Mo. You' are my elder; you have a right to give me the word, Menalcas, whether we should retire under those flickering shades which the zephyrs keep agitating, or rather into the cave. See how the cave is covered by the wild vine's straggling tendrils,

Me. In these hills of ours you have no rival but Amyntas. Mo. What if he were to rival Phoebus, too, for the prize of singing?

Me. You go on first, Mopsus. If you happen to have any song about Phyllis's flame, or Alcon's glories, or Codrus's quarrels, go on. Tityrus will look after the kids while grazing.

Mo. I would rather try my hand at some verses which I wrote out the other day on the green beechen bark, and set them to music, with marks for the flute and voice. When I have done, put on my rival, Amyntas.

Me. As far as the limber willow is below the yellow-green olive, or the groundling Celtic nard below the bright red rosebeds, so far in my judgment does Amyntas rank lower than you. Mo. Well, my boy, say no more; we are getting into the cave.

Over Daphnis, cut off by so cruel a fate, the nymphs were weeping; hazels and rivers, you heard the nymphs, when his mother, clasping her son's piteous corpse, is crying out on the cruelty of the gods and the stars, as only a mother can. None were there in those dreary days, Daphnis, to feed the oxen, and drive them down to the cool streams; no beast was there that tasted the river, or touched the blades of grass. Daphnis, thy death drew groans even from the lions of Carthage, so say the echoes of those wild mountains and forests. Daphnis, too, it was that set the fashion of harnessing the tigers of Armenia to the car; Daphnis, that showed how to bring on companies of Bacchanals, and twine quiver ing spear-shafts with soft foliage. As the vine is the glory of

the trees it clasps, as the grapes of the vine, as the bull of the herd, as the standing corn of the fruitful field, thou and thou alone art the glory of those who love thee. Since the Fates have swept her off, Pales has taken her leave of the country, aye, and Apollo his. Often now-a-days, in the very furrows to whose care we give our largest barley grains, we see growing ungenerous darnel and unfruitful oats. In place of the delicate violet and the dazzling bright narcissus springs up the thistle, and the thorn with its sharp spikes. Sow the turf with flowers, embower the springs in shade, ye shepherds! It is Daphnis' charge that this should be done for him; and raise a tomb, and to the tomb append a verse, 'Here lie I, Daphnis, the woodlander, whose name is known from here to the stars; a lovely flock I had to keep, but I was more lovely than they.'

Me. Sweet is your strain to my ears, heavenly poet, as is sleep to tired limbs on the grass, as is the quenching of thirst in mid-day heat in the stream where sweet waters play. It is not only in piping, but in singing that you match your teacher. Happy shepherd boy! now you will be his fitting successor. Still, however, I will sing you in turn, as I best may, a strain here of my own, and will exalt your Daphnis to heaven. Yes, Daphnis I will carry up to heaven. I, too, was beloved by Daphnis.

Mo. As if there were anything I should value more than a boon like this. That glorious boy was a theme worthy of any one's song, and Stimicon ere now has dwelt to me with rapture on those strains of yours,

Me. Dazzling in beauty himself, Daphnis is now marvelling at the strange splendour of heaven's threshold as he crosses it, and looking down on the clouds and stars under his feet, whereat a wild and eager rapture is taking hold of the woods and the rest of rustic life, seizing on Pan and the

shepherds, and the Dryad maids. No more does the wolf plan surprises for the cattle or the snares for the deer, for they know that the gracious Daphnis loves all to be at peace. The very mountains in their unshorn strength are flinging the sound exultingly to the sky. The very rocks, the plantations, too, are already taking up the song, 'We have a new god, a new god, Menalcas!' Be gracious and propitious to thy worshippers! See, here are four altars— two, see, for thee, Daphnis; two of a larger build for Phoebus; two cups, with new milk, foaming over the brim each year, and two bowls will I set up for thee of rich olive oil; and, above all, cheering the feast with abundance of the wine-god's juice before the fire, if it be winter; if harvesttime, in the shade, I will pour out into goblets the fresh nectar of Ariusian wine. I will have songs sung by Damotas and Ægon of Lycta; the dances of the Satyrs shall be imitated by Alphesibous. Such honours shall be thine for ever, both when we pay our yearly vows to the nymphs, and when we have our lustral survey of the country. So long as the wild boar shall love the mountain ridges, and the fish the running stream; so long as thyme shall be the food of the bee, and dew of the grasshopper, so long shall thy honour, and thy name, and thy glory for ever remain. Like Bacchus and Ceres, thou shalt have vows paid thee yearly by the countrymen. Thou, like them, shalt make thy worshippers thy debtors.

