Theocritus > Quotes

“Sameron adion aso
I shall sing a sweeter song tomorrow”
― Theocritus

“Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian:
We are but mortals, and must sing of men.”
― Theocritus, Idylls

“While there's life there's hope, and only the dead have none.”
― Theocritus, Idylls

“Cats love to sleep softly.”
― Theocritus

“Pachnie nam żyznym latem, pachnie urodzajem.
Więc gruszek pod stopami, a jabłek pod dłonią
Wala się pod dostatkiem; opodal się kłonią
Ku ziemi śliwy, owoc ciężarnej gałęzi.
I wino z czteroletniej dobyto uwięzi.”
― Theocritus, Sielanki

“Several recent writers on the subject have laid down that every translation of Greek poetry, especially bucolic poetry, must be in rhyme of some sort. But they have seldom stated, and it is hard to see, why. There is no rhyme in the original, and primâ facie should be none in the translation.”
― Theocritus, Complete Works of Theocritus

“Pope’s couplet again may possibly best convey the pomposity of some Idylls and the point of others. And there may be divers considerations of this kind. But, speaking generally, where the translator has not to intimate stanzas — where he has on the contrary to intimate that there are none — rhyme seems at first sight an intrusion and a suggestio falsi.”
― Theocritus, Complete Works of Theocritus

“Goatherd, when you turn the corner by the oaks
you'll see a freshly carved statue in fig wood.
The bark is not peeled off. It is legless, earless,
but strongly equipped with a dynamic phallus
to perform the labor of Aphrodite. A holy hedge
runs around the precinct where a perennial brook
spills down from upper rocks and feeds a luxuriance
of bay, myrtle and fragrant cypress trees.
A grape vine pours its tendrils along a branch,
and spring blackbirds echo in pure transparency
of sound to high nightingales who echo back
with pungent honey.
Come, sit down, and beg Priapos
to end my love for Daphnis. Butcher a young goat
in sacrifice. If he will not, I make three vows:
I will slay a young cow, a shaggy goat and a darling
lamb I am raising. May God hear you and assent.”
― Theokritos

“Many poplars and many elms shook overhead,
and close by, holy water swashed down noisily
from a cave of the nymphs. Brown grasshoppers
whistled busily through the dark foliage. Far
treetoads gobbled in the heavy thornbrake.

Larks and goldfinch sang, turtledoves were moaning,
and bumblebees whizzed over the plashing brook.

The earth smelled of rich summer and autumn fruit:
we were ankle-deep in pears, and apples rolled
all about our toes. With dark damson plums
the young sapling branches trailed on the ground.”
― Theokritos

“still I cannot see why, in making a version of (say) Theocritus, one should not use by way of preference those names by which he invariably called them, and which are characteristic of him: why, in turning a Greek author into English, we should begin by turning all the proper names into Latin.”
― Theocritus, Complete Works of Theocritus