Theocritus, Idylls
IDYLL III. THE SERENADE
THEOCRITUS was a Greek bucolic poet who flourished in Syracuse, Cos and Alexandria approximately 200 B.C.
IDYLLS CONTENTS
IDYLLS 1 - 4
1. Thyrsis
2. The Spell
3. The Serenade
4. The Herdsmen
IDYLLS 5 - 11
5. The Goatherd & the Shepherd
6. A Country Singing Match
7. The Harvest-Home
8. Second Country Singing-Match
9. Third Country Singing-Match
10. The Reapers
11. The Cyclops
IDYLLS 12 - 18
12. The Beloved
13. Hylas
14. The Love of Cynisca
15. Women at the Adonia
16. The Charites
17. The Panegyris of Ptolemy
18. The Epithalamy of Helen
IDYLLS 19 - 25
19. The Honey-Stealer
20. The Young Countryman
21. The Fishermen
22. The Dioscuri
23. The Lover
24. The Little Heracles
25. How Heracles Slew the Lion
IDYLLS 26 - 30 & INSCRIPTIONS
26. The Bacchanals
27. The Lovers' Talk
28. The Distaff
29. The First Love-Poem
30. The Second Love-Poem
B. Inscriptions
C. Fragments
IDYLLS 1 - 4, TRANSLATED BY J. M. EDMONDS
IDYLL III. THE SERENADE
The poet appears to personate a young goatherd, who after five lines dedicatory to a friend whom he calls Tityrus, serenades his mistress Amaryllis. The poem is a monologue, but, like II, preserves the dialogue-form of the mime by means of a dumb character. The appeal to Amaryllis may be regarded as consisting of three parts each ending with the offer of a gift – apples, garland, a goat – and a fourth part containing a love-song of four stanzas. The reciter would doubtless make a slight pause to mark the rejection of each gift and the failure of the song before the renewal of the cry of despair.
[1] I go a-courting of Amyrallis, and my goats they go browsing on along the hill with Tityrus to drive them on. My well-beloved Tityrus, pray feed me my goats; pray lead them to watering, good Tityrus, and beware or the buckgoat, the yellow Libyan yonder, will be butting you.
[6] Beautiful Amaryllis, why peep you no more from your cave and call me in? Hate you your sweet-heart? Can it be a near view hath shown him snub-nosed, Nymph, and over-bearded? I dare swear you’ll be the death of me. See, here have I brought you half a score of apples plucked yonder where you bade me pluck them, and to-morrow I’ll bring you so many again . . .
[12] Look, ah! look upon me; my heart is torn with pain. I wish I were yon humming bee to thread my way through the ivy and the fern you do prink your cave withal and enter in! O now know I well what Love is. ‘Tis a cruel god. I warrant you a she-lion’s dugs it was he sucked and in a forest was reared, so doth he slow-burn me, aye, pierce me to the very bone. O Nymph of the pretty glance, but all stone; O Nymph of the dark dark eyebrow, come clasp thy goatherd that is so fain to be kissing thee. E’en in an empty kiss there’s sweet delight. You’ll make me tear in pieces the ivy-wreath I have for you, dear Amaryllis; of rosebuds twined it is, and of fragrant parsley leaves . . .
[24] Alas and well-a-day! what’s to become of me? Ay me! you will not answer. I’ll doff my plaid and go to Olpis’ watching-place for tunnies and leap from it into the waves; and if I die not, ‘twill be though no fault of yours.1 I found it out t’other day; my thoughts were of you and whether or no you loved me, and when I played slap to see, the love-in-absence2 that should have stuck on, shrivelled up forthwith against the soft of my arm. Agroeo too, the sieve-witch that was out the other day a-simpling beside the harvesters, she spoke me true when she said you made me of none account, though I was all wrapt up in you. Marry, a white twinner-goat have I to give you, which that nut-brown little handmaiden of Mermnon’s is fain to get of me – and get her she shall seeing you choose to play me the dainty therein . . .
[37] Lo there! a twitch o’ my right eye.3 Shall I be seeing her? I’ll go lean me against yon pine-tree and sing awhile. It may be she’ll look upon me then, being she’s no woman of adamant.
[40] (sings) When Schoenus’ bride-race4 was begun, apples fell from one that run;
She looks, she’s lost, and lost doth leap, into love so dark and deep.
When the seer5 in’s brother’s name with those kin to Pylus came,
Bias to the joy-bed hies whence sprang Alphesibee the wise.
When Adonis o’er the sheep in the hills his watch did keep,
The Love-Dame proved so wild a wooers, e’en in death she clips him to her.6
O would I were Endymion7 that sleeps the unchanging slumber on,
Or, Lady, knew thy Jasion’s7 glee which prófane eyes may never see! . . .
[52] My head aches sore, but ‘tis nought to you. I’ll make an end, and throw me down, aye, and stir not if the wolves devour me – the which I pray be as sweet honey in the throat to you.
