Gorgo — Is
Praxinoe
at home ?
Universal Anthology - v04
Ah
I was now come to the midpoint of the highway, near
Lo !
the dwelling of Lycon, and there I saw Delphis and Eudamip- pus walking together. Their beards were more golden than the golden flower of the ivy ; their breasts (they coming fresh from the glorious wrestler's toil) were brighter of sheen than thyself, Selene !
me, the Myndian possesses me, body and soul !
Nay, depart,
love !
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 351
and watch by the wrestling ground of Timagetus, for there is his resort, and there he loves to loiter.
Bethink thee of my love, and whence it came, my Lady Moon!
" And when thou art sure he is alone, nod to him secretly, and say 'Simaetha bids thee to come to her,' and lead him hither privily. " So I spoke ; and she went and brought the bright-limbed Delphis to my house. But I, when I beheld him just crossing the threshold of the door, with his light step, —
Bethink thee of my love, and whence it came, my Lady Moon !
Grew colder all than snow, and the sweat streamed from my brow like the dank dews, and I had no strength to speak, nay, nor to utter as much as children murmur in their slumber, call ing to their mother dear : and all my fair body turned stiff as a puppet of wax.
Bethink thee of my love, and whence it came, my Lady Moon ! ##*****
Faultless was I in his sight, till yesterday, and he, again, in mine. But there came to me the mother of Philistae, my flute player, and the mother of Melixo, to-day, when the horses of the sun were climbing the sky, bearing dawn of the rosy arms from the ocean stream. Many another thing she told me ; and chiefly this, that Delphis is a lover, and whom he loves she vowed she knew not surely, but this only, that ever he filled up his cup with the unmixed wine, to drink a toast to his dear est. And at last he went off hastily, saying that he would cover with garlands the dwelling of his love.
This news my visitor told me, and she speaks the truth. For indeed, at other seasons, he would come to me three or four times in the day, and often would leave with me his Dorian oil flask. But now it is the twelfth day since I have even looked on him ! Can it be that he has not some other delight, and has forgotten me ? Now with magic rites I will strive to bind him, but if he still vexes me, he shall beat, by the Fates I vow it, at the gate of Hell. Such evil medicines I store against him in a certain coffer, the use whereof, my lady, an Assyrian stranger taught me.
But do thou farewell, and turn thy steeds to Ocean, lady, and my pain I will bear, as even till now, I have endured it. Farewell, Selene, bright and fair, farewell, ye other stars, that follow the wheels of quiet Night.
352 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
Idyl X. — The Reapers
This is an idyl of the same genre as Idyl IV. The sturdy reaper, Milon, as he levels the swaths of corn, derides his languid and lovelorn companion, Battus. The latter defends his gypsy love in verses which have been the keynote of much later poetry, and which echo in the fourth book of Lucretius and in the "Misanthrope" of Moliere. Milon replies with thesongof Lityerses — a string, apparently, of popular rural couplets, such as Theocritus may have heard
chanted in the fields.
Milon — Thou toilsome clod ; what ails thee now, thou wretched fellow? Canst thou neither cut thy swath straight, as thou wert wont to do, nor keep time with thy neighbor in thy reaping, but thou must fall out, like an ewe that is foot- pricked with a thorn and straggles from the herd? What manner of man wilt thou prove after midnoon and at evening, thou that dost not prosper with thy swathe when thou art fresh begun ? —
Milon, thou that canst toil till late, thou chip of
Battus
the stubborn stone, has it never befallen thee to long for one that was not with thee ?
Milon — Never ! What has a laboring man to do with hankering after what he has not got?
Battus — Then it never befell thee to lie awake for love ?
Milon — Forbid it ; 'tis an ill thing to let the dog once taste of pudding.
Battus — But I, Milon, am in love for almost eleven days !
Milon — 'Tis easily seen that thou drawest from a wine cask, while even vinegar is scarce with me.
Battus — And for Love's sake the fields before my doors are untilled since seedtime.
Milon — But which of the girls afflicts thee so?
Battus — The daughter of Polybotas, she that of late was wont to pipe to the reapers on Hippocoon's farm.
Milon — God has found out the guilty ! Thou hast what thou'st long been seeking, that grasshopper of a girl will lie by thee the night long !
Battus — Thou art beginning thy mocks of me ; but Plutus is not the only blind god ; he too is blind, the heedless Love ! Beware of talking big.
Milon — Talk big I do not ! Only see that thou dost level the corn, and strike up some love ditty in the wench's praise.
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 353
More pleasantly thus wilt thou labor, and, indeed, of old thou wert a melodist.
Battus — Ye Muses Pierian, sing ye with me the slender maiden, for whatsoever ye do but touch, ye goddesses, ye make wholly fair.
They all call thee a gypsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean and sun burnt, 'tis only I that call thee honey-pale.
Yea, and the violet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet these flowers are chosen the first in garlands.
The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows the plow, but I am wild for love of thee.
Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof once Croesus was lord, as men tell ! Then images of us twain, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire, and new shoon of Amyclae on both my feet.
Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them !
Milon — Verily our clown was a maker of lovely songs, and we knew it not! How well he meted out and shaped his harmony; woe is me for the beard that I have grown, all in vain ! Come, mark thou too these lines of godlike Lityerses.
THE LITYERSES SONG
Demeter, rich in fruit and rich in grain, may this corn be easy to win, and fruitful exceedingly !
Bind, ye bandsters, the sheaves, lest the wayfarer should cry, "Men of straw were the workers here, ay, and their hire was wasted ! "
See that the cut stubble faces the north wind or the west ; 'tis thus the grain waxes richest.
They that thresh corn should shun the noonday sleep ; at noon the chaff parts easiest from the straw.
As for the reapers, let them begin when the crested lark is waking, and cease when he sleeps, but take holiday in the heat.
Lads, the frog has a jolly life, he is not cumbered about a butler to his drink, for he has liquor by him unstinted.
Boil the lentils better, thou miserly steward ; take heed lest thou chop thy fingers when thou'rt splitting cumin seed.
