i

Theocritus
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iii

Theocritus
Space, Absence, and Desire
z
WILLIAM G. THALMANN
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Title: Theocritus : space, absence, and desire / William G. Thalmann.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022027414 (print) | LCCN 2022027415 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197636558 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197636572 |
ISBN 9780197636589 | ISBN 9780197636565
Subjects: LCSH: Theocritus—Criticism and interpretation. |
Space in literature. | LCGFT: Literary criticism.
Classification: LCC PA4444 .T38 2022 (print) | LCC PA4444 (ebook) |
DDC 884/.01—dc23/eng/20220711
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022027414
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022027415

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197636558.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

v

Contents

Preface vii
Introduction xi
Note on Text and Transliteration xxi

1. Theocritean Spaces 1: The Bucolic and Urban Poems 1

Fictional Space  1
Bucolic Space  4
General Description of Bucolic Space  4
Spatial Relations in Idyll 5  16
Spatial Relations in Idyll 1.1–​23  25
Spatial Relations in Idyll 7  27
The “Urban Mimes”  32
Idyll 15  32
Idyll 2  40

2 . Theocritean Spaces 2: Mythological and Encomiastic Space 44

Mythological Space  44
Idyll 13  45
Idyll 22  53
Idyll 24  63
Encomiastic Space  73
Idyll 16  73
Idyll 17  85
Idyll 14  89
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vi Contents

3. The Poetics of Absence 93

Absence, Desire, and Song  93
Idyll 1: A Version of Bucolic Origins  101
Idyll 7: Lykidas’s Song  121
Idyll 6: Breaking the Frame  129
Idyll 2: Desire in Town  140
Idyll 13: Herakles in Love  147

4. On the Margins of Bucolic 154

Poems Concerning Margins  154
Idyll 4: The Waning of Bucolic  155
Idyll 10: The World of Labor  169
Idyll 21: The Dream of a Fisherman  181

5 . Conclusion 192

References 203
Index of Passages Cited 215
Subject Index 225
vi

Preface

I first read Theocritus’s bucolic poems as a college sophomore, in a course

taught by Gilbert Lawall, whose book about them was then in press and who let
the class read it in proof. I would like to thank Professor Lawall for introduc-
ing me to this wonderful poet and for offering me some ways of approaching
him. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, I failed to appreciate the riches of
this poetry. It seemed to me too labored, too bookish, trivial by comparison with
the great questions raised by Homer and Greek tragedy, which enthralled me
then and still do. This response, or lack of it, had nothing to do with Professor
Lawall’s teaching but was due to the callowness of my nineteen-​year-​old self. Still,
I left Theocritus with a vague intuition that there was something interesting in
those poems, if I only knew how to come to grips with them. In graduate school
I read through all of Theocritus because he was on the reading list, this time with
more engagement but with a certain amount of bewilderment at what seemed
to me a very miscellaneous collection. Over the years I taught a few of the Idylls
now and then to graduate students, usually in Greek literature survey courses,
and often with the thought that I should come back to Theocritus someday; but
I was busy with other projects. While I was working on my book on Apollonius’s
Argonautika, I gave a graduate seminar several times in Alexandrian poetry that
began with Theocritus. I worried at first that the students would be left cold by
him, more or less as I was as a student, but was delighted when, each time, the
opposite proved to be the case. Their enthusiastic engagement with the texts,
their animated discussions of tantalizingly puzzling lines (what does “all invented
for the purpose of truth,” Id. 7.44, mean?), and their intellectual energy inspired
me. I thank all of those students for our discussions.
I would like to thank in particular two alumni of that seminar. As I was form-
ing and clarifying my ideas about Theocritus, I had the benefit of many hours of
discussion with Matthew Chaldekas while he was working on his dissertation on
vision in the Idylls. After this lapse of time I do not recall specifics of the conversa-
tions, and I am not aware of particular debts, though there may be some. In any
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viii Preface

case, these discussions were very valuable to me. Later, he read and commented
generously on a first draft of what is now ­chapter 3. More recently, John Kelleher
took time from his dissertation on Plato and fourth-​century intellectual history
to read a penultimate draft of the whole book. His comments on its overall argu-
ments came at a critical time and helped me keep them in focus.
Because of administrative and other responsibilities, work on this book
had to proceed in fits and starts and took a long time. I would like to thank the
University of Southern California and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts
and Sciences for leaves in the spring semesters of 2017 and 2020 that enabled me
to concentrate on research and writing.
The second leave coincided with the beginning of the Covid-​19 pandemic,
which led to fifteen months of isolation at home. This involuntary leisure gave
me time to concentrate on further reading of books and articles and to write and
rewrite most of the book. This work gave me a focus during an otherwise miser-
able time. It would be facile and wrong to call what I was doing escapism into
Theocritus’s green world, but immersing myself in the Idylls’ complexity and the
challenge of writing about it did much to offset the constant feeling of oppression
caused by awareness of so much suffering and death and by appalling political
events.
Because of these circumstances, I had no direct access to a library. So I am
especially grateful to the staff of the USC libraries, who, working behind the
scenes and anonymous to me, provided electronic copies of innumerable articles
and book chapters that I badly needed. It is no exaggeration to say that without
their help, I would have made no progress on the book during this difficult period
and could not have completed it.
Chapters 1 and 2 are a revised and greatly expanded version of my chapter,
“Theocritus and the Poetics of Space,” in Brill’s Companion to Theocritus, edited
by Poulheria Kyriakou, Evina Sistakou, and Antonios Rengakos. I thank the edi-
tors for inviting me to contribute to this fine collection while I was developing
my ideas on Theocritean space.
Once again, the staff of Oxford University Press has been a pleasure to work
with and has made the process of submission, review, and production smooth.
I thank in particular Stefan Vranka for his support of the book and Project
Editor Sean Decker for his constant helpfulness. Jubilee James at Newgen
Knowledge Works kept everything on schedule and inspired me with her effi-
ciency. I am extremely grateful to Wendy Keebler for her meticulous and wise
copyediting. Warm thanks as well to the anonymous readers for the press.
Over the years, my colleagues in the USC classics department have created an
atmosphere of warmth, generosity, and intellectual energy in which it has been
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Preface ix

a pleasure, and an education, to work and teach. They have played no small part,
though an intangible one, in the writing of this book.
Finally, I thank my family—​my sisters, my wife, our son and daughter, their
spouses, and our grandchildren—​for being an inexhaustible source of joy even
during the dark times when we could communicate only by phone and FaceTime.
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xi

Introduction

In addition to a number of epigrams, thirty complete or mostly com-

plete poems have come down to us under the name of Theocritus, a poet evi-
dently active in the 280s and 270s BCE. He probably spent at least part of that
time in Alexandria, where he seems to have enjoyed the patronage of Ptolemy
Philadelphus. Not all of the collection is certainly by Theocritus; some poems are
fairly clearly of later date, although they are in his manner, and the authorship of
others is uncertain. This book is concerned with many of the Theocritean poems
and a few whose authorship has been questioned. The poems in the collection are
conventionally, and more or less appropriately, called Idylls (from εἰδύλλια, “little
pictures, vignettes,” or else “short poems of different types”).1 As the diminutive
term suggests, they are brief poems; the longest (Id. 22) is not much more than
two hundred lines, and most are considerably shorter. Although Theocritus is
best known for his bucolic Idylls, the collection is surprisingly—​and for many
first-​time readers, bewilderingly—​diverse. One might expect that such a slender
group of short texts hardly provides material for a book. In fact, Theocritus is
an extraordinarily rich, suggestive, and rewarding poet. Each poem, every line
almost, can take the reader’s thoughts in many directions at once. There is no way
to read these poems casually. To read them and reread them and to write about
them has been challenging and a joy. Their very complexity is what has kept me
fascinated.
Because of the nature of the poetry and the variety of the collection, much of
the scholarship has tended to consist of articles focusing on single Idylls, although
there have been excellent books as well. These careful, deep readings have been
extremely valuable, but they have tended to atomize the collection, to obscure
what many of the poems have in common, such as themes that crop up in very
different poems. Following a recent trend in scholarship, I have attempted here
to consider each Idyll in its individual nature—​and every one of these poems is

1. The latter translation is from Gutzwiller 1996, 132.

Theocritus. William G. Thalmann, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197636558.001.0001
xi

xii Introduction

distinctive—​and in relation to the corpus as a whole, or as much of it as I could

appropriately discuss in a single book. And so I have picked out certain top-
ics that especially interest me and that cut across individual differences among
poems. I want to make it clear at the outset that these choices make no pretense
at somehow exhausting the possibilities of this poetry, as if such a thing were ever
possible. There are many different ways of approaching Theocritus and think-
ing about his poems, and I often indicate in footnotes alternatives to the views
I express. I have simply selected a few perspectives on the poems that I think
might be useful. My hope is to contribute somewhat to a continuing conversa-
tion about Theocritus and Alexandrian poetry, one that should accommodate a
variety of voices.
This book continues and extends my interest in space in literature that
I explored in an earlier work on Apollonius of Rhodes (Thalmann 2011). Space
and spatial readings are the core of my discussions here as well, but I have taken
a rather different approach, one better suited to the nature of Theocritean
poetry. These poems are less obviously spatial texts than the Argonautika is,
with its linear journey and its concern with places and their associated narra-
tives, but I hope to show in the end how fruitful spatial readings of Theocritus
also can be. The special challenge here is that, with some important exceptions
such as those explicitly set on Kos or in Alexandria, space in these poems is
largely fictional; despite obvious mimetic aspects, these spaces are in impor-
tant ways products of the imagination. For reasons I give at the beginning of
­chapter 1, the fictionality of space is not really a problem or any bar to a spatial
approach.
The first two chapters treat space directly as it is constructed by the poems.
The Idylls I discuss can be grouped into four categories: bucolic, urban, mytho-
logical (the so-​called epyllia or “small-​scale epics”), and encomiastic. These are
more than rough-​and-​ready groupings for the convenience of discussion; the
poems within them seem to cohere in significant ways, and those within each
group configure space in their own way. In the end, however, these groups taken
together, even including the mythological poems, as I shall argue, create an
overarching space in which the bucolic and urban worlds are placed within the
Ptolemaic empire as their wider context. This is obviously true in regard to Idyll
15, which is set in Alexandria, but the town in which the conversation between
Thyonikhos and Aiskhinas is set in Idyll 14 is, by the end of the poem, placed in
relation to Alexandria as margin to periphery. The bucolic poems generally focus
on their own space, which readers experience as almost autonomous, but they,
too, as we shall see, are located within imperial space. Idylls 4 and 5 are excep-
tional in that they are explicitly located near cities in South Italy in a region that
was, by Theocritus’s era, suffering hard times. This area contrasts implicitly with
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Introduction xiii

the Ptolemaic empire, within which, we may infer, the bucolic world can flourish
in its abundance.
Space is partly constituted by the objects and people within it, but in
Theocritus it also is defined by what is not there, by absence. Chapter 3 examines
the constitutive role of absence in the bucolic poems especially but also in some
others, and in particular the way it motivates, and indeed generates, both inter-
nal songs and the Idylls themselves through arousing desire that, crucially, can
never be satisfied because its objects cannot be attained. Bucolic space especially
is thus constructed as a space of desire and therefore depends upon absence. The
bucolic Idylls bring the reader closer to the bucolic world, but because that world
is fictional—​as the poems often remind us—​they keep it forever out of reach.
The readers’ desire for it mirrors the desire of the characters within the poem; it
is what keeps them reading.
In keeping with its fictional nature, Theocritus constitutes bucolic space not
through detailed descriptions but with a selective and stylized repertoire of ele-
ments: mountains, hills, and caves; trees and bushes; animals, especially sheep
and cattle; and herders. He refers to this space consistently as “the mountain”
(τὸ ὄρος), even though it seems actually to be in foothills, so that it cannot be
placed within a literal topography. He also defines it through what is on its mar-
gins, and that is the subject of ­chapter 4. There I discuss Idyll 4, which I argue
is marginal although it is set in the bucolic world, because it depicts that world,
and the conventions of its poetry that Theocritus constructs in other Idylls, in
the process of disintegration. I then turn to Idyll 10, which concerns reapers and
is not bucolic and which, I argue, confronts bucolic leisure and erotic desire with
the realities of agricultural labor. I end with the questionably Theocritean Idyll 21,
which similarly depicts the labor and grinding poverty of fishermen, who appear
on the edges of attention in the bucolic poems.
Chapter 5, the concluding chapter, attempts to take stock of the discussions in
the earlier chapters and then come to grips with the question of what the stakes
are for the reader, particularly in the bucolic Idylls. I discuss this problem from
the perspective of the dynamics of absence and desire described above.
Theocritus is especially memorable for his bucolic poetry, partly because
of its qualities and partly because, thanks to Vergil, it is the precursor of the
European pastoral tradition. The temptation is to concentrate on those poems.
The foregoing summary might suggest that I have succumbed to that tempta-
tion, and it is true that I have written especially with an eye on them. But in
fact, the book contains sometimes lengthy discussions of non-​bucolic poems
as well. I do give prominence to the bucolic poems, but Theocritus himself is
partly responsible for that. As I argue at several points, bucolic thinking per-
vades even some of the other Idylls, as can be seen, for example, in the vision of
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xiv Introduction

a restored Sicily in Idyll 16, in the description of the surroundings that Amykos
enjoys in Idyll 22, and even in the tableau of Aphrodite and Adonis in the royal
palace at Alexandria in Idyll 15. Bucolic is thus central to my discussion because
it is important in the Theocritean corpus,2 but I should emphasize that I discuss
many other aspects of the non-​bucolic Idylls as well and consider them just as
interesting and important.
Even though each poem has distinctive individual qualities, and even though
one can justifiably divide many (though not all) of the Idylls into groups, there
is an overall coherence in the Theocritean corpus—​not a rigid unity but a coher-
ence that arises in the first instance from the remarkable number of connections
that readers can draw between very different poems. But it amounts to more than
that. Many poems seem in one way or another to respond to the new mobility of
the Greek world in the wake of Alexander’s conquests and to both the excitement
and the anxieties it seems to have produced.3 Along with that, they respond indi-
rectly, I think, to the experience of living outside the Greek world as tradition-
ally defined and in closer contact with non-​Greeks, especially in multicultural
Alexandria, an experience that could raise questions about definitions of the self
and the fluidity of boundaries. We can see such anxieties reflected indirectly, for
instance, in Idyll 17’s attempt to depict the Ptolemaic empire as producing spatial
clarity, a comprehensive order for a large part of the world under Greek rule,
where every component has a defined place.4 Or we might think of Aiskhinas
dislodged from home in Idyll 14 through his own fault in an unhappy love affair.
As a mercenary, he will be deracinated perhaps, but his movement will have a
goal and a purpose: Alexandria and service to Ptolemy. Idyll 15 is another obvious
example, with the women’s encounters in the streets of Alexandria with Greeks
from other parts of the homeland and Praxinoa’s notorious disparagement of
Egyptians.
Theocritus’s creation of the bucolic world can be considered a similar, though
perhaps more submerged, response to the same conditions. It might have offered,
in imagination, a vantage point from which to think about movement and

2. To say this is not to claim that Theocritus’s poetry as a whole, or whatever collection of it
was made in antiquity, was “governed by the bucolic concept” (Gutzwiller 1996, 119, arguing
against this notion), only that the bucolic concept exerts an influence in poems outside the
bucolic Idylls. Stephens (2006, 92) also shows “how deeply the values associated with pastoral
are embedded in all of Theocritus’ poetry”—​a view subtly different from the one Gutzwiller
rejects.
3. On this deracination and literary responses to it, see especially Selden 1998.
4. Stephens’s argument (2003, 147–​170) that the praise of Ptolemy is couched in both Greek
and Egyptian cultural idioms adds a further important dimension.
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Introduction xv

placelessness—​Michel Foucault’s “heterotopia.”5 Such a world, with its intense

localism, offered a vision of stability, timelessness, and rest, where everything and
everyone seemed to have a proper place and to fit. The attractions of such a refuge
must have been strong, but readers who expected only that might have been sur-
prised. One of the questions that the bucolic Idylls implicitly raise (for example,
spatially at the beginning of the programmatic Idyll 1, as I will show) is the rela-
tion of human culture to nature and whether human beings can ever truly fit into
nature. One prominent manifestation of this question is the contrast between
the elaborate and usually frustrated human quests for love and the easily satisfied
lust of goats. And bucolic leisure only allows time for restless desire, which issues
in song. In addition, Idyll 7, as I will argue, is from one perspective about being
out of place. Lykidas is a bucolic figure who shows up in the lowlands, displaced
from “the mountain,” and Simikhidas and his friends are on a day’s jaunt from
the town that is their home. They meet in an apparently featureless place, and the
question of their identities is very much in play, as modern scholarly discussion
shows. Is Lykidas goatherd or god? Is Simikhidas a mask for Theocritus? What
kind of poet will he be? Will he be worthy of “the mountain”? At the end of the
poem, Lykidas abruptly departs, and Simikhidas ends up on a farm, in a beauti-
ful (but not bucolic) place where all his senses are gratified, enjoying a festival to
Demeter that commemorates the completion of farm labor. But he has done no
work. Does he belong here? And so I suggest that the bucolic Idylls, along with
the others, raised questions posed by the new conditions of their readers’ world
and offered them a distanced perspective on issues that they were confronting in
their actual lives.
To speak of groupings of the Idylls and of an “overarching coherence” among
them does not imply that I think that we have the remains of an ancient poetry
book in any way like some we know of from the early third century BCE, such
as the Milan Posidippus, with texts grouped by subject and placed in a way that
invites reading a given poem both in itself and in relation to adjacent poems. We
do not know whether Theocritus himself collected his poetry and published it
together or if someone else did so after his death, or what form such a collection
might have taken in either case. The earliest collection we know of was compiled
by Artemidorus in the first half of the first century BCE, and subsequent ancient
editions arranged the poems in different orders, although all put the bucolic
poems first and began with Idyll 1.6 The corpus we have seems to derive from
those editions, with accretions of post-​Theocritean poems that already had begun

5. Foucault 1986.
6. These statements are all based on Gutzwiller 1996.
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xvi Introduction

to be added in antiquity, notably Idylls 8 and 9. The unity I speak of, then, is the
result of recurrent themes, concerns, and outlook in what we have of Theocritus’s
poetic production.7
It is reasonably safe to think that Theocritus was born in Sicily; that was
the prevailing belief in antiquity, although we have no idea what it was based
on. Beyond that, we know virtually nothing of his life. In particular, there is no
evidence independent of the poems themselves as to where Theocritus wrote
his poetry.8 What has been considered internal evidence is not strong. Idyll 16,
addressed in part to Hieron II of Syracuse and containing a wish for Sicily’s
restored prosperity, has often been read as a plea for Hieron’s patronage, and that
has led to the assumption that Theocritus must have been living in Sicily when
he wrote it. That is far from a necessary conclusion, and it rests on a reading of
the poem that I would question. I try to show in ­chapter 2 how many interesting
aspects of Idyll 16 can emerge if we do not make patronage in itself the center of
our reading. Idylls 1 and 11 are clearly set in Sicily, but that does not mean that
Theocritus wrote them there. Idyll 7 has been thought to show him living and
working on the island of Kos, but that is based on the notion that the poem’s
narrator, Simikhidas, straightforwardly is Theocritus. Theocritus’s poetry could
have been written anywhere. Nevertheless, like many others, I think it likely that
he worked at least for some time in Alexandria, under the patronage of Ptolemy
Philadelphus and with the resources of the Library, and that he came there into
creatively productive contact with Callimachus and Apollonius of Rhodes, who
we know were there. There is no evidence for this. Having cast doubt on bio-
graphical readings of other Idylls, I would not point to the tributes to Ptolemy
and his patronage in Idylls 14 and 17, although the importance of Alexandria in
the spatial configuration of the poetry, as discussed in ­chapter 2, is suggestive.
Theocritus’s connection with Alexandria is just a heuristic belief advanced for
the sake of discussion, and nothing in this book depends on it. I do (usually
tentatively) refer to readers in Alexandria in describing the possible effects of
the poems, and I have this much justification at least: that even if Theocritus’s
poetry was not written in Alexandria, it was certainly read there. The skeptical
reader can understand “Alexandria” in such contexts as shorthand for “any city
in the Hellenistic Greek world,” since it is clear from their nature that the poems

