventh Idyl Theocritus again mentions the Anapus: Through Polypheme did such sweet nectar glance, Acis was a Sicilian shepherd, the son of Faunus, and beloved by the Nymph Galatea. The monster Polypheme, jealous of him, crushed him under a huge rock, and his blood became the river Acis (now Fiume de Jaci), which flows from under a rock at the foot of Mount Etna. 6. For him the wild beasts did cry. Imitated by Moschus in his Lament for Bion (see page 40). And by Virgil, Eclogue v.: — "Even the African lions mourned thy death." "For her the feather'd choirs neglect their song." Also by Spenser, Shepheards Calender, November:· 'The beastes in forrest wayle as they were woode." Compare with A Pastorall Eglogue (line 76). |