by Theocritus
‘Meanwhile Europa, riding on the back of the divine bull, with one hand clasped the beast’s great horn, and with the other caught up her garment’s purple fold, lest it might trail and be drenched in the hoar sea’s infinite spray. And her deep robe was blown out in the wind, like the sail of a ship, and lightly ever it wafted the maiden onward.’
Now every single ‘motive’ of this description, — Europa with one hand holding the bull’s horn, with the other lifting her dress, the wind puffing out her shawl like a sail, is repeated in the Pompeian wall-pictures, which themselves are believed to be derived from Alexandrian originals. There are more curious coincidences than this. In the sixth idyl of Theocritus, Damoetas makes the Cyclops say that Galatea ‘will send him many a messenger.’ The mere idea of describing the monstrous cannibal Polyphemus in love, is artificial and Alexandrian. But who were the ‘messengers’ of the sea-nymph Galatea? A Pompeian picture illustrates the point, by representing a little Love riding up to the shore on the back of a dolphin, with a letter in his hand for Polyphemus. Greek art in Egypt suffered from an Egyptian plague of Loves. Loves flutter through the Pompeian pictures as they do through the poems of Moschus and Bion. They are carried about in cages, for sale, like birds. They are caught in bird-traps. They don the lion-skin of Heracles. They flutter about baskets laden with roses; round rosy Loves, like the cupids of Boucher. They are not akin to ‘the grievous Love,’ the mighty wrestler who threw Daphnis a fall, in the first idyl of Theocritus. They are ‘the children that flit overhead, the little Loves, like the young nightingales upon the budding trees,’ which flit round the dead Adonis in the fifteenth idyl. They are the birds that shun the boy fowler, in Bion’s poem, and perch uncalled (as in a bronze in the Uffizi) on the grown man. In one or other of the sixteen Pompeian pictures of Venus and Adonis, the Loves are breaking their bows and arrows for grief, as in the hymn of Bion.
Enough has perhaps been said about the social and artistic taste of Alexandria to account for the remarkable differences in manner between the rustic idyls of Theocritus and the epic idyls of himself and his followers Moschus and Bion. In the rural idyls, Theocritus was himself and wrote to please himself. In the epic idyls, as in the Hymn to the Dioscuri, and in the two poems on Heracles, he was writing to please the taste of Alexandria. He had to choose epic topics, but he was warned by the famous saying of Callimachus (‘a great book is a great evil’) not to imitate the length of the epic. He was also to shun close imitation of what are so easily imitated, the regular recurring formulae, the commonplace of Homer. He was to add minute pictorial touches, as in the description of Alcmena’s waking when the serpents attacked her child, — a passage rich in domestic pathos and incident which contrast strongly with Pindar’s bare narrative of the same events. We have noted the same pictorial quality in the Europa of Moschus. Our own age has often been compared to the Alexandrian epoch, to that era of large cities, wealth, refinement, criticism, and science; and the pictorial Idylls of the King very closely resemble the epico-idyllic manner of Alexandria. We have tried to examine the society in which Theocritus lived. But our impressions about the poet are more distinct. In him we find the most genial character; pious as Greece counted piety; tender as became the poet of love; glad as the singer of a happy southern world should be; gifted, above all, with humour, and with dramatic power. ‘His lyre has all the chords’; his is the last of all the perfect voices of Hellas; after him no man saw life with eyes so steady and so mirthful.
About the lives of the three idyllic poets literary history says little. About their deaths she only tells us through the dirge by Moschus, that Bion was poisoned. The lovers of Theocritus would willingly hope that he returned from Alexandria to Sicily, about the time when he wrote the sixteenth idyl, and that he lived in the enjoyment of the friendship and the domestic happiness and honour which he sang so well, through the golden age of Hiero (264 B.C.) No happier fortune could befall him who wrote the epigram of the lady of heavenly love, who worshipped with the noble wife of Nicias under the green roof of Milesian Aphrodite, and who prophesied of the return of peace and of song to Sicily and Syracuse.