'Tis thus that men should sing who labor i' the sun, but thy starveling love, thou clod, 'twere fit to tell to thy mother when she stirs in bed at dawning.
vol. iv. — 23
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
Idyl XI. — The Cyclops. (Translation of Mrs. Browning. )
And so an easier life our Cyclops drew, The ancient Polyphemus, who in youth
Loved Galatea while the manhood grew
Adown his cheeks and darkened round his mouth.
No jot he cared for apples, olives, roses ;
Love made him mad : the whole world was neglected,
The very sheep went backward to their closes From out the fair green pastures, self-directed.
And singing Galatea, thus, he wore
The sunrise down along the weedy shore,
And pined alone, and felt the cruel wound Beneath his heart, which Cypris' arrow bore,
With a deep pang ; but, so, the cure was found ; And sitting on a lofty rock he cast —
His eyes upon the sea, and sang at last :
" O whitest Galatea, can it be
That thou shouldst spurn me off who love thee so ? More white than curds, my girl, thou art to see,
More meek than lambs, more full of leaping glee
Than kids, and brighter than the early glow On grapes that swell to ripen, — sour like thee ! Thou comest to me with the fragrant sleep,
And with the fragrant sleep thou goest from me ; Thou fliest . . . fliest, as a frightened sheep
Flies the gray wolf ! — yet Love did overcome me,
I loved thee, maiden, first of all
So long ; —
When down the hills (my mother fast beside thee)
I saw thee stray to pluck the summer fall
Of hyacinth bells, and went myself to guide thee :
And since my eyes have seen thee, they can leave thee
No more, from that day's light ! But thou . . . by Zeus,
Thou wilt not care for that, to let it grieve thee ! I know thee, fair one, why thou springest loose
From my arm round thee. Why ? I tell thee, Dear ! One shaggy eyebrow draws its smudging road
Straight through my ample front, from ear to ear, — One eye rolls underneath ; and yawning, broad
Flat nostrils feel the bulging lips too near.
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 355
Yet . . . ho,ho! —I,—whatever Iappear,— Do feed a thousand oxen ! When I have done,
I milk the cows, and drink the milk that's best ! I lack no cheese, while summer keeps the sun ;
And after, in the cold, it's ready prest !
And then, I know to sing, as there is none
. . .
Sweet apple of my soul, on love's fair tree,
Of all the Cyclops can,
a song of thee,
And of myself who love thee . . . till the West Forgets the light, and all but I have rest.
I feed for thee, besides, eleven fair does,
And all in fawn ; and four tame whelps of bears. Come to me, Sweet ! thou shalt have all of those
I will not halve the shares.
In change for love !
Leave the blue sea, with pure white arms extended
To the dry shore ; and, in my cave's recess, — Thou shalt be gladder for the noonlight ended,
For here be laurels, spiral cypresses,
Dark ivy, and a vine whose leaves enfold Most luscious grapes ; and here is water cold,
The wooded iEtna pours down through the trees
From the white snows, — which gods were scarce too bold
To drink in turn with nectar. Who with these Would choose the salt wave of the lukewarm seas ?
If I am hairy and rough,
Nay, look on me !
I have an oak's heart in me ; there's a fire
In these gray ashes which burns hot enough ; And when I burn for thee, I grudge the pyre No fuel . . . not my soul, nor this one eye, —
Most precious thing I have, because thereby
I
I wish
My mother had borne me finned like a fish,
see thee, Fairest ! Out, alas !
That I might plunge down in the ocean near thee, And kiss thy glittering hand between the weeds,
If still thy face were turned ; and I would bear thee Each lily white, and poppy fair that bleeds
Its red heart down its leaves ! — one gift, for hours Of summer, — one, for winter; since, to cheer thee,
I could not bring at once all kinds of flowers. Even now, girl, now, I fain would learn to swim,
If stranger in a ship sailed nigh, I wis, —
That I may know how sweet a thing it is To live down with you in the Deep and Dim ! Come up, 0 Galatea, from the ocean,
And, having come, forget again to go !
356
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
As I, who sing out here my heart's emotion
Could sit forever. Come up from below ! —
Come keep my flocks beside me, milk my kine,
Come, press my cheese, distrain my whey and curd ! Ah, mother ! she alone . . . that mother of mine . . .
Did wrong me sore !
Of kindly intercession did she address
Thine ear with for my sake ; and ne'ertheless
She saw me wasting, wasting, day by day :
Both head and feet were aching, I will say, All sick for grief, as I myself was sick.
O Cyclops, Cyclops, whither hast thou sent
—
I blame her ! Not a word
Thy soul on fluttering wings ? If thou wert bent On turning bowls, or pulling green and thick
The sprouts to give thy lambkins, — thou wouldst make thee
A wiser Cyclops than for what we take thee. Milk dry the present ! Why pursue too quick That future which is fugitive aright ? —
Thy Galatea thou shalt haply find,
Or else a maiden fairer and more kind ; For many girls do call me through the night,
"
And, as they call, do laugh out silverly.
I, too, am something in the world, I
see !
While thus the Cyclops love and lambs did fold, Ease came with song he could not buy with gold.
Idyl XIV.
This idyl, like the next, is dramatic in form. One jEschines tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress, Cynisca. He speaks of taking foreign service, and Thyonichus recommends that of Ptolemy. The idyl was prob ably written at Alexandria, as a compliment to Ptolemy, and an inducement to Greeks to join his forces. There is nothing, however, to fix the date.
JEschines — All hail to the stout Thyonichus ! Thyonichus — As much to you, iEschines. JEichines — How long it is since we met !
Thyonichus — Is it so long? But why, pray, this melan choly?
JEschines — I am not in the best of luck, Thyonichus. Thyonichus — 'Tis for that, then, you are so lean, and hence
comes this long moustache, and these lovelocks all adust. Just such a figure was a Pythagorean that came here of late, bare
beautiful Cynisca, — she flouts me !
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 357
foot and wan, — and said he was an Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate of pancakes.
JEschines — Friend, you will always have your jest, — but
I shall go mad some day, I am but a hair's breadth on the
when no man looks for it ; hither side, even now.
