Theocritus Poems

The precentor Damoteles, Bacchus, exalts
Your tripod, and, sweetest of deities, you.
He was champion of men, if his boyhood had faults;
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Methinks all nature hath no cure for Love,
Plaster or unguent, Nicias, saving one;
And this is light and pleasant to a man,
Yet hard withal to compass- minstrelsy.
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Once on a time did Eucritus and I
(With us Amyntas) to the riverside
Steal from the city. For Lycopeus' sons
Were that day busy with the harvest-home,
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* * * * *
To whom thus spake the herdsman of the herd,
Pausing a moment from his handiwork:
'Friend, I will solve thy questions, for I fear
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Not for us only, Nicias, (vain the dream,)
Sprung from what god soe'er, was Eros born:
Not to us only grace doth graceful seem,
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THYONICHUS. AESCHINES.
AESCHINES.
Hail, sir Thyonichus.

THYONICHUS.
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'Sincerity comes with the wine-cup,' my dear:
Then now o'er our wine-cups let us be sincere.
My soul's treasured secret to you I'll impart;
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Ah for this the most accursed, unendurable of ills!
Nigh two months a fevered fancy for a maid my bosom fills.
Fair she is, as other damsels: but for what the simplest swain
Claims from the demurest maiden, I must sue and sue in vain.
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Once thievish Love the honeyed hives would rob,
When a bee stung him: soon he felt a throb
Through all his finger-tips, and, wild with pain,
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Friend, Ortho of Syracuse gives thee this charge:
Never venture out, drunk, on a wild winter's night.
I did so and died. My possessions were large;
...