'Sweet, methinks, is the whispering sound of yonder pine-tree,' so,
Theocritus, with that sweet word _ade_*, didst thou begin and strike the
keynote of thy songs. 'Sweet,' and didst thou find aught of sweet, when
thou, like thy Daphnis, didst 'go down the stream, when the whirling
wave closed over the man the Muses loved, the man not hated of the
Nymphs?' Perchance below those waters of death thou didst find, like
thine own Hylas, the lovely Nereids waiting thee, Eunice, and Malis,
and Nycheia with her April eyes. In the House of Hades, Theocritus, doth
there dwell aught that is fair, and can the low light on the fields
of asphodel make thee forget thy Sicily? Nay, methinks thou hast not
forgotten, and perchance for poets dead there is prepared a place more
beautiful than their dreams. It was well for the later minstrels of
another day, it was well for Ronsard and Du Bellay to desire a dim
Elysium of their own, where the sunlight comes faintly through the
shadow of the earth, where the poplars are duskier, and the waters more
pale than in the meadows of Anjou.
* Transliterated.
There, in that restful twilight, far remote from war and plot, from
sword and fire, and from religions that sharpened the steel and lit the
torch, there these learned singers would fain have wandered with their
learned ladies, satiated with life and in love with an unearthly quiet.
But to thee, Theocritus, no twilight of the Hollow Land was dear, but
the high suns of Sicily and the brown cheeks of the country maidens were
happiness enough. For thee, therefore, methinks, surely is reserved an
Elysium beneath the summer of a far-off system, with stars not ours
and alien seasons. There, as Bion prayed, shall Spring, the thrice
desirable, be with thee the whole year through, where there is neither
frost, nor is the heat so heavy on men, but all is fruitful, and all
sweet things blossom, and evenly meted are darkness and dawn. Space is
wide, and there be many worlds, and suns enow, and the Sun-god surely
has had a care of his own. Little didst thou need, in thy native land,
the isle of the three capes, little didst thou need but sunlight on
land and sea. Death can have shown thee naught dearer than the fragrant
shadow of the pines, where the dry needles of the fir are strewn, or
glades where feathered ferns make 'a couch more soft than Sleep.' The
short grass of the cliffs, too, thou didst love, where thou wouldst lie,
and watch, with the tunny watcher till the deep blue sea was broken by
the burnished sides of the tunny shoal, and afoam with their gambols in
the brine. There the Muses met thee, and the Nymphs, and there Apollo,
remembering his old thraldom with Admetus, would lead once more a
mortal's flocks, and listen and learn, Theocritus, while thou, like
thine own Comatas, 'didst sweetly sing.'
There, methinks, I see thee as in thy happy days, 'reclined on deep beds
of fragrant lentisk, lowly strewn, and rejoicing in new stript leaves
of the vine, while far above thy head waved many a poplar, many an
elm-tree, and close at hand the sacred waters sang from the mouth of the
cavern of the nymphs.' And when night came, methinks thou wouldst flee
from the merry company and the dancing girls, from the fading crowds of
roses or white violets, from the cottabos, and the minstrelsy, and the
Bibline wine, from these thou wouldst slip away into the summer night.
Then the beauty of life and of the summer would keep thee from thy
couch, and wandering away from Syracuse by the sandhills and the
sea, thou wouldst watch the low cabin, roofed with grass, where
the fishing-rods of reed were leaning against the door, while the
Mediterranean floated up her waves, and filled the waste with sound.
There didst thou see thine ancient fishermen rising ere the dawn from
their bed of dry sea-weed, and heardst them stirring, drowsy, among
their fishing gear, and heardst them tell their dreams.
