as he aimed the sharp sword at the left knee, Castor
drew back with his left foot, and hacked the fingers
off the hand of Lynceus. Then he being smitten
cast away his sword, and turned swiftly to flee to
the tomb of his father, where mighty Idas lay, and
watched this strife of kinsmen. But the son
of Tyndarus sped after him, and drove the broad sword
through bowels and navel, and instantly the bronze
cleft all in twain, and Lynceus bowed, and on his
face he lay fallen on the ground, and forthwith heavy
sleep rushed down upon his eyelids.
Nay, nor that other of her children did Laocoosa see,
by the hearth of his fathers, after he had fulfilled
a happy marriage. For lo, Messenian Idas did
swiftly break away the standing stone from the tomb
of his father Aphareus, and now he would have smitten
the slayer of his brother, but Zeus defended him and
drave the polished stone from the hands of Idas, and
utterly consumed him with a flaming thunderbolt.
Thus it is no light labour to war with the sons of
Tyndarus, for a mighty pair are they, and mighty is
he that begat them.
Farewell, ye children of Leda, and all goodly renown
send ye ever to our singing. Dear are all minstrels
to the sons of Tyndarus, and to Helen, and to the
other heroes that sacked Troy in aid of Menelaus.
For you, O princes, the bard of Chios wrought renown,
when he sang the city of Priam, and the ships of the
Achaeans, and the Ilian war, and Achilles, a tower
of battle. And to you, in my turn, the charms
of the clear-voiced Muses, even all that they can give,
and all that my house has in store, these do I bring.
The fairest meed of the gods is song.
A lover hangs himself at the gate of his obdurate
darling who, in turn, is slain by a statue of Love.
This poem is not attributed with much certainty to
Theocritus, and is found in but a small proportion
of manuscripts.
A love-sick youth pined for an unkind love, beautiful
in form, but fair no more in mood. The beloved
hated the lover, and had for him no gentleness at
all, and knew not Love, how mighty a God is he, and
what a bow his hands do wield, and what bitter arrows
he dealeth at the young. Yea, in all things
ever, in speech and in all approaches, was the beloved
unyielding. Never was there any assuagement of
Love’s fires, never was there a smile of the
lips, nor a bright glance of the eyes, never a blushing
cheek, nor a word, nor a kiss that lightens the burden
of desire. Nay, as a beast of the wild wood
hath the hunters in watchful dread, even so did the
beloved in all things regard the man, with angered
lips, and eyes that had the dreadful glance of fate,
and the whole face was answerable to this wrath, the
colour fled from it, sicklied o’er with wrathful
pride. Yet even thus was the loved one beautiful,
and the lover was the more moved by this haughtiness.
At length he could no more endure so fierce a flame
of the Cytherean, but drew near and wept by the hateful
dwelling, and kissed the lintel of the door, and thus
he lifted up his voice:
