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MOPSUS
When the Fates took thee hence, then Pales' self,
and even Apollo, left the country lone.
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Where the plump barley-grain so oft we sowed,
there but wild oats and barren darnel spring;
for tender violet and narcissus bright
thistle and prickly thorn uprear their heads.
Now, O ye shepherds, strew the ground with leaves,
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and o'er the fountains draw a shady veil—
so Daphnis to his memory bids be done—
and rear a tomb, and write thereon this verse:
‘I, Daphnis in the woods, from hence in fame
am to the stars exalted, guardian once
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of a fair flock, myself more fair than they.’”
MENALCAS
So is thy song to me, poet divine,
as slumber on the grass to weary limbs,
or to slake thirst from some sweet-bubbling rill
in summer's heat. Nor on the reeds alone,
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but with thy voice art thou, thrice happy boy,
ranked with thy master, second but to him.
Yet will I, too, in turn, as best I may,
