Idyll 4

4. The Herdsmen: Battus and Corydon Battus

Tell me, Corydon, whose are the cattle? Are they Philondas'?

Corydon

No, Aegon's; he gave them to me to pasture.

Battus

And do you somewhere milk them all on the sly at evening?

Corydon

No, the old man puts the calves to suck and keeps an eye on me.

Battus

And the cowherd himself—to what land has he vanished and gone?

Corydon

Have you not heard? Milon took him off to the Alpheus.

Battus

And when did that man ever set eyes on oil for wrestling?

Corydon

They say he rivals Heracles in might and strength.

Battus

And my mother said I was a better man than Polydeuces.

Corydon

And off he went, with his mattock and twenty sheep from here.

Battus

Milon could persuade the very wolves to run mad on the spot.

Corydon

And these heifers, lowing, long for him.

Battus

Poor wretches they are, to have found so bad a herdsman.

Corydon

Poor wretches indeed, and they no longer care to graze.

Battus

Why, of that calf there nothing is left

but the bones. Does it feed on dew, like the cicada?

Corydon

No, by Earth; but at times I pasture her on the Aesarus

and give her a fine bundle of soft hay,

and at times she frisks about deep-shaded Latymnum.

Battus

Lean too is that red bull. May the people, the deme,

the sons of Lampriadas, get just such a one when they sacrifice

to Hera; for an ill-favored lot the deme is.

Corydon

And yet he is driven to the Salt-Lake, and to Physcus' land,

and to the Neaethus, where all fair things grow,

goat-grass and fleabane and sweet-smelling balm.

Battus

Alas, alas, the cattle too will go, poor Aegon,

down to Hades, since you also fell in love with a sorry victory,

and the pipe you once fashioned is mottled over with mold.

Corydon

Not that, no, by the Nymphs; for setting off to Pisa

he left it me as a gift; and I am something of a player,

and well I strike up the airs of Glauce, and well those of Pyrrhus.

I praise Croton—a fair city—and Zacynthus,

and the eastward-facing Lacinium, where the boxer

Aegon ate up eighty loaves single-handed.

There too he caught the bull on the mountain by its hoof

and led it down, and gave it to Amaryllis; and the women

cried out long and loud, and the cowherd laughed aloud.

Battus

O gracious Amaryllis, you alone, though dead,

we will not forget. As dear as my goats to me, so dear, is your dying.

Alas for the harsh fate that has been allotted me.

Corydon

Take heart, dear Battus; perhaps tomorrow will be better.

The living have hopes, only the dead are without hope.

And Zeus is at one time clear, at another sends rain.

Battus

I take heart. Drive the calves down below; for the wretches

are nibbling the olive-shoot. Get on there, Whitey.

Corydon

Get on, Cymaetha, to the hill. Do you not hear?

I will come, by Pan, and give you a sorry end at once,

if you do not move off from here. Look, here she creeps back again.

Would that I had my crooked throwing-stick, to strike you.

Battus

Look at me, Corydon, for Zeus' sake; for the thorn

has just now pricked me here under the ankle. How deep

these spindle-thistles are. Curse the heifer;

I was pricked gaping after her. Do you see it?

Corydon

Yes, yes, I have it with my nails; here it is.

Battus

How small the wound is, and how great a man it masters.

Corydon

When you go up the hill, do not go barefoot, Battus;

for on the hill the brambles and the thorn-bushes flourish.

Battus

Tell me, Corydon, does the old man still pursue

that dark-browed little love of his, that he was once smitten with?

Corydon

Still indeed, poor fool; only the other day, coming upon him,

I caught him at it hard by the fold while he was about his business.

Battus

Well done, you old lecher. Truly your breed rivals

the little Satyrs, or the spindle-shanked Pans, at close quarters.