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Letters To Dead Authors
LETTER--To Theocritus
by Lang, Andrew
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"Sweet, methinks, is the whispering sound of yonder pine-tree," so,
Theocritus, with that sweet word [Greek text], didst thou begin and
strike the keynote of thy songs. "Sweet," and didst thou find aught
of sweet, when thou, like thy Daphnis, didst "go down the stream,
when the whirling wave closed over the man the Muses loved, the man
not hated of the Nymphs"? Perchance below those waters of death
thou didst find, like thine own Hylas, the lovely Nereids waiting
thee, Eunice, and Malis, and Nycheia with her April eyes. In the
House of Hades, Theocritus, doth there dwell aught that is fair, and
can the low light on the fields of asphodel make thee forget thy
Sicily? Nay, methinks thou hast not forgotten, and perchance for
poets dead there is prepared a place more beautiful than their
dreams. It was well for the later minstrels of another day, it was
well for Ronsard and Du Bellay to desire a dim Elysium of their own,
where the sunlight comes faintly through the shadow of the earth,
where the poplars are duskier, and the waters more pale than in the
meadows of Anjou.
There, in that restful twilight, far remote from war and plot, from
sword and fire, and from religions that sharpened the steel and lit
the torch, there these learned singers would fain have wandered with
their learned ladies, satiated with life and in love with an
unearthly quiet. But to thee, Theocritus, no twilight of the Hollow
Land was dear, but the high suns of Sicily and the brown cheeks of
the country maidens were happiness enough. For thee, therefore,
methinks, surely is reserved an Elysium beneath the summer of a far-
off system, with stars not ours and alien seasons. There, as Bion
prayed, shall Spring, the thrice desirable, be with thee the whole
year through, where there is neither frost, nor is the heat so heavy
on men, but all is fruitful, and all sweet things blossom, and
evenly meted are darkness and dawn. Space is wide, and there be
many worlds, and suns enow, and the Sun-god surely has had a care of
his own. Little didst thou need, in thy native land, the isle of
the three capes, little didst thou need but sunlight on land and
sea. Death can have shown thee naught dearer than the fragrant
shadow of the pines, where the dry needles of the fir are strewn, or
glades where feathered ferns make "a couch more soft than Sleep."
The short grass of the cliffs, too, thou didst love, where thou
wouldst lie, and watch, with the tunny watcher till the deep blue
sea was broken by the burnished sides of the tunny shoal, and afoam
with their gambols in the brine. There the Muses met thee, and the
Nymphs, and there Apollo, remembering his old thraldom with Admetus,
would lead once more a mortal's flocks, and listen and learn,
Theocritus, while thou, like thine own Comatas, "didst sweetly
sing."
There, methinks, I see thee as in thy happy days, "reclined on deep
beds of fragrant lentisk, lowly strewn, and rejoicing in new stript
leaves of the vine, while far above thy head waved many a poplar,
many an elm-tree, and close at hand the sacred waters sang from the
mouth of the cavern of the nymphs." And when night came, methinks
thou wouldst flee from the merry company and the dancing girls, from
the fading crowns of roses or white violets, from the cottabos, and
the minstrelsy, and the Bibline wine, from these thou wouldst slip
away into the summer night. Then the beauty of life and of the
summer would keep thee from thy couch, and wandering away from
Syracuse by the sandhills and the sea, thou wouldst watch the low
cabin, roofed with grass, where the fishing-rods of reed were
leaning against the door, while the Mediterranean floated up her
waves, and filled the waste with sound. There didst thou see thine
ancient fishermen rising ere the dawn from their bed of dry seaweed,
and heardst them stirring, drowsy, among their fishing gear, and
heardst them tell their dreams.