Thyonichus —You are ever like this, dear JEschines, now mad, now sad, and crying for all things at your whim. Yet, tell me, what is your new trouble ?
jEschines — The Argive and I and the Thessalian rough rider, Apis, and Cleunichus the free lance were drinking to gether at my farm. I had killed two chickens and a sucking pig, and had opened the Bibline wine for them, — nearly four years old, — but fragrant as when it left the wine press. Truffles and shellfish had been brought out, it was a jolly drinking match. And when things were now getting for warder, we determined that each should toast whom he pleased, in unmixed wine, only he must name his toast. So we all drank, and called our toasts as had been agreed. Yet She said nothing, though I was there ; how think you I liked that ? " Won't you call a toast? ' You have seen the wolf ! ' " some one said in jest, " as the proverb goes " ; then she kindled ; yes, you could easily have lighted a lamp at her face. There is one Wolf, one Wolf there is, the son of Labes, our neighbor, — he is tall, smooth-skinned, many think him handsome. His was that illustrious love in which she was pining, yes, and a breath about the business once came secretly to my ears, but I never looked into it, beshrew my beard !
Already, mark you, we four men were deep in our cups, when the Larissa man, out of mere mischief, struck up, " My Wolf," some Thessalian catch from the very beginning. Then Cynisca suddenly broke out weeping more bitterly than a six- year-old maid that longs for her mother's lap. Then I, — you know me, Thyonichus, —struck her on the cheek with clenched fist, — one, two ! She caught up her robes, and forth she rushed, quicker than she came. "Ah, my undoing" (cried I), "I am not good enough for you, then — you have a dearer playfellow ? Well, be off and cherish your other lover, 'tis for him your tears run big as apples. "
And as the swallow flies swiftly back to gather a morsel, fresh food, for her young ones under the eaves, still swifter sped she from her soft chair, straight through the vestibule
■
358 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
and folding doors, wherever her feet carried her. So, sure, the old proverb says, "the bull has sought the wild wood. "
Since then there are twenty days, and eight to these, and nine again, then ten others, to-day is the eleventh, add two more, and it is two months since we parted, and I have not shaved, not even in Thracian 1 fashion.
And now Wolf is everything with her. Wolf finds the door open o' nights, and I am of no account, not in the reckoning, like the wretched men of Megara, in the place dishonorable. 2
And if I could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be. But now, — now, — as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not ; except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus, went over the seas, and came back heart-whole, — a man of my own age. And I too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last, perhaps, but a fair soldier as times go.
Idyl XV.
This famous idyl should rather, perhaps, be called a mimus. It describes the visit paid by two Syracusan women, residing in Alexandria, to the festival of the resurrection of Adonis. The festival is given by Arsinoe, wife and sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the poem cannot have been written earlier than his marriage, in B. C. 266 (? ) Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women, which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds.
Gorgo — Is Praxinoe at home ?
Praxinoi — Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been
here ! She is at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last ! Eunoe, see that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it, too.
Gorgo — It does most charmingly as it is.
PraxinoS— Do sit down.
Grorgo — Oh, what a thing spirit is !
I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoe ! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four
1 Shaving in the bronze (and still more, of course, in the stone) age was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like iEschines with his long, gnawed moustache.
a The Megarians, having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all.
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 359
in-hands ! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uni form ! And the road is endless : yes, you really live too far
away ! Praxinoe
—
Here he came to the ends of the earth and took — a hole, not a
It is all the fault of that madman of mine.
house, and all that we might not be neighbors. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite !
Gorgo — Don't talk of your husband Dinon like that, my dear girl, before the little boy, — look how he is staring at you ! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa. — 1
Praxinoe Our Lady ! the child takes notice ! Gorgo — Nice papa !
Praxinoe — That papa of his the other day — we call every day " the other day " — went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt — the great, big, endless fellow !
Gorgo — Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spendthrift •— Diocleides ! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings apiece for — what do you suppose ? — dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash — trouble on trouble. But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the king, to see the Adonis. I hear the queen has provided something splendid !
Praxinoe — Fine folks do everything finely.
Gorgo — What a tale you will have to tell about the things
you have seen to any one who has not seen them ! It seems nearly time to go.
Praxinoe — Idlers have always holiday. Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are ! Cats like always to sleep soft ! Come, bustle,
I want water first, and how she carries it ! Give it me all the same ; don't pour out so much, you extravagant thing. Stupid girl ! why are you wetting
bring the water : quicker !
I have washed my hands, as heaven
my dress ? There, stop ;
would have it. Where is the key of the big chest? Bring it here.
Gorgo — Praxinoe, that full body becomes you wonderfully. Tell me, how much did the stuff cost you just off the loom ?
Praxinoe" — Don't speak of it, Gorgo ! More than eight
1 Our Lady here is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily.
300 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
I nearly
Gorgo — Well, it is most successful ; all you could wish.
Praxinoe" — Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my hat on my head, the fashionable way. No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo ! Bogies ! There's a horse that bites ! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia, take the child, and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door.
[They go into the street. Ye gods, what a crowd ! How on earth are we ever to get through this coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good deed have you done, Ptolemy ; since
your father joined the immortals, there's never a malefactor to spoil the passer-by, creeping on him in Egyptian fashion. Oh ! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play ! Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all ! Dear Gorgo, what will become of us ? Here come the king's war horses ! My dear man, don't trample on me. Look, the bay's rearing ! See, what temper ! Eunoe, you foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way ? The beast will kill the man that's leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat stays safe at home. —
pounds in good silver money, — and the work on it ! slaved my soul out over it !
Courage, Praxinoe. We are safe behind them now, and they have gone to their station.
Gorgo
I begin to be myself again. Ever since
Praxinoe — There !
I was a child I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake. Come along, the huge mob is overflowing us.
Gorgo (to an old woman) — Are you from the Court, mother ?
Old Woman — I am, my child. Praxinoe" — Is it easy to get there?
Old Woman — The Achaeans got into Troy by trying, my prettiest of ladies. Trying will do everything in the long run. Gorgo — The old wife has spoken her oracles, and off she
goes.
Praxinoe "— Women know everything, yes, and how Zeus married Hera !
