Perhaps an accurate translation, but not one that works as English poetry.

Good, readable translation of Theocritus, though liberties are freely taken with the Greek text. Gow is still the standard translation, I think.

My study of "The Role of Rhetoric in Theocritus' Idyll V" is posted on my blog at http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/201....

fine idylls overall

Good poetry--and good inspiration.

Up to this point in reading ancient Greek poetry, I’ve encountered verse that has struck me as interesting and beautiful, but the idylls of Theocritus are the first that I can say I’ve truly loved. These are lusty songs of life, desire, love, and loss. Anthony Verity’s translations are so vibrant that I felt at times as if I were reading slices of real life, even when the topics included mythical gods or ancient folk tales. I think what draws me to Theocritus more than other Greek poets is his bucolic poetry -- the focus on salt-of-the-earth goatherds, shepherds, laborers, and common men and women. These are not (for the most part) celebrating epic warriors or goddess-like women. As a scholar of American literature, I am reminded of everything from Whitman to William Carlos Williams to the short fiction of regional writers.

And I think that’s the other reason I enjoy these poems: they have the narrative thrust of fiction. (In fact, one of the books on my library reading list is Mark Payne’s Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction, which explores these connections.) Even when Theocritus moves to more mythic topics in his later idylls, he gives us brief, powerful vignettes that again have the feel of short stories: Heracles killing snakes as a baby, the fight between Polydeuces and Amycus from the Argonautica, etc. For me, this pastoral verse is the epitome of Greek poetry and, more so than even the lyrical poets, the model of so much Western poetry to come.

For as long as I put this off for class you'd think I'd really hate it, but it was actually very interesting. It was also a lot gayer than I originally expected, so thats always nice.

One of my favourite ancient texts (particularly Idylls 2, 15, & 18). Theocritus writes beautifully about mythology, artistic and physical excellence, reverence for Ptolemy I and II, Syracuse, and the pains of love. The translator has made this text very accessible and melodic, a true act of skill!

I highly recommend this to all - it is short, precise, worded clearly, and is quite enjoyable.

3.5/5
highlights: idylls 1, 7, 13 and 16, and epigram 4

wholesome

Idyll 1

…"You would win the second prize to Pan…"
…"a woman resplendent in a dress and circlet.
She stands between two men with fine long hair, who compete
In alternating song, but do not touch her heart."

Perennial beauty of woman's prerogative, suitors' assays.

"…everyone knows you cannot
Take your song to Hades, place of oblivion, and save it there."

What a beautiful line! Now is the time for song, now the time for feats of poets, now for the psalmist to praise. Don't leave hymnody in a ghetto, or bend obsequiously to scientism and rationalism's music-less soul. This admonition is a carpe diem, a wise admonition to anyone who would craft song.
If hell is where there is only justice, not mercy, why do we give poetry mere hell, no leisure and grace to callowly learn elegance? Doesn’t praise spring from the kiss of justice and mercy, hesed and mishpat? Prior and perenially, poetry reaches its limits at the approach to the Light that gives light. Now it seems to perish at a doorstep from which the light of screens emanates.

"Love is surely cruel to you, helpless man."

In the grip of eros, referent for a perennial mystery. Wonderous forge of new worlds. Guileless, hapless, callow youths move to majestic plans beyond their reckoning. Mystery's exterminators rationalize a brutal control, a lethal, bombastic political elision that consciences can't catch up with.

"See how Love now drags me off to Hades."

Another perennial cry. You may berate love in your affectation but "what a man desires is unfailing love; better to be a fool than a liar."

"To live is still to hope- it's only the dead who despair." (I. 4)

"What a tiny wound, and what a mighty man it has tamed." (I. 4)

"A pig once challenged Athena, they say." (I. 5)

"…she
Flees if a lover pursues her, and pursues him
If he flees…
In love, you see, Polyphemous, foul often appears as fair." (I. 6)

"The singer who comes from Chios" is used to refer to Homer.

This appears to be a prophecy of COVID-19 written in the late 280s BC by the father of bucolic poetry, Theocritus, especially when one is in a more claustrophobic and militantly reactionary mood:

"He will sing how once the goatherd was shut up alive
In a wide chest, through a king's high-handed arrogance;
In his fragrant cedar chest he was fed by snub-nosed bees,
Who came from the meadows to bring him tender flowers,
Because the Muse had poured sweet nectar over his mouth…"
(Idyll 7, Lines 78-82)

Unfortunately, then the murder hornets arrived. But neither COVID-19, nor tyrants, nor murder wasps shall separate us from the love of Christ, from the Good from which all good comes.

Moved to the countryside because of this book: 0/10, entirely misleading.