20. A grizzle grasshopper, &c.] Heinsius observes, that a grasshopper, here called avis, is the same that was called ypaus: σigipos years was a proverbial expression, and equal to anus quæ in virginitate consenuit: metaphora sumpta est a sylvestri locustâ, quam vocant yeauv op. pavy. Suid. Milo therefore humorously laughs at Battus for falling in love with an old virgin.

33. The Greek is, Karo Lov Miday SYTI, nes a younтa vaxırlos, which Virgil has literally translated;

-Quid tum si fuscus Amyntas?
Et nigræ violæ sunt, & vaccinia nigra.

Ecl. 10. 98. What if the boy's smooth skin be brown to view,

Dark is the hyacinth and violet's hue.

Warton. Virgil likewise has, Inscripti nomina regum flores. Ecl. 3. 106. 37. Torya leæna lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam;

Florentemcytisum sequitur lasciva capella: Te Corydon ô, Alexi. Eel. 2. 63. 39. Croesus] A king of Lydia, whose riches became a proverb.

40. Nunc te marmoreum pro tempore fecimus: at tu,

Si fætura gregem suppleverit, aureus esto.
Ecl. 7. 36.

But if the falling lambs increase my fold,
Thy marble statue shall be turn'd to gold.
Dryden.

Charming Bombyce, you my numbers greet; How lovely, fair, and beautiful your feet! Soft is your voice-but I no words can find To represent the moral of your mind,

MILO,

How sweetly, swain, your carols you rehearse? How aptly scan the measures of your verse? 50 A wit so barren with a beard so long!Attend to tuneful Lytierses' song.

46. How lovely, fair, and beautiful your feet!! Thus in Solomon's Song, ch. 7. 1. we read, How beautiful are thy feet with shoes! On which Mr. Percy observes, " Or more exactly within thy sandals." The Hebrew women were remarkably nice in adorning their sandals, and in having them fit neatly, so as to display the fine shape of the foot: Vid. Clerici Comment. Judith's sandals are men. tioned along with the bracelets and other ornaments of jewels, with which she set off her beauty when she went to captivate the heart of Holofernes, chap. 10. 4. And it is expressly said, that her sandals ravished his eyes, chap. 16. 9.

51. A beard so long!] A long beard was looked on as a mark of wisdom; see Hor. sat. 3. b. 2. ver 35. Sapientem pascere barbam.

52. Lytierses] Lytierses was a bastard son of Midas, king of Phrygia; the poets tell us, that in a trial of skill in music between Apollo and Pan, Midas gave sentence in favour of the latter, whereupon Apollo clapt a pair of asses ears on his head. On the other hand, Conon, in his first narration (apud Phot. biblioth.) tells us, that Midas had a great many spies dispersed up and down the country, by whose information he knew whatever his subjects did or said; thus he reigned in peace and tranquillity to a great age, none daring to conspire against him. His knowing by this means whatever his subjects spoke of him, occasioned the saying, that Midas had long ears; and as asses are said to be endowed with the sense of hearing to a degree of perfection above other animals, he was also said to have asses ears; thus what was at first spoken in a metaphorical sense, afterwards ran current in the world for truth. As to Lytierses, he reigned, after Midas, at Celænæ, the chief city of Phrygia, and is described as a rustic, unsociable, and inhuman tyrant; of an insatiable appetite, devouring, in one day, three large baskets of bread, and drinking ten gallons of wine. He took great pleasure in agriculture; but, as acts of cruelty were his chief delight, he used to oblige such as happened to pass by while he was reaping, to join with him in the work; and then, cutting off their heads, he bound up their bodies in the sheaves. For these, and such like cruelties, he was put to death by Hercules, and his body thrown into the Maander: however, his memory was cherished by the reapers of Phrygia, and an hymn, from him called Lytierses, sung in harvest-time, in honour of their fellow labourer, See Univ. Hist. vol. 4. 8vo. page 459.

This anecdote is taken from one of the tragedies of Sosibius, an ancient Syracusian poet, who, according to Vossius, flourished in the 166th Olympiad. As this passage is scarce, I shall take the liberty to lay it before the learned reader, exactly as the illustrious Casaubon has corrected and amended it, together with a translation: the

fruitful Ceres, bless with corn the field; May the full ears a plenteous harvest yield!

