Idyll 7

7. The Harvest-Home There was a time when Eucritus and I were walking from the city

toward the Hales, and a third with us was Amyntas;

for to Demeter, Phrasidamus and Antigenes were keeping

the harvest-feast, two sons of Lycopeus, the best of any noble line

descended from above, from Clytia and from Chalcon himself,

who brought the spring Burina forth at the touch of his foot,

setting his knee firmly against the rock; and beside it

poplars and elms wove a shady grove,

roofed over and leafy with their green foliage.

We had not yet finished half the road, nor had the tomb

of Brasilas come into our sight, when by the favor of the Muses

we met a good wayfarer, a man of Cydonia,

Lycidas by name, a goatherd, nor could anyone

mistake him at a glance, for he looked a goatherd through and through.

For from a shaggy, rough-haired he-goat he had

a tawny skin upon his shoulders, smelling of fresh rennet,

and about his breast an old cloak was girt

with a broad belt, and in his right hand he held

a crooked club of wild olive. And gently, with a grin

and a smiling eye, he spoke to me, and laughter clung to his lip:

Simichidas, where are you dragging your feet at noon,

when even the lizard sleeps in the dry-stone walls,

and the crested larks of the tombs do not roam abroad?

Are you hurrying to a feast you were bidden to? Or do you leap

to some townsman's wine-press? For as you go, every

stone strikes ringing against your boots and sings.

And I answered him: Dear Lycidas, all men say

you are by far the best of pipers among the herdsmen

and among the reapers. This greatly warms my heart;

and yet in my own mind I hope to be your match.

This journey is to a harvest-feast; for some comrades

are making a banquet to fair-robed Demeter,

offering the first-fruits of their wealth; for with a rich measure

the goddess has filled their threshing-floor with abundant barley.

But come now—the road is common to us, and common too the dawn—

let us make our herdsman's songs; perhaps one will profit the other.

For I too am a clear-voiced mouth of the Muses, and all men call me

the best of singers; but I am not quick to believe,

no, by Earth; for in my own judgment I do not yet outsing

either the noble Sicelidas of Samos or Philitas,

but contend like a frog against the crickets.

So I spoke, on purpose; and the goatherd, with a sweet laugh,

said: I give you this club as a gift, because you are

a sapling shaped by Zeus, all true.

For I greatly hate the builder who tries

to raise a house as high as the peak of Oromedon the mountain,

and those cocks of the Muses who, crowing in rivalry

against the bard of Chios, toil all in vain.

But come, let us quickly begin the herdsman's song,

Simichidas; and I—see, friend, whether you like

this little song that I worked at on the hill the other day.

Lycidas

A fair voyage to Mitylene shall Ageanax have,

both when the south wind drives the wet waves before the Kids at evening,

and when Orion sets his feet upon the ocean,

if only he rescues Lycidas, who is scorched by Aphrodite;

for hot love for him consumes me.

And the halcyons shall calm the waves and the sea

and the south wind and the east, that stirs the seaweed in the deeps;

the halcyons, of all birds dearest to the gray Nereids,

and to all whose prey is gathered from the sea.

For Ageanax, who seeks a voyage to Mitylene,

may all be seasonable, and may he reach a safe harbor.

And I, on that day, with anise or roses

or with a wreath of white violets about my head,

will draw the Ptelean wine from the bowl,

lying beside the fire, while someone roasts a bean in the embers.

And the couch will be heaped a cubit deep

with fleabane and asphodel and curling celery.

And I will drink at ease, remembering Ageanax,

draining the very cups, pressing my lip to the dregs.

Two shepherds will play the flute for me, one from Acharnae,

one from Lycope; and Tityrus close by will sing

how once Daphnis the cowherd loved Xenea,

and how the mountain grieved about him, and how the oaks lamented him,

those that grow along the banks of the river Himeras,

while he melted like snow under high Haemus

or Athos or Rhodope or the far Caucasus.

