Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/31

ll. 47–86.] tale of Nisus' Scylla, of whom after fame saith that girt with barking monsters round her white loins she harried the ships of Dulichium, and deep in her whirlpool, ah! tore their shivering crews with her sea-hounds? or of the changed limbs of Tereus; of that feast, that gift Philomela made ready for him; of her flight to desolate places, and of the wings on which she wretchedly hovered high in front of her home?

All that long ago happy Eurotas heard from brooding Phoebus and bade his laurels learn by heart, he sings: the smitten vales echo it to the sky: till bidding the sheep gather to their cotes and their tale be told, the evening star advanced along the unwilling heavens.

 

Lightly had Daphnis sate down beneath a whispering ilex, and Corydon and Thyrsis had driven their flocks together, Thyrsis his sheep, Corydon his milk-swoln she-goats; both in the blossom of age, both Arcadians, ready to sing and answer verse for verse. Hither, while I covered my delicate myrtles from the frost, my he-goat, lord of the flock, had wandered down: and I espy Daphnis: seeing me in turn. Quick, he cries, come hither, Meliboeus! thy goat and kids are