Greek Texts & Translations

The scene of this shepherd-mime is laid in the wooded pastures near the mouth of the river Crathis in the district of Sybaris and Thurii in Southern Italy. The foreground is the shore of a lagoon near which stand effigies of the Nymphs who preside over it, and there is close by a rustic statue of Pan of the seaside. The characters are a goatherd named Comatas and a young shepherd named Lacon who are watching their flocks. Having seated themselves some little distance apart, they proceed to converse in no very friendly spirit, and the talk gradually leads to a contest of song with a woodcutter named Maroson for the judge and a lamb and a goat for the stakes. The contest is spirits, not to say a bitter, one, and consists of a series of alternate couplets, the elder man first singing his couplet and the younger then trying to better him at the same theme. The themes Comatas chooses are various, but the dominant note, as often in Theocritus, is love. In some of the lines there is more meaning than appears on the surface. After fourteen pairs of couplets, Morson breaks in before Lacon has replied and wards his lamb to Comatas.

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

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

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

LACON
5.8 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
5.11 ‘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
5.14 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
5.17 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
5.20 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
5.23 ‘Tis the old story – teach thy grandam. ^note There; my wage is laid. And thou, for thine, lay me thy fine fat lamb against it.

LACON
5.25 Thou fox! prithee how shall such laying fadge? ^note 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
5.28 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
5.31 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
5.35 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
5.39 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
5.41 When I was poking you and you were sore; and these she-kids were bleating and the billy-goat bored into them.

LACON
5.43 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
5.45 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
5.50 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
5.55 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
5.60 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