T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Yokel and the Light-o’-Love
By Theocritus (fl. Third Century B.C.)(From the Idylls; translated by James Henry Hallard, 1901) |
WHEN I would kiss Eunice, loud laughed she, | |
| And taunting cried: ‘Thou boor, begone from me! | |
| Would’st kiss me, wretch?—I cannot kiss a clown— | |
| No lips press I but such as hail from town. | |
| To touch my dainty mouth thou shalt not dare, | 5 |
| Not even in thy dreams.—How thou dost stare! | |
| How gross thy speech, how coarse thy playfulness!— | |
| What winning words, what delicate address, | |
| Thy beard how soft, thy hair how fine!—Alack,— | |
| Thy lips are sickly-wan, thy hands are black, | 10 |
| And evil is thy smell. Away with thee! | |
| And do not sully me.’ So saying she | |
| Thrice in her bosom spat, with look askance | |
| Eyeing me head to foot with steady glance, | |
| And shooting out her lips she laughed at me | 15 |
| With haughty sneer and insolent coquetry. | |
| My blood boiled straightway and I crimson grew | |
| Under the smart, as doth a rose with dew. | |
| Away she fled. With rage my soul is torn | |
| That such a wanton should my beauty scorn. | 20 |
| Shepherds, am I not fair? Speak sooth to me. | |
| Hath some god made me other, suddenly? | |
| A charm once blossomed round me, beautiful | |
| As ivy round a stem; my beard was full; | |
| Like parsley on my temples curled my hair, | 25 |
| And o’er swart eyebrows gleamed my forehead fair; | |
| My eyes were brighter than Athen’s eyne, | |
| Softer than curded milk this mouth of mine, | |
| My speech more honied than the honey-flow. | |
| Sweetly to sing and sweetly play I know | 30 |
| Pipe, oboe, reed or fife, whiche’er I will. | |
| That I am fair all women on the hill | |
| Confess, and kiss me. But that city she, | |
| She kissed me not, but ran away from me. | |
| Hath she not heard how Bacchus drives along | 35 |
| His heifers through the dells, nor learned in song | |
| How once in days gone by the Cyprian Queen | |
| On Phrygian hills a shepherdess was seen; | |
| And how she maddened for a herdsman’s sake, | |
| And kissed and wailed Adonis in the brake? | 40 |
| What was Endymion, too, Selene’s flame? | |
| What but a hind? And yet from heaven she came | |
| To Latmus’ vale to share a herd-boy’s bed. | |
| A swain thou weepest, Rhea; and ’tis said | |
| That for a pretty lad that drove a herd | 45 |
| The son of Cronos roamed a wanton bird. | |
| Alone of all, Eunice will not kiss | |
| A neatherd, she who thinks herself, I wis, | |
| Finer than Rhea, Cypris and the Moon! | |
| O Cypris, may’st thou never, late or soon, | 50 |
| Thine Ares kiss in town or on hill-side, | |
| But sleeping lone the live-long night abide! | |