_A herdsman_, _who had been contemptuously rejected by Eunica_, _a girl
of the town_, _protests that he is beautiful_, _and that Eunica is
prouder than Cybele_, _Selene_, _and Aphrodite_, _all of whom loved
mortal herdsmen_. _For grammatical and other reasons_, _some critics
consider this idyl apocryphal_.
* * * * *
EUNICA laughed out at me when sweetly I would have kissed her, and
taunting me, thus she spoke: ‘Get thee gone from me! Wouldst thou kiss
me, wretch; thou—a neatherd? I never learned to kiss in country fashion,
but to press lips with city gentlefolks. Never hope to kiss my lovely
mouth, nay, not even in a dream. How thou dost look, what chatter is
thine, how countrified thy tricks are, how delicate thy talk, how easy
thy tattle! And then thy beard—so soft! thy elegant hair! Why, thy lips
are like some sick man’s, thy hands are black, and thou art of evil
savour. Away with thee, lest thy presence soil me!’ These taunts she
mouthed, and thrice spat in the breast of her gown, and stared at me all
over from head to feet; shooting out her lips, and glancing with
half-shut eyes, writhing her beautiful body, and so sneered, and laughed
me to scorn. And instantly my blood boiled, and I grew red under the
sting, as a rose with dew. And she went off and left me, but I bear
angry pride deep in my heart, that I, the handsome shepherd, should have
been mocked by a wretched light-o’-love.
Shepherds, tell me the very truth; am I not beautiful? Has some God
changed me suddenly to another man? Surely a sweet grace ever blossomed
round me, till this hour, like ivy round a tree, and covered my chin, and
about my temples fell my locks, like curling parsley-leaves, and white
shone my forehead above my dark eyebrows. Mine eyes were brighter far
than the glance of the grey-eyed Athene, my mouth than even pressed milk
was sweeter, and from my lips my voice flowed sweeter than honey from the
honeycomb. Sweet too, is my music, whether I make melody on pipe, or
discourse on the flute, or reed, or flageolet. And all the
mountain-maidens call me beautiful, and they would kiss me, all of them.
But the city girl did not kiss me, but ran past me, because I am a
neatherd, and she never heard how fair Dionysus in the dells doth drive
the calves, and knows not that Cypris was wild with love for a herdsman,
and drove afield in the mountains of Phrygia; ay, and Adonis himself,—in
the oakwood she kissed, in the oakwood she bewailed him. And what was
Endymion? was he not a neatherd? whom nevertheless as he watched his
herds Selene saw and loved, and from Olympus descending she came to the
Latmian glade, and lay in one couch with the boy; and thou, Rhea, dust
weep for thy herdsman.
And didst not thou, too, Son of Cronos, take the shape of a wandering
bird, and all for a cowherd boy?
But Eunica alone would not kiss the herdsman; Eunica, she that is greater
than Cybele, and Cypris, and Selene!
Well, Cypris, never mayst thou, in city or on hillside, kiss thy darling,
{104} and lonely all the long night mayst thou sleep!