Bind, reapers, bind your sheaves, lest strangers say,

"Ah, lazy drones! their bire is thrown away."

To the fresh north-wind, or the zephyrs rear Your shocks; those breezes fill the swelling

ear.

two verses between commas, are supposed to be spoken by a different person of the drama, and therefore omitted in the translation.

Αιθ' οι Κελκίναι πατρις, αρχαια πολις
Mid αγέροντος, όςις ωτ' έχων ονε
Βλασσί και τον φανος ευείδης αγαν,
Ουτός δ' εκείνε παις παραπλάςος νόθος.
* Μήτρος δ' οποιας η τέκος επίςαται.
Εσθεί
μεν άρτων τρεις ονας κανθήλιας.
Τεις της βραχείας ημέρας πινειθ' αμα,
Καλων μετρητην τον δεκαμφορον πιθαν
Εργάζεται δ' ελαφρά προς τα σίτια.
Όγμον θερίζει τη μια δ' εν ημέρα
Δικηγύον ομπην συντίθησιν εις τέλος
Χ' οταν τις έλθη ξείνος, η παρεξίη,
Φαγειν τ' εδωκεν εν, και εν πεχορτασιν.
Και τα ποτε προτεινεν ως αν εν θέρει
Πλεον φθονειν γαρ ώκνει τοις θαναμενοις"
ETH & αγων έδειξε Μαιανδρι ραις
Κάρτευμα των αρδευτα δαψίλει ποτῳ
Τον ανδρόμηση πυρον ηκονημένη
Αρπη θερίζει, τον ξενον δε δραγματι
Αυτῷ κύλισας, κρατος ορφανον φερει.
Γελών θερίσην ως ανων ηξιςισεν.

LYTIERSES.

Celænæ, city fam'd in former years,

1

Where Midas reign'd, renown'd for asses ears:
Whose bastard son, that like a monster fed,
Daily devour'd three* asses loads of bread;
A large wine-cask, which once a day he drain'd,
He call'd two gallons, though it ten contain'd.
Daily he labour'd in the corn-clad ground,
Reap'd ten whole acres, and in bundles bound.
If chance a stranger in his fields he spy'd,
Abundant wine and viands he supply'd,
Largely to drink, and sumptuously to feed,
Nor envied he the wretch he doom'd to bleed.
He points to meadows, arrogant and vain,
Of richest pasture, fields of golden grain,
Where through irriguous vales Mæander winds;
Then lops his head, and in the sheaves he binds
The trembling carcase, and with horrid jest
Laughs at the rashness of his murder'd guest.

Menander mentions this song in his Carchedonium; Αδοντα Λιτυερσην απ' αριςε τεως, Singing Lytierses soon after dinner.

Heinsius very justly observes, that this Lytierses is only a set of formulary maxims, or old sayings, and as such I have distinguished them in distichs, as they are in the Greek.

Ye threshers, never sleep at noon of day; For then the light chaff quickly blows away. 60 Reapers should rise with larks, to earn their hire, Rest in the heat, and when they roost, retire. How happy is the fortune of a frog!

He wants no moisture in his watery bog. Steward, boil all the pulse; such pinching's mean;

You'll wound your hand by splitting of a bean.

These songs the reapers of the field improve; But your sad lay, your starveling tale of love, Which soon will bring you to a crust of bread, Keep for your mother, as she yawns in bed.

IDYLLIUM XI. CYCLOPS.

ARGUMENT.

70

At rubicunda Ceres medio succiditur æstu,
Et medio tostas æstu terit area fruges.
Geor. b. 1. 297.

But cut the golden corn at mid-day's heat,
And the parch'd grain at noon's high ardor
Warton.

beat. The ancients did not thresh or winnow their corn: in the heat of the day, as soon as it was reaped, they laid it on a floor, made on purpose, in the middle of the field, and then they drove horses and mules round about it, till they trod all the

grain out.

Benson.

66. Splitting of a bean] A sordid miser used formerly to be called xvogns, that is, a beansplitter.

1. No remedy, &c.] Ovid makes Apollo express the same sentiment as he is pursuing Daphne; Hei mihi, quod nullis Amorest medicabilis herbis! Nec prosunt domino, quæ prosunt omnibus, artes! Metam. b. 1. 523.