7. Cf. Stephens 2006, 92, who argues for “treat[ing] the idylls as a whole—​not as a poetry book,
but as a group of texts with internal dynamics and intertextual play that transcend generic
boundaries.” Stephens 2018, 57–​83, shows what a reading of the corpus from this perspective
looks like. On the limits imposed on our understanding by the tendency to separate the bucolic
poems from the rest of the Idylls, see also Krevans 2006.
8. On this question, see the concise discussion in Hunter 1999, 1–​2.
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Introduction xvii

appealed especially, although probably not only, to a sophisticated and very well-​
read audience that significantly included urban elites.
Idylls 13 and 22 bear a strongly marked relation to Apollonius’s Argonautika,
but which poet influenced the other is a much-​discussed question that has never
been resolved. I find Richard Hunter’s various arguments that Theocritus used
and responded to Apollonius quite compelling, particularly his point that these
two interconnected Idylls treat episodes (of Amykos and Hylas) that straddle
the division between Argonautika 1 and 2.9 It is also tempting to take, as some
scholars have done, the eagle simile at Id. 13.25 as a reference to the eagle that the
Argonauts see returning from its feast on Prometheus’s liver when they get to
the mouth of the Phasis River at the end of Argonautika 2. In general, the more
I have worked with Idylls 13 and 22, the more they have seemed to me responses
to Apollonius, and in particular I would like to think of Theocritus’s treatment
of space in Idyll 13 as self-​consciously in contrast to that of Apollonius. However,
Murray’s recent arguments,10 on the basis of astronomical references in the poem,
for dating the Argonautika to 238 BCE, would put the finished version of the poem
later than Theocritus and pose a significant difficulty for this view. Significant but
not insurmountable. Since Apollonius must have worked on his epic over many
years, it is possible, as others have suggested,11 that the poets were in communica-
tion with each other as their works evolved and that they responded simultane-
ously to each other—​a process that would have been facilitated by, although it
would not have required, Theocritus’s presence in Alexandria. However that may
be, in my discussions of Idylls 13 and 22 in c­ hapter 2, I leave questions of priority
aside. My references to Apollonius there are meant only to point to alternative
ways of shaping narratives about the same myths that set in relief the choices that
Theocritus made.
I have not tried to cover all the Idylls, not even all that are certainly by
Theocritus, but I have discussed most of the latter. A few just would not fit well
into the topics that were my focus. Furthermore, I have made no attempt to offer
a “complete reading” (whatever that would be) of any one poem. Instead, I con-
centrate on aspects of each that seem relevant. In some cases, this has meant that
I discuss different parts of the same poem in separate chapters, and this approach
in turn has necessitated a certain amount of repetition. I apologize to the reader
for any awkwardness this method entails, and I hope it will be offset by clear
movement of the argument.

9. Hunter 1996, 59–​63; 1999, 264–​265.

10. Murray 2014.
11. E.g., Foster 2016, 128–​129: “Theocritus has read some version of Apollonius’ Argonautica.”
xvi

xviii Introduction

My use of the term “bucolic” rather than “pastoral” is in line with current
scholarly usage that seeks to distinguish Theocritus’s poems from the later pas-
toral tradition, of which they were the forerunner, and should occasion no
controversy.12 What is more unusual and may invite criticism is my restriction
of the term “bucolic” to poems about livestock herders (that is, among genuine
Theocritus, Idylls 1, 3–​7, and 11, although, as I have said, there are distinctively
bucolic passages in other poems).13 The consequence of this narrowing of the
term by comparison with other writers’ usage is that I do not consider every rural
scene in Theocritus bucolic, and in particular I distinguish carefully between the
bucolic and the agricultural. I think it is a mistake to call the scene at the end
of Idyll 7 bucolic or to consider Idyll 10 bucolic even though it concerns reap-
ers. I make this distinction because I think Theocritus consistently does so, and
I think that it can lead to fruitful results. At the same time, the reader should be
aware that my use of “bucolic” may not be entirely consistent with ancient usage.
Kathryn Gutzwiller has argued, to my mind quite persuasively, that what made
poems “bucolic” were thematic concerns related to one or another of the mean-
ings that “to bucolicize” (βουκολεῖν) had acquired in Greek by Theocritus’s time.14
The reader should feel free to understand “bucolic” in this book as a term of con-
venience to designate a distinctive and highly influential subset of Theocritus’s
Idylls.
I have tried, in any case, to avoid getting bogged down in questions of genre,
although some of these are unavoidable. Whether bucolic may be said to be a
genre and what its relation to later pastoral may be are matters that have been
well handled by others and that I have not touched. There is another aspect of
genre that I do discuss, with some mild skepticism. One tendency among scholars
is to suggest that in one or another Idyll, Theocritus is using but also implicitly
criticizing earlier genres, such as epic poetry. I think that this can be important,
and certainly one of the pleasures of his poetry is his manipulation of the conven-
tions and values of several genres at once into new and surprising combinations.

12. For strong arguments from two different perspectives, see Halperin 1983 and Gutzwiller
1991, 3–​13.
13. Some would omit Idyll 11 from this category, but Polyphemos is a herdsman, and his values
are those of the bucolic world (see especially Id. 11.34–​49). Spatially and in other respects,
Idyll 7 differs significantly from the other bucolics, and what is described at the end is an agri-
cultural, as distinct from bucolic, pleasance. But Lykidas, at least, is a bucolic figure even if
Simikhidas is not, despite his claim at Id. 7.91–​93; and Tityros’s song, embedded within the
song of Lykidas, takes us into the bucolic world.
14. By this criterion, however, Idylls 10 and 21 would be bucolic (Gutzwiller 2006, 398), whereas
I think there are advantages to the distinctions I make. Perhaps the difference is between
semantic and spatial approaches, and each in its own way can be productive.
xi

Introduction xix

But I doubt that generic play or critique was ever his sole aim. As I say at several
points, I think of genre as being like a language through which he was expressing
other concerns. If that involved critique of epic or tragic values, so much the more
interesting; but I do not think that our reading of any poem should end there.
I can bring together these remarks about genre and my groupings of Theocritus’s
poems by responding briefly to David Halperin’s Before Pastoral (1983). Halperin
makes a powerful case for understanding the Idylls as a kind of epos that renews
for contemporary Hellenistic tastes traditional Greek epos; presumably the term
epos is meant to include Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and other hexameter poetry
as well as heroic epic. There are considerable advantages to this view. It places
Theocritus in the context of the Greek literary and cultural tradition, and it helps
us avoid the temptation to read him anachronistically with expectations formed
by later pastoral poetry. It also helps us appreciate how original his poetry is. And
it provides a basis for stressing what the various poems have in common. On the
other hand, it tends to play down, or might unintentionally lead the reader to
play down, the very important presence in the Idylls of other strands of the tradi-
tion, particularly lyric poetry and drama. In a formal sense, Halperin may be right
to identify the bucolics and other Idylls as epos—​after all, they were written in
dactylic hexameters—​but that is one view of them that should be supplemented
with attention to the way they incorporate other poetic types as well, which all
had their own history that becomes part of the new poems’ fabric. The point is
not the formalist “crossing of genres” but the combination of older poetic types
in new and striking ways that does for them what Halperin says Theocritus does
for epos: reinvigorate them for a new age.
In the second place, bringing all the hexameter poems by Theocritus in the
corpus together, although it has the advantage of calling attention to their com-
mon formal and thematic elements, works against the kind of division of them
into groups (bucolic, urban, mythological, and encomiastic) that I have made.
I do think these categories have a real basis in the poetry; they are something
more than an arbitrary way of organizing the poems for discussion and far less
than formal subgenres of what could be called Theocritean epos. I would not
agree with Halperin, for example, that grouping the bucolic poems together is
necessarily the result of the fallacy of viewing them through expectations formed
by later pastoral. I have been guided principally by the way they work together
thematically and play off one another, and especially by the way they cumulatively
construct a bucolic space, the margins of which Theocritus explores in certain
other Idylls. I would make much the same claim in regard to the mythological,
urban, and encomiastic poems. I hope that the first two chapters will show the
bases for these statements. Ultimately, nothing of what I say here seems incom-
patible with Halperin’s arguments.
x
xxi

Note on Text and Transliteration

For the Greek text of Theocritus, I have used A. S. F. Gow’s 1952 edition and have
quoted from that, indicating in the footnotes where I would hesitate to accept his
readings in particular passages or would be open to other readings. Like everyone
else who has written on Theocritus, I am greatly indebted to his commentary in
the same edition. After seventy years, it remains fundamental, even when one
does not fully agree with Gow’s conclusions.
Translations from the Greek of Theocritus and other poets are my own except
where indicated. They are fairly literal and intended merely as an aid to the reader.
They do not do anything like justice to the richly suggestive language of the origi-
nal, toward which I hope my discussions will help point.
How to transliterate Greek words and especially proper names into the
English alphabet is a problem to which there is no perfect solution. There are
only two ways to be completely consistent. One is simply to Latinize everything,
but that misrepresents the sounds of the Greek words, even though a reader
might at first be more comfortable with those familiar forms. Or one might
transliterate exactly and represent the sounds of Greek as accurately as pos-
sible in English. That would preserve an important sense of unfamiliarity: the
Greeks were not “just like us,” and their words, like the rest of their culture,
were not the same as our own. But complete consistency verges on pedantry
and risks distracting and confusing the reader with names such as Aiskhulos
rather than Aeschylus. Compromise is the only recourse, but where to draw the
line is largely a matter of taste. I have generally transliterated Greek words and
many proper nouns fairly exactly, including the use of -​k-​ rather than -​c-​ for
Greek kappa (so Herakles instead of the hybrid Heracles) and -​kh-​ for Greek
chi. My only departure is transliterating Greek upsilon with -​y-​ instead of the
more strictly correct -​u-​. With personal and place names, I have been more
flexible. I have used Latinate or English forms for the most familiar names: for
example, Theocritus rather than Theokritos, Homer not Homeros, Syracuse
xxi

xxii Note on Text and Transliteration

instead of Syrakousai. For less common names, I have stuck to more precise
transliteration (Simikhidas, Lykidas, Simaitha, and so on), and in borderline
cases, I have sided with Greek rather than Latin, as with Olympos. I apologize
to any reader who finds this method of transliteration an obstacle. In my experi-
ence, one can get used to it easily and quickly.
1

Theocritean Spaces 1
The Bucolic and Urban Poems

Fictional Space
The poems of Theocritus, like those of Apollonius of Rhodes and Callimachus,
are markedly spatial in their emphasis, for reasons that might have to do with
the expansion of the Greek world in the wake of Alexander’s conquests and in
particular with the Ptolemaic empire. But Apollonius’s Argonautika led the Argo
through a space consisting of places that his readers could, or thought they could,
identify as real, and the stories in Callimachus’s Aetia, not to mention those in his
hymns, are firmly tied to actual cities, regions, and islands. Some of Theocritus’s
Idylls are similarly associated with real places; but it may seem perverse, or at least
futile, to consider space in the bucolic poems, a subgroup of his poetry that con-
structs a fictional world and self-​consciously puts its fictionality on display. What
can space mean in such a context?
The question is a natural one to ask, but as I hope this chapter will show, the
problem is trivial or nonexistent. The spaces depicted in all three poets, including
bucolic space, bear some relation to actual spaces within which people lived and
went about their activities: cities and, within them, houses and palaces; hillsides,
sometimes with names of actual landmarks and towns; and the Ptolemaic empire.
The real challenge is how to talk about space in literature, in contrast to the real,
material spaces and places that are described and studied by anthropologists and
geographers. In order to do that, we have to give up any assumption we might
be tempted to make that literary spaces are necessarily mimetic—​a faithful and
neutral portrayal of regions and places as they actually are. Instead, depictions of
space are part of the world-​building that literary texts perform.1 They are, then,

1. On world-​building as opposed to mimesis, see Doležel 1988.

Theocritus. William G. Thalmann, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197636558.003.0001
2

2 T heo crit us

representations of space—​space conceived and presented in particular ways that

fit the modes of seeing things adopted by the text. They may bear some relation to
actual spaces and places that often have the same names, but they are not identical
to them. Literary depictions of space are never exhaustive and always purpose-
ful. “Representations of space” is, in fact, the term Henri Lefebvre uses for the
second of his three “moments” in the “production” of space.2 By this he means
conceptualizations of space as reflected in maps, diagrams, measurements, and
so on—​practices that link space to power and control. Literary representations,
as discursive constructions of space, would evidently fit into this category as well,
although he never makes this explicit.
But literary representations of space are seldom abstract the way a map is.
Within them are constructed what Lefebvre calls “spaces of representation,” his
third “moment,” or what David Harvey calls “relational space.”3 This is space as
people “live” it and invest natural features and human artifacts with meaning. “[A
space of representation] is alive: it speaks. It has an affective kernel or center: Ego,
bed, bedroom, dwelling, house; or: square, church, graveyard.”4 For Harvey, in
relational space, human relations produce their own space and time, of ideas,
memories, dreams, myths, and fantasies. As he also says, human identities in rela-
tional space are not fixed and static, as the Cartesian notion of the subject would
suggest, but constantly formed and re-​formed through social processes and inter-
actions with nature. I suggest not only that literary texts construct space discur-
sively but also that within those discursive formations, they often show people
forming spaces of representation through their various activities and interac-
tions. Within Theocritus’s poetry, we can see this occurring most obviously in the
bucolic Idylls, but we will also find it in many other poems of this diverse corpus.
In this light, it appears that there is little essential difference between our
actual spatial practices and what we read about in literature. Unless we are
looking at a map, and sometimes even when we are,5 our experience of space is

2. Lefebvre 1991, 38–​39.

3. I prefer the literal translation of Lefebvre’s “les espaces de représentation” to the 1991 English
translation’s somewhat confusing “representational space.” The most convenient discussion
of Harvey’s own triad—​abstract, relative, and relational space—​is in Harvey 2006. In briefly
describing his and Lefebvre’s ideas, I have drawn on my fuller discussion in Thalmann 2011,
15–​17, 22–​23.
4. Lefebvre 1991, 42.
5. I have in mind times when we look at a map and see marked on it some place where we have
been. We see that it is between other places—​north of one, south of the other—​and how many
miles it is from each of them: relative space in Harvey’s term. But we might also start to visual-
ize buildings and landmarks within that place and recall experiences we had there, including
encounters with others: relational space.
3

Theocritean Spaces 1 3

subjective. For one thing, we experience it and orient ourselves within it from the
body outward: here, there; up, down; left, right; east, west; and so on. This is what
Harvey calls relative space. But it is also part of our lives as humans, and especially
as humans in culture, that we turn certain spaces and places into relational space
or spaces of representation in the sense described above. Literature shows us this
essential aspect of ourselves in heightened form. It depicts our customary ways of
experiencing and representing space to ourselves, which we are usually scarcely
aware of, and makes them the object of attention and conscious thought, just as
literary language is marked and so becomes a focus of awareness in writer and
reader.
It should be clear from the foregoing that, especially in the case of spaces of
representation or relational space, human societies and human cultures bear a
reciprocal relation to space: their practices at once shape space and are shaped
(both enabled and constrained) by it. It follows that space is not merely a setting
for what goes on within it; it is not inert but a process. For this reason, I think
that Paul Alpers, who is very attentive to space in pastoral, with reference to Idyll
1 of Theocritus and Vergil’s first Eclogue distinguishes too sharply between fore-
ground and background when he says (using Kenneth Burke’s concept) that the
“representative anecdote” of pastoral is “herdsmen and their lives” rather than
landscape.6 I would say instead that herdsmen and pastoral space, like all people
and their spaces, are mutually implicated.7 Furthermore, space is composed not
just of its physical features but also of people, animals, and objects—​human-​made
and natural (rocks, trees, plants)—​that help define it along with those other fea-
tures. And finally, space is defined also by absences, by what never was present or
is no longer. This will be the subject of ­chapter 3.
The first two chapters seek to give an overview of space in Theocritus’s
poetry. Each of the different groups into which many of his surviving poems can
be placed—​bucolics, “urban mimes,” mythological narratives, and encomia—​
constructs space differently, according to its own requirements.8 Given the

6. Alpers 1996, 22–​24. I should make it clear that what I am disagreeing with is giving prior-
ity to one over the other—​perhaps an inevitable result if one is looking for a representative
anecdote.
7. This mutual implication is, I think, implicit in Segal’s discussion (1981, 189–​190) of a “gra-
dation of landscapes” according to a “scale of bucolic values” in Theocritus’s bucolic poems.
Segal’s essays are exemplary for the way they conceive Theocritus’s poetry in spatial terms.
8. For another discussion of space in Theocritus, see Klooster 2012. Her approach to space is
informed by narratology, mine by spatial theory drawn from the social sciences, but there are
welcome convergences between our discussions. Worman 2015, 185–​121, offers a very interest-
ing discussion of spatial features in Alexandrian poetry, including prominently Theocritean
4

4 T heo crit us

reciprocal relations between actors and space, we would naturally expect to find
particular kinds of people engaging in characteristic activities in certain spaces. At
the same time, space in each of these groups can be read in relation to the spatial
configurations of the other groups, so that reading with attention to space will
allow us to draw connections of similarity and contrast between poems across
the Theocritean corpus. To do so is to find signs of an overarching coherence in
Theocritus’s poetry. Taken together, many of the Idylls construct a spatial system
in which country and city, herding, heroic myth, and the Ptolemaic empire both
construct their own spaces and are brought into relation with one another. My
aim will be to discuss space in each category of poem both in itself and within this
larger framework.

