Milon. Thou toilsome clod; what ails thee now, thou wretched fellow? Canst thou neither cut thy swathe straight, as thou wert wont to do, nor keep time with thy neighbour in thy reaping, but thou must fall out, like an ewe that is foot-pricked with a thorn and straggles from the herd? What manner of man wilt thou prove after mid-noon, and at evening, thou that dost not prosper with thy swathe when thou art fresh begun?
Battus. Milon, thou that canst toil till late, thou chip of the stubborn stone, has it never befallen thee to long for one that was not with thee?
Milon. Never! What has a labouring man to do with hankering after what he has not got?
Battus. Then it never befell thee to lie awake for love?
Milon. Forbid it; ’tis an ill thing to let the dog once taste of pudding.
Battus. But I, Milon, am in love for almost eleven days!
Milon. ’Tis easily seen that thou drawest from a wine-cask, while even vinegar is scarce with me.
Battus. And for Love’s sake, the fields before my doors are untilled since seed-time.
Milon. But which of the girls afflicts thee so?
Battus. The daughter of Polybotas, she that of late was wont to pipe to the reapers on Hippocoon’s farm.
Milon. God has found out the guilty! Thou hast what thou’st long been seeking, that grasshopper of a girl will lie by thee the night long!
Battus. Thou art beginning thy mocks of me, but Plutus is not the only blind god; he too is blind, the heedless Love! Beware of talking big.
Milon. Talk big I do not! Only see that thou dost level the corn, and strike up some love-ditty in the wench’s praise. More pleasantly thus wilt thou labour, and, indeed, of old thou wert a melodist.
Battus. Ye Muses Pierian, sing ye with me the slender maiden, for whatsoever ye do but touch, ye goddesses, ye make wholly fair.
They all call thee a gipsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean, and sunburnt, ’tis only I that call thee honey-pale.
Yea, and the violet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet these flowers are chosen the first in garlands.
The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows the plough, but I am wild for love of thee.
Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof once Croesus was lord, as men tell! Then images of us twain, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire, and new shoon of Amyclae on both my feet.
Ah gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them!
Milon. Verily our clown was a maker of lovely songs, and we knew it not! How well he meted out and shaped his harmony; woe is me for the beard that I have grown, all in vain! Come, mark thou too these lines of godlike Lityerses
THE LITYERSES SONG.
Demeter, rich in fruit, and rich in grain, may this corn be easy to win, and fruitful exceedingly!
Bind, ye bandsters, the sheaves, lest the wayfarer should cry, ‘Men of straw were the workers here, ay, and their hire was wasted!’
See that the cut stubble faces the North wind, or the West, ’tis thus the grain waxes richest.
They that thresh corn should shun the noon-day steep; at noon the chaff parts easiest from the straw.
As for the reapers, let them begin when the crested lark is waking, and cease when he sleeps, but take holiday in the heat.
Lads, the frog has a jolly life, he is not cumbered about a butler to his drink, for he has liquor by him unstinted!
Boil the lentils better, thou miserly steward; take heed lest thou chop thy fingers, when thou’rt splitting cumin-seed.
’Tis thus that men should sing who labour i’ the sun, but thy starveling love, thou clod, ’twere fit to tell to thy mother when she stirs in bed at dawning.
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