Theocritus Part 14

O shepherds, tell me true! Am I not fair?

Am I transformed? For lately I did wear Grace as a garment; and my cheeks, o'er them Ran the rich growth like ivy round the stem.

Like fern my tresses o'er my temples streamed; O'er my dark eyebrows, white my forehead gleamed: My eyes were of Athene's radiant blue, My mouth was milk, its accents honeydew.

Then I could sing--my tones were soft indeed!-- To pipe or flute or flageolet or reed: And me did every maid that roams the fell Kiss and call fair: not so this city belle.

She scorns the herdsman; knows not how divine Bacchus ranged once the valleys with his kine; How Cypris, maddened for a herdsman's sake, Deigned upon Phrygia's mountains to partake His cares: and wooed, and wept, Adonis in the brake.

What was Endymion, sweet Selene's love?

A herdsman's lad. Yet came she from above, Down to green Latmos, by his side to sleep.

And did not Rhea for a herdsman weep?

Didst not thou, Zeus, become a wandering bird, To win the love of one who drove a herd?

Selene, Cybele, Cypris, all loved swains: Eunice, loftier-bred, their kiss disdains.

Henceforth, by hill or hall, thy love disown, Cypris, and sleep the livelong night alone.

IDYLL XXI.

The Fishermen.

_ASPHALION, A COMRADE._

Want quickens wit: Want's pupils needs must work, O Diophantus: for the child of toil Is grudged his very sleep by carking cares: Or, if he taste the blessedness of night, Thought for the morrow soon warns slumber off.

Two ancient fishers once lay side by side On piled-up sea-wrack in their wattled hut, Its leafy wall their curtain. Near them lay The weapons of their trade, basket and rod, Hooks, weed-enc.u.mbered nets, and cords and oars, And, propped on rollers, an infirm old boat.

Their pillow was a scanty mat, eked out With caps and garments: such the ways and means, Such the whole treasury of the fishermen.

They knew no luxuries: owned nor door nor dog; Their craft their all, their mistress Poverty: Their only neighbour Ocean, who for aye Bound their lorn hut came floating lazily.

Ere the moon's chariot was in mid-career, The fishers girt them for their customed toil, And banished slumber from unwilling eyes, And roused their dreamy intellects with speech:--

ASPHALION.

"They say that soon flit summer-nights away, Because all lingering is the summer day: Friend, it is false; for dream on dream have I Dreamed, and the dawn still reddens not the sky.

How? am I wandering? or does night pa.s.s slow?"

HIS COMRADE.

"Asphalion, scout not the sweet summer so.

'Tis not that wilful seasons have gone wrong, But care maims slumber, and the nights seem long."

ASPHALION.

"Didst thou e'er study dreams? For visions fair I saw last night; and fairly thou should'st share The wealth I dream of, as the fish I catch.

Now, for sheer sense, I reckon few thy match; And, for a vision, he whose motherwit Is his sole tutor best interprets it.

And now we've time the matter to discuss: For who could labour, lying here (like us) Pillowed on leaves and neighboured by the deep, Or sleeping amid thorns no easy sleep?

In rich men's halls the lamps are burning yet; But fish come alway to the rich man's net."

COMRADE.

"To me the vision of the night relate; Speak, and reveal the riddle to thy mate."

ASPHALION.

"Last evening, as I plied my watery trade, (Not on an o'erfull stomach--we had made Betimes a meagre meal, as you can vouch,) I fell asleep; and lo! I seemed to crouch Among the boulders, and for fish to wait, Still dangling, rod in hand, my vagrant bait.

A fat fellow caught it: (e'en in sleep I'm bound To dream of fis.h.i.+ng, as of crusts the hound:) Fast clung he to the hooks; his blood outwelled; Bent with his struggling was the rod I held: I tugged and tugged: my efforts made me ache: 'How, with a line thus slight, this monster take?'

Then gently, just to warn him he was caught, I twitched him once; then slacked and then made taut My line, for now he offered not to ran; A glance soon showed me all my task was done.