To cure the pains of love no plant avails;
And his own physic the physician fails.

Dryden.

He gave no wreaths of roses to the fair,
Nor apples, nor sweet pars'ey for her hair:
Love did the tenour of his mind control,
And took the whole possession of his soul.
Ilis flocks untended oft refus'd to feed,
And, for the fold, forsook the grassy mead;
While on the scdgy shore he lay reclin'd,
And sooth'd with song the anguish of his mind.
From moru to night he pin'd; for Love's keen dart
Had piere'd the deep recesses of his heart: 20
Yet, yet a cure he found---for on a steep,
Rough pointed rock, that overlok'd the deep,
And with brown horrour high-impending hung,
The giant monster sat, and thus he sung: [slight!
Fair yinph, why will you thus my passion
Softer than lambs you seem, than curds more white,
Wanton as calves before the udder'd kine,
Harsh as the unripe fruitage of the vine.
You come when pleasing steep has clos'd inine eye.
And, like a vision, with my slumbers fly,
Swift as before the wolf the lambkin bounds,
Panting and trembling, o'er the furrow'd grounds.

30

11. He gave not wreaths of roses, &c.] The Greek is, Η ατο δ' ετι ρόδους, η μαλοις, εδε κικινοις; which Heinsius has very properly corrected, and reads ad shivos, nor with parsley-wreaths; and observes, that our author is never more entertainjag than when he alludes to some old proverb, as in this place he does: your common lovers, such as were not quite stark staring mad, and not extravagantly profuse in their presents to their mistresses, were said, sçav μnho15, » gods, to love with apples and roses; or, as others affirm, nous

pavo, with apples and garlands, which were generally composed of roses and parsley. See Idyllium 3. ver. 35.

Where rose-buds mingled with the ivy-wreath, And fragrant parsley, sweetest odours breath. 21. For on a steep, &c.] Bion imitates this passage, see his 7th Idyl. ver. 3.

Such as the Cyclops, on a rock reclin'd,
Sung to the sea-nymph, to compose his mind,
And sent it in the whispers of the wind. F.F.

This fable of Polyphemus and Galatea has furnished matter for several poets, particularly Ovid, who, in the 13th book of the Metamorphoses, fabte the 6th, has borrowed very freely from Theocritus. See Dryden's elegant translation of that fable.

25. Nerine Galatea, thymo mihi dulcior Hyblæ,
Candidior cycnis, hederâ formosior albâ.
Ecl. 7. 37.

O Galatea! nymph than swans more bright,
More sweet than thyme, more fair than ivy

white.

Warton.

Then first I lov'd, and thenee I date my flame, When here to gather hyacinths you came: My mother brought you-'twas a fatal day; And I, alas! unwary led the way:

40

E'er since my tortur'd mind has known no rest;
Peace is become a stranger to my breast:
Yet you nor pity, nor relieve my pain-
Yes, yes I know the cause of your disdain;
For, stretcht from ear to ear with shagged grace,
My single brow adds horrour to my face;
My single eye enormous lids enclose,
And o'er my blubber'd lips projects my nose.
Yet, homely as I am, large flocks I keep,
And drain the udders of a thousand sheep;
My paits with milk, my shelves with cheese they
In summer scorching, and in winter chill.
The vocal pipe I tune with pleasing glee,
No other Cyclops can compare with me:
Your charms I sing, sweet apple of delight!
Myself and you I sing the live-long night.
For you ten fawns, with collars deck'd, I feed,
And four young bears for your diversion breed:

[till,

50

Whose rage thou fly'st, with trembling fear,
As from the wolf the timorous deer. F.F.
-Quam tu fugis, ut pavet acres agna lupos.
Ibid. b. 5. ode 12.

34. When here to gather hyacinths, &c.]
Sepibus in nostris parvam te roscida mala,
(Dux ego vester eram) vidi cum matre legentem.
Ecl. 8. 37.

41. Stretcht from ear to ear with shagged grace,] O digno conjuncta viro! dum despicis omnes, Dumque tibi est odio mea fistula, dumque capellæ,

Hirsutumque supercilium, prolixaque barba. Ecl. 8. 32.

