COMETAS. 
    Tho’ dogrose and anemone are fair in their degree,
    The rose that blooms by garden-walls still is the rose for me.

    LACON. 
    Tho’ acorns’ cups are fair, their taste is bitterness, and still
    I’ll choose, for honeysweet are they, the apples of the hill.

    COMETAS. 
    A cushat I will presently procure and give to her
    Who loves me:  I know where it sits; up in the juniper.

    LACON. 
    Pooh! a soft fleece, to make a coat, I’ll give the day I shear
    My brindled ewe—­(no hand but mine shall touch it)—­to my dear.

    COMETAS. 
    Back, lambs, from that wild-olive:  and be content to browse
    Here on the shoulder of the hill, beneath the myrtle boughs.

    LACON. 
    Run, (will ye?) Ball and Dogstar, down from that oak tree, run: 
    And feed where Spot is feeding, and catch the morning sun.

    COMETAS. 
    I have a bowl of cypress-wood:  I have besides a cup: 
    Praxiteles designed them:  for her they’re treasured up.

    LACON. 
    I have a dog who throttles wolves:  he loves the sheep, and they
    Love him:  I’ll give him to my dear, to keep wild beasts at bay.

    COMETAS. 
    Ye locusts that o’erleap my fence, oh let my vines escape
    Your clutches, I beseech you:  the bloom is on the grape.

    LACON. 
    Ye crickets, mark how nettled our friend the goatherd is! 
    I ween, ye cost the reapers pangs as acute as his.

    COMETAS. 
    Those foxes with their bushy tails, I hate to see them crawl
    Round Micon’s homestead and purloin his grapes at evenfall.

    LACON.
    I hate to see the beetles that come warping on the wind. 
    And climb Philondas’ trees, and leave never a fig behind.

    COMETAS. 
    Have you forgot that cudgelling I gave you?  At each stroke
    You grinned and twisted with a grace, and clung to yonder oak.

    LACON. 
    That I’ve forgot—­but I have not, how once Eumares tied
    You to that selfsame oak-trunk, and tanned your unclean hide.

    COMETAS. 
    There’s some one ill—­of heartburn.  You note it, I presume,
    Morson?  Go quick, and fetch a squill from some old beldam’s tomb.

    LACON. 
    I think I’m stinging somebody, as Morson too perceives—­
    Go to the river and dig up a clump of sowbread-leaves.

    COMETAS. 
    May Himera flow, not water, but milk:  and may’st thou blush,
    Crathis, with wine; and fruitage grow upon every rush.

    LACON. 
    For me may Sybaris’ fountain flow, pure honey:  so that you,
    My fair, may dip your pitcher each morn in honey-dew.

    COMETAS. 
    My goats are fed on clover and goat’s-delight:  they tread
    On lentisk leaves; or lie them down, ripe strawberries o’er their head.