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IDYL VI
Pan loved his neighbour Echo; Echo loved A gamesome Satyr; he, by her unmoved, Loved only Lyde; thus through Echo, Pan, Lyde, and Satyr, Love his circle ran. Thus all, while their true lovers' hearts they grieved, Were scorned in turn, and what they gave received. O all Love's scorners, learn this lesson true; Be kind to Love, that he be kind to you.
IDYL VII
Alpheus, when he leaves Pisa and makes his way through beneath the deep, travels on to Arethusa with his waters that the wild olives drank, bearing her bridal gifts, fair leaves and flowers and sacred soil. Deep in the waves he plunges, and runs beneath the sea, and the salt water mingles not with the sweet. Nought knows the sea as the river journeys through. Thus hath the knavish boy, the maker of mischief, the teacher of strange ways—thus hath Love by his spell taught even a river to dive.
IDYL VIII
Leaving his torch and his arrows, a wallet strung on his back, One day came the mischievous Love-god to follow the plough-share's track: And he chose him a staff for his driving, and yoked him a sturdy steer, And sowed in the furrows the grain to the Mother of Earth most dear. Then he said, looking up to the sky: 'Father Zeus, to my harvest be good, Lest I yoke that bull to my plough that Europa once rode through the flood!'
IDYL IX
Would that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep, For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep, Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep. {210}
Footnotes
{0a} This fragment is from the collection of M. Fauriel; Chants Populaires de le Grece.
{0b} Empedocles on Etna.
{0c} Ballet des Arts, danse par sa Majeste; le 8 janvier, 1663. A Paris, par Robert Ballard, MDCLXIII.
{0d} These and the following ditties are from the modern Greek ballads collected by MM. Fauriel and Legrand.
{0e} See Couat, La Poesie Alexandrine, p. 68 et seq., Paris 1882.
{0f} See Couat, op. cit. p. 395.
{0g} Couat, p. 434.
{0h} See Helbig, Campenische Wandmalerie, and Brunn, Die griechischen Bukoliker und die Bildende Kunst.
{0i} The Hecale of Callimachus, or Theseus and the Marathonian Bull, seems to have been rather a heroic idyl than an epic.
{6} Or reading [Greek]=Aeolian, cf. Thucyd. iii. 102.
{9} These are places famous in the oldest legends of Arcadia.
{11} Reading, [Greek]. Cf. Fritzsche's note and Harpocration, s.v.
{13} On the word [Greek], see Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 700; and 'The Bull Roarer,' in the translator's Custom and Myth.
{19} Reading [Greek]. Cf. line 3, and note.
{21} He refers to a piece of folk-lore.
{24} The shovel was used for tossing the sand of the lists; the sheep were food for Aegon's great appetite.
{26} Reading [Greek].
{34} Melanthius was the treacherous goatherd put to a cruel death by Odysseus.
{36} Ameis and Fritzsche take [Greek] (as here) to be the dog, not Galatea. The sex of the Cyclops's sheep-dog makes the meaning obscure.
{40} Or, [Greek]. Hermann renders this domum Oromedonteam a gigantic house.' Oromedon or Eurymedon was the king of the Gigantes, mentioned in Odyssey vii. 58.
{41} [Greek]. This is taken by some to mean algam infimam, 'the bottom weeds of the deepest seas', by others, the sea-weed highest on the shore, at high watermark.
{42} Comatas was a goatherd who devoutly served the Muses, and sacrificed to them his masters goats. His master therefore shut him up in a cedar chest, opening which at the year's end he found Comatas alive, by miracle, the bees having fed him with honey. Thus, in a mediaeval legend, the Blessed Virgin took the place, for a year, of the frail nun who had devoutly served her.
{43} Sneezing in Sicily, as in most countries, was a happy omen.
{50} A superfluous and apocryphal line is here omitted.
{53} An allusion to the common superstition (cf. Idyl xii. 24) that perjurers and liars were punished by pimples and blotches. The old Irish held that blotches showed themselves on the faces of Brehons who gave unjust judgments.
{54} Spring in the south, like Night in the tropics, comes 'at one stride'; but Wordsworth finds the rendering distasteful 'neque sic redditum valde placet.'
{57} 'Quant a ta maniere, je ne puis la rendre.'—SAINTE-BEUVE.
{61} Reading [Greek].
{70} Cf. Wordsworth's proposed conjecture -
[Greek].
Meineke observes 'tota haec carminis pars luxata et foedissime depravata est'. There seems to be a rude early pun in lines 73, 74.
{72} The reading -
[Greek],—makes good sense. [Greek] is put in the mouth of the girl, and would mean 'a good guess'! The allusion of a guest to the superstition that the wolf struck people dumb is taken by Cynisca for a reference to young Wolf, her secret lover.
{73} Or, as Wordsworth suggests, reading [Greek], 'for him your cheeks are wet with tears.'
{74a} Shaving in the bronze, and still more, of course, in the stone age, was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like Aeschines, with his long gnawed moustache.
{74b} The Megarians having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all.
{77} Our Lady, here, is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily. The dialogue is here arranged as in Fritzsche's text, and in line 8 his punctuation is followed.
{78a} If cats are meant, the proverb is probably Alexandrian. Common as cats were in Egypt, they were late comers in Greece.
{78b} Most of the dialogue has been distributed as in the text of Fritzsche.
{82} Reading [Greek].
{89} I.e. Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter.
{93} Deipyle, daughter of Adrastus.
{98} Reading—[Greek]. See also Wordsworth's note on line 26.
{104} For [Greek] Wordsworth and Hermann conjecture [Greek]. The sense would be that Eunica, who thinks herself another Cypris, or Aphrodite is, in turn, to be rejected by her Ares, her soldier-lover, as she has rejected the herdsman.
{105} Reading [Greek].
{106a} Reading [Greek].
{106b} [Greek].
{106c} [Greek], and in the next line [Greek].
{106d} [Greek].
{107} Reading, with Fritzsche -
[Greek]
The lines seem to contain two popular saws, of which it is difficult to guess the meaning. The first saw appears to express helplessness; the second, to hint that such comforts as lamps lit all night long exist in towns, but are out of the reach of poor fishermen.
{108a} Reading [Greek]. Asphalion first hooked his fish, which ran gamely, and nearly doubled up the rod. Then the fish sulked, and the angler half despaired of landing him. To stir the sullen fish, he reminded him of his wound, probably, as we do now, by keeping a tight line, and tapping the butt of the rod. Then he slackened, giving the fish line in case of a sudden rush; but as there was no such rush, he took in line, or perhaps only showed his fish the butt (for it is not probable that Asphalion had a reel), and so landed him. The Mediterranean fishers generally toss the fish to land with no display of science, but Asphalion's imaginary capture was a monster.
{108b} It is difficult to understand this proceeding. Perhaps Asphalion had some small net fastened with strings to his boat, in which he towed fish to shore, that the contact with the water might keep them fresher than they were likely to be in the bottom of the coble. On the other hand, Asphalion was fishing from a rock. His dream may have been confused.
{111} [Greek] appear to have been 'fire sticks,' by rubbing which together the heroes struck a light.
{118} Or [Greek], 'wash the spears,' as in the Zulu idiom.
{124} In line 57 for [Greek] read Wordsworth's conjecture [Greek] = [Greek].
{127} Odyssey. xix. 36 seq. (Reading [Greek] not [Greek].) 'Father, surely a great marvel is this that I behold with mine eyes meseems, at least, that the walls of the hall . . . are bright as it were with flaming fire' . . . 'Lo! this is the wont of the gods that hold Olympus.'
{128} [Greek], prae timore non lacrymantem (Paley).
{129} Reading, after Fritzsche, [Greek]. We should have expected the accursed ashes (like those of Wyclif) to be thrown into the river; cf. Virgil, Ecl. viii. 101, 'Fer cineres, Amarylli, foras, rivoque fluenti transque caput lace nec respexeris.' Virgil's knowledge of these observances was not inferior to that of Theocritus.
{130} Reading [Greek]. If [Greek] is read, the phrase will mean 'pure brimming water.'
{135} Reading [Greek].
{143} Reading [Greek], as in Wordsworth's conjecture, instead of [Greek].
{144} Reading [Greek].
{145} [Greek], a play on words difficult to retain in English. Compare Idyl xiii. line 74.
{147} The conjecture [Greek] gives a good sense, mea vero Helena me potius ultra petit.
{148} Reading, as in Wordsworth's conjecture, [Greek].
{150a} Reading [Greek], with Fritzsche. Compare the conjecture of Wordsworth, [Greek].
{150b} See Wordsworth's explanation.
{153} Syracuse.
{165} Reading, [Greek] (that is, the Corinthian founders of Syracuse), and following Wordsworth's other conjectures.
{167} This epigram may have been added by the first editor of Theocritus, Artemidorus the Grammarian.
{176} This conjecture of Meineke's offers, at least, a meaning.
{181} Les hommes sont tous condamnes a mort, avec des sursis indefinis.—VICTOR HUGO.
{205} Alcmena bore Iphicles to Amphictyon, Hercules to Zeus.
{208} Reading, with Weise, [Greek].
{210} For the translations into verse I have to thank Mr. Ernest Myers. |
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