Has not Virgil's wonderful judgment once more deserted him? Hirsutum supercilium, the shaggy eyebrow, being mentioned only as a single one, might suit a Cyclops with great propriety; it is indeed a translation of Theocritus's λacia cogu; Mia panga; but can this horrid eye-brow, with any accuracy, come into the description of an Italian shepherd?

43. My single eye, &c.] Unum est in media lumen mihi fronte. Ovid. Metam. 45. Mille mere Siculis errant in montibus agnæ: Lac mihi non æstate novum,non frigore desit, Ecl. 2. 21.

47. Cheese] Martyn thinks this Tugos, or, as in Virgil, pressi copia lactis, means curd, from which the milk has been squeezed out, in order to make cheese. We find in the third Georgic, ver. 400, that the shepherds used to carry the curd, as soon and so lay it by for cheese against winter, Quod as it was pressed, into the towns; or else salt it, surgente die, &c.

53. Ten fawns, with collars, &c.] The Greek is, vdsxa vεßows пasas apvopogws, eleven young hinds, and all of them pregnant; which certainly, as Casaubon observes, cannot be probable, viz. that young hinds should be pregnant: there is an old Roman edition of Theocritus, which elucidates this passage, for it reads auoas parrows, all bearing collars: and nothing is more manifest, than that the ancients, as well as moderns, were fond of ornamenting those animals which they brought up tame with such sort of appendages.

54. Four young bears, &c.] Ovid imitates

mand,

Aud change your azure ocean for the land:
More pleasing slumbers will my cave bestow,
There spiry cypress and green laurels grow;
There round my trees the sable ivy twines,
And grapes, as sweet as honey, load my vines: 60
From grove-crown'd Ætna, rob'd in purest snow,
Cool springs roll nectar to the swains below.
Say, who would quit such peaceful scenes as these
For blustering billows, and tempestuous seas?
Though my rough form's no object of desire,
My oaks supply me with abundant fire;
My hearth unceasing blazes-though I swear
By this one eye, to me for ever dear,
Well might that fire to warm my breast suffice,
That kindled at the lightning of your eyes.
Had I, like fish, with fins and gills been made,
Then might I in your element have play'd,
With ease have div'd beneath your azure tide,
And kiss'd your hand, though you your lips deny'd!
Brought lilies fair, or poppies red that grow
In summer's solstice, or in winter's snow;
These flowers I could not both together bear
That bloom in different seasons of the year.
Well, I'm resolv'd, fair nymph, I'll learn to dive,
If e'er a sailor at this port arrive,
Then shall I surely by experience know
What pleasures charm you in the deeps below.
Emerge, O Galatea! from the sea,

And here forget your native home like me.

70

80

O would you feed my flock, and milk my ewes, And ere you press my cheese the runnet sharp infuse!

90

She never whispers soft things in your ear,
Although she knows my grief, and every day
Sees how I languish, pine, and waste away.
1, to alarm her, will aloud complain,
And more disorders than I suffer feign,
Say my head aches, sharp pains my limbs oppress,
That she may feel, and pity my distress.
Ah, Cyclops, Cyclops, where's your reason fled!--
If with the leafy spray your limbs you fed,
Or, ev'n wove baskets, you would seem more wise;
Milk the first cow, pursue not her that flies:
You'il soon, since Galatea proves unkind,
A sweeter, fairer Galatea find.

Me gamesome girls to sport and toy invite,
And meet my kind compliance with delight:
Sure I may draw this fair conclusion hence,
Here I'm a man of no small consequence."?

100

Thus Cyclops learn'd love's torments to endure, And calm'd that passion which he could not cure. More sweetly far with song he sooth'd his heart, Than if his gold had brib'd the doctor's art.

IDYLLIUM XII. AITES. ARGUMENT.

This piece is in the fonic dialect, and supposed not to have been written by Theocritus. The word Aites is variously interpreted, being taken for a person beloved, a companion, a man of probity, a cohabitant, and fellow-citizen: see the argument. The amoroso addresses his friend, and wishes an union of their souls, a perpetual friendship, and that, after death, posterity may celebrate the affection and harmony that subsisted between them. He then praises the Megarensians for the divine honours they paid to Diocles, who lost his life in the defence of his friend.

