The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Damœtas and Menalcas, after some smart strokes of country raillery, resolve to try who has the most skill at song; and accordingly make their neighbour, Palæmon, judge of their performances; who, after a full hearing of both parties, declares himself unfit for the decision of so weighty a controversy, and leaves the victory undetermined.

MENALCAS.
Ho, swain! what shepherd owns those ragged sheep?

DAMŒTAS.
Ægon's they are: he gave them me to keep.

MENALCAS.

Unhappy sheep, of an unhappy swain!
While he Neæra courts, but courts in vain,
And fears that I the damsel shall obtain.

355

Thou, varlet, dost thy master's gains devour;
Thou milk'st his ewes, and often twice an hour;
Of grass and fodder thou defraud'st the dams,
And of their mothers' dugs the starving lambs.

DAMŒTAS.

Good words, young catamite, at least to men.
We know who did your business, how, and when;
And in what chapel too you played your prize,
And what the goats observed with leering eyes:
The nymphs were kind, and laughed; and there your safety lies.

MENALCAS.

Yes, when I cropt the hedges of the leys,
Cut Micon's tender vines, and stole the stays!

DAMŒTAS.

Or rather, when, beneath yon ancient oak,
The bow of Daphnis, and the shafts, you broke,
When the fair boy received the gift of right;
And, but for mischief, you had died for spite.

MENALCAS.

What nonsense would the fool, thy master, prate,
When thou, his knave, canst talk at such a rate!
Did I not see you, rascal, did I not,
When you lay snug to snap young Damon's goat?
His mongrel barked; I ran to his relief,
And cried,—“There, there he goes! stop, stop the thief!”
Discovered, and defeated of your prey,
You skulked behind the fence, and sneaked away.

356

DAMŒTAS.

An honest man may freely take his own:
The goat was mine, by singing fairly won.
A solemn match was made; he lost the prize.
Ask Damon, ask, if he the debt denies.
I think he dares not; if he does, he lies.

MENALCAS.

Thou sing with him? thou booby!—Never pipe
Was so profaned to touch that blubbered lip.
Dunce at the best! in streets but scarce allowed
To tickle, on thy straw, the stupid crowd.

DAMŒTAS.

To bring it to the trial, will you dare
Our pipes, our skill, our voices, to compare?
My brinded heifer to the stake I lay;
Two thriving calves she suckles twice a day,
And twice besides her beestings never fail
To store the dairy with a brimming pail.
Now back your singing with an equal stake.

MENALCAS.

That should be seen, if I had one to make.
You know too well, I feed my father's flock;
What can I wager from the common stock?
A stepdame too I have, a cursed she,
Who rules my hen-peck'd sire, and orders me.
Both number twice a day the milky dams;
And once she takes the tale of all the lambs.
But, since you will be mad, and since you may
Suspect my courage, if I should not lay,
The pawn I proffer shall be full as good:
Two bowls I have, well turned, of beechen wood;
Both by divine Alcimedon were made;
To neither of them yet the lip is laid.

357

The lids are ivy; grapes in clusters lurk
Beneath the carving of the curious work.
Two figures on the sides embossed appear—
Conon, and what's his name who made the sphere,
And showed the seasons of the sliding year,
Instructed in his trade the labouring swain,
And when to reap, and when to sow the grain?

DAMŒTAS.

And I have two, to match your pair, at home;
The wood the same; from the same hand they come,
(The kimbo handles seem with bear's foot carved),
And never yet to table have been served;
Where Orpheus on his lyre laments his love,
With beasts encompassed, and a dancing grove.
But these, nor all the proffers you can make,
Are worth the heifer which I set to stake.

MENALCAS.

No more delays, vain boaster, but begin!
I prophesy beforehand, I shall win.
Palæmon shall be judge how ill you rhyme:
I'll teach you how to brag another time.

DAMŒTAS.

Rhymer, come on! and do the worst you can;
I fear not you, nor yet a better man.
With silence, neighbour, and attention, wait;
For 'tis a business of a high debate.

PALÆMON.

Sing then; the shade affords a proper place,
The trees are clothed with leaves, the fields with grass,

358

The blossoms blow, the birds on bushes sing,
And Nature has accomplished all the spring.
The challenge to Damœtas shall belong;
Menalcas shall sustain his under-song;
Each in his turn your tuneful numbers bring,
By turns the tuneful Muses love to sing.

DAMŒTAS.

