Theocritus Bion and Moschus Rendered into English Prose Part 10

This Idyl, like the next, is dramatic in form. One Aeschines tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress Cynisca. He speaks of taking foreign service, and Thyonichus recommends that of Ptolemy. The idyl was probably written at Alexandria, as a compliment to Ptolemy, and an inducement to Greeks to join his forces. There is nothing, however, to fix the date.

Aeschines. All hail to the stout Thyonichus!

Thyonichus. As much to you, Aeschines.

Aeschines. How long it is since we met!

Thyonichus. Is it so long? But why, pray, this melancholy?

Aeschines. I am not in the best of luck, Thyonichus.

Thyonichus. 'Tis for that, then, you are so lean, and hence comes this long moustache, and these love-locks all adust. Just such a figure was a Pythagorean that came here of late, barefoot and wan,-- and said he was an Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate of pancakes.

Aeschines. Friend, you will always have your jest,--but beautiful Cynisca,--she flouts me! I shall go mad some day, when no man looks for it; I am but a hair's-breadth on the hither side, even now.

Thyonichus. You are ever like this, dear Aeschines, now mad, now sad, and crying for all things at your whim. Yet, tell me, what is your new trouble?

Aeschines. The Argive, and I, and the Thessalian rough rider, Apis, and Cleunichus the free lance, were drinking together, at my farm. I had killed two chickens, and a sucking pig, and had opened the Bibline wine for them,--nearly four years old,--but fragrant as when it left the wine-press. Truffles and sh.e.l.lfish had been brought out, it was a jolly drinking match. And when things were now getting forwarder, we determined that each of us should toast whom he pleased, in unmixed wine, only he must name his toast. So we all drank, and called our toasts as had been agreed. Yet She said nothing, though I was there; how think you I liked that? 'Won't you call a toast? You have seen the wolf!' some one said in jest, 'as the proverb goes,' {72} then she kindled; yes, you could easily have lighted a lamp at her face. There is one Wolf, one Wolf there is, the son of Labes our neighbour,--he is tall, smooth-skinned, many think him handsome. His was that ill.u.s.trious love in which she was pining, yes, and a breath about the business once came secretly to my ears, but I never looked into it, beshrew my beard!

Already, mark you, we four men were deep in our cups, when the Larissa man out of mere mischief, struck up, 'My Wolf,' some Thessalian catch, from the very beginning. Then Cynisca suddenly broke out weeping more bitterly than a six-year-old maid, that longs for her mother's lap. Then I,--you know me, Thyonichus,--struck her on the cheek with clenched fist,--one two! She caught up her robes, and forth she rushed, quicker than she came. 'Ah, my undoing' (cried I), 'I am not good enough for you, then--you have a dearer playfellow? well, be off and cherish your other lover, 'tis for him your tears run big as apples!' {73}

And as the swallow flies swiftly back to gather a morsel, fresh food, for her young ones under the eaves, still swifter sped she from her soft chair, straight through the vestibule and folding-doors, wherever her feet carried her. So, sure, the old proverb says, 'the bull has sought the wild wood.'

Since then there are twenty days, and eight to these, and nine again, then ten others, to-day is the eleventh, add two more, and it is two months since we parted, and I have not shaved, not even in Thracian fas.h.i.+on. {74a}

And now Wolf is everything with her. Wolf finds the door open o'

nights, and I am of no account, not in the reckoning, like the wretched men of Megara, in the place dishonourable. {74b}

And if I could cease to love, the world would wag as well as may be.

But now,--now,--as they say, Thyonichus, I am like the mouse that has tasted pitch. And what remedy there may be for a bootless love, I know not; except that Simus, he who was in love with the daughter of Epicalchus, went over seas, and came back heart-whole,--a man of my own age. And I too will cross the water, and prove not the first, maybe, nor the last, perhaps, but a fair soldier as times go.

Thyonichus. Would that things had gone to your mind, Aeschines. But if, in good earnest, you are thus set on going into exile, PTOLEMY is the free man's best paymaster!

Aeschines. And in other respects, what kind of man?

Thyonichus. The free man's best paymaster! Indulgent too, the Muses' darling, a true lover, the top of good company, knows his friends, and still better knows his enemies. A great giver to many, refuses nothing that he is asked which to give may beseem a king, but, Aeschines, we should not always be asking. Thus, if you are minded to pin up the top corner of your cloak over the right shoulder, and if you have the heart to stand steady on both feet, and bide the brunt of a hardy targeteer, off instantly to Egypt! From the temples downward we all wax grey, and on to the chin creeps the rime of age, men must do somewhat while their knees are yet nimble.

