Greek Texts & Translations

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
4.50 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
4.54 Aye, aye, and have got him ‘twixt my nails; and lo! here he is.

BATTUS (in mock-heroic strain)
4.55 O what a little tiny wound to overmaster so mighty a man!

CORYDON (pointing the moral)
4.56 Thou should’st put on thy shoes when thou goest into the hills, Battus; ‘tis rare ground for thorns and gorse, the hills.

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

CORYDON
4.60 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.

BATTUS (apostrophising)
4.62 Well done, Goodman Light-o’-love. ‘Tis plain thou comest not far below the old Satyrs ^note and ill-shanked Pans o’ the country-side for lineage.