Idyll 6

6. The Singing-Match: Damoetas and Daphnis Damoetas and Daphnis the cowherd once drove their herd

together into one place, Aratus; and one of them

was red-haired, the other half-bearded; and sitting both by a spring

at midday in the summer, they sang in this way.

Daphnis began first, for it was he who first challenged.

Galatea pelts your flock, Polyphemus,

with apples, calling you a laggard in love, a goatherd;

and you do not even look at her, poor wretch, poor wretch, but sit

piping sweetly. Look, again she pelts the dog,

which follows as guardian of your sheep; and it barks,

gazing toward the sea, and the fair waves show it

softly plashing as it runs along the shore.

Take care, lest she leap upon the girl's legs

as she comes from the sea, and tear her lovely skin.

But she even from there coquets with you, light

as the dry thistledown when the fair summer parches it;

and she flees the one who loves her, and pursues the one who does not,

and moves her last counter on the line; for to a lover,

Polyphemus, things not fair often appear fair.

After him Damoetas struck up and sang as follows.

I saw her, by Pan, when she was pelting the flock,

and she did not escape my notice, no, by this one sweet eye of mine, with which I shall see

to the end; but as for the seer Telemus, who speaks ill words,

let him bear his ill words home, to keep them for his children.

Yet I myself, to tease her in turn, do not look at her,

but say I have some other woman; and she, hearing this,

grows jealous of me, by the Healer, and pines away, and from the sea

she peers out in a frenzy at the caves and at the flocks.

And I hissed the dog to bark at her; for when I loved her,

it would whimper, laying its muzzle against her flank.

Seeing me do this often, perhaps she will send

a messenger. But I will bar my doors, until she swears

to spread a fair bed for me herself upon this island.

For indeed I am not so ill to look at as they say.

The other day I gazed into the sea, when it was calm,

and fair my beard, and fair my one eye seemed,

so far as I could judge, and the gleam of my teeth

showed whiter than the marble of Paros.

And, lest I be bewitched, I spat three times into my bosom;

for so the old woman Cotyttaris taught me.

Having said so much, Damoetas kissed Daphnis,

and the one gave him a pipe, the other a fine flute.

Damoetas played the flute, and Daphnis the cowherd piped,

and at once the heifers danced upon the soft grass.

But neither was the victor, for they came out unbeaten.