The poet making his way through the noonday heat, with two friends,
to a harvest feast, meets the goatherd, Lycidas. To humour the poet
Lycidas sings a love song of his own, and the other replies with
verses about the passion of Aratus, the famous writer of didactic
verse. After a courteous parting from Lycidas, the poet and his two
friends repair to the orchard, where Demeter is being gratified with
the first-fruits of harvest and vintaging.

In this idyl, Theocritus, speaking of himself by the name of
Simichidas, alludes to his teachers in poetry, and, perhaps, to some
of the literary quarrels of the time.

The scene is in the isle of Cos. G. Hermann fancied that the scene
was in Lucania, and Mr. W. R. Paton thinks he can identify the places
named by the aid of inscriptions (Classical Review, ii. 8, 265). See
also Rayet, Memoire sur l'ile de Cos, p. 18, Paris, 1876.

The Harvest Feast.

It fell upon a time when Eucritus and I were walking from the city to
the Hales water, and Amyntas was the third in our company. The
harvest-feast of Deo was then being held by Phrasidemus and
Antigenes, two sons of Lycopeus (if aught there be of noble and old
descent), whose lineage dates from Clytia, and Chalcon himself--
Chalcon, beneath whose foot the fountain sprang, the well of Burine.
He set his knee stoutly against the rock, and straightway by the
spring poplars and elm trees showed a shadowy glade, arched overhead