The Idylliums of Theocritus :: :: University of Virginia Library

This piece is in the Ionic 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.

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.

113

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 combin'd,
‘One was benevolent, the other kind;

114

‘Such as once flourish'd in the days of old,
‘Saturnian days, and stampt the age with gold.’
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,
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.
Mean-time my song shall celebrate your praise,
Nor shall the honest truth a blister raise:
And though keen sarcasms your sharp words impart,
I find them not the language of your heart;

115

You give me pleasure double to my pain,
And thus my loss is recompenc'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 commend,
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.