Gorgo — See, Praxinoe, what a crowd there is about the doors.
Praxinoe"— Monstrous, Gorgo ! Give me your hand, and you, Eunoe, catch hold of Eutychis ; never lose hold of her, for
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 361
fear lest you get lost. Let us all go in together ; Eunoe, clutch tight to me. Oh, how tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already ! For heaven's sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my shawl !
Stranger — I can hardly help myself, but for all that I will be as careful as I can.
Praxinoe — How close-packed the mob is, they hustle like a herd of swine.
Stranger — Courage, lady, all is well with us now.
Praxinoe — Both this year and forever may all be well with you, my dear sir, for your care of us. A good kind man ! We're letting Eunoe get squeezed — come, wretched girl, push your way through. That is the way. We are all on the right side of the door, quoth the bridegroom, when he had shut him self in with his bride.
Gorgo — Do come here, Praxinoe. Look first at these em broideries. How light and how lovely ! You will call them the garments of the gods.
Praxinoe" — Lady Athene, what spinning women wrought them, what painters designed these drawings, so true they are ? How naturally they stand and move, like living creatures, not patterns woven. What a clever thing is man ! Ah, and him self — Adonis —how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved Adonis, —Adonis beloved even among the dead.
A Stranger — You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk ! They bore one to death with their eternal broad vowels !
Gorgo — Indeed ! And where may this person come from ? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes ? Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command ladies of Syra
If you must know, we are Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume ?
Gorgo — Hush, hush, Praxinoe — the" Argive" woman's daughter, the great singer, is beginning the Adonis ; she that won the prize last year for dirge singing. I am sure she will give us something lovely ; see, she is preluding with her airs and graces.
cuse ?
Praxinoe" — Lady Persephone, never may we have more than one master. I am not afraid of your putting me on short commons.
362 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
The Psalm of Adonis.
0 Queen that lovest Golgi, and Idalium, and the steep of Eryx, 0 Aphrodite, that playest with gold, lo, from the stream eternal of Acheron they have brought back to thee Adonis — even in the twelfth month they have brought him, the dainty-footed Hours. Tardiest of the Immortals are the beloved Hours, but dear and de sired they come, for always, to all mortals, they bring some gift with them. O Cypris, daughter of DionS, from mortal to immortal, so men tell, thou hast changed Berenice, dropping softly in the woman's breast the stuff of immortality.
Therefore, for thy delight, 0 thou of many names and many temples, doth the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinofi, lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis with all things beautiful.
Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees' branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden vessels are full of incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and of things that creep, lo, here they are set before him.
Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender anise, and children flit overhead — the little Loves — as the young nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from bough to bough.
O the ebony, O the gold, O the twin eagles of white ivory that carry to Zeus, the son of Cronos, his darling, his cup-bearer ! O the purple coverlet strewn above, more soft than sleep ! So Miletus will say, and whoso feeds sheep in Samos.
Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis, one bed Cypris keeps and one the rosy-armed Adonis. A bridegroom of eighteen or nine teen years is he, his kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips ! And now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover ! But lo, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among the waves that break upon the beach ; and with locks unloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles, and bosoms bare, will we begin our shrill sweet song.
Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods dost visit both this world and the stream of Acheron. For Aga memnon had no such lot, nor Aias, that mighty lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector, the eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecabe, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus that returned out of Troyland, nor the heroes of yet more ancient days, the Lapithae and Deucalion's sons, nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs of Pelasgian Argos. Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and propitious even in the coming year. Dear to
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 363
us has thine advent been, Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.
Gorgo — Praxinoe, the woman is cleverer than we fancied ! Happy woman to know so much, thrice happy to have so sweet a voice. Well, all the same, it is time to be making for home. Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all vinegar, — don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad at your next coming !
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. By BION.
(Translation of Mrs. Browning. )
[Bion was born at Smyrna ; flourished about 280 ; contemporary of Theocri tus, and wrote pastorals in the same manner. He was greatly beloved. See " Lament for Bion " under Moschus. ]
I.
I mourn for Adonis — Adonis is dead,
Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting.
Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed :
Arise, wretch stoled in black ; beat thy breast unrelenting,
And shriek to the worlds, " Fair Adonis is dead ! "
ii.
I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. He lies on the hills in his beauty and death ;
The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh. Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath,
While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory,
And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows,
The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose,
Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted : He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews.
in.
I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound,
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS.
But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting.
The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around,
And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill, And the poor Aphrodite, with tresses unbound,
All disheveled, unsandaled, shrieks mournful and shrill
Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet,
Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy, Each footstep she takes : and the valleys repeat
The sharp cry she utters and draw it out slowly. She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on him
Her own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body, The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb,
And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy.
IV.
Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting.
She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile :
When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting, Whose fairness is dead with him : woe worth the while !
All the mountains above and the oaklands below Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis ! the streams overflow
Aphrodite's deep wail ; river fountains in pity
Weep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blow
Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go
With the song of her sadness through mountain and city.
v.
Ah, ah, Cytherea ! Adonis is dead,
Fair Adonis is dead — Echo answers, Adonis!
Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her head
She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies?
— When, ah, ah! — she saw how the blood ran away
And empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out,
Said with sobs : " Stay, Adonis ! unhappy one, stay, Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss !
Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again,
For the last time, beloved, — and but so much of this
—That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain !
Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth, To my heart, and, the love charm I once more receiving
May drink thy love in it and keep of a truth That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living.
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 365
Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far, — My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal,
To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar,
While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal,
And follow no step ! O Persephone-, take him,
My husband ! — thou'rt better and brighter than I,
Look up at my grief ; there's despair in my cry,
Since I wail for Adonis who died to me — died to me —
Then, I fear thee ! — Art thou dead, my Adored ?
Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me,
Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lord
All the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceased With thy clasp ! O too bold in the hunt past preventing,
Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast ! "
Thus the goddess wailed on — and the Loves are lamenting.
VI.
I was now come to the midpoint of the highway, near
Lo !
the dwelling of Lycon, and there I saw Delphis and Eudamip- pus walking together. Their beards were more golden than the golden flower of the ivy ; their breasts (they coming fresh from the glorious wrestler's toil) were brighter of sheen than thyself, Selene !
me, the Myndian possesses me, body and soul !
