| Menalcas |
Since on the downs our flocks together feed,
And since my voice can match your tuneful reed,
Why sit we not beneath the grateful shade,
Which hazels, intermixed with elms, have made?
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| Mopsus |
Whether you please that sylvan scene to take,
Where whistling winds uncertain shadows make;
Or will you to the cooler cave succeed,
Whose mouth the curling vines have overspread?
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| Menalcas |
Your merit and your years command the choice:
Amyntas only rivals you in voice.
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| Mopsus |
What will not that presuming shepherd dare,
Who thinks his voice with Phoebus may compare?
|
| Menalcas |
Begin you first; if either Alcon’s praise,
Or dying Phyllis, have inspired your lays:
If her you mourn, or Codrus you commend,
Begin; and Tityrus your flock shall tend.
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| Mopsus |
Or shall I rather the sad verse repeat,
Which on the beech’s bark I lately writ?
I writ, and sung betwixt. Now bring the swain
Whose voice you boast, and let him try the strain.
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| Menalcas |
Such as the shrub to the tall olive shows,
Or the pale sallow to the blushing rose:
Such is his voice, if I can judge aright,
Compared to thine, in sweetness and in height.
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| Mopsus |
No more, but sit and hear the promised lay:
The gloomy grotto makes a doubtful day.
The nymphs about the breathless body wait
Of Daphnis, and lament his cruel fate.
The trees and floods were witness to their tears:
At length the rumour reached his mother’s ears.
The wretched parent, with a pious haste,
Came running, and his lifeless limbs embraced.
She sighed, she sobbed; and, furious with despair,
She rent her garments, and she tore her hair,
Accusing all the gods, and every star.
The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink
Of running waters brought their herds to drink.
The thirsty cattle, of themselves, abstained
From water, and their grassy fare disdained.
The death of Daphnis, woods and hills deplore;
They cast the sound to Libya’s desert shore;
The Libyan lions hear, and hearing roar.
Fierce tigers Daphnis taught the yoke to bear,
And first with curling ivy dressed the spear.
Daphnis did rites to Bacchus first ordain,
And holy revels for his reeling train.
As vines the trees, as grapes the vines adorn,
As bulls the herds, and fields the yellow corn:
So bright a splendour, so divine a grace,
The glorious Daphnis cast on his illustrious race.
When envious Fate the godlike Daphnis took,
Our guardian gods the fields and plains forsook;
Pales no longer swelled the teeming grain,
Nor Phoebus fed his oxen on the plain;
No fruitful crop the sickly fields return;
But oats and darnel choke the rising corn.
And where the vales with violets once were crowned,
Now knotty burrs and thorns disgrace the ground.
Come, shepherds, come, and strew with leaves the plain:
Such funeral rites your Daphnis did ordain.
With cypress boughs the crystal fountains hide
And softly let the running waters glide.
A lasting monument to Daphnis raise,
With this inscription to record his praise:
“Daphnis, the fields’ delight, the shepherds’ love,
Renowned on earth, and deified above;
Whose flock excelled the fairest on the plains,
But less than he himself surpassed the swains.”
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| Menalcas |
O heavenly poet! such thy verse appears,
So sweet, so charming to my ravished ears,
As to the weary swain, with cares opprest,
Beneath the sylvan shade, refreshing rest;
As to the feverish traveller, when first
He finds a crystal stream to quench his thirst.
In singing, as in piping, you excel;
And scarce your master could perform so well.
O fortunate young man! at least your lays
Are next to his, and claim the second praise.
Such as they are, my rural songs I join,
To raise our Daphnis to the powers divine;
For Daphnis was so good, to love whate’er was mine.
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| Mopsus |
How is my soul with such a promise raised;
For both the boy was worthy to be praised,
And Stimicon has often made me long
To hear, like him, so soft, so sweet a song.
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| Menalcas |
Daphnis, the guest of heaven, with wondering eyes
Views, in the milky way, the starry skies,
And far beneath him, from the shining sphere,
Beholds the moving clouds, and rolling year.
For this, with cheerful cries the woods resound;
The purple spring arrays the various ground;
The nymphs and shepherds dance; and Pan himself is crowned.
The wolf no longer prowls for nightly spoils,
Nor birds the springes fear, nor stags the toils;
For Daphnis reigns above, and deals from thence
His mother’s milder beams, and peaceful influence.
The mountain-tops unshorn, the rocks, rejoice;
The lowly shrubs partake of human voice.
Assenting nature, with a gracious nod,
Proclaims him, and salutes the new-admitted god.
Be still propitious, ever good to thine!
Behold! four hallowed altars we design;
And two to thee, and two to Phoebus rise;
On both is offered annual sacrifice.
The holy priests, at each returning year,
Two bowls of milk, and two of oil shall bear;
And I myself the guest with friendly bowls will cheer.
Two goblets will I crown with sparkling wine,
The generous vintage of the Chian vine;
These will I pour to thee, and make the nectar thine.
In winter shall the genial feast be made
Before the fire; by summer, in the shade.
Damoetas shall perform the rites divine;
And Lyctian Aegon in the song shall join.
Alphesiboeus tripping shall advance,
And mimic satyrs in his antic dance.
When to the nymphs our annual rites we pay,
And when our fields with victims we survey:
While savage boars delight in shady woods,
And finny fish inhabit in the floods:
While bees on thyme, and locusts feed on dew:
Thy grateful swains these honours shall renew.
Such honours as we pay to powers divine,
To Bacchus and to Ceres, shall be thine.
Such annual honours shall be given; and thou
Shalt hear, and shalt condemn thy suppliants to their vow.
|
| Mopsus |
What present, worth thy verse, can Mopsus find?
Not the soft whispers of the southern wind,
That play through trembling trees, delight me more;
Nor murmuring billows on the sounding shore;
Nor winding streams that
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