Search -
The Idylls of Theocritus and the Eclogues of Virgil
The Idylls of Theocritus and the Eclogues of Virgil Author:Theocritus 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: Battle with words, that fail to reach her heart. She, laughing, glances now on this, flings now Her chance regards on that: they, all for love Wearied a... more »nd eye-swoln, find their labour lost. Carven elsewhere an ancient fisher stands On the rough rocks: thereto the old man with pains Drags his great casting-net, as one that toils Full stoutly: every fibre of his frame Seems fishing; so about the gray-beard's neck (In might a youngster yet) the sinews swell. Hard by that wave-beat sire a vineyard bends Beneath its graceful load of burnished grapes; A boy sits on the rude fence watching them. Near him two foxes: down the rows of grapes One ranging steals the ripest; one assails With wiles the poor lad's scrip, to leave him soon Stranded and supperless. He plaits meanwhile With ears of corn a right fine cricket-trap, And fits it on a rush: for vines, for scrip, Little he cares, enamoured of his toy. The cup is hung all round with lissom briar, Triumph of Eolian art, a wondrous sight. It was a ferryman's of Calydon: A goat it cost me, and a great white cheese. Ne'er yet my lips came near it, virgin still It stands. And welcome to such boon art thou, If for my sake thou'lt sing that lay of lays. I jest not: up, lad, sing: no songs thou'lt own In the dim land where all things are forgot. Thyrsis [sings]. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. The voice of Thyrsis. ./Etna's Thyrsis I. Where were ye, Nymphs, oh where, while Daphnis pined? In fair Peneus' or in Pindus' glens? For great Anapus' stream was not your haunt, Nor Etna's cliff, nor Acis' sacred rill. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. O'er him the wolves, the jackals howled o'er him; The lion in the oak-copse mourned his death. Begin, ....« less