Nay, depart,
love !
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 351
and watch by the wrestling ground of Timagetus, for there is his resort, and there he loves to loiter.
Bethink thee of my love, and whence it came, my Lady Moon!
" And when thou art sure he is alone, nod to him secretly, and say 'Simaetha bids thee to come to her,' and lead him hither privily. " So I spoke ; and she went and brought the bright-limbed Delphis to my house. But I, when I beheld him just crossing the threshold of the door, with his light step, —
Bethink thee of my love, and whence it came, my Lady Moon !
Grew colder all than snow, and the sweat streamed from my brow like the dank dews, and I had no strength to speak, nay, nor to utter as much as children murmur in their slumber, call ing to their mother dear : and all my fair body turned stiff as a puppet of wax.
Bethink thee of my love, and whence it came, my Lady Moon ! ##*****
Faultless was I in his sight, till yesterday, and he, again, in mine. But there came to me the mother of Philistae, my flute player, and the mother of Melixo, to-day, when the horses of the sun were climbing the sky, bearing dawn of the rosy arms from the ocean stream. Many another thing she told me ; and chiefly this, that Delphis is a lover, and whom he loves she vowed she knew not surely, but this only, that ever he filled up his cup with the unmixed wine, to drink a toast to his dear est. And at last he went off hastily, saying that he would cover with garlands the dwelling of his love.
This news my visitor told me, and she speaks the truth. For indeed, at other seasons, he would come to me three or four times in the day, and often would leave with me his Dorian oil flask. But now it is the twelfth day since I have even looked on him ! Can it be that he has not some other delight, and has forgotten me ? Now with magic rites I will strive to bind him, but if he still vexes me, he shall beat, by the Fates I vow it, at the gate of Hell. Such evil medicines I store against him in a certain coffer, the use whereof, my lady, an Assyrian stranger taught me.
But do thou farewell, and turn thy steeds to Ocean, lady, and my pain I will bear, as even till now, I have endured it. Farewell, Selene, bright and fair, farewell, ye other stars, that follow the wheels of quiet Night.
352 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
Idyl X. — The Reapers
This is an idyl of the same genre as Idyl IV. The sturdy reaper, Milon, as he levels the swaths of corn, derides his languid and lovelorn companion, Battus. The latter defends his gypsy love in verses which have been the keynote of much later poetry, and which echo in the fourth book of Lucretius and in the "Misanthrope" of Moliere. Milon replies with thesongof Lityerses — a string, apparently, of popular rural couplets, such as Theocritus may have heard
chanted in the fields.
Milon — Thou toilsome clod ; what ails thee now, thou wretched fellow? Canst thou neither cut thy swath straight, as thou wert wont to do, nor keep time with thy neighbor in thy reaping, but thou must fall out, like an ewe that is foot- pricked with a thorn and straggles from the herd? What manner of man wilt thou prove after midnoon and at evening, thou that dost not prosper with thy swathe when thou art fresh begun ? —
Milon, thou that canst toil till late, thou chip of
Battus
the stubborn stone, has it never befallen thee to long for one that was not with thee ?
Milon — Never ! What has a laboring man to do with hankering after what he has not got?
Battus — Then it never befell thee to lie awake for love ?
Milon — Forbid it ; 'tis an ill thing to let the dog once taste of pudding.
Battus — But I, Milon, am in love for almost eleven days !
Milon — 'Tis easily seen that thou drawest from a wine cask, while even vinegar is scarce with me.
Battus — And for Love's sake the fields before my doors are untilled since seedtime.
Milon — But which of the girls afflicts thee so?
Battus — The daughter of Polybotas, she that of late was wont to pipe to the reapers on Hippocoon's farm.
Milon — God has found out the guilty ! Thou hast what thou'st long been seeking, that grasshopper of a girl will lie by thee the night long !
Battus — Thou art beginning thy mocks of me ; but Plutus is not the only blind god ; he too is blind, the heedless Love ! Beware of talking big.
Milon — Talk big I do not ! Only see that thou dost level the corn, and strike up some love ditty in the wench's praise.
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 353
More pleasantly thus wilt thou labor, and, indeed, of old thou wert a melodist.
Battus — Ye Muses Pierian, sing ye with me the slender maiden, for whatsoever ye do but touch, ye goddesses, ye make wholly fair.
They all call thee a gypsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean and sun burnt, 'tis only I that call thee honey-pale.
Yea, and the violet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet these flowers are chosen the first in garlands.
The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows the plow, but I am wild for love of thee.
Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof once Croesus was lord, as men tell ! Then images of us twain, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire, and new shoon of Amyclae on both my feet.
Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them !
Milon — Verily our clown was a maker of lovely songs, and we knew it not! How well he meted out and shaped his harmony; woe is me for the beard that I have grown, all in vain ! Come, mark thou too these lines of godlike Lityerses.
THE LITYERSES SONG
Demeter, rich in fruit and rich in grain, may this corn be easy to win, and fruitful exceedingly !
Bind, ye bandsters, the sheaves, lest the wayfarer should cry, "Men of straw were the workers here, ay, and their hire was wasted ! "
See that the cut stubble faces the north wind or the west ; 'tis thus the grain waxes richest.
They that thresh corn should shun the noonday sleep ; at noon the chaff parts easiest from the straw.
As for the reapers, let them begin when the crested lark is waking, and cease when he sleeps, but take holiday in the heat.
Lads, the frog has a jolly life, he is not cumbered about a butler to his drink, for he has liquor by him unstinted.
Boil the lentils better, thou miserly steward ; take heed lest thou chop thy fingers when thou'rt splitting cumin seed.
'Tis thus that men should sing who labor i' the sun, but thy starveling love, thou clod, 'twere fit to tell to thy mother when she stirs in bed at dawning.
vol. iv. — 23
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
Idyl XI. — The Cyclops. (Translation of Mrs. Browning. )
And so an easier life our Cyclops drew, The ancient Polyphemus, who in youth
Loved Galatea while the manhood grew
Adown his cheeks and darkened round his mouth.
