Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/18

10 them given to the boy, and it was death to thee if thou couldst not somehow have done him harm.

M.—What can the masters do, when the knaves make so free? Did I not see thee, villain, catching Damon's goat from ambush while the sheep-dog barked aloud? and when I cried: Where is he running off to now? Tityrus, gather the flock! thou didst hide behind the sedges.

D.—Was not he whom I conquered in singing to yield the goat that my tuneful pipe had won? If thou must be told, the goat was mine, as Damon himself confessed to me, but said he could not give it up.

M.—Thou him in singing? or hadst thou ever waxen-bound pipe? Wert not wont in the cross-roads, blockhead, to mangle a wretched tune on a grating straw?

D.—Wilt thou then we put to proof between us in turn what each can do? I stake this heifer—lest haply thou draw back, she comes twice to the milking pail and withal feeds two calves from her udder—say thou what thou wilt stake with me in the strife.

M.—Of the flock I dare not stake aught with thee: for I have a father at home, and a wicked stepmother, and twice a day both count the flock, and one of them the kids. But, what thyself wilt confess far excels it, since be mad thou wilt—I will stake cups of beechwood, carved work of the divine Alcimedon, where a clinging vine raised by his light graver enfolds pale ivy with her scattered berries. In the middle are two figures, Conon,