And he will sing how once the wide chest received the goatherd,

still living, through the wicked malice of his lord,

and how the snub-nosed bees, coming from the meadow,

fed him in the sweet cedar-chest with soft flowers,

because the Muse poured sweet nectar over his mouth.

O blessed Comatas, these are the joys you knew;

you too were shut into the chest, and you, fed on the bees'

honeycomb, lived out the spring of the year.

Would that you had been counted among the living in my day,

that I might have pastured your fair goats upon the hills,

listening to your voice, while you under the oaks or the pines

lay piping sweetly, godlike Comatas.

When he had said so much he ceased; and after him in turn

I too spoke thus: Dear Lycidas, many other

fair things have the Nymphs taught me too, as I herded on the hills,

songs that perhaps even rumor has carried to the throne of Zeus;

but this is the best by far of all, with which I will begin

to honor you; only listen, since you are dear to the Muses.

Simichidas

The Loves have sneezed for Simichidas; for the poor wretch

loves Myrto as much as goats love the spring.

But Aratus, dearest of all to that man,

keeps in his heart a longing for a boy. Aristis knows it,

a good man, a great and excellent man, whom not even Phoebus himself

would grudge to sing with his lyre beside the tripods,

how Aratus from a boy has been burned to the bone with love.

For him, Pan, you who have the lovely plain of Homole for your portion,

set the boy unbidden in his dear hands,

whether it is soft Philinus or some other.

And if you do this, dear Pan, then may no Arcadian boys

scourge your sides and shoulders with squills

when there is scant meat at hand;

but if you nod the other way, then may you scratch and bite

yourself all over with your nails, and sleep among the nettles,

and may you be in the mountains of the Edonians at midwinter,

turned toward the river Hebrus, close to the Bear,

and in summer pasture among the farthest Ethiopians

under the rock of the Blemyes, whence the Nile is seen no more.

But you Loves, leaving the sweet stream of Hyetis and Byblis,

and Oecus, the steep seat of golden Dione,

you who are like to ruddy apples,

strike for me with your bows the lovely Philinus,

strike him, since the wretch has no pity on my friend the stranger.

And indeed he is now more overripe than a pear, and the women

say, Alas, Philinus, your fair bloom is dropping away.

Let us no longer keep watch at his doors, Aratus,

nor wear out our feet; but let the cock at dawn,

crowing, give some other man over to bitter numbness,

and let one man only, good Molon, be throttled at that wrestling-school,

while ease be our care, and an old woman be at hand,

who, spitting, may ward off all that is unlovely.

So much I said; and he, with a sweet laugh

as before, gave me the throwing-stick to be a gift of friendship from the Muses.

And he, turning aside to the left, took the road

to Pyxa; while Eucritus and I, and the fair Amyntichus,

turning to the house of Phrasidamus, lay down

among deep beds of sweet rushes,

rejoicing in the newly stripped vine-leaves.

Many poplars and elms waved above

over our heads; and close by, the holy water

trickled murmuring from the cave of the Nymphs.

In the shady boughs the sun-burnt cicadas

kept their chattering toil; and far off the tree-frog

cried among the thick thorns of the brambles.

The larks and goldfinches sang, the turtle-dove moaned,

and the tawny bees flitted about the springs.

All breathed of rich summer, all breathed of harvest-time.

Pears at our feet, and apples by our sides

rolled in abundance; and the boughs hung down to the ground

weighted with sloes;

and the four-year-old seal was loosed from the wine-jars' mouths.

You Nymphs of Castalia, who hold the peak of Parnassus,

was it ever such a bowl as this that old Chiron

set up for Heracles in the rocky cave of Pholus?

Was it such nectar that prompted that shepherd by the Anapus,

mighty Polyphemus, who hurled mountains at ships,

to dance about the steadings on his feet,

as the draught you then mingled for us, you Nymphs,

beside the altar of Demeter of the threshing-floor? Upon her heap

may I once again plant the great winnowing-fan,

while she smiles, holding sheaves and poppies in both her hands.