THEOCRITUS by Albert Curtis Clark
From ‘1911 Encyclopædia Britannica’, Volume 26
THEOCRITUS, the creator of pastoral poetry, flourished in the 3rd century B.C. Little is known of him beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems (“Idylls”) commonly attributed to him have little claim to authenticity. It is clear that at a very early date two collections were made, one of which included a number of doubtful poems and formed a corpus of bucolic poetry, while the other was confined to those works which were considered to be by Theocritus himself. The record of these recensions is preserved by two epigrams, one of which proceeds from Artemidorus, a grammarian, who lived in the time of Sulla and is said to have been the first editor of these poems. He says, “Bucolic muses, once were ye scattered, but now one byre, one herd is yours.” The second epigram is anonymous, and runs as follows:—” The Chian is another. I, Theocritus, who wrote these songs, am of Syracuse, a man of the people, the son of Praxagoras and famed Philip V I never sought after a strange muse.” The last line may mean that he wrote nothing but bucolic poems, or that he only wrote in Doric. The statement that he was a Syracusan is confirmed by allusions in the “Idylls “ (xi. 7, xxviii. 16-18). The information concerning his parentage bears the stamp of genuineness, and disposes of a rival theory based upon a misinterpretation of Idyll vii. — which made him the son of one Simichus. A larger collection, possibly more extensive than that of Artemidorus, and including poems of doubtful authenticity, was known to Suidas, who says: “Theocritus wrote the so-called bucolic poems in the Dorian dialect. Some persons also attribute to him the following: Daughters of Proetus, Hopes, Hymns, Heroines, Dirges, Lyrics, Elegies, Iambics, Epigrams.” The first of these may have been known to Virgil, who refers to the Proetides in the Eclogues.[1] The spurious poem xxi. may have been one of the Hopes (cf. 1. 66, kXirh tup vtpuv), and poem xxvi. may have been one of the Heroines (cf. 1. 36, ripuivai): elegiacs are found in viii. 33-60, and the spurious epitaph on Bion may have been one of the Dirges. The other classes are all represented in the larger collection which has come down to us.
The poems which are generally held to be authentic may be classified thus: —
I. Bucolics and Mimes. — The distinction between these is that the scenes of the former are laid in the country and those of the latter in a town. The most famous of the Bucolics are i; , vii., xi. and vi. In i. Thyrsis sings to a goatherd how Daphnis, the mythical herdsman, having defied the power of Aphrodite, dies rather than yield to a passion with which the goddess had inspired him. In xi. Polyphemus is depicted as in love with the sea-nymph Galatea and finding solace in song: in vi. he is cured of his passion and naively relates how he repulses the overtures now made to him by Galatea. The monster of the Odyssey has been “written up to date “ after the Alexandrian manner and has become a gentle simpleton. Idyll vii., the Harvest Feast (OaXforia), is the most important of the bucolic poems. The scene is laid in the isle of Cos. The poet speaks in the first person and is styled Simichidas[2] by his friends. Other poets are introduced under feigned names. Thus ancient critics identified Sicelidas of Samos (1. 40) with Asclepiades the Samian, and Lycidas, “ the goatherd of Cydonia,” may well be the poet Astacides, whom Callimachus calls “the Cretan, the goatherd.” Theocritus speaks of himself as having already gained fame, and says that his lays have been brought by report even unto the throne of Zeus.[3] He praises Philetas, the veteran poet of Cos, and criticizes “ the fledgelings of the Muse, who cackle against the Chian bard and find their labour lost.”[4] Other persons mentioned are Nicias, a physician of Miletus, whose name occurs in other poems, and Aratus, whom the Scholiast identifies with the author of the Phenomena.
The other bucolic poems need not be further discussed. Several of them consist of a singing-match, conducted ac
cording to the rules of amoebean poetry, in which the second singer takes the subject chosen by the first and contributes a variation in the same air. It may be noted that the peasants of Theocritus differ greatly in refinement. Those in v. are low fellows who indulge in coarse abuse. This Idyll and iv. are laid in the neighbourhood of Croton, and we may infer that Theocritus was personally acquainted with Magna Graecia. Suspicion has been cast upon poems viii. and ix. on various grounds. An extreme view holds that in ix. we have two genuine Theocritean fragments, 11. 7-13 and 15-20, describing the joys of summer and winter respectively, which have been provided with a clumsy preface, 11. i-h6, while an early editor of a bucolic collection has appended an epilogue in which he takes leave of the Bucolic Muses.[5] On the other hand, it is clear that both poems were in Virgil’s Theocritus, and that they passed the scrutiny of the editor who formed the short collection of Theocritean Bucolics.
