Muses, that so thou mayest have a goodly fame, even when hidden in Hades, nor ever moan without renown by the chill water of Acheron, like one whose palms the spade has hardened, some landless man bewailing the poverty that is all his heritage.

Many were the thralls that in the palace of Antiochus, and of king Aleuas drew out their monthly dole, many the calves that were driven to the penns of the Scopiadae, and lowed with the horned kine: countless on the Crannonian plain did shepherds pasture beneath the sky the choicest sheep of the hospitable Creondae, yet from all this they had no joy, when once into the wide raft of hateful Acheron they had breathed sweet life away! Yea, unremembered (though they had left all that rich store), for ages long would they have lain among the dead forlorn, if a name among later men the skilled Ceian minstrel had spared to bestow, singing his bright songs to a harp of many strings. Honour too was won by the swift steeds that came home to them crowned from the sacred contests.

And who would ever have known the Lycian champions of time past, who Priam's longhaired sons, and Cycnus, white of skin as a maiden, if minstrels had not chanted of the war cries of the old heroes ? Nor would Odysseus have won his lasting glory, for all his ten years' wandering among all folks; and despite the visit he paid, he a living man, to inmost Hades, and for all his escape from the murderous

Cyclops's cave,—unheard too were the names of the swineherd Eumaeus, and of Philoetius, busy with the kine of the herds; yea, and even of Laertes, high of heart; if the songs of the Ionian man had not kept them in renown.

From the Muses comes a goodly report to men, but the living heirs devour the possessions of the dead. But, lo, it is as light labour to count the waves upon the beach, as many as wind and grey sea-tide roll upon the shore, or in violet-hued water to cleanse away the stain from a potsherd, as to win favour from a man that is smitten with the greed of gain. Goodday to such an one, and countless be his coin, and ever may he be possessed by a longing desire for more! But I for my part would choose honour and the loving-kindness of men, far before wealth in mules and horses.

I am seeking to what mortal I may come, a welcome guest, with the help of the Muses, for hard indeed do minstrels find the ways, who go uncompanioned by the daughters of deep-counselling Zeus. Not yet is the heaven aweary of rolling the months onwards, and the years, and many a horse shall yet whirl the chariot wheels, and the man shall yet be found, who will take me for his minstrel; a man of deeds like those that great Achilles wrought, or puissant Aias, in the plain of Simois, where is the tomb of Phrygian Ilus.

Even now the Phoenicians that dwell beneath the setting sun on the spur of Libya, shudder for dread, even now the Syracusans

poise lances in rest, and their arms are burdened by the linden shields. Among them Hiero, like the mighty men of old, girds himself for fight, and the horse - hair crest is shadowing his helmet. Ah, Zeus, our father renowned, and ah, lady Athene, and O thou Maiden that with the Mother dost possess the great burg of the rich Ephyreans, by the water of Lusimeleia,1 would that dire necessity may drive our foemen from the isle, along the Sardinian wave, to tell the doom of their friends to children and to wives-messengers easy to number out of so many warriors ! But as for our cities may they again be held by their ancient masters,— all the cities that hostile hands have utterly spoiled. May our people till the flowering fields, and may thousands of sheep unnumbered fatten 'mid the herbage, and bleat along the plain, while the kine as they come in droves to the stalls warn the belated traveller to hasten on his way. May the fallows be broken for the seed-time, while the cicala, watching the shepherds as they toil in the sun, in the shade of the trees doth sing on the topmost sprays. May spiders weave their delicate webs over martial gear, may none any more so much as name the cry of onset !

But the fame of Hiero may minstrels bear aloft, across the Scythian sea, and where Semiramis reigned, that built the mighty wall,

1 I.e. Syracuse, a colony of the Ephyraeans or Corinthians. The Maiden is Persephone, the Mother Demeter.

and made it fast with slime for mortar. I am but one of many that are loved by the daughters of Zeus, and they all are fain to sing of Sicilian Arethusa, with the people of the isle, and the warrior Hiero. O Graces, ye Goddesses, adored of Eteocles, ye that love Orchomenos of the Minyae, the ancient enemy of Thebes, when no man bids me, let me abide at home, but to the houses of such as bid me, boldly let me come with my Muses. Nay, neither the Muses nor you Graces will I leave behind, for without the Graces what have men that is desirable? with the Graces of song may I dwell for ever!

IDYL XVII

The poet praises Ptolemy Philadelphus in a strain of almost religious adoration. Hauler, in his Life of Theocritus, dates the poem about 259 B.C., but it may have been many years earlier.

FROM Zeus let us begin, and with Zeus make end, ye Muses, whensoever we chant in songs the chiefest of immortals! But of men, again, let Ptolemy be named, among the foremost, and last, and in the midmost place, for of men he hath the pre-eminence. The heroes that in old days were begotten of the demigods, wrought noble deeds, and chanced on minstrels skilled, but I, with what skill I have in song, would fain make my hymn of Ptolemy, and hymns are the glorious meed, yea, of the very immortals.

When the feller hath come up to wooded Ida, he glances around, so many are the trees, to see whence he should begin his labour. Where first shall I begin the tale, for there are countless things ready for the telling, wherewith the Gods have graced the most excellent of kings?

Even by virtue of his sires, how mighty was he to accomplish some great work,-Ptolemy