Or again thou wouldst wander with dusty feet through the ways that the
dust makes silent, while the breath of the kine, as they were driven
forth with the morning, came fresh to thee, and the trailing dewy branch
of honeysuckle struck sudden on thy cheek. Thou wouldst see the Dawn
awake in rose and saffron across the waters, and Etna, grey and pale
against the sky, and the setting crescent would dip strangely in the
glow, on her way to the sea. Then, methinks, thou wouldst murmur, like
thine own Simaetha, the love-lorn witch, 'Farewell, Selene, bright and
fair; farewell, ye other stars, that follow the wheels of the quiet
Night.' Nay, surely it was in such an hour that thou didst behold the
girl as she burned the laurel leaves and the barley grain, and melted
the waxen image, and called on Selene to bring her lover home. Even so,
even now, in the islands of Greece, the setting Moon may listen to the
prayers of maidens. 'Bright golden Moon, that now art near the waters,
go thou and salute my lover, he that stole my love, and that kissed me,
saying "Never will I leave thee." And lo, he hath left me as men leave a
field reaped and gleaned, like a church where none cometh to pray, like
a city desolate.'
So the girls still sing in Greece, for though the Temples have fallen,
and the wandering shepherds sleep beneath the broken columns of the
god's house in Selinus, yet these ancient fires burn still to the old
divinities in the shrines of the hearths of the peasants. It is none of
the new creeds that cry, in the dirge of the Sicilian shepherds of
our time, 'Ah, light of mine eyes, what gift shall I send thee, what
offering to the other world? The apple fadeth, the quince decayeth,
and one by one they perish, the petals of the rose. I will send thee my
tears shed on a napkin, and what though it burneth in the flame, if my
tears reach thee at the last.'
Yes, little is altered, Theocritus, on these shores beneath the sun,
where thou didst wear a tawny skin stripped from the roughest of
he-goats, and about thy breast an old cloak buckled with a plaited
belt. Thou wert happier there, in Sicily, methinks, and among vines
and shadowy lime-trees of Cos, than in the dust, and heat, and noise of
Alexandria. What love of fame, what lust of gold tempted thee away from
the red cliffs, and grey olives, and wells of black water wreathed with
maidenhair?
The music of the rustic flute
Kept not for long its happy country tone;
Lost it too soon, and learned a stormy note
Of men contention tost, of men who groan,
Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat--
It failed, and thou wast mute!
What hadst _thou_ to make in cities, and what could Ptolemies and Princes
give thee better than the goat-milk cheese and the Ptelean wine? Thy
Muses were meant to be the delight of peaceful men, not of tyrants and
wealthy merchants, to whom they vainly went on a begging errand. 'Who
will open his door and gladly receive our Muses within his house, who is
there that will not send them back again without a gift? And they with
naked feet and looks askance come homewards, and sorely they upbraid me
when they have gone on a vain journey, and listless again in the bottom
of their empty coffer they dwell with heads bowed over their chilly
knees, where is their drear abode, when portionless they return.' How
far happier was the prisoned goat-herd, Comatas, in the fragrant cedar
chest where the blunt-faced bees from the meadow fed him with food of
tender flowers, because still the Muse dropped sweet nectar on his lips!
Thou didst leave the neat-herds and the kine, and the oaks of Himera,
the galingale hummed over by the bees, and the pine that dropped her
cones, and Amaryllis in her cave, and Bombyca with her feet of carven
ivory. Thou soughtest the City, and strife with other singers, and the
learned write still on thy quarrels with Apollonius and Callimachus,
and Antagoras of Rhodes. So ancient are the hatreds of poets, envy,
jealousy, and all unkindness.
Not to the wits of Courts couldst thou teach thy rural song, though all
these centuries, more than two thousand years, they have laboured to
vie with thee. There has come no new pastoral poet, though Virgil copied
thee, and Pope, and Phillips, and all the buckram band of the teacup
time; and all the modish swains of France have sung against thee, as the
_son challenged Athene_. They never knew the shepherd's life, the long'
winter nights on dried heather by the fire, the long summer days, when
over the dry grass all is quiet, and only the insects hum, and the
shrunken burn whispers a silver tune. Swains in high-heeled shoon, and
lace, shepherdesses in rouge and diamonds, the world is weary of all
concerning them, save their images in porcelain, effigies how unlike the
golden figures, dedicate to Aphrodite, of Bombyca and Battus. Somewhat,
Theocritus, thou hast to answer for, thou that first of men brought
the shepherd to Court, and made courtiers wild to go a Maying with the
shepherds.