Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, Rendered into English Prose

Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
RENDERED INTO ENGLISH PROSE WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
BY ANDREW LANG, M.A.
Lately Fellow of Merton College , Oxford
LONDON
MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1889
All rights reserved
TO
ERNEST MYERS
’Εκ Μοισᾶν ξεινήιον
( From Suidas )
Theocritus, the Chian. But there is another Theocritus, the son of Praxagoras and Philinna (see Epigram XXIII), or as some say of Simichus. (This is plainly derived from the assumed name Simichidas in Idyl VII.) He was a Syracusan, or, as others say, a Coan settled in Syracuse. He wrote the so-called Bucolics in the Dorian dialect. Some attribute to him the following works:— The Proetidae , The Pleasures of Hope (Ἐλπίδες), Hymns , The Heroines , Dirges , Ditties , Elegies , Iambics , Epigrams . But it known that there are three Bucolic poets: this Theocritus, Moschus of Sicily, and Bion of Smyrna, from a village called Phlossa.