For Whilst soft Evening Gales blew or’e the Plains
And shook the sounding Reeds, they taught the Swains,
And thus the Pipe was fram’d, and tuneful Reed,
And whilst the Flocks did then securely feed,
The harmless Sheapards tun’d their Pipes to Love,
And Amaryllis name fill’d every Grove.
From all which tis very plain that Poetry began in those days, when Sheapards took up their employment: to this agrees Donatus in his Life of Virgil, and Pontanus in his Fifth Book of Stars, as appears by these Verses.
Here underneath a shade by purling Springs
The Sheapards Dance, whilst sweet Amyntas sings;
Thus first the new found Pipe was tun’d to Love,
And Plough-men taught their Sweet hearts to the Grove,
Thus the Fescennine jests when they sang harvest-home, and then too the Grape gatherers and Reapers Songs began, an elegant example of which we have in the Tenth Idyllium of Theocritus.
From this birth, as it were, of Poetry, Verse began to grow up to greater matters; For from the common discourse of Plough-men and Sheapards, first Comedy, that Mistress of a private Life, next Tragedy, and then Epick Poetry which is lofty and Heroical arrose, This Maximus Tyrius confirms in his Twenty first dissertation, where he tells us that Plough-men just comeing from their work, and scarce cleansed from the filth of their employment, did use to flurt out some sudden and extempore Catches; and from this beginning Plays were produc’d and the Stage erected: Thus much concerning the Antiquity, next of the Original of this sort.
About this Learned men cannot agree, for who was the first Author, is not sufficiently understood; Donatus, tis true, tells us tis proper to the Golden Age, and therefore must needs be the product of that happy time: but who was the Author, where, what time it was first invented hath been a great Controversy, and not yet sufficiently determined: Epicharmus one of Pythagoras his School, in his ἀλκύονι mentions one Diomus a Sicilian, who, if we believe Athænæus was the first that wrote Pastorals: those that fed Cattle had a peculiar kind of Poetry, call’d Bucolicks, of which Dotimus a Sicilian was inventer:
Diodorus Siculus ἐν τοῖς μυθολογουμένοις, seems to make Daphnis the son of Mercury and a certain Nymph, to be the Author; and agreeable to this, Theon an old scholiast on Theocritus, in his notes upon the first Idyllium mentioning Daphnis, adds, he was the author of Bucolicks, and Theocritus himself calls him the Muses Darling: and to this Opinion of Diodorus Siculus Polydore Virgil readily assents.
But Mnaseas of Patara in a discourse of his concerning Europa, speaks thus of a Son of Pan the God of Sheapards: Panis Filium Bubulcum à quo & Bucolice canere: Now Whether Mnaseas by that Bubulcum, means only a Herds-man, or one skilled in Bucolicks, is uncertain; but if Valla’s judgment be good, tis to be taken of the latter: yet Ælian was of another mind, for he boldly affirms that Stesichorus called Himeræus was the first, and in the same place adds, that Daphnis the Son of Mercury was the first Subject of Bucolicks.
Some ascribe the Honor to Bacchus the President of the Nymphs, Satyrs, and the other Country Gods, perhaps because he delighted in the Country; and others attribute it to Apollo called Nomius the God of Sheapards, and that he invented it then when he served Admetus in Thessaly, and fed his Herds: For, tis likely, he to recreate himself, and pass away his time, applied his mind to such Songs as were best suitable to his present condition: Many think we owe it to Pan the God of Sheapards, not a few to Diana that extreamly delighted in solitude and Woods; and some say Mercury himself: of all which whilst Grammarians prattle, according to their usual custome they egregiously trifle; they suffer themselves to be put upon by Fables, and resign their judgment up to foolish pretentions, but things and solid truth is that we seek after.
As about the Author, so concerning the place of its Birth there is a great dispute, some say Sparta, others Peloponesus, but most are for Sicily.