Idyl IX
Would that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep,
For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep,
Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep. 210
Footnotes
0a This fragment is from the collection of M. Fauriel; Chants Populaires de le Grèce.
0b Empedocles on Etna.
0c Ballet des Arts, dansé par sa Majesté; le 8 janvier, 1663. A Paris, par Robert Ballard, MDCLXIII.
0d These and the following ditties are from the modern Greek ballads collected by MM. Fauriel and Legrand.
0e See Couat, La Poesie Alexandrine, p. 68 et seq., Paris 1882.
0f See Couat, op. cit. p. 395.
0g Couat, p. 434.
0h See Helbig, Campenische Wandmalerie, and Brunn, Die griechischen Bukoliker und die Bildende Kunst.
0i The Hecale of Callimachus, or Theseus and the Marathonian Bull, seems to have been rather a heroic idyl than an epic.
6 Or reading Αίολικόν=Aeolian, cf. Thucyd. iii. 102.
9 These are places famous in the oldest legends of Arcadia.
11 Reading, καταδήσομαι. Cf. Fritzsche’s note and Harpocration, s.v.
13 On the word ραμβος, see Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 700; and ‘The Bull Roarer,’ in the translator’s Custom and Myth.
19 Reading καταδήσομαι. Cf. line 3, and note.
21 He refers to a piece of folk-lore.
24 The shovel was used for tossing the sand of the lists; the sheep were food for Aegon’s great appetite.
26 Reading έρίσδεις.
34 Melanthius was the treacherous goatherd put to a cruel death by Odysseus.
36 Ameis and Fritzsche take νιν (as here) to be the dog, not Galatea. The sex of the Cyclops’s sheep-dog makes the meaning obscure.
40 Or, δόμον Ώρομέδοντος. Hermann renders this domum Oromedonteam a gigantic house.’ Oromedon or Eurymedon was the king of the Gigantes, mentioned in Odyssey vii. 58.
41 έσχατα. This is taken by some to mean algam infimam, ‘the bottom weeds of the deepest seas’, by others, the sea-weed highest on the shore, at high watermark.
42 Comatas was a goatherd who devoutly served the Muses, and sacrificed to them his masters goats. His master therefore shut him up in a cedar chest, opening which at the year’s end he found Comatas alive, by miracle, the bees having fed him with honey. Thus, in a mediaeval legend, the Blessed Virgin took the place, for a year, of the frail nun who had devoutly served her.
43 Sneezing in Sicily, as in most countries, was a happy omen.
50 A superfluous and apocryphal line is here omitted.
53 An allusion to the common superstition (cf. Idyl xii. 24) that perjurers and liars were punished by pimples and blotches. The old Irish held that blotches showed themselves on the faces of Brehons who gave unjust judgments.
54 Spring in the south, like Night in the tropics, comes ‘at one stride’; but Wordsworth finds the rendering distasteful ‘neque sic redditum valde placet.’
57 ‘Quant à ta manière, je ne puis la rendre.’—Sainte-Beuve.
61 Reading μηνοφόρως.
70 Cf. Wordsworth’s proposed conjecture—
μετάρσι’, έτων παρεόντων.
Meineke observes ‘tota haec carminis pars luxata et foedissime depravata est’. There seems to be a rude early pun in lines 73, 74.
72 The reading—
ού φθεγξη; λύκον εΐδες; επαιξέ τις, ως σοφός, εΐπε,—makes good sense. ως σοφός is put in the mouth of the girl, and would mean ‘a good guess’! The allusion of a guest to the superstition that the wolf struck people dumb is taken by Cynisca for a reference to young Wolf, her secret lover.
73 Or, as Wordsworth suggests, reading δάκρυσι, ‘for him your cheeks are wet with tears.’
74a Shaving in the bronze, and still more, of course, in the stone age, was an uncomfortable and difficult process. The backward and barbarous Thracians were therefore trimmed in the roughest way, like Aeschines, with his long gnawed moustache.
74b The Megarians having inquired of the Delphic oracle as to their rank among Greek cities, were told that they were absolute last, and not in the reckoning at all.
77 Our Lady, here, is Persephone. The ejaculation served for the old as well as for the new religion of Sicily. The dialogue is here arranged as in Fritzsche’s text, and in line 8 his punctuation is followed.
78a If cats are meant, the proverb is probably Alexandrian. Common as cats were in Egypt, they were late comers in Greece.
78b Most of the dialogue has been distributed as in the text of Fritzsche.
