battus:Who owns these cattle, Corydon? Philondas? Prythee say.
corydon:No, AEgon: and he gave them me to tend while he's away.
battus:Dost milk them in the gloaming, when none is nigh to see?
corydon:The old man brings the calves to suck, and keeps an eye on me.
battus:And to what region then hath flown the cattle's rightful lord?
corydon:Hast thou not heard? With Milo he vanished Elisward.
battus:How! was the wrestler's oil e'er yet so much as seen by him?
corydon:Men say he rivals Heracles in lustiness of limb.
battus:I'm Polydeuces' match (or so my mother says) and more.
corydon:--So off he started; with a spade, and of these ewes a score.
battus:This Milo will be teaching wolves how they should raven next.
corydon:--And by these bellowings his kine proclaim how sore they're vexed.
battus:Poor kine! they've found their master a sorry knave indeed.
corydon:They're poor enough, I grant you: they have not heart to feed.
battus:Look at that heifer! sure there's naught, save bare bones, left of her.
Pray, does she browse on dewdrops, as does the grasshopper?
corydon:Not she, by heaven! She pastures now by AEsarus' glades,
And handfuls fair I pluck her there of young and green grass blades;
Now bounds about Latymnus, that gathering-place of shades.
battus:That bull again, the red one, my word but he is lean!
I wish the Sybarite burghers aye may offer to the queen
Of heaven as pitiful a beast: those burghers are so mean!
corydon:Yet to the Salt Lake's edges I drive him, I can swear;
Up Physcus, up Neaethus' side--he lacks not victual there,
With dittany and endive and foxglove for his fare.
battus:Well, well! I pity AEgon. His cattle, go they must
To rack and ruin, all because vain-glory was his lust.
The pipe that erst he fashioned is doubtless scored with rust?
corydon:Nay, by the Nymphs! That pipe he left to me, the self-same day
He made for Pisa: I am too a minstrel in my way:
Well the flute-part in "Pyrrhus' and in "Glauca' can I play.
I sing too "Here's to Croton' and "Zacynthus O 'tis fair,'
And "Eastward to Lacinium:'--the bruised Milo there
His single self ate eighty loaves; there also did he pull
Down from its mountain dwelling, by one hooof grasped, a bull,
And gave it Amaryllis: the maidens screamed with fright;
As for the owner of the bull he only laughed outright.
battus:Sweet Amaryllis! thou alone, though dead, art unforgot.
Dearer than thou, whose light is quenched, my very goats are not.
Oh for the all-unkindly fate that's fallen to my lot!
corydon:Cheer up, brace lad! to-morrow may ease thee of thy pain:
Aye for the living are there hopes, past hoping are the slain:
And now Zeus sends us sunshine, and now he sends us rain.
battus:I'm better. Beat those young ones off! E'en now their teeth attack
That olive's shoots, the graceless brutes! back, with your white face, back!
corydon:Back to thy hill, Cymaetha! Great Pan, how deaf thou art!
I shall be with thee presently, and in the end thou'lt smart.
I warn thee, keep thy distance. Look, up she creeps again!
Oh were my hare-crook in my hand, I'd give it to her then!
battus:For heaven's sake, Corydon, look here! Just now a bramble-spike
Ran, there, into my instep--and oh how deep they strike,
Those lancewood-shafts! A murrain light on that calf, I say!
I got it gaping after her. Canst thou discern it, pray?
corydon:Ay, ay; and here I have it, safe in my finger-nails.
battus:Eh! at how slight a matter how tall a warrior quails!
corydon:Ne'er range the hill-crest, Battus, all sandal-less and bare;
Because the thistle and the thorn lift aye their plumed heads there.
battus:--Say, Corydon, does that old man we wot of (tell me please!)
Still haunt the dark-browned little girl whom once he used to tease?
corydon:Ay my poor boy, that doth he: I saw them yesterday
Down by the byre; and, trust me, loving enough were they.
battus:Well done, my veteran light-o-love! In deeming thee mere man,
I wronged the sire: some Satyr he, or an uncouth-limbed Pan.