The poet appears to personate a young goatherd, who after five lines dedicatory to a friend whom he calls Tityrus, serenades his mistress Amaryllis. The poem is a monologue, but, like II, preserves the dialogue-form of the mime by means of a dumb character. The appeal to Amaryllis may be regarded as consisting of three parts each ending with the offer of a gift – apples, garland, a goat – and a fourth part containing a love-song of four stanzas. The reciter would doubtless make a slight pause to mark the rejection of each gift and the failure of the song before the renewal of the cry of despair.
[1] I go a-courting of Amyrallis, and my goats they go browsing on along the hill with Tityrus to drive them on. My well-beloved Tityrus, pray feed me my goats; pray lead them to watering, good Tityrus, and beware or the buckgoat, the yellow Libyan yonder, will be butting you.
[6] Beautiful Amaryllis, why peep you no more from your cave and call me in? Hate you your sweet-heart? Can it be a near view hath shown him snub-nosed, Nymph, and over-bearded? I dare swear you’ll be the death of me. See, here have I brought you half a score of apples plucked yonder where you bade me pluck them, and to-morrow I’ll bring you so many again . . .
[12] Look, ah! look upon me; my heart is torn with pain. I wish I were yon humming bee to thread my way through the ivy and the fern you do prink your cave withal and enter in! O now know I well what Love is. ‘Tis a cruel god. I warrant you a she-lion’s dugs it was he sucked and in a forest was reared, so doth he slow-burn me, aye, pierce me to the very bone. O Nymph of the pretty glance, but all stone; O Nymph of the dark dark eyebrow, come clasp thy goatherd that is so fain to be kissing thee. E’en in an empty kiss there’s sweet delight. You’ll make me tear in pieces the ivy-wreath I have for you, dear Amaryllis; of rosebuds twined it is, and of fragrant parsley leaves . . .
[24] Alas and well-a-day! what’s to become of me? Ay me! you will not answer. I’ll doff my plaid and go to Olpis’ watching-place for tunnies and leap from it into the waves; and if I die not, ‘twill be though no fault of yours.1 I found it out t’other day; my thoughts were of you and whether or no you loved me, and when I played slap to see, the love-in-absence2 that should have stuck on, shrivelled up forthwith against the soft of my arm. Agroeo too, the sieve-witch that was out the other day a-simpling beside the harvesters, she spoke me true when she said you made me of none account, though I was all wrapt up in you. Marry, a white twinner-goat have I to give you, which that nut-brown little handmaiden of Mermnon’s is fain to get of me – and get her she shall seeing you choose to play me the dainty therein . . .
[37] Lo there! a twitch o’ my right eye.3 Shall I be seeing her? I’ll go lean me against yon pine-tree and sing awhile. It may be she’ll look upon me then, being she’s no woman of adamant.
[40] (sings) When Schoenus’ bride-race4 was begun, apples fell from one that run;
She looks, she’s lost, and lost doth leap, into love so dark and deep.
When the seer5 in’s brother’s name with those kin to Pylus came,
Bias to the joy-bed hies whence sprang Alphesibee the wise.
When Adonis o’er the sheep in the hills his watch did keep,
The Love-Dame proved so wild a wooers, e’en in death she clips him to her.6
O would I were Endymion7 that sleeps the unchanging slumber on,
Or, Lady, knew thy Jasion’s7 glee which prófane eyes may never see! . . .
[52] My head aches sore, but ‘tis nought to you. I’ll make an end, and throw me down, aye, and stir not if the wolves devour me – the which I pray be as sweet honey in the throat to you.
1. “Through no fault of yours” : the Greek is “at any rate as far as you are concerned it has (i.e. will have) been done as you wished.
2. “Love-in-absence” : a flower. The Greek is “stuck not on at the slapping-game.”
3. “A twitch o’ my right eye” : a good omen.
4. “Schoenus’ bride-race” : Hippomenes won Atalanta the fleet-footed daughter of Schoenus by throwing an apple in the race for her hand
5. The seer Melampus by bringing to the king of Pylus the oxen of Iphiclus won the king’s daughter Pero for his brother Bias.
6. Although he was slain long ago, Aphrodite Cytherea loves her Adonis so dearly that she still clasps him – at the Adonis festival – to her breast.
7. Endymion was loved by the Moon, and Jasion – as in the Eleusinian mysteries – by Demeter.
2. “Love-in-absence” : a flower. The Greek is “stuck not on at the slapping-game.”
3. “A twitch o’ my right eye” : a good omen.
4. “Schoenus’ bride-race” : Hippomenes won Atalanta the fleet-footed daughter of Schoenus by throwing an apple in the race for her hand
5. The seer Melampus by bringing to the king of Pylus the oxen of Iphiclus won the king’s daughter Pero for his brother Bias.
6. Although he was slain long ago, Aphrodite Cytherea loves her Adonis so dearly that she still clasps him – at the Adonis festival – to her breast.
7. Endymion was loved by the Moon, and Jasion – as in the Eleusinian mysteries – by Demeter.
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