Bucolic Space
General Description of Bucolic Space
Except for the ending of Idyll 7 (131–​157), which is not bucolic, there is no com-
prehensive description of the spatial setting by a narrative voice in any of the
bucolic poems.9 Instead, Theocritus builds up an impression of bucolic space
through comments on natural features or animal and human inhabitants deliv-
ered by characters more often than by a narrator. The reader learns about these
elements of the landscape as they obtrude on a character’s attention and become
associated with that person’s experiences and feelings. Within the poems, space
is experienced subjectively, in ways that tell the reader much about the characters
and convey an emotional response to the bucolic world.10 This world may be rec-
ognizable, but it is constructed piecemeal and selectively (it is a “reality effect”
rather than reality), and it always comes to us refracted through a character’s

bucolic, as “metonyms” for a light, graceful, refined style. For example, the scene at the opening
of Idyll 1 “serves as a trope for bucolic poetry,” and “the Idyll as a whole thus does not just set
forth a programmatic instance of bucolic poetry; it also articulates a signature style (‘naturally’
sweet and melodious) that is made up of the very setting itself ” (197). The bucolic world thus
provides a “heterotopia” for representing urban cultural hierarchies. My own view of space and
its significance is less abstract, but I see it as complementary to Worman’s.
9. For my use of the term “bucolic” to refer to those Idylls concerned with herdsmen (1, 3–​7,
and 11), see the introduction.
10. Klooster 2012, 106–​110, sees characterization as a major function of space in the “mimetic”
Idylls; I would extend this to the bucolic poems generally, although it will not be a focus of
my discussion. For landscape as an expression of emotion in Idylls 7 and 11, see Elliger 1975,
331–​333, 348–​349.
5

Theocritean Spaces 1 5

or a narrator’s consciousness.11 In part, this subjective approach to space can be

related to the Idylls’ self-​consciousness about their own fictionality, or it might
be chalked up to their fondness for the “pathetic fallacy” (a notion that, as will
emerge in ­chapter 3, I do not find very useful)—​but only in part. It is also sig-
nificant that the bucolic Idylls in this way call attention to the ways in which we
habitually put ourselves in a reciprocal relation to space and interact with others
(humans or animals) in ways inflected by that space.
Nevertheless, it is possible to derive from these scattered references a cumu-
lative picture of landscape and space, as the reader does in going from poem
to poem. Bucolic space is highly stylized, composed of relatively few recurring
features.12 Trees and bushes are a constant presence: pine, elm, oak, tamarisk.
Among smaller plants are galingale and brush for fodder or couches for the herd-
ers’ rest. Less congenial are brambles and thorns. Bucolic scenes tend to take place
at springs, at which the herders water their animals and find relief from the after-
noon heat and leisure for song. Rivers divide up the landscape and connect land
and sea. River meadows can be used for cattle pasture (Id. 4.17–​25). Alongside
what can be seen, sounds help make up this space: the whispering of pines and the
plash of water on rocks (Id. 1.1–​2, 7–​8), the hum of bees and the song of cicadas,
and the herders’ singing and piping, for which those other sounds provide a natu-
ral analogue. Thus, an imaginary bucolic space is constructed for human activity.
These few elements are often enough by themselves to suggest a bountiful nat-
ural setting. At times, Theocritus fills in a far richer background, at least in botan-
ical terms. For example, according to Alice Lindsell, he mentions eighty-​seven
different plants and trees, mostly in the bucolic poems and with considerable
botanical accuracy.13 That number is somewhat high because she includes post-​
Theocritean poems in the corpus, but it is still impressive. But even here, there is a
limit to mimetic realism; she points out that the plants and trees that are referred
to in the Idylls set in Sicily do not actually grow there but are at home in the
Aegean, like those mentioned in the other poems—​another sign of stylization.
Additional trees, plants, insects, and animals are mentioned mainly where they
are relevant, as in the dying Daphnis’s vision of the natural order confused (Id.
1.132–​136). The various references to the elements of their world in the amoebean

11. See the neat formulation by Daspet 2017, 91–​92: the place of bucolic singing orients the song
in space and at the same time is constructed differently in each poem by the singer’s voice. (I
regret that I saw this paper too late to take it more fully into account.)
12. Legrand 1898, 197–​198; Elliger 1975, 325. Seeck 1975, 202, speaks of “die typisierende
Reduktion” in descriptions of the locus amoenus.
13. Lindsell 1937.
6

6 T heo crit us

song contest between Lakon and Komatas in Idyll 5 can be read as a construction
of bucolic space, but despite the richness of detail (to be discussed later in this
chapter), they do not amount to a methodical description; the selection of details
seems arbitrary, and they come up in random order. They are conjured up for the
purpose of the contest, not for their own sake.
In Idyll 6 (3, 45), by contrast,14 the only markers of the setting are the spring
at which Daphnis and Damoitas exchange songs and the equally conventional
soft grass in which their calves frolic. That is apparently because in their songs,
the emphasis is on the relation between the sea, Galateia’s home, and the land,
scene of Polyphemos’s herding, rather than on the land itself. And yet, because
of our experience of the other poems, spring and grass function as signifiers of
a whole bucolic world, and the spring’s centripetal force creates the archetypal
scene of bucolic singing: the meeting of two herdsmen.15 In Idyll 3 there is a simi-
lar economy in the creation of space: a hillside (ὄρος, Id. 3.2) where the goatherd
has left his goats to graze, the mouth of Amaryllis’s cave, covered by fern and spa-
tially distinct,16 which is established as the place where the goatherd performs his
kômos by the demonstrative in τοῦτο κατ’ ἄντρον (“from the mouth of this cave,”
Id. 3.6) and the pine tree under which he then reclines to sing of mythic lovers
(Id. 3.38). The goatherd mentions only two other places, both marginal to the
bucolic world: the place (orchard?) from which Amaryllis told him to bring her
apples (Id. 3.10–​11) and the rock or cliff from which the fisherman watches for
tunny (Id. 3.25–​26; cf. 1.39–​40). A few props suggest a scene, and yet the spatial
relations set up in this way are significant: the contrast between the inside and
outside of the cave—​a boundary never to be crossed that casts in physical form
the goatherd’s whole problem of unfulfilled desire—​and between the scene of his
singing and the hillside, where bucolic life goes on, viewed from the perspective
of one who has been drawn out of it by his erotic dilemma: “Tityros, my well-​
loved friend, pasture the goats and take them to the spring. . . .” The bucolic world
is distanced from the “here” of the goatherd’s monologue—​a spatial effect that is
analogous to the narrative distancing effect that inset songs often have in other

14. This contrast has now been noted also by Daspet 2017, 103.
15. See Alpers 1996, 81, and below.
16. Gow 1952, II, 66, unnecessarily posits a change of scene between lines 5 and 6, as does Elliger
1975, 351. Against this see Hunter 1999, 110. As we will see below, “the mountain” (ὄρος) acts as
a shorthand for bucolic space in these Idylls. What matters is that the goatherd is outside that
space—​where does not matter. On this spatial indefiniteness, see Payne 2007, 61. For a some-
what different view of the spatial dynamics in this poem, see Daspet 2017, 98–​100.
7

Theocritean Spaces 1 7

Idylls.17 Bucolic life goes on at a safe remove, cloistered from and impervious to
the drama of frustrated wooing unfolding in the forefront of our attention.18
As the example of the fisherman’s rock in Idyll 3 shows, bucolic space is defined
by its margins and boundaries as well as by what occupies it or happens in it.19 One
boundary is that between land and sea, which fishermen, “whose prey is from the
sea” (Id. 7.60), cross, but herdsmen never do.20 It is on the shore that Polyphemos,
neglectful of his sheep, wastes away in love for Galateia (Id. 11.13–​16), and sitting
on a high rock like the fisherman’s, gazing out over the sea (Id. 11.17–​18), he pleads
with her in song to leave her watery home and join him on land. He cannot cross
the boundary and come to her because he lacks gills and cannot swim (Id. 11.54, 60).
The division between bucolic land and sea appears more permeable at first in Idyll
6, but when Galateia seems about to emerge from the water, the barking dog on the
beach ends up seeing not her but its own reflection (Id. 6.10–​12), as though the bar-
rier between land and sea were absolute. Against the sea’s fluidity, bucolic space takes
on solidity and definition, fictional though it is. There is another important—​even
defining—​contrast as well: between the fishermen’s hard labor across this bound-
ary and the leisure of the herdsmen enclosed in bucolic space (this contrast will be
explored more fully in ­chapter 4).
Agricultural fields and orchards are adjacent to bucolic space, and there is
contact between herdsmen and farmworkers; but although the boundary can be
porous, these spaces and the activities within them are kept distinct, with (as we
shall also see in c­ hapter 4) a similar contrast between labor and leisure.21 The

17. In his interesting discussion of the opening of Idyll 3, Cusset 2021, 288, suggests that this
spatial separation “is symbolic of the transformation of the goatherd into a singer.” I would
hesitate to go that far, because his identity as a goatherd is basic to his portrayal throughout the
poem and gives his song its special character. The bucolic Idylls do not separate herding from
singing but join them together instead.
18. For a possible further contrast here (which would also be emphasized spatially), see Hunter
1999, 111–​112: Tityros’s name suggests that he could be a he-​goat, and the verbs in lines 2 and 4
may contain sexual double entendres, so that “such an earthy opening would stand in obvious
counterpoint to the pathetic emotion and frustrated desire of the rest of the poem.”
19. On margins, with an excellent discussion of non-​bucolic characters, see Myers 2016, 28–​
30. On boundaries and the inside and outside of bucolic space in Vergil’s Eclogues, see Jones
2011, 43–​65.
20. Cf. Jones 2011, 76, on the sea as boundary in Vergil’s Eclogues. He adds, curiously, “in this
regard there is a clear difference from the Theocritean world, where one finds both the sea and
fishing.” But fishermen in Theocritus are outside the bucolic world; they belong to the world
of labor, as Idyll 21, even if it is not by Theocritus, shows (see ­chapter 4).
21. On this leisure and what it entails, see Edquist 1975. In her discussions of Idylls 1 and 7, how-
ever, she runs together the bucolic and agricultural worlds and ignores the way the labor neces-
sary in the one sets off the leisure characteristic of the other. Her remark at the beginning (101)
8

8 T heo crit us

non-​bucolic Idyll 25, possibly by Theocritus, contains the only full description
of rural agricultural space in the corpus (Id. 25.7–​33), the farm of Augeias, who
lives in the city but visits his country estate to inspect it. It consists of pasturage
for his flocks near streams and marshes and in water meadows for his cattle, fields
for growing grain, and, at the borders, orchards and, it seems, olive groves and
vineyards.22 Human habitation fits harmoniously into this landscape. Livestock
steadings and huts for the workers stand side by side near a stream amid plane
trees and wild olives, with a shrine of Apollo Nomios (“of the pasture”) nearby.
The farm extends over the entire plain, “right up to the edge of Akroreia with its
many springs” (Id. 25.31); the name and its epithet, πολυπίδακος (regularly used
of Mount Ida in Homer), suggest a mountain. This “edge” might consist of wild,
unworked land, the “groves and thickets” referred to in other Idylls where wild
beasts have their lairs. Within this boundary, all is peace, order, and spectacular
prosperity, where livestock and workers go about their regular daily and seasonal
rounds.
In this picture, time and space are unified as both medium and expression of
harmonious order, which has its social aspect as well. For it is one of Augeias’s
slaves who describes the estate to Herakles, so that we envision it through his
sensibilities. He speaks with obvious pride in his master’s wealth and in his own
and the other slaves’ contributions to it (Id. 25.23–​26):

εὐθὺς δὲ σταθμοὶ περιμήκεες ἀγροιώταις

δέδμηνθ’, οἳ βασιλῆι πολὺν καὶ ἀθέσφατον ὄλβον
ῥύομεθ’ ἐνδυκέως, τριπόλοις σπόρον ἐν νειοῖσιν
ἔσθ’ ὅτι βάλλοντες καὶ τετραπόλοισιν ὁμοίως.

Right next door the extensive quarters for the laborers

are built, we who industriously maintain his unspeakably great wealth
for our master, casting seed in fallow-​land
plowed now three times and now four.

that “Theocritus’ bucolics are . . . as much to do with the non-​realisability of otium [leisure] as
with its attainment” is suggestive, but she does not develop the idea.
22. Φυτοσκάφοι (line 27) could mean those who dig around the roots of fruit and olive trees,
and the ληνοί or wine vats of line 28 imply vineyards. See Gow 1952, II, 446, on lines 28 and 32.
The references are indirect because the emphasis in these lines is on the slaves and their labor
(οἱ πολύεργοι, literally “those with much work,” line 27). Vineyards are explicitly mentioned
toward the end of the poem (line 157), evidently at the edge of the estate: on their way to
the city, Herakles and Phyleus walk on a small, obscure footpath that leads from the centrally
located steadings through a vineyard to the main road. The relation of this vineyard to the
“green vegetation” of line 158 is unclear; see Gow 1952, II, 458–​459.
9

Theocritean Spaces 1 9

Juxtaposed to the spatial location of the laborers’ quarters, the references to sow-
ing and plowing conjure up the seasonal rhythm of the agricultural year. Although
there is an acknowledgment here of the importance of slaves’ labor that is rare in
Greek literature, this voice of the slave who is content with his station in life
and proud of the fruits of his labor is part of an idealizing picture of agricultural
wealth that may have had some connection with reality in the early Hellenistic
period23 but is surely exaggerated.
According to Idyll 25, then, on an elite man’s country estate, which is worked
by slaves (οἰκήων, δμώων, 33, 36) while he lives in the city (ἄστυ, 45, 153), herding is
part of an agricultural system, and each kind of labor has its place. In the bucolic
poems, the focus is on herding, and other activities are mentioned only as they
impinge on herdsmen’s interests. They are thus made to seem on the margins of
the bucolic world, whatever the realities of early Hellenistic farming may have
been, and references to them serve mainly to highlight that world by means of
what it is not. The bucolic world is not sealed off, of course; there is contact with
agriculture, but mainly when it suits the purposes of a given poem. Reapers need
music, as do herders, but to accompany their work, not to fill pauses in work
as is the case with herdsmen. The goatherd Lykidas is considered best at play-
ing the syrinx (“panpipe”) “among both herdsmen and reapers” (Id. 7.32–​34).24
Bombyka, who recently played the aulos (a pipe sounded with a reed, like the
oboe) for the reapers “at Hippokion’s,” is the daughter, more likely the slave, of
Polybotas, “man of many cattle” (Id. 10.16–​17).25 He may be a wealthy proprietor
rather than a bucolic figure.
The bucolic Idylls also refer to orchards and vineyards, but in their world
apples are love tokens, not produce (Id. 3.10–​11, 5.88–​89, 6.6–​7, etc.). A section
of the amoebean contest between Lakon and Komatas in Idyll 5 (108–​115) men-
tions fruit trees, reapers, and vineyards (Komatas has, or claims to have, grape-
vines); the foxes that are commanded there not to leap the fence and harvest
the grapes on Mikon’s farm recall the third scene on the cup in Idyll 1 (45–​54).

23. Hunter 2008, 302, who cites Alcock 1993, 87–​88. Cf. Scholl 1989, 23–​24.
24. Gow 1952, II, 139, suggests that Lykidas “may be called in to help with the harvest.” The
meaning may just be that there are syrinx players among both herders and reapers and Lykidas
excels them all, but in favor of Gow’s idea are the facts that the syrinx is the bucolic instru-
ment par excellence and that Bombyka, by contrast, plays the aulos for the reapers. If Lykidas
plays his syrinx in both settings, his music surely serves different, even opposing functions in
each: the enjoyment of leisure as opposed to relieving the monotony of work.
25. “At Hippokion’s” (παρ’ Ἱπποκίωνι) might suggest an independent farmer, a smallholder who
calls in seasonal labor to reap, in contrast to Augeias, and whose farm has nothing to do with
herding.
10

10 T heo crit us

Curiously—​because that cup has often been seen as an analogue for bucolic
poetry—​the three scenes depicted on it are all non-​bucolic: the two men quarrel-
ing on either side of a woman could be anywhere, and the fisherman and vineyard
are on the edges of the bucolic world. And that fits with the cup’s provenance
(Id. 1.57–​58). It is an import from the wider world; the goatherd bought it from
the Kalydnian ferryman, who represents movement of people between places in
that larger world as opposed to bucolic localism. He traded a goat and a cheese
for it—​bucolic items in exchange for an object with non-​bucolic scenes. In addi-
tion to whatever metapoetic significance its carvings may hold, they also pro-
vide a defining spatial contrast to the bucolic world that has been so beautifully
sketched in the poem’s opening lines and that will be a central concern of Thyrsis’s
song to follow.26
The bucolic poems, then, give little impression of interconnected activities in
the countryside but rather emphasize herding as separate from the rest. Perhaps
herding really was distinct from the other occupations. But in view of the exam-
ple of Augeias in Idyll 25 and the fact that the herdsmen in Idyll 5 are dependents
of similar absentee, city-​dwelling proprietors (together with the possible hint in
Polybotas’s name in Idyll 10), it seems to me more likely that the poems’ intense
concentration on herding relegates all else to the margins. That is, we seem to be
dealing with Theocritus’s imaginative creation of a bucolic world that is by and
large sufficient to itself.
Towns and cities for the most part are similarly glimpsed by the inhabitants
of the bucolic world out of the corner of the eye—​and that only occasionally and
evidently when it suits a given poem’s concerns. Theocritean bucolic therefore
lacks, and seems not interested in, a marked opposition between country and
city, which is fundamental to later pastoral. In general, cities are at best a shad-
owy presence in Theocritus’s bucolics.27 Idylls 3 and 6 could take place anywhere.
Without Thyrsis’s reference to the Anapos River (Id. 1.68) and a few other rural
landmarks, we would never know that he imagines Daphnis’s death as occurring

26. It is interesting, therefore, that when the cup is first mentioned (Id. 1.27), the goatherd calls it
a κισσύβιον—​a word that occurs three times in the Odyssey in rustic settings: Polyphemos’s cave
and Eumaios’s hut (Od. 9.346, 14.78, 16.52). If Theocritus is invoking its Homeric associations
(and the word was evidently much discussed in the Hellenistic period: Athen. 476f–​477e),
it might represent the appropriation of this foreign object to the bucolic world. Or, better, it
might reflect the goatherd’s rustic perspective: it is what a bucolic person might naturally call
a cup. The usage here appears marked, because at the end of the poem, the cup is referred to by
more common words for “cup”: σκύφος (Id. 1.143) and δέπας (Id. 1.149).
27. On the weakness in Theocritus of the city/​country antithesis, see Elliger 1975, 363, and
Klooster 2012, 100. By contrast, see Kloft 1989: 50–​51 on Longus’s depiction of city and coun-
try as economically interdependent partners in Daphnis and Chloe.
1

Theocritean Spaces 1 11

in the vicinity of one of the most important cities of the Greek world, for Syracuse
is never named.28 The text ignores it because, I suggest, what is at stake in that
poem is the survival and integrity, after Daphnis’s death, of the bucolic world seen
in and for itself. The frame dialogue between Thyrsis and the goatherd might be
set on Kos, but the only hint is the reference to the “Kalydnian ferryman” in line
57—​that is, to someone outside the world they inhabit. By Hellenistic times, any
poem involving the Cyclops had to be set in Sicily, but the only firm indication
of this in the text of Idyll 11 is the reference to Mount Aitna in line 4729—​again,
a natural feature rather than a city or town. In Idyll 7, by contrast, which contains
elements of bucolic—​Lykidas’s song—​but (as we shall see later in this chapter) is
not set in the bucolic world, the landmarks mentioned are clearly those of Kos,
and there is an unnamed city nearby. Although it is important to our view of
Simikhidas that he lives there, this city is only a shadowy presence at the begin-
ning of the poem. Bucolic poetry’s general indefiniteness as to place gives a sense
of completeness and integrity to bucolic space, although at the same time an aura
of unreality, and even if the larger world can impinge on it at times, it is not
affected in any fundamental way.
Idylls 4 and 5 are exceptions in that they do specify their settings near cities in
southern Italy, and those cities are somewhat more prominent, although they are
viewed from within the bucolic world. Idyll 4 is set in the vicinity of Kroton, whose
shrine to Hera Lakinia figures in Korydon’s specimen song (Id. 4.32), and Battos
pronounces a malediction on “the people [or sons] of Lampriadas,” evidently a
deme or a prominent family within it (Id. 4.21).30 We thus hear an expression of
hostility toward a more organized civic group, or some of its citizens, which we
can interpret in two ways. Either Battos, who does not seem to be a bucolic figure,
is assuming hostility to cities in (what he takes to be) a bucolic attitude or he is
importing urban tensions into the bucolic environment. The greater attention
paid to a city than in the other bucolic Idylls may be one of a number of signs (to
be discussed in ­chapter 4) that this poem depicts the bucolic world on the wane.
Idyll 5 is also set in southern Italy, in the neighborhood of Sybaris and Thurii.
The only connection Komatas and Lakon have to those cities is that each of their
masters is a citizen of one of them and absent from the bucolic scene. The wood-
cutter Morson, whom they summon to judge their singing contest, evidently lives

