Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/462

432 432 THEOCRITUS

It was a ferryman's of Calydon :

A goat it cost me, and a great white cheese. eo

Yet ne'er my lips came near it, virgin still

It stands. And welcome to such boon art thou,

If for my sake thou 'It sing that lay of lays.

I jest not : up, lad, sing : no songs thou 'It own

In the dim land where all things are forgot. 65

Thyrsis (^smgs). Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. The voice of Thyrsis, Aetna's Thyrsis I. Where were ye, Nymphs, oh where, while Daphuis

pined ? ^ In fair Peneus' or in Pindus' glens ? For great Anapus' ^ stream was not your haunt, 70 Nor Aetna's cliff, nor Acis' sacred rill.

(^Begin, sweet Maids, begin the icoodland song.') O'er him the wolves, the jackals howled o'er him ; The lion in the oak-copse mourned his death.

(^Begin, sweet 3iaids, begin the woodland song.) 75 The kine and oxen stood around his feet. The heifers and the calves wailed all for him.

{Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.) First from the mountain Hermes came, and said, " Daphnis, who frets thee ? Lad, whom lov'st thou

so ? " 80

{Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.) Came herdsmen, shepherds came, and goatherds came ; All asked what ailed the lad. Priapus came And said, " Why pine, poor Daphnis, while the maid Foots it round every pool and every grove ? 65

(^Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.) " Ο lack-love and perverse, in quest of thee ;

1 Milton had this in mind in his Lycidas, and Shelley in his Adonais.

2 The Anapus is the small river near Syracuse.