Greek Texts & Translations

A conversation between a goatherd named Battus and his fellow goatherd Corydon, who is acting oxherd in place of a certain Aegon who has been persuaded by one Milon son of Lampriadas to go and compete in a boxing-match at Olympia. Corydon’s temporary rise in rank gives occasion for some friendly banter – which the sententious fellow does not always understand – varied with bitter references to Milon’s having supplanted Battus in the favours of Amaryllis. The reference to Glaucè fixes the imaginary date as contemporary with Theocritus. This is not the great Milon, but a fictitious strong man of the same town called, suitably enough, by his name. ^note The poem, like all the other genuine shepherd-mimes, contains a song. Zacynthus is still called the flower of the Levant. The scene in near Crotona in Southern Italy.

BATTUS (in a bantering tone)
4.1 What, Corydon man; whose may your cows be? Philondas’s?

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

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

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

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

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

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

CORYDON (sententiously)
4.8 Men say he rivals Heracles in might.

BATTUS (scoffing)
4.9And mammy says I’m another Polydeuces.

CORYDON
4.10 Well, he took a score of sheep ^note and a spade with him, when he went.

BATTUS (with a momentary bitterness)
4.11 Ah, that Milon! he'ld persuade a wolf ^note to run mad for the asking.

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

BATTUS (resuming his banter)
4.13 Aye; ‘twas an ill day for the kine; how sorry a herdsman it brought them!

CORYDON (misunderstanding)
4.14 Marry, an ill day it was, and they are off their feed now.

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

CORYDON

4.17 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
4.20 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 another ^note as he: they are a foul mixen sort, they o’ that ward.

CORYDON
4.23 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, ^note sweet odorous balsam, to with Neaethus.

BATTUS (sympathising as with another of Milon’s victims)
4.26 Heigho, poor Aegon! thy very kine must needs meet their death because thou art gone a-whoring after vainglory, and the herdsman’s pipe thou once didst make thyself is all one mildew.

CORYDON
4.29 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.

BATTUS (not proof against the tactless reference; apostrophising)
4.38 O beautiful Amaryllis, though you be dead, I am true, and I’ll never forget you. My pretty goats are dear to me, but dear no less a maiden that is no more. O well-a-day that my luck turned so ill!

CORYDON
4.41 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
4.44 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
4.45 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