Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/15

ll. 1–42.] sun. Was it not better to bear Amaryllis with all her sour displeasures and haughty scorns? or Menalcas, though he were dark, though thou wert white? O fair boy, trust not overmuch to colour; creamy privet-blossoms fall, dark hyacinths are gathered. I am scorned of thee, nor dost thou ask what I am, Alexis, how rich in flocks, how abounding in snowy milk. A thousand lambs of mine wander on Sicilian hills: fresh milk fails me not at midsummer nor in the frost. I sing as he was wont when he called his oxen home, Amphion of Dirce in Actaean Aracynthus. Neither am I so foul to view: of late I saw myself on the shore, when the sea stood in windless calm; I will not fear Daphnis in thy judgment, if the mirror cannot lie. Ah that thou wouldst but care to be with me in the rough country, to dwell in low cots, to shoot the deer, or drive a flock of kids to the green mallow bed. With me in the woods together thou shalt copy Pan in singing; Pan first taught to join with wax the row of reeds: Pan is guardian of the sheep and of the shepherds. Nor let it repent thee to run thy tender lip along the reeds: to know this same art what did Amyntas leave undone? I have a pipe joined of seven unequal hemlock-stalks, a gift that Damoetas once gave me, and said as he died: Now hath it thee for second master. Damoetas said it: stupid Amyntas was jealous. Furthermore two fawns, and in a perilous ravine I found them, with skin even yet white-dappled, drain a ewe's udders twice a day; and I keep them for thee.