Sing, Daphnis, a pastoral lay, do thou first begin the song, the song
begin, O Daphnis; but let Menalcas join in the strain, when ye have
mated the heifers and their calves, the barren kine and the bulls.
Let them all pasture together, let them wander in the coppice, but
never leave the herd. Chant thou for me, first, and on the other
side let Menalcas reply.

Daphnis. Ah, sweetly lows the calf, and sweetly the heifer, sweetly
sounds the neatherd with his pipe, and sweetly also I! My bed of
leaves is strown by the cool water, and thereon are heaped fair skins
from the white calves that were all browsing upon the arbutus, on a
time, when the south-west wind dashed me them from the height.

And thus I heed no more the scorching summer, than a lover cares to
heed the words of father or of mother.

So Daphnis sang to me, and thus, in turn, did Menalcas sing.

Menalcas. Aetna, mother mine, I too dwell in a beautiful cavern in
the chamber of the rock, and, lo, all the wealth have I that we
behold in dreams; ewes in plenty and she-goats abundant, their
fleeces are strown beneath my head and feet. In the fire of oak-
faggots puddings are hissing-hot, and dry beech-nuts roast therein,
in the wintry weather, and, truly, for the winter season I care not
even so much as a toothless man does for walnuts, when rich pottage
is beside him.

Then I clapped my hands in their honour, and instantly gave each a
gift, to Daphnis a staff that grew in my father's close, self-shapen,