Or again thou wouldst wander with dusty feet through the ways that
the dust makes silent, while the breath of the kine, as they were
driven forth with the morning, came fresh to thee, and the trailing
dewy branch of honeysuckle struck sudden on thy cheek. Thou wouldst
see the Dawn awake in rose and saffron across the waters, and Etna,
grey and pale against the sky, and the setting crescent would dip
strangely in the glow, on her way to the sea. Then, methinks, thou
wouldst murmur, like thine own Simaetha, the love-lorn witch,
"Farewell, Selene, bright and fair; farewell, ye other stars, that
follow the wheels of the quiet Night." Nay, surely it was in such
an hour that thou didst behold the girl as she burned the laurel
leaves and the barley grain, and melted the waxen image, and called
on Selene to bring her lover home. Even so, even now, in the
islands of Greece, the setting Moon may listen to the prayers of
maidens. "Bright golden Moon, that now art near the waters, go thou
and salute my lover, he that stole my love, and that kissed me,
saying "Never will I leave thee." And lo, he hath left me as men
leave a field reaped and gleaned, like a church where none cometh to
pray, like a city desolate."
So the girls still sing in Greece, for though the Temples have
fallen, and the wandering shepherds sleep beneath the broken columns
of the god's house in Selinus, yet these ancient fires burn still to
the old divinities in the shrines of the hearths of the peasants.
It is none of the new creeds that cry, in the dirge of the Sicilian
shepherds of our time, "Ah, light of mine eyes, what gift shall I
send thee, what offering to the other world? The apple fadeth, the
quince decayeth, and one by one they perish, the petals of the rose.
I will send thee my tears shed on a napkin, and what though it
burneth in the flame, if my tears reach thee at the last."
Yes, little is altered, Theocritus, on these shores beneath the sun,
where thou didst wear a tawny skin stripped from the roughest of he-
goats, and about thy breast an old cloak buckled with a plaited
belt. Thou wert happier there, in Sicily, methinks, and among vines
and shadowy lime-trees of Cos, than in the dust, and heat, and noise
of Alexandria. What love of fame, what lust of gold tempted thee
away from the red cliffs, and grey olives, and wells of black water
wreathed with maidenhair?
The music of thy rustic flute
Kept not for long its happy country tone;
Lost it too soon, and learned a stormy note
Of men contention tost, of men who groan,
Which tasked thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat -
It failed, and thou wast mute!
What hadst thou to make in cities, and what could Ptolemies and
Princes give thee better than the goat-milk cheese and the Ptelean
wine? Thy Muses were meant to be the delight of peaceful men, not
of tyrants and wealthy merchants, to whom they vainly went on a
begging errand. "Who will open his door and gladly receive our
Muses within his house, who is there that will not send them back
again without a gift? And they with naked feet and looks askance
come homewards, and sorely they upbraid me when they have gone on a
vain journey, and listless again in the bottom of their empty coffer
they dwell with heads bowed over their chilly knees, where is their
drear abode, when portionless they return." How far happier was the
prisoned goat-herd, Comatas, in the fragrant cedar chest where the
blunt-faced bees from the meadow fed him with food of tender
flowers, because still the Muse dropped sweet nectar on his lips!
Thou didst leave the neat-herds and the kine, and the oaks of
Himera, the galingale hummed over by the bees, and the pine that
dropped her cones, and Amaryllis in her cave, and Bombyca with her
feet of carven ivory. Thou soughtest the City, and strife with
other singers, and the learned write still on thy quarrels with
Apollonius and Callimachus, and Antagoras of Rhodes. So ancient are
the hatreds of poets, envy, jealousy, and all unkindness.
Not to the wits of Courts couldst thou teach thy rural song, though
all these centuries, more than two thousand years, they have
laboured to vie with thee. There has come no new pastoral poet,
though Virgil copied thee, and Pope, and Phillips, and all the
buckram band of the teacup time; and all the modish swains of France
have sung against thee, as the SOW CHALLENGED ATHENE. They never
knew the shepherd's life, the long winter nights on dried heather by
the fire, the long summer days, when over the parched grass all is
quiet, and only the insects hum, and the shrunken burn whispers a
silver tune. Swains in high-heeled shoon, and lace, shepherdesses
in rouge and diamonds, the world is weary of all concerning them,
save their images in porcelain, effigies how unlike thy golden
figures, dedicate to Aphrodite, of Bombyca and Battus! Somewhat,
Theocritus, thou hast to answer for, thou that first of men brought
the shepherd to Court, and made courtiers wild to go a Maying with
the shepherds.
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