'Twas a gold fish, pure metal every inch That I had captured. I began to flinch: 'What if this beauty be the sea-king's joy, Or azure Amphitrite's treasured toy!'

With care I disengaged him--not to rip With hasty hook the gilding from his lip: And with a tow-line landed him, and swore Never to set my foot on ocean more, But with my gold live royally ash.o.r.e.

So I awoke: and, comrade, lend me now Thy wits, for I am troubled for my vow."

COMRADE.

"Ne'er quake: you're pledged to nothing, for no prize You gained or gazed on. Dreams are nought but lies.

Yet may this dream bear fruit; if, wide-awake And not in dreams, you'll fish the neighbouring lake.

Fish that are meat you'll there mayhap behold, Not die of famine, amid dreams of gold."

IDYLL XXII.

The Sons of Leda

The pair I sing, that aegis-armed Zeus Gave unto Leda; Castor and the dread Of bruisers Polydeuces, whensoe'er His harnessed hands were lifted for the fray.

Twice and again I sing the manly sons Of Leda, those Twin Brethren, Sparta's own: Who s.h.i.+eld the soldier on the deadly scarp, The horse wild-plunging o'er the crimson field, The s.h.i.+p that, disregarding in her pride Star-set and star-rise, meets disastrous gales:-- Such gales as pile the billows mountain-high, E'en at their own wild will, round stem or stern: Dash o'er the hold, the timbers rive in twain, Till mast and tackle dangle in mid-air s.h.i.+vered like toys, and, as the night wears on, The rain of heaven falls fast, and, lashed by wind And iron hail, broad ocean rings again.

Then can they draw from out the nether abyss Both craft and crew, each deeming he must die: Lo the winds cease, and o'er the burnished deep Comes stillness; this way flee the clouds and that; And s.h.i.+ne out clear the Great Bear and the Less, And, 'twixt the a.s.ses dimly seen, the Crib Foretells fair voyage to the mariner.

O saviours, O companions of mankind, Matchless on horse or harp, in lists or lay; Which of ye twain demands my earliest song?

Of both I sing; of Polydeuces first.

Argo, escaped the two inrus.h.i.+ng rocks, And snow-clad Pontus with his baleful jaws, Came to Bebrycia with her heaven-sprung freight; There by one ladder disembarked a host Of Heroes from the decks of Jason's s.h.i.+p.

On the low beach, to leeward of the cliff, They leapt, and piled their beds, and lit their fires: Castor meanwhile, the bridler of the steed, And Polydeuces of the nut-brown face, Had wandered from their mates; and, wildered both, Searched through the boskage of the hill, and found Hard by a slab of rock a bubbling spring Brimful of purest water. In the depths Below, like crystal or like silver gleamed The pebbles: high above it pine and plane And poplar rose, and cypress tipt with green; With all rich flowers that throng the mead, when wanes The Spring, sweet workshops of the furry bee.

There sat and sunned him one of giant bulk And grisly mien: hard knocks had stov'n his ears: Broad were his shoulders, vast his...o...b..d chest; Like a wrought statue rose his iron frame: And nigh the shoulder on each brawny arm Stood out the muscles, huge as rolling stones Caught by some rain-swoln river and shapen smooth By its wild eddyings: and o'er nape and spine Hung, balanced by the claws, a lion's skin.

Him Leda's conquering son accosted first:--

POLYDEUCES.

Luck to thee, friend unknown! Who own this sh.o.r.e?

AMYCUS.

Luck, quotha, to see men ne'er seen before!

POLYDEUCES.

Fear not, no base or base-born herd are we.

AMYCUS.

Nothing I fear, nor need learn this from thee.

POLYDEUCES.

What art thou? brutish churl, or o'erproud king?

AMYCUS.

E'en what thou see'st: and I am not trespa.s.sing.

POLYDEUCES.

Visit our land, take gifts from us, and go.