28. Calame’s suggestion (2005, 186) that the scene is immediately outside Syracuse’s walls
presses too hard on Id. 1.117–​118.
29. We can add ὁ παρ’ ἁμῖν in line 7 if the phrase means “our countryman,” and on the assump-
tion that Theocritus was born in Sicily.
30. Deme: Gow 1952, II, 80–​81; Hunter 1999, 135. Sons of Lampriadas: Dover 1971, 122–​123.
12

12 T heo crit us

in one of these cities (πόλις) and has come to the countryside to gather tree heath
(ἐρείκη), which was burned for fuel,31 to take back to town (Id. 5.63–​65, 78–​79).
He is, then, part of the city’s exploitation of the countryside, whereas the bucolic
ideal is that herders fit into it comfortably and belong in it. Although the herders
clearly know him, Morson is twice referred to as ξένος, “stranger” or “visitor” (Id.
5.66, 78), a temporary presence; in the second occurrence, Lakon urges Komatas
to begin the contest, saying, “let the stranger get back to the city while he is alive.”
Morson is only second choice as judge; the herders call on him because the cow-
herd Lykopas, one of their own, is absent (Id. 5.62).32 Morson’s proximity may
suggest that the boundaries of the bucolic world are porous, but the text of this
poem finds all these ways to assert its self-​sufficiency.33
Another boundary of bucolic space is the untamed land beyond it, the woods
(ὕλη), thickets (δρυμοί), and groves (ἄλσεα) that are the haunts of wild animals.
From there, jackals, wolves, and lions howl in grief for Daphnis, whereas his tamer
bovines grieve at his feet (Id. 1.71–​75). There is a similar distinction between these
types of animals and an explicit contrast between the wild spaces and the “here”
(ὧδε) that has been the scene of Daphnis’s herding activities, at Id. 1.115–​121.
Bucolic space may have its brambles and thorns (Id. 4.57), but it is tamer and
seems kinder than the wilds. It is thus intermediate between urban spaces and
that remote region.34 In it, humans live free of the confinements of the city and
on intimate terms with domesticated animals and the landscape.
In a few other ways as well, the poems show an awareness of the larger world.
In Idyll 4, Olympia is a rival site that has attracted Aigon, who has left his cows
bereft. Battos himself may be only a visitor to bucolic space: he is not wearing san-
dals and runs a thorn into his foot, and Korydon has to admonish him about con-
ditions on “the mountain” (Id. 4.56–​57). In Idyll 1, the lists of where the Nymphs
(66–​69) and Pan (123–​126) might be instead of at the scene of Daphnis’s death
reflect alternative spaces but serve as devices for focusing on this place, where, it
is implied, they ought to be. Since Daphnis’s death inaugurates bucolic poetry,
the places of his activity become constructed as bucolic space even as he leaves
it, as distinct from those other places, although the idea that they exist and are
worthy haunts of the Nymphs is in significant tension with the uniqueness of this
scene. In Lykidas’s song in Idyll 7, Daphnis wastes away in love just as the snow

31. Lindsell 1937, 87.

32. On Morson and the minor role of cities in Theocritus’s bucolics, see now Hunter 2021, 240.
33. The South Italian location of Idylls 4 and 5 seems due to particular reasons, which will be
discussed in ­chapter 4.
34. See Calame 2005, 175–​178, for discussion of “liminality” in Idyll 1.
13

Theocritean Spaces 1 13

melts on high northern mountains (Id. 7.76–​77). And in Simikhidas’s song, Pan
is threatened, unless he helps Aratos in love, with exposure on the mountains of
the Edonians in midwinter and among the remote Aithiopians in the extremes of
summer (Id. 7.111–​114). These places contrast with the bucolic world, where it is
usually late spring or a more temperate summer.35
Where, then, are we to locate the scene of bucolic herding and singing itself ?
In contrast to the spatial precision of Idyll 25, and with the exception of Thyrsis’s
song in Idyll 1, with its several geographical markers, the bucolic setting is vaguely
“the mountain” (ὄρος),36 and this word serves as shorthand for that setting.
“Mountain” here is probably not to be taken literally, although sheep and espe-
cially goats might be herded on mountainsides. To judge from the shrubs men-
tioned in the bucolic Idylls, the setting Theocritus had in mind was the maquis
or foothills.37 For example, in Idyll 4, Korydon’s calves have descended too low
and are eating shoots of (cultivated) olive trees. Battos tells him to drive them up
“from below” (κάτωθε), and Korydon calls to them to go “to the hill [λόφος]” (Id.
4.44–​46). That might accurately describe the maquis, but then, not many lines
later (Id. 4.56), after Korydon removes the thorn from Battos’s foot, he admon-
ishes Battos not to go barefoot to “the mountain” (ὄρος). Theocritus clearly knew
the difference between a hill (λόφος, γεώλοφος) and a mountain, and so he must
have had a reason for using “mountain” as he does. The line would make per-
fect sense if “mountain” here meant generally “bucolic space,” even though “hill”
might be more literally accurate. I suggest Theocritus uses “the mountain” as he
does because it makes the bucolic world seem more remote and autonomous as
a “place apart,” especially for an urban reader, and as a result, the herders, though
lowly, seem freer from social structures than Augeias’s slaves. So the term shows
how stylized is this world that he invents (or elaborates).
Another aspect of this stylization may be that Theocritus has cattle, as well as
sheep and goats, grazing on “the mountain.” The best fodder for cattle would be

35. Cf. Jones 2011, 44–​45, commenting on similar “places beyond” in Vergil’s Eclogues: “A sense
builds up that Eclogue-​land is contained in a temperate zone, bounded and closed in on itself
by a ring of climatic and geographical extremes (but also that poetry can reach out from within
it to a larger imaginative world).”
36. E.g., Id. 3.2, 4.56–​57, 7.51, 7.92, [8]‌.2. See van Sickle 1969, 136–​137, who translates the word,
perhaps more appropriately, as “the hill.” My reason for using the more literal “mountain” is
given in the text. See also Segal 1981, 129–​132 (on Idyll 7).
37. Lindsell 1937, 83: “surely the most obvious botanical fact about the pastoral idylls is that
they are staged, almost all, in maquis.” Note that at Theog. 23, the passage that clearly inspired
Simikhidas’s claim that the Nymphs taught him his song as he herded cows “along” or “among”
(ἀνά) the mountains (Id. 7.91–​95), Hesiod says that the Muses appeared to him while he pas-
tured his sheep “below” (ὑπό) Mount Helikon—​at its foot or in the foothills.
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14 T heo crit us

found in low-​lying river meadows, such as the ones referred to at Id. 25.13–​17, with
their sweet grass that flourishes throughout the year beside the marsh of the River
Menios.38 That poem may not be by Theocritus, but in Idyll 4 (17–​19), Korydon
pastures Aigon’s calf beside a river and “around/​in the vicinity of Latymnos”—​
the preposition could imply maquis if the scholiast is correct that Latymnos is
a mountain. He pastures Aigon’s bull near “the salt marsh” at “Physkos’s place,”
probably a low-​lying farm (Id. 4.23–​25), and also beside a river; the plants said to
grow there are in fact water-​loving.39 These are places where we would expect cat-
tle to be pastured, but interestingly, at line 56 it turns out that Battos, Korydon,
and the cattle are on “the mountain.” Perhaps when Korydon claims to be giving
his charges only the best fodder, the reality of herding takes over, but for the rest
of the poem we are back in the fictionalized bucolic world, which is difficult to
locate physically in relation to those low-​lying pasturelands.
On the other hand, only certain areas in the Greek world enjoyed abundant
water and lush grass; as it happens, Elis and the area around Kroton, the settings
of Idylls 25 and 4, respectively, were among them.40 In other places, transhumance
may have been an option: cattle and other livestock were kept at lower elevations
and along the coast during the winter, when rainfall was relatively plentiful, and
pastured during the dry summer and fall in the mountains, where heavier winter
rains fed springs and produced more abundant fodder.41 It might be possible to
argue that other poems by Theocritus assume transhumant herding. The bucolic
Idylls are set in late spring or summer, so that “the mountain” could be taken liter-
ally as the kind of place where livestock and their herders would appropriately be.
Angelos Chaniotis makes the point that transhumance implies “specialized pas-
toralism” carried out by people, often slaves, whose sole task is herding,42 and that
might seem to describe Theocritus’s herdsmen. But it also involves large herds,
and Theocritus’s poems give the impression of herds of modest size. Moreover,
our evidence for most of the Greek world is very limited, and we do not know
how widespread transhumance was, either in the Hellenistic or earlier periods.
It was practiced in some places,43 but we cannot be sure that it was so common
that Theocritus and his original readers would have taken it for granted. For the

38. Bakker 2013, 49: “Bovines . . . need grassy, humid meadows.”

39. Lindsell 1937, 81–​82.
40. Isager and Skydsgaard 1992, 98–​99.
41. For a succinct description of transhumance, see Isager and Skydsgaard 1992, 99–​101.
42. Chaniotis 1995, 51–​53.
43. See, e.g., Soph. OT 1133–​1139.
15

Theocritean Spaces 1 15

Hellenistic period, transhumance is relatively well documented for the island of

Crete, the subject of Chaniotis’s study; but as he stresses, transhumance there
was intertwined with Crete’s particular form of social, economic, and political
organization, so that it is impossible to generalize from this case to the rest of
the Greek world or any part of it.44 On balance, there are serious difficulties with
explaining Theocritus’s references to “the mountain” through transhumance, and
we are led back to the notion of a privileged, bounded, separate fictional world.
Any suggestion that his herders are there for only half the year would seriously
undermine that image created in our minds.
The composer of the post-​Theocritean Idyll 9 does seem to have taken
Theocritus’s “mountain” literally but with quite improbable consequences that
tend to support my point. There (Id. 9.7–​13), Daphnis leads off a kind of singing
contest with Menalkas by boasting of the locus amoenus he enjoys, with a fourfold
repetition of the bucolic keyword “sweet” (ἁδύς). One of its amenities is a couch
piled high with the skins of white heifers that were blown off a mountain peak
(ἀπὸ σκοπιᾶς) by a southwest wind as they fed on arbutus. Upland meadows may
be one thing, but cattle do not belong on mountain peaks (Gow dryly comments,
“the animals . . . seem to have been behaving more like goats than cows”).45 In
addition, cattle can graze on the shoots of the arbutus, a small tree or shrub with
large, bright red berries that birds feed on (Ar. Av. 240, 620; the kind common in
Greece is the arbutus unedo), but it is at home in the maquis, not in the moun-
tains.46 So this poet gets the food right but the location wrong. But he is, I think,
responding to what Theocritus does. Theocritus brings all three forms of herding
together for the sake of the self-​enclosure of the bucolic world. We may identify
that world with the maquis or foothills, but it is essentially an imaginary space, a
“space of representation”—​“the mountain.”47

44. Chaniotis 1995, 42–​51, 70–​72. He points to epigrams by Callimachus and Leonidas of
Tarentum that concern herders on mountains that are either explicitly or by implication
located on Crete (his further reference to Theocritus’s Lykidas in the Kos of Idyll 7 does not
seem especially pertinent). He comments that “the Hellenistic poets would not have ‘staged’
their bucolic poems in Cretan landscapes, had Crete not been known for its pastoralism.” If
Crete was distinctive in this way, that would suggest that specialized pastoralism and transhu-
mance were not to be found in many other regions, or at least not on the same scale.
45. Gow 1952, II, 187.
46. Chriyaa 2004; Lindsell 1937, 83.
47. I should also point out that Menalkas’s song puts to rest any thought of transhumance that
Daphnis’s song might prompt. He caps Daphnis’s picture of coolness amid summer heat with
the claim that he has many goatskins to keep him warm in his cave in winter (Id. 9.15–​21),
when, if he were a transhumant goatherd, he would have abandoned the mountains for the
lowlands.
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16 T heo crit us

Within that space, the herdsmen perform their tasks of caring for their ani-
mals, fall in (usually unrequited) love, and sing about that love or about their
bucolic surroundings. Other inhabitants of this world who do not take part in
the narrative action are mentioned: Mermnon’s servant girl (a slave?), “the dark-​
skinned one” (Id. 3.35–​36); Agroio the old sieve diviner (Id. 3.31); Kotyttaris, the
old woman who taught Polyphemos how to avoid the evil eye (Id. 6.40); the
absent Aigon, whose cattle Korydon is herding; and an old man who seems to
own the herd, either Aigon’s father as a scholiast suggests (but he is clearly just
guessing)48 or his employer (Id. 4.4); the girls who flirt with Polyphemos (Id.
11.77–​78); and Nymphs (Amaryllis, Galateia)—​these examples will give some
idea of the background characters. Again indirectly and through casual refer-
ences as needed, the individual herders who play major roles appear to be part
of rudimentary social networks rather than isolated rustics. Women take no part
in herding except in the post-​Theocritean Idyll 27, but they figure as absent love
objects or servants. The herdsmen’s status is for the most part unclear. Lakon cer-
tainly is a slave, and Komatas possibly is one49 (Id. 5.5, 8), and their herds are
owned by men who live in Sybaris and Thurii (5.72–​73). Their herding could pos-
sibly be part of a farming economy on relatively large farms, though probably not
on the scale of Augeias’s estate in Idyll 25. But if so, there is only this hint, such is
the concentration on the bucolic world. As for the herdsmen of other poems, if
they are slaves, in the bucolic world their status does not matter, so tenuous are
their links to external society.50
So runs a general account of bucolic space and humans’ interactions with
one another and with nature that are conditioned by and in turn constitute that
space. I end this section by looking at three different examples of such interac-
tions and their spatial dimensions, in Idylls 5, 1, and 7, in that order.

Spatial Relations in Idyll 5

All the bucolic idylls are, I believe, interconnected, but Idyll 5 has points of contact
especially with Idylls 1, 4, and 6. Contrasts with Idylls 1 and 6, which also involve

48. ὁ δὲ γέρων οὗτος τάχα ἂν εἴη ⟨ὁ⟩ πατὴρ τοῦ Αἴγωνος (“this old man would perhaps be Aigon’s
father”).
49. If we take ὦλεύθερε (“O Mr. Freeman”) in line 8 as a sarcastic retort to Komatas’s taunt that
Lakon is a slave—​a possibility reinforced by τῷ δεσπότᾳ (“your master”) in line 10. If we take it
literally, he might be a freedman, even though the term for that is ἀπελεύθερος, in view of the
same reference to his master, which is difficult to explain if Komatas is freeborn. See Scholl
1989, 20.
50. On the possibility that they are slaves, cf. Levi 1993, 115–​116, 120–​121; Cusset 2021, 274.
17

Theocritean Spaces 1 17

herdsmen meeting at a spring with song the result, offer a good way of approach-
ing Idyll 5 from a spatial perspective. “Pastoral poems,” Alpers has written, “make
explicit the dependence of their conventions on the idea of coming together.”51 Idyll
5 enacts this coming together as an occasion for song, but this meeting between a
shepherd and a goatherd sparks quarreling that will lead to a rancorous singing
contest. And no sooner do they come together than they fly apart (Id. 5.1–​4):

ΚΟΜΑΤΑΣ αἶγες ἐμαί, τῆνον τὸν ποιμένα, τὸν Συβαρίταν,

φεύγετε, τὸν Λάκωνα· τό μευ νάκος ἐχθὲς ἔκλεψεν.
ΛΑΚΩΝ οὐκ ἀπὸ τᾶς κράνας; σίττ’ ἀμνίδες· οὐκ ἐσορῆτε
τόν μευ τὸν σύριγγα πρόαν κλέψαντα Κομάταν;

KOMATAS Run, my goats! That shepherd, the one from Sybaris,

flee him—​Lakon! Yesterday he stole my goatskin.
LAKON Ssst, lambs! Get away from the spring! Don’t you see
the one who stole my syrinx the other day, Komatas?

In Idyll 6 (1–​4), Daphnis and Damoitas drive their herd of cattle together
“to one place” (εἰς ἕνα χῶρον), also a spring, and sit down together to exchange
songs. Their songs complement one another rather than seriously compete; those
of Lakon and Komatas are sharply antagonistic, often bitter in tone. The nar-
rative frame of Idyll 6 does use the verb ἐρίζειν (“compete,” line 5) to describe
the cowherds’ reciprocal singing, but any element of rivalry has been reduced
to a vanishing point. There is no wager in the “contest” and no winner, just an
exchange of kisses and gifts at the end (Id. 6.42–​46), whereas Idyll 5 begins with
mutual accusations of theft (“negative reciprocity”), there is a wager, and in the
end there is a definite winner. Idyll 1 also shows Thyrsis and the goatherd com-
ing together and engaging in reciprocal exchange (cup for Thyrsis’s song), and it
ends with the goatherd’s admiring comments on Thyrsis’s singing.52 In Idyll 5, by
contrast, ἐρίζειν has a strong force of “rivalry,” verging into “quarrel” (Id. 5.60, 67,
136). Morson declares Komatas the winner and awards him Lakon’s stake, a lamb,
as prize, and Komatas gloats unabashedly over Lakon (Id. 5.142–​144). So, as the
contrasts with these other Idylls emphasize, the initial coming together at the

51. Alpers 1996, 81.

52. For a different view, Idyll 1 as “an unusual bucolic agon” see Frangeskou 1996. This charac-
terization involves understanding the goatherd’s description of the cup as his “performance”
and Thyrsis’s song, the medium of competition, as, at the same time, the goatherd’s prize for his
successful description. It also necessitates seeing the goatherd and Thyrsis as the judges of each
other’s performance. All of this stretches the meaning of the term agon very far.
18

18 T heo crit us

spring only to move apart embodies in spatial movement the discord that is the
organizing principle of Idyll 5.53
In fact, Idylls 5 and 6 seem systematic inversions of each other. A keynote of
Idyll 6 is similarity and complementarity, and a keynote of Idyll 5 is difference
and opposition. This contrast is enacted in the differing character of the song
exchanges—​amoebean verses in which Lakon seeks to cap those of Komatas as
opposed to the way Damoitas’s response completes Daphnis’s song, so that the two
together create a situation and a story.54 As we will see in more detail in ­chapter 3,
Idyll 6 depicts Daphnis and Damoitas as equals and as nearly identical but not
quite. Damoitas seems slightly older than Daphnis, a difference that might make
room for an erastês–​erômenos relation between them, just as the kisses that they
exchange after their songs (Id. 6.42) may or may not be a decorous sign of a sexual
relationship. Idyll 5 allows no such delicate hints or ambiguity. Komatas is dis-
tinctly older than Lakon (ἐόντα παῖδ’ ἔτι, “when you were still a boy,” Id. 5.36–​37),
and he states his claim of a pederastic relationship with Lakon in unvarnished
detail. Daphnis and Damoitas are both cowherds, Komatas and Lakon goatherd
and shepherd, respectively. The gifts that Damoitas and Daphnis trade, syrinx and
aulos or pipe, are treated as of equal value (Id. 6.43). Reciprocity (χάρις) is just
what Komatas complains is missing from his relationship with Lakon (Id. 5.37).
Lakon accuses Komatas of having stolen his syrinx, and Komatas’s reply suggests
that the aulos is an inferior instrument (Id. 5.3–​7). When Damoitas and Daphnis
proceed to play the aulos and syrinx together, the harmony in which their poem
ends extends to the cows, which dance (ὠρχεῦντο, Id. 6.45). Not only does Idyll
5 end with the disharmony of Komatas’s victory over Lakon and his gloating,
but he also exhorts his goats to snort unmusically (φριμάσσεο, Id. 5.141).55 This
moment in turn recalls his earlier alleged act of dominance over Lakon, when,
he says, he penetrated the boy while the she-​goats bleated and the ram mounted
them (Id. 5.41–​42).