From the great father of the gods above
My Muse begins; for all is full of Jove:
To Jove the care of heaven and earth belongs;
My flocks he blesses, and he loves my songs.

MENALCAS.

Me Phœbus loves; for he my Muse inspires,
And in her songs the warmth he gave requires.
For him, the god of shepherds and their sheep,
My blushing hyacinths and my bays I keep.

DAMŒTAS.

With pelted fruit me Galatea plies;
Then tripping to the woods the wanton hies,
And wishes to be seen before she flies.

MENALCAS.

But fair Amyntas comes unasked to me,
And offers love, and sits upon my knee.
Not Delia to my dogs is known so well as he.

359

DAMŒTAS.

To the dear mistress of my love-sick mind,
Her swain a pretty present has designed:
I saw two stock-doves billing, and ere long
Will take the nest, and hers shall be the young.

MENALCAS.

Ten ruddy wildings in the wood I found,
And stood on tip-toes, reaching from the ground:
I sent Amyntas all my present store;
And will, to-morrow, send as many more.

DAMŒTAS.

The lovely maid lay panting in my arms,
And all she said and did was full of charms.
Winds! on your wings to heaven her accents bear;
Such words as heaven alone is fit to hear.

MENALCAS.

Ah! what avails it me, my love's delight,
To call you mine, when absent from my sight?
I hold the nets, while you pursue the prey,
And must not share the dangers of the day.

DAMŒTAS.

I keep my birthday; send my Phyllis home;
At shearing-time, Iollas, you may come.

MENALCAS.

With Phyllis I am more in grace than you;
Her sorrow did my parting steps pursue:
“Adieu, my dear,” she said, “a long adieu!”

DAMŒTAS.

The nightly wolf is baneful to the fold,
Storms to the wheat, to buds the bitter cold;

360

But, from my frowning fair, more ills I find,
Than from the wolves, and storms, and winterwind.

MENALCAS.

The kids with pleasure browse the bushy plain;
The showers are grateful to the swelling grain;
To teeming ewes the sallow's tender tree;
But, more than all the world, my love to me.

DAMŒTAS.

Pollio my rural verse vouchsafes to read:
A heifer, Muses, for your patron breed.

MENALCAS.

My Pollio writes himself:—a bull be bred,
With spurning heels, and with a butting head.

DAMŒTAS.

Who Pollio loves, and who his Muse admires,
Let Pollio's fortune crown his full desires.
Let myrrh instead of thorn his fences fill,
And showers of honey from his oaks distil.

MENALCAS.

Who hates not living Bavius, let him be
(Dead Mævius!) damn'd to love thy works and thee!
The same ill taste of sense would serve to join
Dog-foxes in the yoke, and shear the swine.

DAMŒTAS.

Ye boys, who pluck the flowers, and spoil the spring,
Beware the secret snake that shoots a sting.

361

MENALCAS.

Graze not too near the banks, my jolly sheep;
The ground is false, the running streams are deep:
See, they have caught the father of the flock,
Who dries his fleece upon the neighbouring rock.

DAMŒTAS.

From rivers drive the kids, and sling your hook;
Anon I'll wash them in the shallow brook.

MENALCAS.

To fold, my flock!—when milk is dried with heat,
In vain the milkmaid tugs an empty teat.

DAMŒTAS.

How lank my bulls from plenteous pasture come!
But love, that drains the herd, destroys the groom.

MENALCAS.

My flocks are free from love, yet look so thin,
Their bones are barely covered with their skin.
What magic has bewitched the woolly dams,
And what ill eyes beheld the tender lambs?

DAMŒTAS.

Say, where the round of heaven, which all contains,
To three short ells on earth our sight restrains:
Tell that, and rise a Phœbus for thy pains.

MENALCAS.

Nay, tell me first, in what new region springs
A flower, that bears inscribed the names of kings;
And thou shalt gain a present as divine
As Phœbus' self; for Phyllis shall be thine.

362

PALÆMON.

So nice a difference in your singing lies,
That both have won, or both deserved the prize.
Rest equal happy both; and all who prove
The bitter sweets, and pleasing pains, of love.
Now dam the ditches, and the floods restrain;
Their moisture has already drenched the plain.

Phœbus, not Pan, is here called the god of shepherds. The poet alludes to the same story which he touches in the beginning of the Second Georgic, where he calls Phœbus the Amphrysian shepherd, because he fed the sheep and oxen of Admetus, with whom he was in love, on the hill Amphyrsus.