Part 14 (1/2)

Theocritus Theocritus 32290K 2022-07-22

O shepherds, tell me true! Am I not fair?

Am I transformed? For lately I did wear Grace as a garment; and my cheeks, o'er them Ran the rich growth like ivy round the stem.

Like fern my tresses o'er my temples streamed; O'er my dark eyebrows, white my forehead gleamed: My eyes were of Athene's radiant blue, My mouth was milk, its accents honeydew.

Then I could sing--my tones were soft indeed!-- To pipe or flute or flageolet or reed: And me did every maid that roams the fell Kiss and call fair: not so this city belle.

She scorns the herdsman; knows not how divine Bacchus ranged once the valleys with his kine; How Cypris, maddened for a herdsman's sake, Deigned upon Phrygia's mountains to partake His cares: and wooed, and wept, Adonis in the brake.

What was Endymion, sweet Selene's love?

A herdsman's lad. Yet came she from above, Down to green Latmos, by his side to sleep.

And did not Rhea for a herdsman weep?

Didst not thou, Zeus, become a wandering bird, To win the love of one who drove a herd?

Selene, Cybele, Cypris, all loved swains: Eunice, loftier-bred, their kiss disdains.

Henceforth, by hill or hall, thy love disown, Cypris, and sleep the livelong night alone.

IDYLL XXI.

The Fishermen.

_ASPHALION, A COMRADE._

Want quickens wit: Want's pupils needs must work, O Diophantus: for the child of toil Is grudged his very sleep by carking cares: Or, if he taste the blessedness of night, Thought for the morrow soon warns slumber off.

Two ancient fishers once lay side by side On piled-up sea-wrack in their wattled hut, Its leafy wall their curtain. Near them lay The weapons of their trade, basket and rod, Hooks, weed-enc.u.mbered nets, and cords and oars, And, propped on rollers, an infirm old boat.

Their pillow was a scanty mat, eked out With caps and garments: such the ways and means, Such the whole treasury of the fishermen.

They knew no luxuries: owned nor door nor dog; Their craft their all, their mistress Poverty: Their only neighbour Ocean, who for aye Bound their lorn hut came floating lazily.

Ere the moon's chariot was in mid-career, The fishers girt them for their customed toil, And banished slumber from unwilling eyes, And roused their dreamy intellects with speech:--

ASPHALION.

”They say that soon flit summer-nights away, Because all lingering is the summer day: Friend, it is false; for dream on dream have I Dreamed, and the dawn still reddens not the sky.

How? am I wandering? or does night pa.s.s slow?”

HIS COMRADE.

”Asphalion, scout not the sweet summer so.

'Tis not that wilful seasons have gone wrong, But care maims slumber, and the nights seem long.”

ASPHALION.

”Didst thou e'er study dreams? For visions fair I saw last night; and fairly thou should'st share The wealth I dream of, as the fish I catch.

Now, for sheer sense, I reckon few thy match; And, for a vision, he whose motherwit Is his sole tutor best interprets it.

And now we've time the matter to discuss: For who could labour, lying here (like us) Pillowed on leaves and neighboured by the deep, Or sleeping amid thorns no easy sleep?

In rich men's halls the lamps are burning yet; But fish come alway to the rich man's net.”

COMRADE.

”To me the vision of the night relate; Speak, and reveal the riddle to thy mate.”

ASPHALION.

”Last evening, as I plied my watery trade, (Not on an o'erfull stomach--we had made Betimes a meagre meal, as you can vouch,) I fell asleep; and lo! I seemed to crouch Among the boulders, and for fish to wait, Still dangling, rod in hand, my vagrant bait.

A fat fellow caught it: (e'en in sleep I'm bound To dream of fis.h.i.+ng, as of crusts the hound:) Fast clung he to the hooks; his blood outwelled; Bent with his struggling was the rod I held: I tugged and tugged: my efforts made me ache: 'How, with a line thus slight, this monster take?'