Theocritus Idyl XII.
The following poem (trans. by M. J. Chapman, 1836) is one of the best known and most beautiful of his Idyls:—
Idyl XII.
“Art come, dear youth? two days and nights away!
(Who burn with love, grow aged in a day.)
As much as apples sweet the damson crude
Excel; the blooming spring the winter rude;
In fleece the sheep her lamb; the maid in sweetness
The thrice-wed dame; the fawn the calf in fleetness;
The nightingale in song all feathered kind—