One through the ranges of the vine proceeds,
And on the hanging vintage slily feeds;
The other plots and vows his scrip to search,
And for his breakfast leave him in the lurch.
Meanwhile he twines, and to a rush fits well
A locust-trap, with stalks of asphodel;
And twines away with such absorbing glee,
Of scrip or vines he never thinks, not he!
Chapman, p. 8.
In the pastorals of Bion we know nothing of prominent interest, though he is eloquent and worth reading. But in those of Moschus there is a passage which has found an echo in all bosoms, like the sigh that answers a wind over a churchyard. It is in the Elegy on Bion’s death:—
Αἴ, αἶ, ταὶ μαλάχαι μέν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὀλώνται,
Ἤ τὰ χλωρὰ σέλινα, τὸ τ’ εὔθαλες οὖλον ἄνηθον,
Ύστερον αὖ ζώοντι, καὶ εἰσ ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντι·
Ἄμμες δ’ ὁι μεγάλοι, καὶ καρτέροι, ἠ σόφοι ἄνδρες,
Ὁππότε πρᾶτα θάνωμες, ἀνακόοι ἔν χθονὶ κοῖλα,
Εὔδομες εὐ μάλα μακρὸν, ἀτέρμονα, νήγρετον ὕπνον.
Idyll iii. v. 104.
Alas! when mallows in the garden die,
Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill,
They live again, and flower another year;
But we, how great soe’er, or strong, or wise,
When once we die, sleep, in the senseless earth,
A long, an endless, unawakeable sleep.
The beautiful original of these verses, every word so natural and sincere, so well placed, and the whole so affecting, may stand by the side of any poetry, even that of the passage in the Book of Job too well known to most of us. But we confess that after such Greek verses as these, and the fresh flowers of Theocritus, we never have the heart to quote the artificial ones of Virgil, critically accomplished as they are. They are the pattern of too many others which brought the word Pastoral into disrepute; and it is not pleasant to be forced to object to a great name.
Virgil, however, appears to have been very fond of the country; and after he was settled in Rome, longed for it, like Horace, with a feeling which produced some of his most admired passages; things which other metropolitan poets and tired court gentlemen have delighted to translate. Such are the Delights of a Country Life, versified out of the Georgics by Cowley, Sir William Temple, Dryden, and others, lines of which remain for ever in the memory.
Oh happy (if his happiness he knows)
The country swain, &c.
He has no great riches, or visitors, or cares, &c., but his life
Does with substantial blessedness abound,
And the soft wings of peace cover him round.
That is Cowley, who betters his original.
In life’s cool vale let my low scene be laid;
Cover me, gods! with Tempe’s thickest shade.