The Eclogues of Virgil Author:Virgil Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Is this poem, much of which is taken almost verbatim from the fourth and fifth Idylls of Theocritus, two herdsmen, Menalcas and Damoetas, are represented as sing... more »ing | for a wager against each other. After some rather coarse preliminary banter, they agree to make Palaemon, If another herdsman, their umpire. The verses consist chiefly of praises of their respective mistresses, and each boasts of his own prowess in singing. In the end each competitor asks the other a conundrum, and finally Palaemon declares himself unable to decide between such a well-matched pair. Singularly enough at verse 89 the names , of two contemporary poetasters, Bavius and Maevius (who seem to have affected Virgil and Horace very much as Colley Cibber and Settle affected Pope), are introduced apparently without rhyme or reason into the Eclogue. The poem is a specimen of the kind known as ' Amoebaean' singing, which consisted in the second competitor answering the first in the same number of lines and on the same or a corresponding subject. The custom is said to be still in vogue among the Improvisator! of Tuscany. Those who have been present at a Welsh Eisteddfod and are sufficiently acquainted with the vernacular to follow its proceedings, will find a parallel nearer home in the ' Pennillion' singing, which is a distinctive feature of that national festival. PALAEMON MBNALCAS. DAMOETAS. PALAEMON Men. Tell me, Damoetas, who owns yon flock ? Is it not Meliboeus ? Dam. No, it is Aegon; but lately has Aegon entrusted it to me. Men. Ah me! Ill-fated flock ! While your master Neaera is wooing— Jealous that she should prefer me to him—you are milked by a hireling Twice in the hour—and the ewes lose their strength and the lambs lose their supper. Dam. Tell not thou tales about others! Eemem...« less