Greek Texts & Translations

The poet tells in the first person how three friends went out from Cos to join in a harvest-home at a farm in the country. On the way they overtake a Cretan goatherd named Lycidas, and the conversation leads to a friendly singing-match between him and the narrator Simichidas. Lycidas’ song, which was apparently composed the previous November, is primarily a song of good wishes for the safe passage of his beloved Ageanax to Mitylenè, but the greater part of it is concerned with the merrymaking which will celebrate his safe arrival, and includes an address to the mythical goatherd-poet Comatas, whose story is to be sung by Tityrus on the festive occasion. Simichidas replies with a prayer to Pan and the Loves to bring the fair Philinus to his lover Aratus, a prayer which passes, however, into an appeal to Aratus to cease such youthful follies. Lycidas now bestows the crook which he had laughingly offered as a stake, and leaves the three friends at the entrance to the farm. The rest of the poem is a description of the feast. The scholia preserve a tradition that Simichidas is Theocritus himself, and indeed there is great probability that we are dealing throughout the poem with real persons.

7.1 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 Deo ^note 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 Chalcon ^note whose sturdy knee planted once against the rock both made Burina ^note 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.”

7.28 “’Tis said, dear Lycidas,” answered I, “you beat all comers, herdsman or harvester, at the pipe. ^note 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.”

7.42 So said I of set purpose, and master Goatherd with a merry laugh “I offer you this crook,” says he, “as to a sprig ^note 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, ^note so hate I likewise your strutting cocks o’ the Muses’ yard whose crowing makes so pitiful contention against the Chian nightingale. ^note 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)

7.52 What though the Kids ^note 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 halcyons ^note – 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 wine ^note my sup;
And soft I’ll lie, for elbow-high my bed strown thick and well
Shall be of crinkled parsley, mullet, ^note 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.

7.71 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.

7.78 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’ wine ^note; 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!”

7.90 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)

7.96 The Loves have sneezed, ^note 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 Lyre ^note 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 leeks ^note 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.

7.115 O come ye away, ye little Loves like apples red-blushing,
From Byblis’ fount and Oecus’ mount that is fair-haired Dion’s ^note 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, ^note
But ease our aching feet, ^note my friend, and let old chanticleer
Cry ‘shiver’ to some other when he the dawn shall sing;
One scholar o’ that school’s ^note 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.”

7.128 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.

7.135 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.

7.147 Meanwhile we broke the four-year-old seal from off the lips of the jars, and O ye Castalian ^note 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 spring ^note by the altar of Demeter ^note 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.