Theocritus of Syracuse invented the pastoral poem in the third century BC, and Bion and Moschus followed him. Andrew Lang’s prose renders the Idylls, with goatherds singing in rivalry, the sorceress of the second Idyll casting spells to win back her lover, the women of Syracuse at the Adonis festival, and Bion’s lament for Adonis, with an essay on Theocritus and his age.
The fountainhead of the pastoral tradition behind Virgil and Milton, in a graceful Victorian translation. Download the free EPUB.