THEOCRITUS,
and translated into English verse.
THE EIGHTH IDILLION.
Argument.
Menalcas a Shepherd and Daphnis a Neatherd, two Sicilian Lads, contending who should sing best, pawn their Whistles; and choose a Goatherd to be their Judge: who giveth sentence on Daphnis his side. The thing is imagined to be done in the Isle of Sicily, by the sea-shore. Of whose singing, this Idillion is called Bucoliastæ, that is, "Singers of a Neatherd's Song."
BUCOLIASTÆ.
Daphnis, Menalcas, Goatherd.
ith lovely Neatherd Daphnis on the hills, they say,
Shepherd Menalcas met upon a summer's day: