Thus loveliest Hylas is numbered with the Blessed, but for a runaway they girded at Heracles, the heroes, because he roamed from Argo of the sixty oarsmen. But on foot he came to Colchis and inhospitable Phasis.
IDYL XIV
This Idyl, like the next, is dramatic in form. One Aeschines tells Thyonichus the story of his quarrel with his mistress Cynisca. He speaks of taking foreign service, and Thyonichus recommends that of Ptolemy. The idyl was probably written at Alexandria, as a compliment to Ptolemy, and an inducement to Greeks to join his forces. There is nothing, however, to fix the date.
Aeschines. All hail to the stout Thyonichus!
Thyonichus. As much to you, Aeschines.
Aeschines. How long it is since we met!
Thyonichus. Is it so long? But why, pray, this melancholy?
Aeschines. I am not in the best of luck, Thyonichus.
Thyonichus. ’Tis for that, then, you are so lean, and hence comes this long moustache, and these love-locks all adust. Just such a figure was a Pythagorean that came here of late, barefoot and wan,—and said he was an Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate of pancakes.
Aeschines. Friend, you will always have your jest,—but beautiful Cynisca,—she flouts me! I shall go mad some day, when no man looks for it; I am but a hair’s-breadth on the hither side, even now.