No jot he cared for apples, olives, roses ;
Love made him mad : the whole world was neglected,
The very sheep went backward to their closes From out the fair green pastures, self-directed.
And singing Galatea, thus, he wore
The sunrise down along the weedy shore,
And pined alone, and felt the cruel wound Beneath his heart, which Cypris' arrow bore,
With a deep pang ; but, so, the cure was found ; And sitting on a lofty rock he cast —
His eyes upon the sea, and sang at last :
" O whitest Galatea, can it be
That thou shouldst spurn me off who love thee so ? More white than curds, my girl, thou art to see,
More meek than lambs, more full of leaping glee
Than kids, and brighter than the early glow On grapes that swell to ripen, — sour like thee ! Thou comest to me with the fragrant sleep,
And with the fragrant sleep thou goest from me ; Thou fliest . . . fliest, as a frightened sheep
Flies the gray wolf ! — yet Love did overcome me,
I loved thee, maiden, first of all
So long ; —
When down the hills (my mother fast beside thee)
I saw thee stray to pluck the summer fall
Of hyacinth bells, and went myself to guide thee :
And since my eyes have seen thee, they can leave thee
No more, from that day's light ! But thou . . . by Zeus,
Thou wilt not care for that, to let it grieve thee ! I know thee, fair one, why thou springest loose
From my arm round thee. Why ? I tell thee, Dear ! One shaggy eyebrow draws its smudging road
Straight through my ample front, from ear to ear, — One eye rolls underneath ; and yawning, broad
Flat nostrils feel the bulging lips too near.
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 355
Yet . . . ho,ho! —I,—whatever Iappear,— Do feed a thousand oxen ! When I have done,
I milk the cows, and drink the milk that's best ! I lack no cheese, while summer keeps the sun ;
And after, in the cold, it's ready prest !
And then, I know to sing, as there is none
. . .
Sweet apple of my soul, on love's fair tree,
Of all the Cyclops can,
a song of thee,
And of myself who love thee . . . till the West Forgets the light, and all but I have rest.
I feed for thee, besides, eleven fair does,
And all in fawn ; and four tame whelps of bears. Come to me, Sweet ! thou shalt have all of those
I will not halve the shares.
In change for love !
Leave the blue sea, with pure white arms extended
To the dry shore ; and, in my cave's recess, — Thou shalt be gladder for the noonlight ended,
For here be laurels, spiral cypresses,
Dark ivy, and a vine whose leaves enfold Most luscious grapes ; and here is water cold,
The wooded iEtna pours down through the trees
From the white snows, — which gods were scarce too bold
To drink in turn with nectar. Who with these Would choose the salt wave of the lukewarm seas ?
If I am hairy and rough,
Nay, look on me !
I have an oak's heart in me ; there's a fire
In these gray ashes which burns hot enough ; And when I burn for thee, I grudge the pyre No fuel . . . not my soul, nor this one eye, —
Most precious thing I have, because thereby
I
I wish
My mother had borne me finned like a fish,
see thee, Fairest ! Out, alas !
That I might plunge down in the ocean near thee, And kiss thy glittering hand between the weeds,
If still thy face were turned ; and I would bear thee Each lily white, and poppy fair that bleeds
Its red heart down its leaves ! — one gift, for hours Of summer, — one, for winter; since, to cheer thee,
I could not bring at once all kinds of flowers. Even now, girl, now, I fain would learn to swim,
If stranger in a ship sailed nigh, I wis, —
That I may know how sweet a thing it is To live down with you in the Deep and Dim ! Come up, 0 Galatea, from the ocean,
And, having come, forget again to go !
356
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
As I, who sing out here my heart's emotion
Could sit forever. Come up from below ! —
Come keep my flocks beside me, milk my kine,
Come, press my cheese, distrain my whey and curd ! Ah, mother ! she alone . . . that mother of mine . . .
Did wrong me sore !
Of kindly intercession did she address
Thine ear with for my sake ; and ne'ertheless
She saw me wasting, wasting, day by day :
Both head and feet were aching, I will say, All sick for grief, as I myself was sick.
O Cyclops, Cyclops, whither hast thou sent
—
I blame her ! Not a word
Thy soul on fluttering wings ? If thou wert bent On turning bowls, or pulling green and thick
The sprouts to give thy lambkins, — thou wouldst make thee
A wiser Cyclops than for what we take thee. Milk dry the present ! Why pursue too quick That future which is fugitive aright ? —
Thy Galatea thou shalt haply find,
Or else a maiden fairer and more kind ; For many girls do call me through the night,
"
And, as they call, do laugh out silverly.
I, too, am something in the world, I
see !
While thus the Cyclops love and lambs did fold, Ease came with song he could not buy with gold.
Idyl XIV.
This idyl, like the next, is dramatic in form. One jEschines tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress, Cynisca. He speaks of taking foreign service, and Thyonichus recommends that of Ptolemy. The idyl was prob ably written at Alexandria, as a compliment to Ptolemy, and an inducement to Greeks to join his forces. There is nothing, however, to fix the date.
JEschines — All hail to the stout Thyonichus ! Thyonichus — As much to you, iEschines. JEichines — How long it is since we met !
Thyonichus — Is it so long? But why, pray, this melan choly?
JEschines — I am not in the best of luck, Thyonichus. Thyonichus — 'Tis for that, then, you are so lean, and hence
comes this long moustache, and these lovelocks all adust. Just such a figure was a Pythagorean that came here of late, bare
beautiful Cynisca, — she flouts me !
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 357
foot and wan, — and said he was an Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate of pancakes.
JEschines — Friend, you will always have your jest, — but
I shall go mad some day, I am but a hair's breadth on the
when no man looks for it ; hither side, even now.
