Theocritus Part 13

She that loves not bears sons, but all unlike Their father: for her heart was otherwhere.

O Aphrodite, matchless e'en in heaven For beauty, thou didst love her; wouldst not let Thy Berenice cross the wailful waves: But thy hand s.n.a.t.c.hed her--to the blue lake bound Else, and the dead's grim ferryman--and enshrined With thee, to share thy honours. There she sits, To mortals ever kind, and pa.s.sion soft Inspires, and makes the lover's burden light.

The dark-browed Argive, linked with Tydeus, bare Diomed the slayer, famed in Calydon: And deep-veiled Thetis unto Peleus gave The javelineer Achilles. Thou wast born Of Berenice, Ptolemy by name And by descent, a warrior's warrior child.

Cos from its mother's arms her babe received, Its destined nursery, on its natal day: 'Twas there Antigone's daughter in her pangs Cried to the G.o.ddess that could bid them cease: Who soon was at her side, and lo! her limbs Forgat their anguish, and a child was born Fair, its sire's self. Cos saw, and shouted loud; Handled the babe all tenderly, and spake:

"Wake, babe, to bliss: prize me, as Phoebus doth His azure-sphered Delos: grace the hill Of Triops, and the Dorians' sister sh.o.r.es, As king Apollo his Rhenaea's isle."

So spake the isle. An eagle high overhead Poised in the clouds screamed thrice, the prophet-bird Of Zeus, and sent by him. For awful kings All are his care, those chiefliest on whose birth He smiled: exceeding glory waits on them: Theirs is the sovereignty of land and sea.

But if a myriad realms spread far and wide O'er earth, if myriad nations till the soil To which heaven's rain gives increase: yet what land Is green as low-lying Egypt, when the Nile Wells forth and piecemeal breaks the sodden glebe?

Where are like cities, peopled by like men?

Lo he hath seen three hundred towns arise, Three thousand, yea three myriad; and o'er all He rules, the prince of heroes, Ptolemy.

Claims half Phoenicia, and half Araby, Syria and Libya, and the aethiops murk; Sways the Pamphylian and Cilician braves, The Lycian and the Carian trained to war, And all the isles: for never fleet like his Rode upon ocean: land and sea alike And sounding rivers hail king Ptolemy.

Many are his hors.e.m.e.n, many his targeteers, Whose burdened breast is bright with clas.h.i.+ng steel: Light are all royal treasuries, weighed with his.

For wealth from all climes travels day by day To his rich realm, a hive of prosperous peace.

No foeman's tramp scares monster-peopled Nile, Waking to war her far-off villages: No armed robber from his war-s.h.i.+p leaps To spoil the herds of Egypt. Such a prince Sits throned in her broad plains, in whose right arm Quivers the spear, the bright-haired Ptolemy.

Like a true king, he guards with might and main The wealth his sires' arm won him and his own.

Nor strown all idly o'er his sumptuous halls Lie piles that seem the work of labouring ants.

The holy homes of G.o.ds are rich therewith; Theirs are the firstfruits, earnest aye of more.

And freely mighty kings thereof partake, Freely great cities, freely honoured friends.

None entered e'er the sacred lists of song, Whose lips could breathe sweet music, but he gained Fair guerdon at the hand of Ptolemy.

And Ptolemy do music's votaries hymn For his good gifts--hath man a fairer lot Than to have earned much fame among mankind?

The Atridae's name abides, while all the wealth Won from the sack of Priam's stately home A mist closed o'er it, to be seen no more.

Ptolemy, he only, treads a path whose dust Burns with the footprints of his ancestors, And overlays those footprints with his own.

He raised rich shrines to mother and to sire, There reared their forms in ivory and gold, Pa.s.sing in beauty, to befriend mankind.

Thighs of fat oxen oftentimes he burns On crimsoning altars, as the months roll on, Ay he and his staunch wife. No fairer bride E'er clasped her lord in royal palaces: And her heart's love her brother-husband won.

In such blest union joined the immortal pair Whom queenly Rhea bore, and heaven obeys: One couch the maiden of the rainbow decks With myrrh-dipt hands for Hera and for Zeus.

Now farewell, prince! I rank thee aye with G.o.ds: And read this lesson to the afterdays, Mayhap they'll prize it: 'Honour is of Zeus.'

IDYLL XVIII.

The Bridal of Helen.

Whilom, in Lacedaemon, Tript many a maiden fair To gold-tressed Menelaus' halls, With hyacinths in her hair: Twelve to the Painted Chamber, The queenliest in the land, The cl.u.s.tered loveliness of Greece, Came dancing hand in hand.

