TRANSLATIONS

FROM

THEOCRITUS.

1

AMARYLLIS:

OR,

THE THIRD IDYLLIUM OF THEOCRITUS,

PARAPHRASED.

To

o Amaryllis love compels my way,

My browzing goats upon the mountains stray;
O Tityrus, tend them well, and see them fed
In pastures fresh, and to their watering led;
And 'ware the ridgling with his budding head.
Ah, beauteous nymph! can you forget your love,
The conscious grottos, and the shady grove,
Where stretched at ease your tender limbs were laid,
Your nameless beauties nakedly displayed?
Then I was called your darling, your desire,
With kisses such as set my soul on fire:
But you are changed, yet I am still the same;
My heart maintains for both a double flame,
Grieved, but unmoved, and patient of your scorn;
So faithful I, and you so much forsworn!
I die, and death will finish all my pain;
Yet, ere I die, behold me once again :

This appeared in the First Miscellany.

Am I so much deformed, so changed of late?
What partial judges are our love and hate!
Ten wildings have I gathered for my dear;
How ruddy, like your lips, their streaks appear!
Far-off you viewed them with a longing eye
Upon the topmost branch (the tree was high);
Yet nimbly up, from bough to bough, I swerved, *
And for to-morrow have ten more reserved.
Look on me kindly, and some pity shew,
Or give me leave at least to look on you.
Some god transform me by his heavenly power,
Even to a bee to buzz within your bower,
The winding ivy-chaplet to invade,

And folded fern, that your fair forehead shade.
Now to my cost the force of love I find,
The heavy hand it bears on human kind.
The milk of tygers was his infant food,
Taught from his tender years the taste of blood;
His brother whelps and he ran wild about the wood.
Ah nymph, trained up in his tyrannic court,
To make the sufferings of your slaves your sport!
Unheeded ruin! treacherous delight!

O polished hardness, softened to the sight!
Whose radiant eyes your ebon brows adorn,
Like midnight those, and these like break of morn!
Smile once again, revive me with your charms,
And let me die contented in your arms.
I would not ask to live another day,
Might I but sweetly kiss my soul away.

It occurs

* To swerve, as the word is here used, means to draw one's self up a tree by clinging round it with the legs and arms. in the old ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, where he sends one of his men aloft:

5

Then Gordon swarved the maine-mast tree,

He swarved it with might and main.

Reliques of Ancient Poetry, Vol. II. p. 192.

Ah, why am I from empty joys debarred?
For kisses are but empty when compared.
I rave, and in my raging fit shall tear
The garland, which I wove for you to wear,
Of parsley, with a wreath of ivy bound,
And bordered with a rosy edging round.
What pangs I feel, unpitied and unheard!
Since I must die, why is my fate deferred!
I strip my body of my shepherd's frock;
Behold that dreadful downfal of a rock,
Where yon old fisher views the waves from high!
'Tis that convenient leap I mean to try.
You would be pleased to see me plunge to shore,
But better pleased if I should rise no more.
I might have read my fortune long ago,
When, seeking my success in love to know,
I tried the infallible prophetic way,

A poppy-leaf upon my palm to lay.

I struck, and yet no lucky crack did follow;
Yet I struck hard, and yet the leaf lay hollow;
And, which was worse, if any worse could prove,
The withering leaf foreshowed your withering love.
Yet farther, ah, how far a lover dares !

My last recourse I had to sieve and sheers,
And told the witch Agreo my disease:
(Agreo, that in harvest used to lease;

But, harvest done, to chare-work did aspire;
Meat, drink, and two-pence was her daily hire;)
To work she went, her charms she muttered o'er,
And yet the resty sieve wagged ne'er the more;
I wept for woe, the testy beldame swore,
And, foaming with her God, foretold my fate,
That I was doomed to love, and you to hate.
A milk-white goat for you I did provide;
Two milk-white kids run frisking by her side,