Thyonichus —You are ever like this, dear JEschines, now mad, now sad, and crying for all things at your whim. Yet, tell me, what is your new trouble ?
jEschines — The Argive and I and the Thessalian rough rider, Apis, and Cleunichus the free lance were drinking to gether at my farm. I had killed two chickens and a sucking pig, and had opened the Bibline wine for them, — nearly four years old, — but fragrant as when it left the wine press. Truffles and shellfish had been brought out, it was a jolly drinking match. And when things were now getting for warder, we determined that each should toast whom he pleased, in unmixed wine, only he must name his toast. So we all drank, and called our toasts as had been agreed. Yet She said nothing, though I was there ; how think you I liked that ? " Won't you call a toast? ' You have seen the wolf ! ' " some one said in jest, " as the proverb goes " ; then she kindled ; yes, you could easily have lighted a lamp at her face. There is one Wolf, one Wolf there is, the son of Labes, our neighbor, — he is tall, smooth-skinned, many think him handsome. His was that illustrious love in which she was pining, yes, and a breath about the business once came secretly to my ears, but I never looked into it, beshrew my beard !
Already, mark you, we four men were deep in our cups, when the Larissa man, out of mere mischief, struck up, " My Wolf," some Thessalian catch from the very beginning. Then Cynisca suddenly broke out weeping more bitterly than a six- year-old maid that longs for her mother's lap. Then I, — you know me, Thyonichus, —struck her on the cheek with clenched fist, — one, two ! She caught up her robes, and forth she rushed, quicker than she came. "Ah, my undoing" (cried I), "I am not good enough for you, then — you have a dearer playfellow ? Well, be off and cherish your other lover, 'tis for him your tears run big as apples. "
And as the swallow flies swiftly back to gather a morsel, fresh food, for her young ones under the eaves, still swifter sped she from her soft chair, straight through the vestibule
■
358 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
and folding doors, wherever her feet carried her. So, sure, the old proverb says, "the bull has sought the wild wood. "
Since then there are twenty days, and eight to these, and nine again, then ten others, to-day is the eleventh, add two more, and it is two months since we parted, and I have not shaved, not even in Thracian 1 fashion.
And now Wolf is everything with her. Wolf finds the door open o' nights, and I am of no account, not in the reckoning, like the wretched men of Megara, in the place dishonorable. 2
And if I could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be. But now, — now, — as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not ; except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus, went over the seas, and came back heart-whole, — a man of my own age. And I too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last, perhaps, but a fair soldier as times go.
Idyl XV.
This famous idyl should rather, perhaps, be called a mimus. It describes the visit paid by two Syracusan women, residing in Alexandria, to the festival of the resurrection of Adonis. The festival is given by Arsinoe, wife and sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the poem cannot have been written earlier than his marriage, in B. C. 266 (? ) Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women, which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds.
Gorgo — Is Praxinoe at home ?
Praxinoi — Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been
here ! She is at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last ! Eunoe, see that she has a chair. Throw a cushion on it, too.
Gorgo — It does most charmingly as it is.
PraxinoS— Do sit down.
Grorgo — Oh, what a thing spirit is !
I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoe ! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four
1 Shaving in the bronze (and still more, of course, in the stone) age was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like iEschines with his long, gnawed moustache.
a The Megarians, having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all.
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 359
in-hands ! Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uni form ! And the road is endless : yes, you really live too far
away ! Praxinoe
—
Here he came to the ends of the earth and took — a hole, not a
It is all the fault of that madman of mine.
house, and all that we might not be neighbors. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite !
Gorgo — Don't talk of your husband Dinon like that, my dear girl, before the little boy, — look how he is staring at you ! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa. — 1
Praxinoe Our Lady ! the child takes notice ! Gorgo — Nice papa !
Praxinoe — That papa of his the other day — we call every day " the other day " — went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt — the great, big, endless fellow !
Gorgo — Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spendthrift •— Diocleides ! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven shillings apiece for — what do you suppose ? — dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash — trouble on trouble. But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the king, to see the Adonis. I hear the queen has provided something splendid !
Praxinoe — Fine folks do everything finely.
Gorgo — What a tale you will have to tell about the things
you have seen to any one who has not seen them ! It seems nearly time to go.
Praxinoe — Idlers have always holiday. Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are ! Cats like always to sleep soft ! Come, bustle,
I want water first, and how she carries it ! Give it me all the same ; don't pour out so much, you extravagant thing. Stupid girl ! why are you wetting
bring the water : quicker !
I have washed my hands, as heaven
my dress ? There, stop ;
would have it. Where is the key of the big chest? Bring it here.
Gorgo — Praxinoe, that full body becomes you wonderfully. Tell me, how much did the stuff cost you just off the loom ?
Praxinoe" — Don't speak of it, Gorgo ! More than eight
1 Our Lady here is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily.
300 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
I nearly
Gorgo — Well, it is most successful ; all you could wish.
Praxinoe" — Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my hat on my head, the fashionable way. No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo ! Bogies ! There's a horse that bites ! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia, take the child, and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door.
[They go into the street. Ye gods, what a crowd ! How on earth are we ever to get through this coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good deed have you done, Ptolemy ; since
your father joined the immortals, there's never a malefactor to spoil the passer-by, creeping on him in Egyptian fashion. Oh ! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play ! Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all ! Dear Gorgo, what will become of us ? Here come the king's war horses ! My dear man, don't trample on me. Look, the bay's rearing ! See, what temper ! Eunoe, you foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way ? The beast will kill the man that's leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat stays safe at home. —
pounds in good silver money, — and the work on it ! slaved my soul out over it !
Courage, Praxinoe. We are safe behind them now, and they have gone to their station.
Gorgo
I begin to be myself again. Ever since
Praxinoe — There !
I was a child I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake. Come along, the huge mob is overflowing us.
Gorgo (to an old woman) — Are you from the Court, mother ?
Old Woman — I am, my child. Praxinoe" — Is it easy to get there?
Old Woman — The Achaeans got into Troy by trying, my prettiest of ladies. Trying will do everything in the long run. Gorgo — The old wife has spoken her oracles, and off she
goes.
Praxinoe "— Women know everything, yes, and how Zeus married Hera !
Gorgo — See, Praxinoe, what a crowd there is about the doors.