53. For antithesis and contrast as structuring the language and the overall conception of Idyll 5,
see Ott 1969, 14–​43. On the spring as the locus of moving apart, particularly by contrast with
Idylls 1 and 7, see Segal 1981, 185–​186 (especially the contrast with the “one road” of Id. 7.35 as
the setting for song exchange there), and his further spatially informed remarks on Idyll 5 on
186–​188. For general contrasts between Idylls 5 and 6, see Lawall 1967, 67. Damon 1995, 121–​
122, also draws detailed contrasts, which she attributes to the underlying difference between
mimetic (Id. 5) and narrative (Id. 6) modes.
54. Damoitas’s song could be seen as capping, and therefore trying to outdo, that of Daphnis
so that there could be an element of competition, but any rivalry, if it exists at all, is muted. In
Idyll 5, it is the essence of the whole poem.
55. Ott 1969, 39, briefly connects the two passages.
19

Theocritean Spaces 1 19

The mutual repulsion between Komatas and Lakon that is expressed physi-
cally and spatially is thus carried through in all these ways that invert the unity
and affection between Daphnis and Damoitas. And it recurs in spatial terms
when they dispute about where they will sing (Id. 5.31–​34, 45–​59). A similar
question is raised in Idyll 1 (12–​23), and Thyrsis and the goatherd end up sitting
together in “the shepherd’s seat.” It is in keeping with the emphasis on unity in
Idyll 6 that Daphnis and Damoitas simply go to “a single place” without need-
ing to discuss the matter. In Idyll 5, by contrast, there is no question of a shared
bucolic space. Lakon and Komatas are apart by this time. Each seeks to persuade
the other to come and sing in his place, and deictics heighten the sense of separa-
tion and distance: τεῖδε, ὧδε, τουτεί,56 and ἔνθα (“here”), used multiple times by
both speakers as each describes the beauty and comfort of his own place.57 These
descriptions detail lush, typical bucolic loci amoeni, as many have said, but here
aspects of bucolic beauty are used not to create a space where herdsmen might
hope to be at home in the natural world but as counters in a competitive game
as each tries to outdo the other by proving that his place is superior to the oth-
er’s. Komatas and Lakon construct agonistic space that is shaped by the hostile
relations between them and that, because each finally remains in his own place
and sings from there, structures their competition. This exchange thus lays the
essential groundwork for their singing contest, in which each again tries to prove
his own superiority by outperforming, and several times denigrating, the other
in a display of masculine competitiveness that has been very well described by
Gutzwiller.58 It is no accident that embedded within this contest of venues, and in
parallel with it, is Komatas’s claim to have penetrated Lakon sexually, perhaps the
most aggressive way of asserting dominance over another man in Greek culture.59

56. For the conjectural reading of this word at Id. 5.33, see Gow 1952, II, 100–​101.
57. On these deictics, see Segal 1981, 186: “the ‘here’ or ‘there (τεῖδε, τηνεί) which attends the
coming together of the bucolic characters into friendship, song, the sharing of festivity or
beauty . . . here points to division rather than accord.”
58. Gutzwiller 1991, 139–​142.
59. I refer to Komatas’s alleged penetration of Lakon because we have no way of knowing
whether the act occurred. Lakon denies it (Id. 5.43, 118). If it did happen, then Komatas
is shaming Lakon by reminding him of a time when he was dominated, and Lakon has to
parry the blow by false denial. But I think an alternative is just as likely—​and more interest-
ing: Komatas’s words are in themselves an act of verbal aggression, a speech act analogous to
actual penetration. When Catullus wrote to the hapless Furius and Aurelius “paedicabo vos
et irrumabo,” he surely had no intention of carrying out those acts. The words themselves suf-
ficed for abjection of his enemies. And so maybe here. Lakon’s reply at Id. 5.43 has often been
taken as an admission that the incident happened. Hubbard 1998, 33: “An event Lakon is here
unable to deny” (similar is Stanzel 1995, 91). Rinkevich 1977, 300: “Lakon parries the blow
with criticism of the longitudinal deficiency of Komatas’ weaponry . . . and a curse of burial
20

20 T heo crit us

The two opposed places may also figure in the singing contest by implication.
During the contest, Komatas repeats his story of penetrating Lakon, whom he
depicts as having held on to “that oak tree” (καὶ τᾶς δρυὰς εἴχεο τήνας, Id. 5.117).
Since oak trees were one of the charms of his place (Id. 5.45, cf. 61), the oak in
question may have been there. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that in
his answering couplet, Lakon charges that Komatas’s master, Eumaras, tied him up
and beat him “here” (τεῖδε)—​that is, in Lakon’s place. Given the parallels between
Lakon’s answering couplets and Komatas’s challenging couplets throughout the
singing contest, “here” surely answers “that oak tree.” Earlier in the contest, in a
sequence that repeats the opening four lines of the poem, Komatas calls on his
goats to get away from the wild olive (σίττ’ ἀπὸ τᾶς κοτίνω) and to graze “here”
(ὧδε)—​that is, where he is (Id. 5.100). Lakon earlier mentioned the wild olive as
one of the amenities of his place. In response, Lakon now orders his sheep away
from “the oak tree” and tells them to graze “here [τουτεί], toward the east.”60 Thus,
the spatial opposition between Lakon and Komatas remains alive during the con-
test, underpinning the parallels and contrasts between their opposing couplets.
The contest is spatialized; this is an excellent example of the way space both is
structured by and helps structure human cultural activity.
And yet, through the medium of this acrimonious competition, Komatas and
Lakon collaborate in the same world-​building that occurs in the internal songs
of other bucolic poems, which corresponds to Theocritus’s own world-​building
and thus constitutes an internal parallel to his poetic activity.61 Their descriptions
of their places even before the contest begins are part of this process: the details
work together to build a picture of natural abundance. Each couplet in the con-
test mentions people, animals, plants, trees, and objects that gradually come into
alignment in the reader’s mind as constituents of this world, which is given shape
by its extremes. On the one hand, there are animal pests: foxes and locusts that
damage vineyards, beetles that eat the figs. On the other hand, there are wish-​
fulfilling images of abundance: rivers and springs flowing with milk, wine, and
honey, pastures full of the right plants for goats and sheep to graze on. Because
the pests are agricultural and the images of plenty are bucolic, we may have again,
in this embedded singing, an idealizing depiction of the bucolic by contrast with

commensurate with it” (cf. Kyriakou 2018, 38). But surely “may you be buried no deeper than
that penetration” means “may you not be buried at all (because you never penetrated me).” For
a Greek, lack of burial was an effective curse, not shallow burial.
60. The importance of the trees in these passages is also noted by Lawall 1967, 63–​64, who gives
them a different significance.
61. We know of poetic contests in Alexandria, and if Idyll 5 were performed at one, the fit
between poem and occasion would be close.
21

Theocritean Spaces 1 21

what is on its margins, as well as an integrated picture of the countryside and life
within it.
Together all these elements create an impression of comprehensiveness that
is partly an illusion but succeeds because the reader’s imagination can work on
them to build a whole.62 Human relations are in place in this world: slavery
and labor, love (heterosexual and pederastic, fulfilled or unsuccessful), hostil-
ity and competition. The rivalry and hostility between Komatas and Lakon are
not a matter of this one meeting but seem to be habitual, in view of the mutual
accusations of theft at the beginning of the poem. The bucolic world encom-
passes agonistic relations between men as well as moments of convergence and
harmony, as in Idylls 1 and 6, and naturally so in view of the importance of
competition in Greek culture. Lakon’s and Komatas’s competitiveness, in fact,
is a bucolic version at the lowest level of society of the competition that is at
the heart of elite society in epic poetry, just as Komatas’s claim to have “taught”
Lakon by penetrating him is a debased version, a parody, really, of the sympotic
notion of pederasty as instruction of a youth by an older man in elite values and
modes of conduct that is reflected in the relation between Herakles and Hylas
(Id. 13.8–​9).63
To appreciate how Idyll 5 builds a bucolic world through an accumulation
of specific details, it is important to notice that this poem contains more proper
names of humans, gods, and places; references to other places; and names of trees
and shrubs, animals, and objects than any of the other bucolic poems, and to
recall that people, animals, and things are part of space, not just located in it.
Table 1.1 gives an idea of the richness of Idyll 5’s inventory of bucolic detail—​in
contrast, again, to Idyll 6, for example, which relies on the bare mention of a
spring to conjure up an entire world.
This table is useful because it shows in outline how many features Theocritus
crowds into a mere 150 lines and how diverse they are: plants, animals, gods
and Nymphs, people, and various places, including a nearby city. Because there
is no particular order or system, when one reads the poem, it is not always
easy to keep in focus how, from this accumulation of details, the poem con-
structs a picture of rural space that encompasses both herding and agricul-
ture (vineyards, orchards, reapers) as contiguous, and somewhat contrasting,
activities in relation to the landscape and both wild and domestic animals.
Thus, the table also shows a widening of focus by comparison to other Idylls’
concentration on bucolic space, a broadening that makes that space seem less

62. Cf. Daspet 2017, 93.

63. See the discussion of Idyll 13 in ­chapter 2.
 2
Table 1.1.  Constituents of space in Idyll 5

Places People Gods Plants and shrubs Animals Objects

Wild olive (cf. 100),

Pan grove, [spring], grass,
Sybaris (city) (1, 73) Siburtas (5, 72) (14, 58, 141) στιβάς (31–​34) Komatas’s goats (1 etc.) Goatskin (2)
Oaks (cf.102, 117),
Korydon Nymphs of galingale, [two springs],
Spring (3) (6; cf. Id. 4) the lake (17) shade, pine (45–​49) Lakon’s sheep (3 etc.) Syrinx (4)
Lambskins,
Krathis (river) and Nymphs (54, Fern, pennyroyal goatskins
rock above it (16, 124) Lykon (8) 70, 139, 148) (55–​56) Goat (sacrificed) (12) (50–​53, 56–​57)
Eumaras Kid, lamb, goat as
Lakon’s place (31–​34) (10, 73, 119) Muses (80) Oaks (61) wagers (21, 24, 30) Krateres (54–​55)
Komatas’s place Apollo Tree heath Bee vs. cicada Milk pails, bowls
(45–​49, 55–​56) Krokylos (11) (82–​83) (64–​65) (metaphor) (29) of honey (58–​59)
Briar, anemone, roses Cheese baskets
Thurii (72) Kalaithis (15) (92–​93) Grasshoppers (34) (86)
Wild apples, acorns Wolf cubs, puppies Fleece for a
Polis (=​Thurii?) (78) Daphnis (20, 80–​81) (94–​95) (metaphor) (38) cloak (98)
Cypresswood
Rosebed beside She-​goats, ram pail, Krater by
wall (93) Lykopas (62) Juniper (97) (41–​42) Praxiteles
 23
Hill (101 =​Id. 1.13) Morson (63–​65) Tamarisks (101) Bees, birds (46, 48) Pitcher (127)
ἁ παῖς =​Klearista =​
Vineyard, fence πάρθενος? (85, 88, Grapevines (109; cf. Goats sacrificed
(108–​109) 96, 105) 112–​113) to Muses (81) Syrinx (135)
Mikon’s Boy =​Kratidas =​
vineyard boy? (87, 90, 99, Ram raised for Apollo
(ῥαγίζοντι) (113) 107) Figs (115) (82–​83)
Old woman’s
grave (121) Reapers (111) Squills (121) Ring dove (96, 133)
Haleis (river or lake?) Konaros, Kinaitha
(123) Mikon (112) Cyclamen (123) (sheep) (102)
Himera Marsh plants Phalaros (goat? dog?)
(spring? see Gow) Philondas (114) (σία) (125) (103)
Sybaris lake ἁ παῖς (slave girl?) Moon clover, goatwort Dog that throttles
(126, 146; cf. 17) (127) (128) wolves (106)
Alkippe (132) Mastich, arbutus (129) Locusts (108)
Eumedes (134) Balm (130) Cicadas (110)
Melanthios (150) Cistus (rock rose) (131) Foxes (112)
Beetles (114)
Jays, nightingale, hoopoe,
swans (metaphor) (136–​137)
24

24 T heo crit us

self-​contained but still special and distinct. The agonistic relations between
Lakon and Komatas are part of this bucolic world; during the contest, we are
never allowed to forget that each of them hurls these details at the other in an
attempt to prevail; note especially how the mutual taunting in lines 120–​123 is
followed immediately by visions of springs and rivers flowing with milk, wine,
and honey in the next lines. This kind of juxtaposition shows the extremes
in Theocritus’s bucolic conception that help bring that world into focus for
us, just as its margins help define this world spatially. And here is a final and
perhaps the most all-​encompassing difference between this poem and Idyll 6
that shows how the two poems are complementary within the Theocritean
corpus. Formally, as in other respects, they are inversions of each other. In Idyll
6, an idealizing bucolic frame encloses the dramatization of a scene, set on
the edge of the bucolic world, the seashore, in which a relationship, between
Polyphemos and Galateia, is amiss. In the frame of Idyll 5, an acrimonious
relationship between slaves set amid the grittiest realities of a herdsman’s life
is the frame for the creation, through agonistic collaboration, of a finer ver-
sion of the bucolic world, though one not free of reminders of its basis in
harsher modes of being.64 That such a vision can spring from two men mired
in those realities shows, once again, something important about the power of
the imagination. Lakon and Komatas are in this sense parallel to Theocritus: a
poet living amid the realities of urban life who imagines both them and the
world they project.
From the coarse to the idealizing, then, Idyll 5 explores extremes in the pos-
sibilities for the bucolic world and for bucolic as a poetic type, both internally
and in its relations with other poems. The name of Komatas evokes those same
extremes. The Komatas of Lykidas’s song in Idyll 7 (82–​89), addressed there as
“most blessed” and “divine,” was a goatherd of an earlier generation who was fed
on honeycomb by bees and whose now silent voice is an object of longing by
the singer. But the Komatas we encounter in Idyll 5 is a far earthier version of a
goatherd: smelly (Id. 5.51–​52), sexually aggressive, uninhibited in describing his
exploits, and of explicitly low status. He is his archetypal namesake stripped of
the mystique. And yet he, too, is a talented singer. Perhaps the solution to the
much-​discussed puzzle of why Morson awards him the prize in his contest with
Lakon when the text gives no indication of his superiority is simply that the
name Komatas is a signifier in Theocritus for “divinely talented singer-​goatherd.”

64. For detailed discussion, see Crane 1988, 113–​117, especially: “If the poor slaves of poor
masters frame their contest with squabbling and scurrilous abuse, their contest allows them,
if only briefly and in limited degree, to recast their own world in a gentler and more refined
form” (115).
25

Theocritean Spaces 1 25

Someone with that name has to win the contest.65 In any case, the two figures
named Komatas (perhaps the same figure) incorporate opposing possibilities,
each of which expresses a truth about the bucolic world and about its poetry,
which also can range from the heights to the depths.

Spatial Relations in Idyll 1.1–​23

Idyll 1, unlike Idyll 5, begins by describing a seamlessly harmonious bucolic set-
ting, and common elements between the two poems66 point up the contrast.
If Thyrsis’s song in Idyll 1 represents the constitution of bucolic space as well
as of bucolic poetry, it is fitting that the beginning of this programmatic poem
shows two herders, in some way heirs to this space, enjoying it (1.1–​23). It is this
opening scene that I would like to discuss here, with other aspects of the poem
reserved for c­ hapter 3. The setting is an archetypal bucolic pleasance, but there are
three distinct places within it, demarcated by deictics: the knoll with tamarisks
where Thyrsis and the goatherd initially converse (τεῖδε, “here,” 12), the whisper-
ing pine and plashing spring a little apart from them (“that pine,” “that water,”
τήνα/​τῆν[ο], 1, 8), and the place where they eventually sit beneath an elm while
Daphnis sings, with oaks and a seat for shepherds facing statues of Priapus and
water Nymphs (δεῦρο, “over here,” 21).67 They conceive of space according to their
perspective; deictics locate the different places with reference to their position. In
Harvey’s terminology, this is “relative space.” By contrast, Thyrsis and the goat-
herd describe three examples of “relational space,” one of which they finally enter
in preparation for Thyrsis’s song, which takes us into the mythic time and space
of Daphnis’s death.
Lines 1–​11 imply a vision of relational space that never materializes, a fusion
of humans with nature, so that the goatherd’s piping equals the whispering of
the pine tree, and Thyrsis’s voice outdoes the plash of water on the rocks, and
the herders will be second only to Pan and the Muses, who might appear to

65. And yet etymologically, the name ought to mean “hairy, shaggy,” like a goat. Between its lit-
eral sense and what it signifies, then, the name compresses in itself the dual possibilities embod-
ied by the two men who bear it. Cf. Kossaifi 2002, 356–​357.
66. References to Daphnis at Id. 5.20, 80–​81, the identical 5.101 and 1.13, and the similarity
between 5.45–​46 and 1.106–​107 and between the endings of the two poems (5.147–​150 and
1.131–​132).
67. I follow Hunter 1999, 75, in taking κρανίδων (22) as statues rather than the Nymphs them-
selves (Gow 1952, II, 5). On the deictics and the different spaces in this passage, see also Calame
2005, 183–​184. Cf. Elliger 1975, 326–​327, and Klooster 2012, 105–​106. Payne 2007, 26–​28, also
discusses the deictics but considers the landscape a single space in which the herdsmen are fully
integrated.
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26 T heo crit us

claim their prizes. The herders are to find their places in the hierarchies of the
natural world. Here is a picture of full presence of the bucolic world to humans
that contrasts with the story of loss and absence that Thyrsis will sing. It is pos-
sible, it seems, at least sometimes, to touch that fullness and to hear its music. It
seems—​but the herdsmen never enter that place, and that merging remains an
ideal to which bucolic song can only aspire. Thyrsis’s proposal that the goatherd
play the syrinx where they are evokes in response a harsher aspect of nature: the
risk of Pan’s anger if his noontime sleep is interrupted. So if the elusive Pan
does appear, it will be not to take pleasure in music but to punish mortals for it.
From this perspective, human music does not wholly fit into the natural world,
which contains powers far beyond the human. Thyrsis and the goatherd finally
go to a place that is more appropriate for them, one that has been altered by
human culture (Id. 1.21–​23).68 With the shepherd’s seat it has been turned from
a completely natural scene to a place with a human use: culturally constructed
space. The statues and the seat have presumably been made by people who used
this place. And it is here that a basic institution of human culture is activated
that differs from the awarding of prizes in musical competitions: reciprocal
exchange, Thyrsis’s song for the she-​g oat and the cup (itself the object of an
earlier exchange). Yet the place and the gods represented by the statues are rus-
tic. In bucolic space, human culture locates itself in nature but remains distinct
from it, and bucolic poetry, rather than resting on identity between the human
and natural worlds, constructs, in Gutzwiller’s term, “analogies.”69 This third
space is thus paradigmatic for bucolic poetry and a fitting scene for the perfor-
mance of Thyrsis’s song.
This place is relational, then, in two ways. It makes possible, and in its cultural
aspect is a projection of, human relations such as the exchange between Thyrsis
and the goatherd (which stands, I take it, for the relation between song and its
audience within bucolic poetry and externally between Theocritus and his audi-
ence). And it constructs, and is constructed by, a particular relation between
humans and nature that bucolic poetry explores. Thyrsis’s song that follows por-
trays the bucolic world as relational—​when the animals mourn for Daphnis, for
example, and gods appear to him. This is the kind of fusion suggested in the first
lines of the poem (1–​11): humanity, in the person of Daphnis before his death, is
as fully in place in nature as it can be. But with Daphnis’s death this near-​identity
is lost, and Thyrsis and the goatherd must sit in a more humanly inflected place.