For Helen, Tyndarus' daughter, Had just been wooed and won, Helen the darling of the world, By Atreus' younger son: With woven steps they beat the floor In unison, and sang Their bridal-hymn of triumph Till all the palace rang.

"Slumberest so soon, sweet bridegroom?

Art thou o'erfond of sleep?

Or hast thou leadenweighted limbs?

Or hadst thou drunk too deep When thou didst fling thee to thy lair?

Betimes thou should'st have sped, If sleep were all thy purpose, Unto thy bachelor's bed: And left her in her mother's arms To nestle, and to play A girl among her girlish mates Till deep into the day:-- For not alone for this night, Nor for the next alone, But through the days and through the years Thou hast her for thine own.

"Nay! heaven, O happy bridegroom, Smiled as thou enteredst in To Sparta, like thy brother kings, And told thee thou should'st win!

What hero son-in-law of Zeus Hath e'er aspired to be?

Yet lo! one coverlet enfolds The child of Zeus, and thee.

Ne'er did a thing so lovely Roam the Achaian lea.

"And who shall match her offspring, If babes are like their mother?

For we were playmates once, and ran And raced with one another (All varnished, warrior fas.h.i.+on) Along Eurotas' tide, Thrice eighty gentle maidens, Each in her girlhood's pride: Yet none of all seemed faultless, If placed by Helen's side.

"As peers the nascent Morning Over thy shades, O Night, When Winter disenchains the land, And Spring goes forth in white: So Helen shone above us, All loveliness and light.

"As climbs aloft some cypress, Garden or glade to grace; As the Thessalian courser lends A l.u.s.tre to the race: So bright o'er Lacedaemon Shone Helen's rosebud face.

"And who into the basket e'er The yarn so deftly drew, Or through the mazes of the web So well the shuttle threw, And severed from the framework As closelywov'n a warp:-- And who could wake with masterhand Such music from the harp, To broadlimbed Pallas tuning And Artemis her lay-- As Helen, Helen in whose eyes The Loves for ever play?

"O bright, O beautiful, for thee Are matron-cares begun.

We to green paths and blossomed meads With dawn of morn must run, And cull a breathing chaplet; And still our dream shall be, Helen, of thee, as weanling lambs Yearn in the pasture for the dams That nursed their infancy.

"For thee the lowly lotus-bed We'll spoil, and plait a crown To hang upon the shadowy plane; For thee will we drop down ('Neath that same shadowy platan) Oil from our silver urn; And carven on the bark shall be This sentence, 'HALLOW HELEN'S TREE'; In Dorian letters, legibly For all men to discern.

"Now farewell, bride, and bridegroom Blest in thy new-found sire!

May Leto, mother of the brave, Bring babes at your desire, And holy Cypris either's breast With mutual transport fire: And Zeus the son of Cronos Grant blessings without end, From princely sire to princely son For ever to descend.

"Sleep on, and love and longing Breathe in each other's breast; But fail not when the morn returns To rouse you from your rest: With dawn shall we be stirring, When, lifting high his fair And feathered neck, the earliest bird To clarion to the dawn is heard.

O G.o.d of brides and bridals, Sing 'Happy, happy pair!'"

IDYLL XIX.

Love Stealing Honey.

Once thievish Love the honeyed hives would rob, When a bee stung him: soon he felt a throb Through all his finger-tips, and, wild with pain, Blew on his hands and stamped and jumped in vain.

To Aphrodite then he told his woe: 'How can a thing so tiny hurt one so?'

She smiled and said; 'Why thou'rt a tiny thing, As is the bee; yet sorely thou canst sting.'

IDYLL XX.

Town and Country

Once I would kiss Eunice. "Back," quoth she, And screamed and stormed; "a sorry clown kiss me?

Your country compliments, I like not such; No lips but gentles' would I deign to touch.

Ne'er dream of kissing me: alike I shun Your face, your language, and your tigerish fun.

How winning are your tones, how fine your air!

Your beard how silken and how sweet your hair!

Pah! you've a sick man's lips, a blackamoor's hand: Your breath's defilement. Leave me, I command."

Thrice spat she on her robe, and, muttering low, Scanned me, with half-shut eyes, from top to toe: Brought all her woman's witcheries into play, Still smiling in a set sarcastic way, Till my blood boiled, my visage crimson grew With indignation, as a rose with dew: And so she left me, inly to repine That such as she could flout such charms as mine.