Mo. What present, what shall I give you for a song like this? Why, the whisper of the rising south is not so charming to my ear, nor the beating of the waves on the shore, nor the streams that run down among the rocky glens.

Me. Here is my present to you first-this frail reed; it was this from which I learnt 'Corydon was burning for the lovely Alexis,' and that other lesson, 'Whose cattle, Melibœus?'

Mo. But you must accept this sheep-hook, which, in spite of his frequent begging, Antigenes never got from me-and there was much to love in him, too, in those days—a handsome one, with regular knots and brass about it, Menalcas.

ECLOGUE VI.

VARUS.

First of all, my muse deigned to disport herself in the strains of pastoral Syracuse, and disdained not to make her home in the woods, goddess as she was. When I was venturing to sing of kings and battles, the Cynthian god touched my ear, and appealed to my memory. It is a shepherd's part, Tityrus, that the sheep that he feeds should be fat, and the songs that he sings thin.' So now I-for there will be enough and to spare, whose desire it will be to sing thy praises, Varus, and make battles their tragic theme-will choose the woodland muse for my study, and the slender reed for my instrument. It is not for me to sing strains unbidden. Still, if there should be any, any to read even a lowly lay like this with fond regard, thou, Varus, shouldst be the song of these tamarisks of minethe song of the whole forestry-for Phoebus knows no more welcome page than that which bears on its front the name of Varus.

Proceed, Pierian maids. Young Chromis and Mnasylos saw old Silenus lying asleep in a cave, his veins swollen, as is his constant wont, by the wine-god, his friend. of yesterday. There were the garlands a short way off, lying just as they dropped from his head, and his heavy jug was hanging by its battered handle. They commence the attack. (for the old god had often balked both of a promised song), and put him in fetters made out of his own garlands. A companion comes up

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to reassure their faltering, Ægle, Ægle, fairest of the Naiads, and as he begins to open his eyes, paints his forehead and his temples blood-red with mulberry juice. He, with a laugh at the stratagem, exclaims, 'What do you want with binding me? Untie me, boys; be content with the credit of having me in your power. The song you want is at your service.' With that he begins. This was the signal for fauns and wild beasts -you might see them-frolicking in measured dance, and stately unbending oaks nodding their tops to and fro; and as for the mountains, the rock of Parnassus is never so enraptured with Phoebus, nor are Rhodope and Ismarus so entranced by Orpheus.

For he began to sing how through the mighty void had been brought together the elements of earth and air and sea and streaming fire all at once; how from them as their origin all things had a beginning, and the new-born orb of the universe grew into shape. Next, the soil began to harden, and leave Nereus to be shut up in the sea, and by degrees to assume the forms of things, so that at length the earth is surprised to see a new sun break into light above it, and the rain has a longer fall as the clouds are drawn up higher, just as the woods first begin to rise from the ground, and living things wander thinly over mountains that never saw them before.

From this he comes to tell of the stones that Pyrrha threw behind her, the golden reign of Saturn, and the birds of Caucasus, and the theft of Prometheus. With this he couples the tale, how Hylas was left behind at the spring, and his shipmates called for him till the shore rang with Hylas ! Hylas ! from end to end. Turning next to her who would have been happy indeed had cattle never been created, Pasiphae, he soothes her with her passion for the snow-white bull. Unhappy girl! how came such frenzy to take hold of thes? Protus' daughters once filled the pastures with their counterfeited low