ECLOGUE III. PALEMON.

MENALCAS. DAMOTAS. PALEMON.

MENALCAS.

TELL me, Damœtas, whose may be the flock?

Is't that of Melibœus?

DAMETAS.

It is not,

But Egon's; Egon lately it to me

Consigned.

MENALCAS.

Ye sheep, O ever luckless flock!
While he himself Neæra fonds, and dreads
Lest she should me prefer to him, his ewes
This foreign keeper milks twice in the hour,
And from the flock the
is filched away,
And from the lambs the milk.

sap

DAMCETAS.

Still bear in mind

That these [misdoings] should with more reserve

10

Line 7. It is very doubtful that alienus means "hireling;" for Damotas may have been in too comfortable a position to accept of formal pay. He paid himself, however, unless Menalcas was untruthful,—which he may very well have been, and his companion with him. The character of each depends on the testimony of the other; and all that is certain is, that they had both very abusive tongues. The probability is, that Damotas was a thief, at all events; and so he need not have sought a remuneration for his trouble in honest cash. Vide v. 16 of the Latin text.

Be charged on those who are men. We know both who 'Twas.... thee,-the he-goats eyeing it askance,And in what holy grot;-but th' easy nymphs

Did laugh.

MENALCAS.

'Twas then, I ween, when me they spied

With scathful bill-hook hacking Mycon's grove,
And infant vines.

DAMETAS.

Or here by th' agèd beech, What time you Daphnis' bow and arrows broke; Which when, malign Menalcas, you beheld Bestowed upon the lad, you both were vexed, And, if you had not somehow mischiefed him, You would have died.

MENALCAS.

What can flock-owners do,
Saw I not you

When venture knaves the like?

Damon's he-goat, you wretch, in ambush take,
Lycisca in full bark? And when I roared,
"Now whither doth yon fellow hie him off?
O Tityrus, collect thy flock," you skulked
Behind the rush-plats.

DAMETAS.

Should he not to me,

In playing beaten, give up the he-goat,
Which my reed-pipe had by its warblings won?
Should you not know it, that he-goat was mine;
And Damon e'en acknowledged it to me,

20

30

Line 15. Malá may either be referred to falce, as in the translation; or to Damotas, when it should be rendered "spiteful."

20. Anthon, in referring nocuisses to the bow and arrows, is singular, so far as I know.

But he declared he could not give it up.

MENALCAS.

In playing thou [beat'st] him? Or hath a pipe,
With wax cemented, e'er belonged to thee?
Wert thou not in the crossways, O thou dunce,
Customed to murder some unhappy tune
Upon thy scrannel straw?

DAMETAS.

Dost thou then wish

That we, between ourselves, what each can do
In turn should try? I this young cow-(lest thou
Perchance decline, twice comes she to the pail,
Twin calves she suckles at her udder)—stake:
Do thou say with what bet with me thou❜lt cope.

MENALCAS.

Aught taken from the herd to stake with thee
I could not venture: for I have at home

A sire, I have a rigorous stepdame;

And twice a day do they both reckon o'er

The flock, and one of them the kids. But that,
Which thou thyself far costlier wilt allow,

(Seeing it is thy fancy to be mad,)

I'll pledge my beechen cups, the graven work
Of the divine Alcimedon, whereon,

Line 36. See Milton's Lycidas:

"And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw."
45. Spenser has imitated this passage: Sh. Cal. March, 40:
"For, alas! at home I have a syre,

A stepdame eke, as hote as fyre,
That dewly adayes counts mine."

So the unfortunate Imogen complains of

"A father cruel, and a stepdame false."

Shakspeare, Cymbeline, i. 7.

40

50

O'erwrought with chisel free, a limber vine,
The clusters scattered by the ivy wan,

Doth mantle. In the midst two figures [stand];
Conon, and-who was th' other, that mapped out

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Line 52. On a comparison of v. 38 of the Latin with Ec. v. 42, it seems doubtful that Salmasius and La Cerda are right in taking torno to mean a "lathe," and superaddita, superadded." This latter word there plainly means "inscribed;" and so here it appears to have the force of "embossed over."

53. So Spenser, in his 8th Æglogue, which is amobæan, in imitation of his predecessors, Theocritus and Virgil:

"And over them spred a goodly wilde vine,
Entrailed with a wanton yvy twine."

Sh. Cal. Aug. 29.

And again, he ornaments the porch of the Castle of Temperance with the ivy and vine: Faerie Queene, ii. 9, 24:

"Of hewen stone the porch was fayrely wrought,
Stone more of valew, and more smooth and fine,
Then iet or marble far from Ireland brought:
Over the which was cast a wandring vine,
Enchaced with a wanton yvie twine."

The same image of trailing ivy is reproduced in an exquisite passage in the description of a fountain in the "Bower of Bliss:" F. Q. ii. 12, 61: "And over all of purest gold was spred

55.

A trayle of yvie in his native hew;
For the rich metall was so coloured,

That wight, who did not well avis'd it vew,
Would surely deeme it to bee yvie trew :
Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe,

That themselves dipping in the silver dew

Their fleecy flowres they fearfully did steepe,

Which drops of christall seemd for wantones to weep."

As Virgil did not want to make Menalcas too learned, so Spenser makes Thomalin (Sh. Cal. July, 161), after mentioning Moses, forget Aaron's name :

"This had a brother (his name I knew)," &c,

Gay is more true to pastoral life than any of his predecessors: his swains have not even heard of philosophers. See the Shepherd's Week, Monday, 20-30. It ought perhaps to be remarked, however, that what he gains in truth he often loses in refinement,—his images sometimes

With wand unto the nations the whole sphere;
The seasons which the sickleman, those which
The stooping ploughman should observe? My lips
I never yet have unto them approached,

But keep them up in store.

DAMETAS.

For us as well

The same Alcimedon two cups hath made,
And with the soft acanthus round inwreathed
Their handles, and an Orpheus in the midst

60

bordering on burlesque. All this, it is said, was done with a design to help the reputation of Pope; which in proportion as he failed to serve, his simplicity is enhanced by elegance.

Line 63.

"The Harpe, on which Dan Orpheus was seene
Wylde beasts and forrests after him to lead."

Spenser, Ruins of Time, 607.

Shakspeare's song in Henry the Eighth will readily occur to the reader: iii. 1 :

"Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,

Bend themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers,

There had been a lasting spring.

Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,

Hung their heads, and then lay by:

In sweet music is such art

Killing care and grief of heart

Fall asleep, or, hearing, die."

Dryden puts the immortal Purcell before Orpheus: "We beg not hell our Orpheus to restore : Had he been there,

Their sovereign's fear

Had sent him back before.

The power of harmony too well they knew:
He long ere this had tuned their jarring sphere,

And left no hell below."

Elegy on the Death of Mr. Purcell.