The mimes are three in number, viz., ii., xiv., xv. In ii. Simaetha, deserted by Delphis, tells the story of her love to the moon; in xiv. Aesehincs narrates his quarrel with his sweetheart, and is advised to go to Egypt and enlist in the army of Ptolemy Philadelphus; in x v. Gorgo and Praxinoe go to the festival of Adonis. It may be noticed that in the best MSS. ii. comes immediately before xiv., an arrangement which is obviously right, since it places the three mimes together. The second place in the MSS. is occupied by Idyll vii., the “ Harvest Feast. “ These three mimes are wonder- fully natural and lifelike. There is nothing in ancient literature so vivid and real as the chatter of Gorgo and PraxinoC, and the voces populi in xv.
It will be convenient to add to the Bucolics and Mimes three poems which cannot be brought into any other class, viz. : xii. (Ainu), a poem to a beautiful youth; xviii., the marriage-song of Helen (‘EiriflaXd/uos) ; and xxvi., the murder of Penthcus (Avvai). The genuineness of the last has been attacked by U. von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff on account of the crudity of the language, which sometimes degenerates into doggerel. It is, however, likely that Theocritus intentionally used realistic language for the sake of dramatic effect, and the MSS. evidence is in favour of the poem. Eustathius quotes from it as the work of Theocritus.
II. Epics. — Three of these are Hymns, viz., xvi., xvii. and xxii. In xvi. the poet praises Hiero II. of Syracuse, in xvii. Ptolemy Philadelphus, and in xxii. the Dioscuri. The other poems are xiii., the story of Hylas and the Nymphs, and xxiv. the youthful Heracles. It cannot be said that Theocritus exhibits signal merit in his Epics. In xiii. he shows some 1 skill in word-painting, in xvi. there is some delicate fancy in the description of his poems as “ Graces “ (Xdpirti), and a passage at the end, where he foretells the joys of peace after the enemy have been driven out of Sicily, has the true bucolic ring. The most that can be said of xxii. and xxiv. is that they are very dramatic. Otherwise they differ little from work done by other poets, such as Callimachus and Apollonius Rhodius. The flattery heaped upon Ptolemy is somewhat nauseous. From another pointof view, however, these two poems xvi. and xvii. are supremely interesting, since they are the only ones which can be dated. In xvii. Theocritus celebrates the incestuous marriage of Ptolemy Philadelphus with his sister Arsinoe. This marriage is hejd to have taken place in 277 B.C., and a recently discovered inscription shows that Arsinoe died in 270, in the fifteenth year of her brother’s reign. This poem, therefore, together with xv., which Theocritus wrote to please Arsinoe’ (Schol. xoP’ffyKwi t$ (iaaikl&i) must fall within this period. The encomium upon Hiero II. would from internal reasons seem prior to that upon Ptolemy, since in it Theocritus is a hungry poet seeking for a patron, while in the other he is well satisfied with the world. Now Hiero first came to the front in 275 B.C. when he was made “General “ {arparriyU) : Theocritus speaks of his achievements as still to come, ‘and the silence of the poet would show that Hiero’s marriage to Philistis, his victory over the Mamertines at the Longanus and his election as “ King “ (fiaaiKtOs), events which are ascribed to 270 B.C., had not yet taken place. If so, xvii. and xv. can only have been written within 275 and 270.
III. Lyrics. — Two of these are certainly by Theocritus, viz., xxviii. and xxix. The first is a very graceful poem presented together with a distaff to Theugenis, wife of Nicias, a doctor of Miletus, on the occasion of a voyage thither undertaken by the poet. The theme of xxix. is similar to that of xii. A very corrupt poem, only found in one very late MS., was discovered by Ziegler in i864. Asthe subject and style very closely resemble that of xxix., it is assigned to Theocritus by recent editors.
IV. The Epigrams do not call for detailed notice. They do not possess any special merit, and their authenticity is often doubtful. It remains to notice the poems which are now generally considered to be spurious. They are as follows: —
xix. “ Love stealing Honey “ (K»7pumcX4it»u). The poem is anonymous in the MSS. and the conception of Love is not Theo- critean.
xx. “ Herdsman “ (BoukoXJo-icoi), xxi. “ Fishermen “ (“AXwit), xxiii. “ Passionate Lover “ (‘EpcuTrfc). These three poems are remark- able for the corrupt state of their text, which makes it likely that they have come from the same source and possibly are by the same author. The “ Fishermen “ has been much admired. It is addressed to Diophantus and conveys a moral, that one should work and not dream, illustrated by the story of an old fisherman who dreams that he has caught a fish of gold and narrates his vision to his mate. As Leonidas of Tarentum wrote epigrams on fishermen, and one of them is a dedication of his tackle to Poseidon by Diophantus, the fisher, 8 it is likely that the author of this poem was an imitator of Leonidas. It can hardly be by Leonidas him- self, who was a contemporary of Theocritus, as it bears marks of lateness.