68. In line 21, δεῦρο (“here”) implies movement, in contrast to τεῖδε of line 12: “come over here,”
as opposed to “here, where we are now standing.”
69. Gutzwiller 1991.
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Theocritean Spaces 1 27

The link with nature is still strong in Idyll 1, as we can see when the goatherd
addresses his goats in the closing lines (151–​152), but the distinction between
places at the beginning of the poem gives a sense of both closeness to nature and
difference from it in a bucolic world without Daphnis. We can even say, with
Mark Payne and Evina Sistakou, that in the opening lines, human song is pro-
jected onto nature, that “it is nature that sings humanly, not vice versa.”70 So it
is possible to connect with nature not in itself but only through human catego-
ries. In c­ hapter 3, when we focus more directly on the significance of absence in
Theocritus’s poetry, we will see how Thyrsis’s narrative gives signs of a disjunction
from nature that comes about as Daphnis dies.

Spatial Relations in Idyll 7

How far Idyll 7 should be considered bucolic is uncertain. It has bucolic ele-
ments, such as Lykidas and his song, which he “labored to complete on the
mountain” (7.51). But the narrative is set in the lowlands, not in bucolic space,
and the goatherd Lykidas is out of his element. For their part, Simikhidas and
his friends are on their way from the city, where they seem at home, to the
agricultural, not bucolic,71 locus amoenus where the poem ends. If the city and
the farm are the endpoints of Simikhidas’s journey, Lykidas does not belong on
this itinerary, and he appropriately diverges from it before Simikhidas reaches
the farm. Lykidas sings a consummate bucolic song, but its artful embedding
of the bucolic world within successive frames (to be explored in c­ hapter 3)
makes that world seem remote, a product of wish-​fulfilling imagination, its
reality opened to question all the more by his own distance from “the moun-
tain.”72 Inside the bucolic world, Lykidas’s appearance would be unremark-
able, probably no different from that of other herdsmen. In the lowlands,
seen through the eyes of the city dweller Simikhidas, he stands out, and that

70. Payne 2007, 25–​27; Sistakou 2021, 325n6 (the source of the quotation).
71. I think this distinction is important, and as we see several times in this chapter, Theocritus
consistently maintains it, even if the agricultural and bucolic worlds sometimes interpenetrate.
On Idyll 7 as mediating between the more markedly bucolic poems and other types such as
Idyll 22, see Thomas 1996, 238. A welcome exception to the usual tendency to assume that the
setting at the end of Idyll 7 is bucolic is Bowie 1985, 80. Note his comment there: “Most societ-
ies, and that of ancient Greece is no exception, are marked by substantial differences between
the pastoral and arable-​farming communities and ways of life.”
72. On embedded spaces in Lykidas’s song, see Klooster 2012, 102–​103. She makes the interest-
ing point that precise geographical references disappear as the song moves into an idealized
bucolic world—​another sign of its doubtful reality.
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28 T heo crit us

is why we get in Idyll 7, and nowhere in any of the poems set in the bucolic
world,73 a detailed description of this goatherd’s appearance and smell (13–​19).
Simikhidas, on the other hand, has pretensions toward both the bucolic and
the agricultural worlds. He sings a song that he claims—​improbably—​to have
learned from the Nymphs as he tended his herd “on the mountains” (7.92),
but it ends with the urban convention of the paraclausithyron (7.122–​125). His
song fails to be bucolic, and so I read his claim to have been taught by the
Nymphs, with its echo of Hesiod, as a bookish affectation.74 His address to
Pan (Id. 7.103–​114), with its reference to a ritual conducted by Arkadian boys,
seems to be a nod in the direction of bucolic, but the allusion to an obscure
cult practice has few if any parallels in the internal songs of Theocritus’s other
bucolic poems (Daphnis’s apostrophe of Pan in Id. 1.123–​126 may come close,
but “the ridge of Helike” and “the tomb of Lykaon’s son” were probably not
obscure to ancient readers). At the same time, Simikhidas is only a visitor to
the farm; his prayer to plant his winnowing fan in a heap of grain “again”
(7.155–​158)—​a sign of completed labor—​rings hollow because he has done no
work. He belongs in the world of the polis, from which he started out and to
which he obviously will return.75
This sense of being out of place is expressed spatially and temporally. Despite
the geographical precision, with mention of specific place names, that puts this
poem on the island of Kos, the location of Simikhidas’s meeting with Lykidas is
strikingly indefinite: “we had not yet reached the midpoint of the way, and the
tomb [σῆμα] of Brasilas had not yet come into our sight, when we encountered
a certain wayfarer . . .” (Id. 7.10-​11). The word for “tomb” means “sign,” and here
it might carry the implication of “landmark” beyond the literal meaning “tomb.”
There is nothing in sight to give this space definition or make it a place. And
the meeting occurs at an in-​between time of day, in the noontime lull between

73. Except for the reference to the goatherd Komatas’s smell in Id. 5.52.
74. Hes. Theog. 22–​23. On Simikhidas’s “velléités pseudo-​pastorales,” see Legrand 1898, 152.
Hunter 2021, 240, puts the contrast between him and Lykidas nicely: “Simichidas is a ‘polis-​
dweller,’ for whom ‘bucolic song’ is a poetic mode to be adopted, not—​as it is for Lycidas—​a
mode of life.”
75. Worman 2015, 207–​209, takes a very different view: that the songs of Lykidas and Simikhidas
represent older and newer strata “of what Theocritus took to constitute the bucolic mode” and
that Idyll 7 as a whole demonstrates the range of what bucolic can encompass, including the
agricultural setting at the end. I think that this is inconsistent with Theocritus’s representation
of bucolic space in other Idylls and with features of Idyll 7 that I discuss here. I also think that
for him, “bucolic,” though flexible to a degree, has more specificity than Worman’s reading
would give it.
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Theocritean Spaces 1 29

morning and afternoon activity: “Simikhidas,” Lykidas asks, “where are you
directing your feet at midday, when even the lizard is asleep in the wall and the
crested larks do not flit about?” (Id. 7.21–​23). This indefiniteness is the essence of
a journey, of movement from one place to another. Here, in this in-​between space
and time, people who are normally kept socially and spatially separate encounter
one another, different life trajectories converge, and identities, usually solidified
when people are in their particular places, become open and more fluid, so that,
for example, the urban Simikhidas can try out being a cowherd and a bucolic
poet.76 If place helps shape identity and social behavior, movement and being out
of place even temporarily promote fluidity. Simikhidas and Lykidas could not
belong to more different social contexts, but in this transient here and now, their
identities come into contact and enter into a dialogue that takes the form of an
exchange of songs.
This open and—​to judge from the description—​featureless space through
which Simikhidas, his friends, and Lykidas move contrasts sharply with bucolic
space as it is depicted in Lykidas’s song. As Alberto Borgogno points out, that
space is characterized by enclosure, rest or lack of movement, and reduction in
scale.77 The goatherd and Komatas imprisoned in chests and Lykidas lying on a
rustic couch and enjoying Tityros’s singing, perhaps within a hut or some other
structure, have counterparts in the formal properties of the poem, as Borgogno
emphasizes: the embedding of song within song and the way the description of
the goatherd in the chest in lines 78–​79 is enclosed at the mathematical center
of the poem. I would add that this bounded space is also full and lush, with
natural features, trees, bushes, flowers, and bees, a sheltered springtime place
as opposed to the barren, snow-​covered mountains mentioned in lines 76–​77.
The contrast between lowland and bucolic space has an analogy in Ageanax’s
voyage over the dangerous, featureless sea to arrive safely, so it is hoped, in
the harbor of Mytilene (Id. 7.60–​61)—​another enclosed and sheltering place,
though part of a city and not bucolic. The journey of Simikhidas and his friends
ends in a delightful natural place on Phrasidamos’s farm that is also enclosed, by
trees.78 There they lie on couches of reeds and vine leaves that recall Lykidas’s

76. Cf. Bakhtin 1981, 243–​245, a passage cited by Burton 1995, 10, in connection with Idyll 15,
to be discussed later in this chapter.
77. Borgogno 2002, 16–​18, 24–​25. He notices, without making any particular point of it, the
contrast with the space of Simikhidas’s journey, which he calls “uno spazio privo di valore”
(16). I would say that it does have a certain kind of value, as a place where identities are open to
question and can be explored, whereas in bucolic space they seem fixed.
78. Borgogno 2002, 18–​19.
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30 T heo crit us

couch (Id. 7.132–​134, 67–​68). But the setting is a farm, and this place is one of
rest after the work that, as we shall see in c­ hapter 4 in connection with Idyll 10,
characterizes agricultural space in contrast to bucolic leisure.
Perhaps we can infer that this kind of pleasance is what lowlanders like
Simikhidas can attain but not the bucolic world of “the mountain.” It shares
certain features with the bucolic environment, such as bees, but it is not the
thing itself. Perhaps the emphasis on reduction of scale and enclosure in this
poem’s conception of bucolic has to do with a Hellenistic aesthetic of short
poems, as Borgogno argues, or with Epicurean philosophy, or with the indi-
vidual in this age turning inward on the self—​possibilities that he also men-
tions. But I am interested here in the way the construction of space in Idyll
7 sets bucolic space apart from other kinds and makes it seem self-​enclosed
and remote—​the effect as well of Lykidas’s successively embedded songs—​and
partly for that very reason highly desirable. But at the same time, it raises the
question of how real that world can be. Is it any more than a possibility raised in
Lykidas’s wish-​fulfilling song? Lykidas himself, a figure who has stepped out of
it, an authentic goatherd, would seem to guarantee its existence in some sense,
but who is he? He appears suddenly as though out of nowhere and leaves as
abruptly, turning in the opposite direction from Phrasidamos’s farm. What is
he doing in the lowlands in the first place?
These questions return us to the fluidity of identities on the road and the
condition of being out of place. It is not without reason that so many scholars
have not taken the identity of either Simikhidas or Lykidas at face value. It has
often been thought that Lykidas is a god in disguise. His sudden appearance
gives him an enigmatic air, and the narrator’s insistence that he was a goat-
herd because he looked just like one (Id. 7.13–​14) seems to raise the question
of the relation between appearance and reality. His gift to Simikhidas of a
shepherd’s club in return for the latter’s song is reminiscent of a poetic inves-
titure of a mortal by a divinity in the manner of Hesiod and Archilochus. As
for Simikhidas, many scholars have taken it for granted that he is a stand-​in
for Theocritus. I would like to take a somewhat different approach, especially
with regard to Simikhidas, since I am skeptical of a one-​to-​one autobiographi-
cal reading of the poem. I would suggest instead that Simikhidas, as narrator,
represents not the historical Theocritus but a possible persona of him, one way
in which he could be viewed: as a city dweller claiming to be able to bucoli-
cize, an urban sophisticate writing about simple herders. From this perspective
he might seem like Theocritean self-​caricature. Lykidas might then represent
another potentiality in Theocritus, or in any successful bucolic poet: the ability,
through the imagination, to write with some authenticity (or its appearance)
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Theocritean Spaces 1 31

about herdsmen and their world.79 This view would not rule out the idea of a
disguised epiphany; that would add a further dimension of possibility in this
mysterious figure. Between them, these two figures would be one manifesta-
tion of the paradox created by an urban poet writing on rustic themes, which
produces in turn the fine balance in Theocritus’s bucolic poetry between his
creation of a world and the simultaneous acknowledgment, implied in many
of these poems, of its fictionality. Thus, this encounter in the placeless place of
“the road” raises fundamental questions about bucolic poetry. Why would a
poet of the city write about the countryside? Of what use could such a subject
be to him or his readers? What degree of authenticity can he, or should he try
to, attain? If Simikhidas and Lykidas are both out of place, what would it mean
to be in place? Lykidas, on the other hand, opens to question the relation of the
bucolic world to that of the city and its countryside. His song offers a vision
of a world where people are fully in place, where a goatherd in a chest can be
sustained by bees. But that vision is so distanced and so contingent on the ful-
fillment of wishes (as we shall see in ­chapter 3) that its reality is questionable.
We have seen something similar in the relation between places at the beginning
of Idyll 1. Bucolic space is, then, an imaginative projection—​but a projection
of what?
One answer to these questions might be that bucolic space represents for the
Greek poet and his Greek readers a response to the dislocations in the wake of
Alexander’s conquests, when being in and out of place was an issue to many and
especially to Greeks living in Alexandria and other cities outside the traditional
Greek world.80 From this perspective, fictionality and stylization are part of the
point. Bucolic space offered readers a “heterotopia”81 through which to examine
from an imaginary distance questions they encountered living among non-​Greeks
outside the Greek world as traditionally defined and to address consequent feel-
ings of displacement. Through their exploration of the relations between humans
and nature (a matter of interest to urban readers especially), the bucolic Idylls
offered a picture of humans belonging to a place but qualified it at the same time,

79. For a different, but despite differences not, I think, ultimately incompatible, reading
of Simikhidas as a persona of Theocritus, see Payne 2007, 20, 130–​141: Simikhidas’s song is
“immature” rather than “spurious” bucolic because he represents Theocritus at an earlier stage
of his career, while he is still developing as a bucolic poet and encountering in Lykidas a char-
acter out of his own fictions.
80. On Theocritus and Alexandria, see the introduction. As I say there, wherever he wrote his
poems, they were certainly read in Alexandria.
81. Foucault 1986.
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32 T heo crit us

as we saw in the opening scene of Idyll 1, by a recognition of the ways human

culture operates on nature and can only be in place by not quite being part of it.
The fictionality of the bucolic world also showed how provisional even the most
idealizing vision of “fitting in” was. The question of spatial boundaries and inter-
est in margins might draw attention to analogous distinctions: between humans
and animals, self and other. It is not much of a leap from this to the fluidity of
ethnic and cultural distinctions in the lives of the poems’ first readers. Much was
at stake, therefore, in the relation between, let us say, Alexandria and this other
space constructed in the imagination.
Idyll 7 has often been considered a poetic statement by Theocritus, “a con-
scious showpiece of his art and a manifesto of his poetic ideals as they are embod-
ied in bucolic poetry.”82 And so I think it is, but not quite in the way others have
considered it. Theocritus removes bucolic poetry, along with Lykidas, from “the
mountain” to “the road,” where definitions are open to question, and brings it
into contact with other poetic styles: not only Simikhidas’s essentially urban, or
at least urbane, song but also the description of the bountiful place of rest on
Phrasidamos’s farm at the end of the poem (Id. 7.131–​157). Simikhidas may not
amount to much as a bucolic poet, but he does a beautiful job of turning this agri-
cultural setting into poetry. The appreciation of natural bounty through sight,
smell, and hearing may seem to bring this passage close to bucolic, but it lacks
basic bucolic values: it represents leisure that can be earned only by work. With
Lykidas’s abrupt disappearance, we may imagine that he and bucolic song return
to “the mountain,” but now the nature of bucolic and what sets it apart have been
clarified by this experience of blurred boundaries and the resulting drawing of
contrasts with other poetic styles, which can occur only on “the road.”

