Idyll 9

9. The Singing-Match: Daphnis and Menalcas Daphnis

Sweetly the calf lows, and sweetly the cow,

sweetly the pipe and the cowherd, and sweetly too I sing.

I have a couch of leaves by the cool water, and on it are heaped

the fair hides of white heifers, which all of them

the southwest wind, as they browsed the arbutus, shook down from the crag.

And of the burning summer I take as little heed

as a lover takes of his father's words and his mother's.

So Daphnis sang to me, and so did Menalcas.

Menalcas

Etna, my mother, I too dwell in a fair cave

among the hollow rocks; and I have such things as appear

in a dream: many sheep, and many she-goats,

whose fleeces lie about my head and at my feet.

In a fire of oak the puddings boil, and dry beech-nuts

roast in the fire when it freezes; and I care no more

for winter than a toothless man cares for nuts when porridge is by.

I clapped my hands for them, and at once gave each a gift,

to Daphnis a club, which my father's field reared for me,

self-grown, such as not even a craftsman could fault,

and to the other a fine spiral whelk-shell, whose flesh I myself

had eaten, watching among the Icarian rocks,

cutting it into five for the five of us; and he blew a blast on the shell.

Hail, pastoral Muses, and bring to light the songs

that once, in those herdsmen's company, I sang;

and may I never raise a blister on my tongue's tip again.

Cicada is dear to cicada, and ant to ant,

and hawks to hawks, but to me the Muse and song.

Of these may all my house be full. For neither sleep

nor sudden spring is sweeter, nor to the bees

their flowers; so dear to me are the Muses. Whomever they look upon

they make glad, and those Circe never harmed with her draught.