10

SAY, are you come? but first three days are told;
Dear friend, true lovers in one day grow old.
As vernal gales exceed the wintry blast,
As plums by sweeter apples are surpast,
As in the woolly fleece the tender lambs
Produce not half the tribute of their dams;
As blooming maidens raise more pleasing flames
Than dull, indifferent, thrice-married dames;
As fawns outleap young calves; as Philomel
Does all her rivals in the grove excel;
So me your presence cheers; eager I run,
As swains seek umbrage from the burning Sun.
O may we still to nobler love aspire,
And every day improve the concord higher;
So shall we reap renown from loving well,
And future poets thus our story tell:
"Two youths late liv'd in friendship's chain com-
One was benevolent, the other kind;
Such as once flourish'd in the days of old,
Saturnian days, and stampt the age with gold." 20
O grant this privilege, almighty Jove!
That we, exempt from age and woe, may rove
In the blest regions of eternal day;
And when six thousand years have roll'd away,

[bin'd,

17. His amor unus erat.

20. With gold] The Greek is, Xu

Duncombe.

Æn. 9. 182.

which Heinsius takes to mean something amiable and delightful; thus Horace,

Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ:
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat.
B. 1. ode 5.

Auream and amabilem he looks upon as synonymous: The Greeks have xevon Apeodirn, and Virgil, Venus aurea,

Aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat. Geor. b. 2. 538. 22. Exempt from age] eyew, thus in the Odyssey, b. 5. Calypso says of Ulysses,

She promis'd (vainly promis'd) to bestow
Immortal life, exempt from age and woe.
Pope.

24. Six thousand years] The Greek is, dinxcoinow, two hundred ages: an age, according to the common computation, is thirty years; thus Mr. Pope understands the word yeve in the first book of the Iliad, speaking of the age of Nestor,

Two generations now had pass'd away,

Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway.

Some welcome shade may this glad message bear,

(Ev'n in Elysium would such tidings cheer)
"Your friendship and your love by every tongue
Are prais'd and honour'd-chiefly by the young!"
But this I leave to Jove's all-ruling care;

If right he'll grant, if wrong reject my prayer. 30
Mean-time my song shall celebrate your praise,
Nor shall the honest truth a blister raise: [part,
And though keen sarcasms your sharp words im-
I find them not the language of your heart;
You give me pleasure double to my pain,
And thus my loss is recompens'd with gain.
Ye Megarensians, fam'd for well-tim'd oars,
May bliss attend you still on Attic shores!
To strangers kind, your deeds themselves com-
mend,

40

To Diocles the lover and the friend:
For at his tomb each spring the boys contest
In amorous battles who succeeds the best;
And he who master of the field is found,
Returns with honorary garlands crown'd.
Blest who decides the merits of the day!
Blest, next to him, who bears the prize away!
Sure he must make to Ganymede his vow,
That he sweet lips of magic would bestow,
With such resistless charms and virtues fraught,
As that fam'd stone from Lydia's confines brought,
By whose bare touch an artist can explore
The baser metal from the purer ore.

IDYLLIUM XIII*.

HYLAS.
ARGUMENT.

If the severity of critics will not allow this piece the title of a pastoral, yet as the actions of gods and heroes used to be sung by the ancient herdsmen, we may venture to affirm that our author intended it as such. It contains a relation of the rape of Hylas by the Nymphs, when he went to fetch water for Hercules, and the wandering of that hero, and his extreme grief for the loss of him.

LOVE, gentle Nicias, of celestial kind,
For us alone sure never was design'd;

32. A blister raise] See Idyl. 9. ver. 48, and the note.

40. To Diocles] At Megara, a city of Achaia, between Athens and the Isthmus of Corinth, was an annual festival held in the spring in memory of the Athenian hero Diocles, who died in the defence of a certain youth whom he loved: whence there was a contention at his tomb, wherein a garland was given to the youth who gave the Potter's Arcb. ch. 20. the eleventh, to his friend Nicias, a Milesian phyTheocritus addresses this Idyllium, as he did

sweetest kiss.

sician.

1. Love, &c.] Omne adeo genus in terris hominum, &c. Geor. 5. 242.

Thus man and beast, the tenants of the flood, The herds that graze the plain, the feathery brood,