The “Urban Mimes”

Idyll 15
Like Idyll 7, Idyll 15 involves a journey and encounters “on the road” that call into
question, or provoke the affirmation of, various kinds of identity, here especially
gender and ethnic identity. Joan Burton has given an excellent account of the
“motif of the road” in this poem and of the complementary theme of thresholds.
She connects this journey and its boundary crossings with conditions created
by mobility and immigration as discussed above, so that we can see an under-
lying affinity in this respect between Idyll 7 and the urban poems. By leaving
home, Gorgo and Praxinoa are forced to negotiate situations they would not

82. Halperin 1983, 120.

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Theocritean Spaces 1 33

have encountered in their houses and to deal with strangers, each of whom has
his or her own perspective and goals in this diverse city of Alexandria. “Insofar
as chance meetings on a road,” says Burton, “can offer opportunities to learn to
adjust to the requirements of new social arenas, by representing such encounters
the poet can explore social rituals, rites of passage for moving from one space to
another.”83
In addition, Idyll 15 is a fine illustration of Michel de Certeau’s description
of walking through a city as a “pedestrian speech act”: “The act of walking is to
the urban system what the speech act is to language.”84 The pedestrian, he goes
on to say, appropriates the topography of the city by finding her own path, out
of many possible routes, from one place to another, spatially “acts out” the place
by instantiating a spatial system, and comes into relation with other people who
are also in movement along their own paths. Movement between places also
aligns the starting place of a journey with its end and brings them into relation
with each other.85 Here the feminine space of the ordinary86 house’s interior
contrasts with the female-​dominated ceremonial space of the Adonis festival
inside the royal palace, private contrasts with public, the prosaic details of
daily life (the cat sleeping on spun wool) in linear time contrast with an occa-
sion marking Adonis’s annual return in circular ritual time.87 Along with these
contrasts, as John Whitehorne suggests, connections between the women in
the house and in the palace are created through women’s work.88 The fine, soft
wool of the coverlets in the Adonis tableau (Id. 15.125) evokes the filthy wool
that Gorgo’s husband bought (Id. 15.18–​20), and the tapestries (Id. 15.80–​86)
outdo the fine dress that Praxinoa wove for herself (Id. 15.34–​38). That the pal-
ace far outshines the house in magnificence adds to the royal mystique (“every-
thing’s rich in a rich man’s house,” Id. 15.24), but there is an analogy between
them because women, not men, create and are connoisseurs of fine wool and

83. Burton 1995, 10.

84. De Certeau 1984, 97.
85. See especially Tilley 1994, 29–​31.
86. Or perhaps not so ordinary, though far short of the palace’s opulence. Whitehorne 1995, 67,
has argued plausibly that Gorgo and Praxinoa live in an affluent suburb of Alexandria. Their
complaints about their husbands are indirect boasts about the latters’ prosperity, which is the
result of opportunities afforded to Greeks in Egypt by Ptolemy’s power (66–​70).
87. Burton 1995, 17–​18, notes how the women’s leaving the house is coordinated with their
crossing the palace threshold when they arrive by the repetition of words for “inside” and
“lock” (Id. 15.1, 43, 77). Davies 1995 makes the contrast between the festival and ordinary life
the basis for his reading of Idyll 15.
88. Whitehorne 1995, 70–​72.
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34 T heo crit us

weaving.89 Whitehorne further argues that there is a correlation between the

women’s husbands and Ptolemy: just as the husbands’ prosperity underwrites
their wives’ material surroundings and their work, so the Adonis festival cre-
ated by Arsinoe and her women workers (Id. 15.80) is a display of Philadelphus’s
wealth and imperial power.90 To Whitehorne’s discussion I would add that the
poem spatializes these relationships by aligning house and palace by means of
the women’s journey through Alexandria from one to the other and back. The
picture that emerges from this reading of Idyll 15 is of a close-​knit Greek com-
munity within the multicultural environment of Alexandria, in which prosper-
ity radiates outward from the palace and the palace draws its members to itself
for self-​display that promotes unity—​a microcosm within the city, perhaps,
of Ptolemaic imperial rule. This affirmation seems all the stronger and more
necessary against the background of the hazards to identity posed by being
“on the road,” where Greek women might be exposed to allegedly treacherous
Egyptians but for the order imposed by Ptolemy (Id. 15.46–​50).91
In travel from home and back, the journeys outward and homeward are
not necessarily the same, even though they may traverse exactly the same space
(considered abstractly, as on a map). They are experienced differently. Space

89. Cf. especially Skinner 2001, 213–​214. This point is made humorously by Praxinoa’s story
(Id. 15.15–​17) that when she sent her husband to buy materials for cleaning and dyeing wool, he
came back with expensive salt instead (Whitehorne 1995, 64–​66).
90. Whitehorne 1995, 72–​74. It seems to me that his reading is not as incompatible with the
feminist reading of Griffiths 1981 as he suggests (Whitehorne 1995, 73). Even if Gorgo and
Praxinoa are rivals of each other rather than of their husbands, that could be the result of their
situation as women. For a different view of Idyll 15 that is explicitly opposed to the readings
of Griffiths and of Burton 1995, see Lambert 2001, 100, who argues that Theocritus “presents
us with a male perspective of [sic] women’s perspectives on a women’s festival, with a comic
literary pedigree, which would not have been unfamiliar to his cultured audience.” Skinner
2001, 213, although she allows for some irony on Theocritus’s part, takes the opposite view to
Lambert’s, that in Gorgo’s and Praxinoa’s admiration of the tapestries he gives voice to women’s
perspective following a movement set by female epigrammatists that helped shape Hellenistic
aesthetics. Davies 1995 traces the portrayal of the women to the influence of comedy and mime
instead, whereas for Skinner mime is relevant mainly with Herodas’s Mimiamb 4, which she
sees as an attack on the movement that she traces. Perhaps, then, the question is where one
locates the influences on Theocritus in Idyll 15. A more interesting possibility is that he leaves
several opposed subject positions open to his audience, so that a gendered response to art
within the text evokes gendered responses in modern readers. On the importance of weaving
and gender in the poem, and of other objects, see also Noel and Remond 2017, 79–​89.
91. This is only part of the picture. Any notion of a seamless Greek identity in this poem is
complicated by evident tensions among Greeks (see below). And Foster 2006 argues that
allusions to Homer and Greek historiography suggest that Philadelphus and Arsinoe are at
once Greek and Egyptian rulers, in line with Stephens’s arguments about Alexandrian poetry
(Stephens 2003).
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Theocritean Spaces 1 35

appears in its relative aspect, as one moves through it. The trip outward feels
like movement into the unknown, to new experiences, into the future; travel
homeward has the quality of return to the familiar, the already experienced,
the past.92 It is a restoration of security—​or dullness? The women’s walk to the
palace through crushes of people in the streets and in the palace doorway is
filled with incident. It is an adventure. Their return is not even narrated and is
unremarkable. And we know what they will come home to: husbands surly if a
meal does not appear on time.
The women walk from a house possibly on the outskirts of the city through
urban space to the palace. Perhaps we are to imagine them making their way along
one of the wide avenues that ran through Alexandria from east to west, because
this would be the most likely place to encounter a contingent of royal cavalry (Id.
15.51–​52). But we can only guess, because there is not a word in the text about the
physical city itself. Instead, in a technique like that of the bucolics, the experi-
ence of the streets comes to us filtered through Praxinoa’s fearful reactions to the
horses, and we have Gorgo’s earlier comments on her struggle to get from her
house to Praxinoa’s through all the chariots and the booted and cloaked soldiers
(Id. 15.4–​7).93 This is relative space again: space as perceived from the body out-
ward and from a particular point of view. We get no sense of what an Alexandrian
street looked like, but we get a vivid picture of what it was like for a woman of a
certain (middling) class to walk through one on a festival day. Gorgo’s remark to
Praxinoa, “you live farther away all the time” (Id. 15.7), gives another example of
relative space. It does not have to be taken literally, as though Praxinoa’s husband
keeps moving to more and more remote houses to keep the two women apart. It
more likely means that the trip between houses seems to get longer and to take
more time, even though the physical distance has not changed at all.94
The crowd at the palace door, considered from the perspective of relative
space, is significant as an illustration of Ptolemaic power. It shows the centripetal
effect of the palace in drawing people to itself. Space is not neutral, and people’s
movements through it are not random; both are inflected by relations of power.
The palace has this effect not only within Alexandria. Goods also flow into it from
the sphere of Ptolemaic influence and control in the Aegean and Asia Minor (the

92. Tuan 1977, 12.

93. In fact, “everywhere boots, everywhere cloaked men” (Id. 15.6) can refer to either soldiers or
civilians. Burton 1995, 11, says that “the text’s indeterminacy reflects Gorgo’s alienation in the
public space.” I would add that the reduction of men to boots and cloaks reflects fears of the
street’s strangeness on the part of a woman accustomed to being indoors.
94. A possibility noted by Gow 1952, II, 268.
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36 T heo crit us

movement of goods is another aspect of relative space), as two often-​overlooked

lines suggest (Id. 15.126–​127):

ἁ Μίλατος ἐρεῖ χὡ τὰν Σαμίαν καταβόσκων,

‘ἔστρωται κλίνα τὠδώνιδι τῷ καλῷ ἄμμιν.’

Miletos will say, and he who pastures his flocks on Samos,

“a couch has been spread for the beautiful Adonis by us.”

It is uncertain whether the lines refer to fine wool produced in both Miletos and
Samos or to the couch, manufactured in Miletos, and Samian wool.95 On bal-
ance I think the reference is to the wool of the coverlets on which Aphrodite and
Adonis lie, but the question does not matter to my point, which is the move-
ment of expensive goods to Alexandria and the palace. Miletos was famous for
the excellence of the wool raised there and for its textile industry, and Samos, just
off the coast from Miletos, would have been in the same sphere of production.
The whole coast of Asia Minor, in fact, was well known for its wool production.96
So the reference to wool (or possibly wool and furniture) from this region works
with the other opulent details of the tableau as an offering to the dying god and
his bereft lover but also, intertwined with this sign of religious devotion, as a dis-
play of the Ptolemies’ wealth—​and of the basis of that wealth: Ptolemaic imperial
power. These lines depict a city within the imperial sphere and even the lowliest
island shepherds expressing pride in their contributions to it. Everyone has a role
to play in creating and sustaining this economic and imperial system, at the apex
of which sit Philadelphus and his wife Arsinoe.97
These lines, then, are spatial in their reach. They link people and places in
the empire to Alexandria and the royal palace in economic as well as political

95. In line 127, the last word quoted, ἄμμιν, is Gow’s conjecture for ἄλλα of the manuscripts;
for discussion, see Gow 1952, II, 298–​299. Gow says that his reading implies that Samos and
Miletos supply the coverlets and not the couch, inclusion of which would require Ahrens’s ἁμά.
I am not sure that either reading necessarily implies what Gow says it does, but the advantage
of ἄμμιν, I think, is that it stresses the agency of Miletos and the shepherd and so expresses their
pride in participating in the economic and religious processes of the empire. Dover 1971, 213,
keeps the manuscripts’ ἄλλα (“Another couch”), which he says “[implies] pride that the mag-
nificent object is produced year after year.” Gow had already dismissed this interpretation as “a
desperate expedient,” but I think it might have the advantage of adding chronological depth to
the spatial extent of the empire implied by mention of Samos and Miletos.
96. Kloft 1989, 50. On Milesian wool and textiles, see Papadopoulou 2017, 165.
97. For further discussion of the connection between the festival of Adonis and Ptolemaic
imperialism and self-​legitimation, see Reed 2000.
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Theocritean Spaces 1 37

terms. Maria Papadopoulou has discussed the importance of wool in Theocritus,

especially in regard to the “chain of production,” the process by which wool is
obtained and turned into finished textiles: the raising and shearing of sheep, the
dyeing of raw wool and spinning it into thread, and the weaving of textiles such as
the coverlets on Adonis’s couch or the (allegedly) expensive dress that Gorgo puts
on (Id. 15.34–​37). Theocritus, she argues, creates spatial distinctions by means of
wool and specifically dress.98 In the bucolic Idylls, in which the bucolic world is
seen in and for itself and where the herdsmen wear animal skins, there is no men-
tion of what will be done with the animals’ wool when it is sheared or of the pro-
duction of textiles. In the urban poems, the emphasis is on the textiles themselves,
especially the dresses that the women wear, so that clothing articulates the spatial
distinction between the city and the countryside. I would add to this argument
that in Idyll 15, with its urban perspective, the two lines we have been looking at
place the bucolic world in the wider perspective of the Ptolemaic empire. Here
that world is seen not as a place apart but as part of an imperial system.99 Wool,
then, is not solely a marker of gender distinctions, although it is importantly that
as well. With this glimpse from the city outward to its place of origin, wool stands
as a paradigm for the ingathering into Alexandria of material objects and wealth
from other places in the empire.
It may seem that I am wringing too much significance from a mere two lines
that simply give a small detail in the singer’s description of the tableau. But these
lines stand out if we think of Theocritus in spatial terms, because they give us an
urbanized and imperial view of the bucolic world that we have seen only from the
inside in the bucolic Idylls. And as we shall see shortly, the whole tableau repre-
sents the city’s appropriation of the bucolic into itself. These lines show the same
thing in a more material form.
Corresponding to this movement to Alexandria and into the palace, a recipro-
cal movement outward may be implied by Gorgo’s comment that the cavalry has
gone ἐς χώραν (Id. 15.57). A. S. F. Gow understands the phrase to mean that they
have gone to the starting post for races in the hippodrome,100 but it could also
mean “to the countryside.” If so, it would imply the Ptolemies’ control, exerted
outward from Alexandria, over the rest of Egypt.

98. Papadopoulou 2017. On the thematic importance of textiles in Idyll 15, see Foster 2016,
206–​209.
99. On these lines, see also Whitehorne 1995, 73, and Foster’s reference to the wool “gotten
from Samian sheep herded at the edges of a realm all too ready to dedicate its resources and
efforts to the aggrandizement of the house of Ptolemy” (Foster 2006, 143).
100. Gow, 1952, II, 282.
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38 T heo crit us

As wool flows to Alexandria, so the people within the city converge on the
palace. They participate in the same centripetal pattern of movement, and all of
them in this way relate the palace to their places of origin and define Alexandrian
space in a hierarchical way. Praxinoa and Gorgo see themselves as singular and
the crowd as an undifferentiated mass, like ants (Id. 15.45) or pigs (Id. 15.73). This
scene of movement and arrival makes of the palace a place in the sense described
by Doreen Massey: a locus of convergence of various people’s lives with their tra-
jectories and stories, and of the formation or enactment of relations of power, and
in this case relations of gender also.101 From this perspective, space in Idyll 15 is
also relational. There are, first, the prickly relations between the women and their
husbands, centered on their houses. In the palace, by contrast, Arsinoe’s associa-
tion with Aphrodite (Id. 15.106–​111) emphasizes the erotic relations between
her and Philadelphus. There is the division whereby the effect of Philadelphus’s
authority is felt in public (the cavalry is his, Id. 15.51–​52, and he has made the
streets safe for Greeks, Id. 15.46–​50), whereas the festival in the palace is domi-
nated by females, and identity is defined matrilineally.102 Thus, the conventional
Greek arrangement of private houses (men outside, women inside) is projected
onto the public organization of Ptolemaic Alexandria. The women’s encounters
with an oracular old woman and two men, one helpful, the other annoyed and
ridiculing, enact various other aspects of gender relations. Praxinoa gives her
version of Egyptian–​Greek relations in Alexandria and expresses her fear and
distrust of Egyptians (Id. 15.46–​50). Later, she and Gorgo are the object of ridi-
cule for their broad-​voweled Doric (Id. 15.87–​88), and we see something of the
possible tensions among Greeks who have come together in Alexandria, as they
would have been less likely to do in the traditional Greek world. Praxinoa’s retort,
expressing pride in her Syracusan and ultimately Corinthian descent, shows how
it was necessary, in the diversity of Alexandria, to maintain identity by insisting
on local identifications.103 And once again we see the centripetal force exerted by
Alexandria, on population this time and not only on goods.

101. Massey 2005.

102. Burton 1995, 75.
103. Hinge 2009 makes the opposite argument. Noting that in the Hellenistic period, Greek
dialectal differences were leveled in favor of koine, he sees the stranger’s taunt as a sign that the
women’s clinging to their Syracusan Doric is obsolete and sees Praxinoa’s pride in Syracuse’s
Corinthian roots as anachronistic: “the new identity as an Alexandrian cosmopolitan required
the abandonment of the old epichoric dialects and the adoption of Koine since in the multieth-
nic milieu of Alexandria, the old local affinities have lost their meaning” (p. 74). But I think it
just as likely that under these conditions of deracination, asserting a local identity would have
been felt all the more important. One might be (for example) Syracusan with regard to other
Greeks and Greek with regard to Egyptians; both aspects of identity are depicted in Idyll 15.
39

Theocritean Spaces 1 39

The space of the women’s journey is presented as relational in another way

as well: it is given a mythic coloring through allusions to Homer. “By trying the
Akhaians came into Troy,” says the old woman in answer to Gorgo’s question about
whether it is easy to get into the palace. “By trying all things are accomplished” (Id.
15.61–​62). Walking into the palace is as formidable a task and as great an accomplish-
ment as the ten-​year assault on Troy! The incongruity is humorous, of course, and
marks the distance between mime and epic. But the epic allusion may also express
how women whose lives were spent mainly at home might feel about braving the
urban bustle, and perhaps the awe they might feel at the door of their rulers’ home.
Burton, who discusses the old woman as a helper figure often encountered on epic
journeys, also points out other Homeric type scenes realized in this poem,104 so
that the journey through the streets of Alexandria resembles an epic quest. Once
the women are in the house, Gorgo points to the tapestries, which she calls “fine
and graceful” (λεπτὰ καί . . . χαρίεντα, Id. 15.79)—​an allusion to Od. 10.223, which
describes Kirke’s weaving. The allusion is reinforced by Praxinoa’s comparing the
pushing crowd to pigs just a few lines before (Id. 15.73)—​the animals into which
Kirke transformed Odysseus’s men.105 At least momentarily, being in this hall, seen
through the lens of mythic narrative, takes on an aura of magic and danger, and this
may reflect the women’s feelings about the unfamiliar space they have entered.106
Once inside the palace, Praxinoa and Gorgo are confronted with a tableau
of Adonis in the arms of Aphrodite in a scene that Nita Krevans has argued is
“pastoral” in nature (see especially Id. 15.118–​122). A connection is surely sug-
gested by the fact that Adonis was a shepherd or cowherd and is referred to as
such at Id. 1.105 and Id. 3.46. This is an enchanted, ritual space, however artificial,
that provides a temporary refuge from the urban space that encloses it. Krevans
also suggests a metapoetic effect: “By emphatically (and comically) evoking the
contrast between ‘real’ city and ‘ideal’ retreat, Theocritus invites us to see pastoral
in its full context, as the product of an urban court, and to see the pastoral poet

A similar need for an identity rooted in place of origin, and not just antiquarianism, may lie
behind Callimachus’s interest in local myths in his Aetia or Theocritus’s apparently gratuitous
use of Laconic and Thessalian words for “lover” and “beloved,” respectively in Idyll 12.13–​14.
104. Burton 1995, 15–​16. For further discussion of Homeric echoes, see Griffiths 1979, 121–​123.
For the significance of allusions to Homeric scenes of hospitality, particularly those involv-
ing Arete, Helen, and Kirke, who help characterize Arsinoe as “a dominant woman to be
admired—​and feared,” see Foster 2016, 194–​196, 210–​214 (quotation from 196).
105. Foster 2006, 138, sees these allusions to Kirke as part of the depiction of Arsinoe: “casting
Arsinoe in Kirke’s part cleverly underscores Arsinoe’s hybrid identity as a Macedonian/​Greek
queen and Egyptian royal consort who treads the boundary between human and divine.” See
also Foster 2016, 217–​218.
106. For a more “ironic” reading of the Homeric allusions, see Griffiths 2021, 590.
40

40 T heo crit us

in his full context, as a resident of Alexandria.”107 Here is another link between

the bucolic and the urban poems. I would like to build on Krevans’s ideas and
suggest that the importance of bucolic poetry to a contemporary Greek audi-
ence, outlined at the end of the preceding section, is enacted spatially in this Idyll.
After a linear journey through the streets of Alexandria, where Praxinoa can best
assert her Greek identity by scorning Egyptians (Id. 15.46–​50) but where another
Greek derides the women’s flat vowels and calls them turtledoves, provoking an
angry assertion of her Hellenism from Praxinoa (Id. 15.87–​95), she and Gorgo
arrive at a place within the palace where a rustic tableau is part of the celebration
of Adonis’s recurrent return and departure, in a ritual that might be thought to
give Greeks a common focus of identification (as subjects of Ptolemy, of course).
But just as in bucolic poetry, the myth and its ritual only work because boundar-
ies are fluid. Adonis crosses the line between the underworld and this world and
goes back again (Id. 15.136–​137). In an opposite movement, Aphrodite has made
Berenike immortal (Id. 15.106–​108). In this privileged quasi-​bucolic space at the
heart of this huge, diverse city, the same questions about movement and identity
are raised that the women experience in its streets, but also the same ones as in
bucolic poetry. That is, in yet another centripetal move, the city and the palace
draw into themselves what poetry projects outward, onto “the mountain.”