xxv. “ Heracles the Lion-slayer “. This is a long poem consisting of two episodes, viz. the interview of Heracles with the bailiff of Augeas and his recital to Phyleus, son of Augeas, of the story of the Nemean lion. The composition is not unworthy of Theocritus. It is, however, anonymous in the MSS. and comes next to another anonymous poem called “ Megara, the wife of Hercules.” It is probable from some metrical and linguistic pecu- liarities that xxv. and the “ Megara” are both by the same author. xxvii. “ The wooing of Daphnis” (‘Oapitrrfc) is also anonymous. It contains imitations of Theocritus, but the tone and the language betray a later writer.
We have no sure facts as to the life of Theocritus beyond those supplied by Idylls xvi. and xvii. It is quite uncertain whether the bucolic poems were written in the pleasant isle of Cos among a circle of poets and students, or in Alexandria and meant for dwellers in streets. The usual view is that Theocritus went first from Syracuse to Cos, and then, after suing in vain for the favour of Hiero, took up his residence permanently in Egypt. Some have supposed on very flimsy evidence that he quarrelled with the Egyptian court and retired to Cos, and would assign various poems to the “ later-Coan “ period. 1 Wilamowitz-Mollendorff, laying stress on the fact that in the best MS. the poem to Ptolemy (xvii.) comes before that to Hiero (xvi.), very ingeniously puts the Egyptian period first and supposes it to have been of very short duration (i.e. 277 to 275), and then makes the poet, after his unsuccessful appeal to Hiero, retire to Cos for the rest of his life. This view would enable us to see a reference to Ptolemy in vii. 93, and even to the young Apollonius Rhodius in 47-48 of the same poem.
The poems of Theocritus were termed Idylls (eiouXXta) by the grammarians. The word is a diminutive from eKos, and is supposed to mean “ little poems.” The use of eKos’in the sense of “ poem “ is somewhat doubtful, and so some have referred e£5uXXta to «i5os in its usual sense of “ form “ or “ type.” Thus eKos Povkoi.k6v, eiruchv, vpmov might be used to classify various kinds of poetry, and these poems might be called eiouXXia, since they include so many types.
Language and Metre. — Theocritus wrote in various dialects accord- ing to the subject. The Lyrics xxviii., xxix. (and xxx.) are in Aeolic, that being the traditional dialect for such poems. Two poems, xii. (AJtijs) and xxii. (to Castor and Pollux), were written in Ionic, as is st
ated in titles prefixed to them, though a number of Doric forms have been inserted by the scribes. The epics in general show a mixture of Homeric, Ionic and Doric forms. The Bucolics, Mimes, and the “ Marriage-song of Helen” (xviii.) are in Doric, with occasional forms from other dialects.
The metre used by Theocritus in the Bucolics and Mimes, as well as in the Epics, is the dactylic hexameter. His treatment of this may be compared both with Homeric usage and that of other Alexandrian poets, e.g. Callimachus. It was the tendency of these writers to use dactyls in preference to spondees with a view to lightness and rapidity. This tendency shows itself most in the third foot, the favourite caesura being the trochaic, i.e. after the second syllable (- u ‘)• On the other hand, the Alexandrians admitted a spondee in the fifth foot, especially when the verse ends with a quadrisyllable. Theocritus in the Epics conforms to the new technique in both these respects: in the Bucolics his practice agrees with that of Homer. The feature in his versification which has attracted most attention is the so-called bucolic caesura. The rule is that, if there is a pause at the end of the fourth foot, this foot must be a dactyl. This pause is no new invention, being exceedingly common in Homer. Theocritus uses it so frequently in the Bucolics that it has become a mannerism. In the Epics his practice agrees with that of Homer.
We always think of Theocritus as an original ‘poet, and as the “ inventor of bucolic poetry “ he deserves this reputation. At the same time he had no scruple about borrowing from predecessors or contemporaries; in fact he did so in the most open manner. Thus xxix. begins with a line of Alcaeus, 2 and xvii., as the Scholiast points out, with words used by Aratus at the beginning of the Phenomena. The love of the Cyclops for Galatea had been treated by Philoxenus, and fragments quoted from this show that Theo- critus copied some of his phrases closely. In the mimes Theocritus appears to have made great use of Sophron. Idyll ii. is modelled upon a mime of this writer which began in a very similar way.*