82 Reading πέρυσιν.
89 I.e. Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter.
93 Deipyle, daughter of Adrastus.
98 Reading—πιείρα ατε λαον ανέδραμε κόσμος αρούρα. See also Wordsworth’s note on line 26.
104 For αδέα Wordsworth and Hermann conjecture Ἄρεα. The sense would be that Eunica, who thinks herself another Cypris, or Aphrodite is, in turn, to be rejected by her Ares, her soldier-lover, as she has rejected the herdsman.
105 Reading επιμύσσησι.
106a Reading τα φυκιοέντα τε λαίφη.
106b κώπα.
106c ουδος δ’ ουχι θύραν εΐχ’, and in the next line ά γαρ πενία σφας ετήρει.
106d αυδάν.
107 Reading, with Fritzsche—
αλλ’ όνος εν ράμνω, το τε λύχνιον εν πρυτανείω
φαντι γαρ αγρυπνίαν τόδ’ εχειν
The lines seem to contain two popular saws, of which it is difficult to guess the meaning. The first saw appears to express helplessness; the second, to hint that such comforts as lamps lit all night long exist in towns, but are out of the reach of poor fishermen.
108a Reading ηρέμ’ ενυξα και νύξας εχάλαξα. Asphalion first hooked his fish, which ran gamely, and nearly doubled up the rod. Then the fish sulked, and the angler half despaired of landing him. To stir the sullen fish, he reminded him of his wound, probably, as we do now, by keeping a tight line, and tapping the butt of the rod. Then he slackened, giving the fish line in case of a sudden rush; but as there was no such rush, he took in line, or perhaps only showed his fish the butt (for it is not probable that Asphalion had a reel), and so landed him. The Mediterranean fishers generally toss the fish to land with no display of science, but Asphalion’s imaginary capture was a monster.
108b It is difficult to understand this proceeding. Perhaps Asphalion had some small net fastened with strings to his boat, in which he towed fish to shore, that the contact with the water might keep them fresher than they were likely to be in the bottom of the coble. On the other hand, Asphalion was fishing from a rock. His dream may have been confused.
111 πυρεΐα appear to have been ‘fire sticks,’ by rubbing which together the heroes struck a light.
118 Or εγχεα λοΰσαι, ‘wash the spears,’ as in the Zulu idiom.
124 In line 57 for τηλε read Wordsworth’s conjecture τηδε = ενταΰθα.
127 Odyssey. xix. 36 seq. (Reading απερ not ατερ.) ‘Father, surely a great marvel is this that I behold with mine eyes meseems, at least, that the walls of the hall... are bright as it were with flaming fire’... ‘Lo! this is the wont of the gods that hold Olympus.’
128 ξηρον, prae timore non lacrymantem (Paley).
129 Reading, after Fritzsche, ρωγάδος εκ πέτρας. We should have expected the accursed ashes (like those of Wyclif) to be thrown into the river; cf. Virgil, Ecl. viii. 101, ‘Fer cineres, Amarylli, foras, rivoque fluenti transque caput lace nec respexeris.’ Virgil’s knowledge of these observances was not inferior to that of Theocritus.
130 Reading εστεμμένω. If εστεμμνον is read, the phrase will mean ‘pure brimming water.’
135 Reading οσσον.
143 Reading αλλη, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, instead of υλη.
144 Reading ποπανεύματα.
145 Πένθημα και ου πενθηα, a play on words difficult to retain in English. Compare Idyl xiii. line 74.
147 The conjecture εμα δ’ gives a good sense, mea vero Helena me potius ultra petit.
148 Reading, as in Wordsworth’s conjecture, μη ’πιβάλης ταν χεΐρα, και ει γ’ ετι χεΐλος, αμύξω.
150a Reading οΐδ’, ακρατιμίη εσσι, with Fritzsche. Compare the conjecture of Wordsworth, Ὀύδ’ ακρα τι μη εσσι.
150b See Wordsworth’s explanation.
153 Syracuse.
165 Reading, πεδοικισται (that is, the Corinthian founders of Syracuse), and following Wordsworth’s other conjectures.
167 This epigram may have been added by the first editor of Theocritus, Artemidorus the Grammarian.
176 This conjecture of Meineke’s offers, at least, a meaning.
181 Les hommes sont tous condamnés à mort, avec des sursis indéfinis.—Victor Hugo.
205 Alcmena bore Iphicles to Amphictyon, Hercules to Zeus.
208 Reading, with Weise, ποτάγει δε πολυ πλεον αμμε γαλάνα.
210 For the translations into verse I have to thank Mr. Ernest Myers.