Praxinoe"— Monstrous, Gorgo ! Give me your hand, and you, Eunoe, catch hold of Eutychis ; never lose hold of her, for
IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 361
fear lest you get lost. Let us all go in together ; Eunoe, clutch tight to me. Oh, how tiresome, Gorgo, my muslin veil is torn in two already ! For heaven's sake, sir, if you ever wish to be fortunate, take care of my shawl !
Stranger — I can hardly help myself, but for all that I will be as careful as I can.
Praxinoe — How close-packed the mob is, they hustle like a herd of swine.
Stranger — Courage, lady, all is well with us now.
Praxinoe — Both this year and forever may all be well with you, my dear sir, for your care of us. A good kind man ! We're letting Eunoe get squeezed — come, wretched girl, push your way through. That is the way. We are all on the right side of the door, quoth the bridegroom, when he had shut him self in with his bride.
Gorgo — Do come here, Praxinoe. Look first at these em broideries. How light and how lovely ! You will call them the garments of the gods.
Praxinoe" — Lady Athene, what spinning women wrought them, what painters designed these drawings, so true they are ? How naturally they stand and move, like living creatures, not patterns woven. What a clever thing is man ! Ah, and him self — Adonis —how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved Adonis, —Adonis beloved even among the dead.
A Stranger — You weariful women, do cease your endless cooing talk ! They bore one to death with their eternal broad vowels !
Gorgo — Indeed ! And where may this person come from ? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes ? Give orders to your own servants, sir. Do you pretend to command ladies of Syra
If you must know, we are Corinthians by descent, like Bellerophon himself, and we speak Peloponnesian. Dorian women may lawfully speak Doric, I presume ?
Gorgo — Hush, hush, Praxinoe — the" Argive" woman's daughter, the great singer, is beginning the Adonis ; she that won the prize last year for dirge singing. I am sure she will give us something lovely ; see, she is preluding with her airs and graces.
cuse ?
Praxinoe" — Lady Persephone, never may we have more than one master. I am not afraid of your putting me on short commons.
362 IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS.
The Psalm of Adonis.
0 Queen that lovest Golgi, and Idalium, and the steep of Eryx, 0 Aphrodite, that playest with gold, lo, from the stream eternal of Acheron they have brought back to thee Adonis — even in the twelfth month they have brought him, the dainty-footed Hours. Tardiest of the Immortals are the beloved Hours, but dear and de sired they come, for always, to all mortals, they bring some gift with them. O Cypris, daughter of DionS, from mortal to immortal, so men tell, thou hast changed Berenice, dropping softly in the woman's breast the stuff of immortality.
Therefore, for thy delight, 0 thou of many names and many temples, doth the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinofi, lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis with all things beautiful.
Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees' branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden vessels are full of incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and of things that creep, lo, here they are set before him.
Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender anise, and children flit overhead — the little Loves — as the young nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from bough to bough.
O the ebony, O the gold, O the twin eagles of white ivory that carry to Zeus, the son of Cronos, his darling, his cup-bearer ! O the purple coverlet strewn above, more soft than sleep ! So Miletus will say, and whoso feeds sheep in Samos.
Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis, one bed Cypris keeps and one the rosy-armed Adonis. A bridegroom of eighteen or nine teen years is he, his kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips ! And now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover ! But lo, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among the waves that break upon the beach ; and with locks unloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles, and bosoms bare, will we begin our shrill sweet song.
Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods dost visit both this world and the stream of Acheron. For Aga memnon had no such lot, nor Aias, that mighty lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector, the eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecabe, nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus that returned out of Troyland, nor the heroes of yet more ancient days, the Lapithae and Deucalion's sons, nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs of Pelasgian Argos. Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and propitious even in the coming year. Dear to
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us has thine advent been, Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.
Gorgo — Praxinoe, the woman is cleverer than we fancied ! Happy woman to know so much, thrice happy to have so sweet a voice. Well, all the same, it is time to be making for home. Diocleides has not had his dinner, and the man is all vinegar, — don't venture near him when he is kept waiting for dinner. Farewell, beloved Adonis, may you find us glad at your next coming !
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. By BION.
(Translation of Mrs. Browning. )
[Bion was born at Smyrna ; flourished about 280 ; contemporary of Theocri tus, and wrote pastorals in the same manner. He was greatly beloved. See " Lament for Bion " under Moschus. ]
I.
I mourn for Adonis — Adonis is dead,
Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting.
Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed :
Arise, wretch stoled in black ; beat thy breast unrelenting,
And shriek to the worlds, " Fair Adonis is dead ! "
ii.
I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. He lies on the hills in his beauty and death ;
The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh. Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath,
While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory,
And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows,
The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose,
Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted : He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews.
in.
I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound,
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS.
But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting.
The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around,
And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill, And the poor Aphrodite, with tresses unbound,
All disheveled, unsandaled, shrieks mournful and shrill
Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet,
Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy, Each footstep she takes : and the valleys repeat
The sharp cry she utters and draw it out slowly. She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on him
Her own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body, The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb,
And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy.
IV.
Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting.
She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile :
When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting, Whose fairness is dead with him : woe worth the while !
All the mountains above and the oaklands below Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis ! the streams overflow
Aphrodite's deep wail ; river fountains in pity
Weep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blow
Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go
With the song of her sadness through mountain and city.
v.
Ah, ah, Cytherea ! Adonis is dead,
Fair Adonis is dead — Echo answers, Adonis!
Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her head
She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies?
— When, ah, ah! — she saw how the blood ran away
And empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out,
Said with sobs : " Stay, Adonis ! unhappy one, stay, Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss !
Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again,
For the last time, beloved, — and but so much of this
—That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain !
Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth, To my heart, and, the love charm I once more receiving
May drink thy love in it and keep of a truth That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living.
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Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far, — My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal,
To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar,
While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal,
And follow no step ! O Persephone-, take him,
My husband ! — thou'rt better and brighter than I,
Look up at my grief ; there's despair in my cry,
Since I wail for Adonis who died to me — died to me —
Then, I fear thee ! — Art thou dead, my Adored ?
Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me,
Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lord
All the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceased With thy clasp ! O too bold in the hunt past preventing,
Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast ! "
Thus the goddess wailed on — and the Loves are lamenting.
VI.