IDYL XV

This famous idyl should rather, perhaps, be called a mimus. It describes the visit paid by two Syracusan women residing in Alexandria, to the festival of the resurrection of Adonis. The festival is given by Arsinoe, wife and sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the poem cannot have been written earlier than his marriage, in 266 B.C. [?] Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women, which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds. Theocritus is believed to have had a model for this idyl in the Isthmiazusae of Sophron, an older poet.

In the Isthmiazusae two ladies described the spectacle of the Isthmian games.

Gorgo. Is Praxinoe at home?

Praxinoe. Dear Gorgo, how long it is since you have been here! She IS at home. The wonder is that you have got here at last! Eunoe, see that she has a chair. Throw a cus.h.i.+on on it too.

Gorgo. It does most charmingly as it is.

Praxinoe. Do sit down.

Gorgo. Oh, what a thing spirit is! I have scarcely got to you alive, Praxinoe! What a huge crowd, what hosts of four-in-hands!

Everywhere cavalry boots, everywhere men in uniform! And the road is endless: yes, you really live TOO far away!

Praxinoe. It is all the fault of that madman of mine. Here he came to the ends of the earth and took--a hole, not a house, and all that we might not be neighbours. The jealous wretch, always the same, ever for spite!

Gorgo. Don't talk of your husband, Dinon, like that, my dear girl, before the little boy,--look how he is staring at you! Never mind, Zopyrion, sweet child, she is not speaking about papa.

Praxinoe. Our Lady! the child takes notice. {77}

Gorgo. Nice papa!

Praxinoe. That papa of his the other day--we call every day 'the other day'--went to get soap and rouge at the shop, and back he came to me with salt--the great big endless fellow!

Gorgo. Mine has the same trick, too, a perfect spendthrift-- Diocleides! Yesterday he got what he meant for five fleeces, and paid seven s.h.i.+llings a piece for--what do you suppose?--dogskins, shreds of old leather wallets, mere trash--trouble on trouble. But come, take your cloak and shawl. Let us be off to the palace of rich Ptolemy, the King, to see the Adonis; I hear the Queen has provided something splendid!

Praxinoe. Fine folks do everything finely.

Gorgo. What a tale you will have to tell about the things you have seen, to any one who has not seen them! It seems nearly time to go.

Praxinoe. Idlers have always holiday. Eunoe, bring the water and put it down in the middle of the room, lazy creature that you are.

Cats like always to sleep soft! {78a} Come, bustle, bring the water; quicker. I want water first, and how she carries it! give it me all the same; don't pour out so much, you extravagant thing. Stupid girl! Why are you wetting my dress? There, stop, I have washed my hands, as heaven would have it. Where is the key of the big chest?

Bring it here.

Gorgo. Praxinoe, that full body becomes you wonderfully. Tell me how much did the stuff cost you just off the loom?

Praxinoe. Don't speak of it, Gorgo! More than eight pounds in good silver money,--and the work on it! I nearly slaved my soul out over it!

Gorgo. Well, it is MOST successful; all you could wish. {78b}

Praxinoe. Thanks for the pretty speech! Bring my shawl, and set my hat on my head, the fas.h.i.+onable way. No, child, I don't mean to take you. Boo! Bogies! There's a horse that bites! Cry as much as you please, but I cannot have you lamed. Let us be moving. Phrygia take the child, and keep him amused, call in the dog, and shut the street door.

[They go into the street.

Ye G.o.ds, what a crowd! How on earth are we ever to get through this coil? They are like ants that no one can measure or number. Many a good deed have you done, Ptolemy; since your father joined the immortals, there's never a malefactor to spoil the pa.s.ser-by, creeping on him in Egyptian fas.h.i.+on--oh! the tricks those perfect rascals used to play. Birds of a feather, ill jesters, scoundrels all! Dear Gorgo, what will become of us? Here come the King's war- horses! My dear man, don't trample on me. Look, the bay's rearing, see, what temper! Eunoe, you foolhardy girl, will you never keep out of the way? The beast will kill the man that's leading him. What a good thing it is for me that my brat stays safe at home.

Gorgo. Courage, Praxinoe. We are safe behind them, now, and they have gone to their station.

Praxinoe. There! I begin to be myself again. Ever since I was a child I have feared nothing so much as horses and the chilly snake.

Come along, the huge mob is overflowing us.

Gorgo (to an old Woman). Are you from the Court, mother?

Old Woman. I am, my child.