Idyll 2
In Idyll 2, a woman walking from her house to a religious festival has an encoun-
ter on the road; the basic situation is the same as in Idylls 7 and 15, but here eros
is an issue as well as gender and ethnic identity (Delphis is a Myndian), as in
Idyll 15.108 In contrast to that poem, however, the urban setting here109 is not very
important: the most prominent location throughout the poem is the interior of
Simaitha’s house—​the spatial analogue of her interior feelings110—​and probably
(during her address to the moon) the area in front of the door.111

107. Krevans 2006, 145–​146. On the relations between Idylls 15 and 1, see the suggestive discus-
sion of Griffiths 1979, 124–​128.
108. Burton 1995, 19–​20. Burton 1995 and Segal 1985 have discussed space in Idyll 2 extensively,
and so I can be brief here. I treat the themes of absence and desire in Idyll 2 more fully in
­chapter 3.
109. Simaitha lives in a polis (Id. 2.35), she has neighbors, and there is a palaistra, as was com-
mon in Hellenistic cities. Otherwise, there is little trace of the city.
110. Segal 1985, 108.
111. White 1979, 17–​20, argues that the whole poem takes place indoors.
41

Theocritean Spaces 1 41

Even though the setting in the “now” of the poem is static, Idyll 2 is a mark-
edly spatial text. For much of the poem, Simaitha’s house is the center and other
places are brought into alignment with it by movement from them to it, and vice
versa. For example, Delphis comes to it from the palaistra (a building consisting
of an open wrestling ground surrounded by rooms for washing and so on) when
the slave woman goes there from Simaitha’s house to invite him, with the result
that he and Simaitha begin their short-​lived affair; and Delphis’s movement
toward the house is balanced by the slave’s second departure from it, this time
to Delphis’s house in order to sprinkle magic herbs over the threshold to compel
him back to her mistress.112 The text leaves it doubtful that he will complete the
pattern and come back.
A different kind of double movement occurs when Simaitha first sees Delphis.
She is on her way with a female neighbor113 to a festival of Artemis when they
encounter Delphis coming with male friends from the palaistra—​feminine and
masculine spaces juxtaposed. Both Delphis and Simaitha are at this moment
outside their “proper” spaces; being “on the road” here may be a sign that their
love affair will be unhappy. One spatial relationship is between Simaitha’s house
and Artemis’s grove—​both female spaces. Simaitha sees Delphis when she is in
the middle of the way (Id. 2.76); this detail may remind us of Simikhidas’s meet-
ing with Lykidas (Id. 7.10). As there, a movement between two places intersects
with someone else’s movement from a third place (the mountain, the palaistra).
But here the journey is interrupted. Simaitha forgets about the procession and
never reaches Artemis’s grove. The circuit of movement between two sheltered
places considered “safe” for women by Greek culture—​house to grove and back
to house—​is disrupted by illicit love. Simaitha’s interrupted movement corre-
sponds to the sudden onrush of eros. “How I got back home I didn’t know” (Id.
2.83–​85); the return journey pales by comparison with the momentous event that
has occurred “on the road.” She may be returning to security and the past like
the Syracusan women going home, but unlike them, she has been changed by
the experience, and her relation to domestic space has been altered. She lies love-
sick on her bed for ten days and visits the houses of other women to seek advice

112. Cf. Segal 1985, 105, on the complementary centrifugal and centripetal movements to and
from Simaitha’s house.
113. The account of the festival gives the impression of a female community that balances the
male society of the palaistra: Anaxo, a basket bearer in the procession, the Thracian nurse who
accompanies Simaitha, and Klearista, whose wrap she has borrowed (Id. 2.66–​74). To this list
are added the mother of Philista, “our flute girl,” and of Melixo (Id. 2.145–​146). And of course
there is Simaitha’s relationship with her slave Thestylis.
42

42 T heo crit us

(apparently) and magic charms (Id. 2.86, 91–​92). The house is no longer a shelter
for her virginity.
Two other places figure in the poem: the implied house in which the sympo-
sium occurs, at which Delphis reveals that he is in love with someone else, and
that other person’s house, which he goes off to wreathe with garlands (Id. 2.151–​
153). Neither bears any relation to Simaitha’s house, and that is significant: she
has lost him.
Spatially, the house and palaistra are at first aligned in a relation of con-
trast: between male and female, elite and lower class.114 But there is a mutual
interference between these places that shows in the end how inappropriate this
erotic union is. Delphis often left his oil flask with Simaitha (Id. 2.156)—​a token
of the palaistra in this female space—​and Simaitha intends “tomorrow” to go
to the palaistra and bawl Delphis out for his treatment of her. Whether or not
she actually will do so is left uncertain, but the reader is invited to imagine the
incongruous spectacle of an angry woman bursting into this quintessentially male
space. This blurring of distinctions between distinctively male and female spaces
is part of a larger pattern of the inversion of gender roles that is also enacted spa-
tially and once again marks this relationship as doomed.
Doors and thresholds play a prominent role in Idyll 2 (59–​60, 104–​106,
160),115 and the theme of liminality, which unsettles the distinction between
inside and outside, stresses the uncertainty of social roles and categories. The
sexually ambiguous Delphis crosses Simaitha’s threshold (Id. 2.104–​106) instead
of performing what he recognizes as the expected kômos (Id. 2.118–​122) that nor-
mally acknowledges the distinction between the outside and the feminine inside.
The kômos might, as he claims, have resulted in either her allowing him inside
after his request or his forcing his way in (Id. 2.124–​128), but in either case he
would have been taking the initiative. As it is, she has invited him to the house
and inside and so has taken the active role. So the male enters the bedchamber
that the female would usually leave, for marriage if a virgin (like Simaitha) or
adultery if married (Id. 2.136–​138). In this female-​dominated space, Simaitha
controls their physical union.116 As for Delphis, he eventually gets things right

114. Burton 1995, 19.

115. For discussion, see Segal 1985, 106–​107; Burton 1995, 19–​20, 46.
116. For details, see ­chapter 3. For other gender inversions in the poem, see Burton 1995,
43–​44. Burton’s suggestion (20) that Delphis crossing her threshold represents a transition
in Simaitha’s life would be stronger if the act had been hers; compare Apollonius’s Medea,
Arg. 4.26–​42. Andrews 1996, 32–​34, suggests that the message Simaitha gives to Thestylis
for Delphis, Σιμαίθα τυ καλεῖ (“Simaitha calls you,” Id. 2.101), alludes to Il. 3.390, Ἀλέξανδρός
σε καλεῖ οἶκονδε νέεσθαι (“Alexander calls you to come to his chamber”), Aphrodite’s words
43

Theocritean Spaces 1 43

and follows the conventional pattern of the distracted lover’s behavior (in litera-
ture, at least) by giving himself away at a symposium, rushing out to cover the
beloved’s door with wreaths, and presumably staying outside all night in a state of
desire117—​but only later and with a different love object.
If bucolic space seems to a great extent (though not entirely) self-​contained
and occupied mainly by herders, space in towns and cities is more open, and using
it results in encounters with various types of people, their characteristic ways of
being, and their different values. In this built environment, space involves struc-
tures such as houses and palaces, and it both reflects and determines the rela-
tions between the people within them. But it is just as importantly constituted by
movement between various places and buildings that relates them to each other
and integrates them into larger spaces (such as the city of Alexandria). In the
course of this movement, strangers form momentary or longer-​lasting relation-
ships: love, cooperation, hostility. In the bucolic world, herders come together,
but they seem already to know one another, and their relations are not affected
by these encounters. Nor are their identities, whereas in urban spaces, movement
opens identities to question even if they are in the end affirmed. To use bucolic
space is to be at rest, enjoying leisure and its pursuits. Idyll 7 combines these dif-
ferent concepts of space and of what being in them means. To live in or move
through the more hectic urban space is to risk chance encounters that put iden-
tity at risk, for better or worse, and can change lives. It changes Simaitha’s life for
the worse, and we are left uncertain how she will fare. It does not seem to affect
life permanently for Gorgo and Praxinoa, whose return to their own social and
familial niche from the “great world” of the royal palace provides closure on this
episode with a resumption of their ordinary lives.

to Helen; this puts Delphis in the position of Helen and Simaitha in the position of Paris.
Andrews also well describes the spatial dislocations highlighted by the poem’s play with the
topos of the paraclausithyron: “in a wry inversion of the most conventional behavior for an
excluded lover, Simaitha articulates the pain of her exclusion from Delphis’ affections from her
position inside the house; meanwhile, the beloved, Delphis, who should be the excluded lover,
must be summoned from outside of the house!” (44; emphases in original).
117. This, rather than gaining access to the house by force or permission, is the usual pattern in
the literary kômos. When Delphis mentions the two other possibilities, he is either showing
that he does not understand the (literarily) proper behavior for a lover or engaging in overstate-
ment in order to feign an infatuation that he does not feel.
4

Theocritean Spaces 2
Mythological and Encomiastic Space

Mythological Space
Idylls 13 on Herakles and Hylas, 22 on the Dioskouroi, and 24 on the infant
Herakles’s strangling the snakes sent by Hera are difficult to classify. They bear
clear affinities with epic poetry. Herakles had been a figure in epic, and Idyll 13
and the Amykos episode of Idyll 22 treat stories from the Argonautic saga, which
had been a subject of epic since before the Odyssey. Closer to home, Theocritus’s
contemporary Apollonius of Rhodes narrated both stories on either side of the
division between Books 1 and 2 of his Argonautika. But Pindar is an important
presence in the Polydeukes section of Idyll 22 and, along with Simonides, in Idyll
24. And so in what follows I avoid the term “epyllion,” which would imply that
Theocritus was only experimenting with small-​scale epics when he was clearly
doing other things as well.1 I considered “epicizing” as a description but rejected
that as similarly limiting, although it describes an important aspect of these texts.
I have adopted instead the term “mythological space” as at least noncommittal

1. On the history of this term with a case for its continued usefulness, see Gutzwiller 1981,
2–​9. She sees these and other similar Hellenistic poems as combining epic with Callimachus’s
“leptotic” style, with the result that “the epyllion is epic which is not epic, epic which is at odds
with epic, epic which is in contrast with grand epic and old epic values” (5). I am going to take
a somewhat different approach while taking it for granted that many of the effects Gutzwiller
describes so well are undoubtedly there. On the other hand, Acosta-​Hughes 2012a, 156–​157,
expresses well-​founded skepticism about the underlying assumption that poems of this nature
arose as a response to an alleged opposition between small-​scale narrative works and traditional
large-​scale epic. He suggests instead that hexameter and elegiac poetry spread in the Hellenistic
period “into the space occupied earlier by other metrical forms” and that “one might prefer to
see the proliferation of the shorter hexameter poem as a result of metrical expansion rather
than generic reaction.”

Theocritus. William G. Thalmann, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197636558.003.0002
45

Theocritean Spaces 2 45

regarding generic affinities but still preserving distinctions from the bucolic and
urban poems.2
The label hardly matters for my purposes, however. There is no single charac-
teristic and distinctive space that these Idylls share. Idyll 24 is set mainly within
domestic space. In the other two poems, Theocritus creates lush natural set-
tings. In Idyll 13, this setting partially reworks certain elements of bucolic space
but is not properly bucolic. In Idyll 22, it is bucolic but becomes the stakes in
a non-​bucolic boxing match. Springs figure conspicuously in both, but springs
now are not places where herdsmen come together and sing; they are places of
more dangerous kinds of convergence. Charles Segal assimilates Idylls 13 and
22 to the bucolic poems in regard to their treatment of water.3 I suggest that
there are important points of overlap but equally important distinctions to be
made. Callimachus’s Epigram 22, which Segal quotes, illustrates both. A Nymph
snatches the Cretan goatherd Astakides “from the mountain”—​that is, if “the
mountain” has the same significance here as it does in Theocritus, she makes him
vanish from bucolic space. Like Hylas, Astakides is now divine (ἱερός—​the sound
play with ὄρεος, “[from] the mountain,” emphasizes the separation). In the sec-
ond couplet, we are back in the bucolic world, beneath the oaks of Mount Dikte,
where “we” will no longer sing of Daphnis but always of Astakides.4 In good
bucolic fashion, an absence provokes songs (see c­ hapter 3). The epigram strikes a
balance between the inside and the outside of bucolic space, but in Idyll 13 there
is no bucolic space from which Hylas disappears.

Idyll 13
In Idyll 13, Theocritus makes a display of not creating a space that we could iden-
tify with epic poetry, either. When the heroes mustered at Iolkos for the voyage
in quest of the Golden Fleece, Herakles brought Hylas with him (Id. 13.19–​24):

ἵκετο χὠ ταλαεργὸς ἀνὴρ ἐς ἀφνειὸν Ἰωλκόν,

Ἀλκμήνας υἱὸς Μιδεάτιδος ἡρωίνας,

2. Idyll 26, on the story of Pentheus’s dismemberment by his mother and her sisters, offers very
little of interest in regard to space and will not be discussed here.
3. Segal 1981, 54–​63.
4. This replacement of one archetypal bucolic “hero” by another as subject for commemora-
tion perhaps suggests that Callimachus was responding to Theocritean bucolic, perhaps play-
fully “correcting” it. If so, “the mountain” in the epigram is likely to signify bucolic space. The
word’s occurrence in the first couplet would tip off the canny reader about this poem’s relation
to Theocritus.
46

46 T heo crit us

σὺν δ’ αὐτῷ κατέβαινεν Ὕλας εὔεδρον ἐς Ἀργώ,

ἅτις κυανεᾶν οὐχ ἅψατο συνδρομάδων ναῦς,
ἀλλὰ διεξάιξε βαθὺν δ’ εἰσέδραμε Φᾶσιν
αἰετὸς ὥς μέγα λαῖτμα, ἀφ’ οὗ τότε χοιράδες ἔσταν.

There came also to wealthy Iolkos that workhorse of a man,

the son of Alkmene, the heroine from Midea,
and with him Hylas went down to the strong-​thwarted Argo,
the ship that did not touch the dark Clashing Rocks,
but darted through and sped to deep Phasis
like an eagle, a great expanse of sea [to cross], from which time then
  the rocks stood still.

In a spectacular ellipsis, the Argo’s entire voyage outward, from its origin at Iolkos
through the Bosporos strait to Phasis, is implied, not narrated, by reference to
these three points—​all in one breathless sentence (Id. 13.16–​24), of which I have
quoted only part. The journey across the Aegean Sea to the Bosporos gets no
mention whatever, and the passage along the whole length of the Black Sea is
summarized as “a great expanse.”5 That is, in this poem, in glaring contrast, at least
to us, with Apollonius’s Argonautika, the Argonauts speed through undifferenti-
ated space that is worth mentioning only as an obstacle between them and their
destination.6 Then, after mentioning the Argo reaching the end of its voyage, the

5. Lines 23–​24 are problematic (on the difficulties, see Hunter 1999, 272–​273), especially the
construction of μέγα λαῖτμα. To avoid forcing an interpretation, I have omitted the commas
after Φάσιν and ὥς printed by both Gow and Hunter. In my translation I have followed the
suggestion of White 1979, 80–​82, that the phrase is in apposition to the second half of line
23. I find Hunter’s “as an eagle [soars] over a vast expanse” also tempting. Either interpreta-
tion makes my point possible: that the Black Sea is just something to be sped over, abstract
rather than constructed space. Both have the advantage of giving μέγα λαῖτμα the sense it must
have: an expanse of open sea. For that reason, understanding the phrase as referring to the
Bosporos (Dover 1971, 184) or to the mouth of the Phasis River (Gow 1952, II, 236–​237) is
unpersuasive. Griffiths’s Πόντον for Φᾶσιν is unnecessary (1996, 107–​108), since the name of
the river can be explained as I am doing. A more serious problem is ἀφ’ οὗ τότε . . . ἔσταν (the
collocation of both τότε and an aorist verb with ἀφ’ οὗ, as Griffiths points out) in line 24.
Possibly ἀφ’ οὗ is corrupt and the rest of the line can be retained. Excision of line 24 would not
affect my point about the telescoping of the Black Sea voyage, as long as Φᾶσιν is retained in
line 23.
6. This narrative selectivity is mentioned briefly by Elliger 1975, 352–​353, as characteristic of the
opposition in this poem between the epic and bucolic worlds. As will emerge, I see something
more complex than this straightforward opposition.
47

Theocritean Spaces 2 47

narrative goes back to the beginning, the Argo’s departure from Iolkos, which
begins an equally long sentence that similarly traverses a long expanse of space
without mentioning it (Id. 13.25–​31):

Ἆμος δ’ ἀντέλλοντι Πελειάδες, ἐσχατιαὶ δὲ

ἄρνα νέον βόσκοντι, τετραμμένου εἴαρος ἤδη,
τᾶμος ναυτιλίας μιμνάσκετο θεῖος ἄωτος
ἡρώων, κοῖλαν δὲ καθιδρυθέντες ἐς Ἀργώ
Ἑλλάσποντον ἵκοντο νότῳ τρίτον ἆμαρ ἀέντι,
εἴσω δ’ ὅρμον ἔθεντο Προποντίδος, ἔνθα Κιανῶν
αὔλακας εὐρύνοντι βόες τρίβοντες ἄροτρα.

When the Pleiades rise, and the farthest meadows

pasture the newborn lamb, with spring now turning into summer,
Then the godlike flower of heroes turned their attention to
sailing, and sitting down in the hollow Argo
they came to the Hellespont, aided by the south wind that blew for
three days,
and they put to shore within the Propontis, where the Kianians’
cattle cut wide furrows as they wear out the plowshares.

No sooner do the Argonauts take their seats on the rowing benches at the Argo’s
first launch than they reach the Hellespont in the next clause and then moor the
ship at Kios in the Propontis, where the main part of the narrative, the loss of
Hylas, is set. There is no mention of crossing the Aegean from Iolkos or of sailing
up the Hellespont or of anything that happened along the way. At the end of the
poem, yet another dramatic elision occurs. The narrative leaves Herakles rushing
through mountain thickets, while his companions wait for him on the shore so
that they can set sail, and appends these lines (Id. 13.72–​75):

οὕτω μὲν κάλλιστος Ὕλας μακάρων ἀριθμεῖται·

Ἡρακλέην δ’ ἥρωες ἐκερτόμεον λιποναύταν,
οὕνεκεν ἠρώησε τριακοντάζυγον Ἀργώ
πέζᾳ δ’ ἐς Κόλχους τε καὶ ἄξενον ἵκετο Φᾶσιν.

So the most beautiful Hylas is numbered among the blessed gods.

But as for Herakles, the heroes taunted him as a ship deserter,
because he left the thirty-​benched Argo
and came to the Colchians and inhospitable Phasis on foot.
48

48 T heo crit us

There is a lot going on in these lines, but here I just want to mention that we are
not even told of the Argonauts sailing through the Bosporos and crossing the
Black Sea to the Phasis River. If Herakles got there on foot and they are there to
taunt him, they must have completed the voyage, but the text does not bother to
say so. An obvious point, perhaps, but once again a long and—​according to other
sources—​eventful voyage is simply left out, in a third example in this short poem
of a radical telescoping of space and time. It is true, of course, that we have already
been told of the arrival at the Phasis in line 23, in what may be an anticipation of
the inexplicitness here. In fact, lines 23 and 75 form a ring, with ἵκετο Φᾶσιν recall-
ing the earlier εἰσέδραμε Φᾶσιν. References to the arrival at the goal of the quest
thus enclose the narrative proper, as if to signal both that this episode at Kios is
part of a larger story and, at the same time, that the frame narrative is not what
this poem is interested in telling. Theocritus does manage to get the entire voyage
to Colchis into his poem, but he does so by leaving out all the struggles and adver-
sity that made the Argonautic myth the story of a heroic quest. And he offers
even the skeleton of that larger story almost flamboyantly out of order: mustering
at Iolkos, passage through the Clashing Rocks, arrival at the Phasis, departure
from Iolkos, arrival at the Hellespont, putting to shore at Kios, the Hylas episode,
Herakles’s arrival at the Phasis (to find the other Argonauts already there).
This convoluted order stands in strong contrast to the linear structure of
Apollonius’s Argonautika, and the difference shows clearly that Theocritus sup-
presses what Apollonius so beautifully portrays: the Argo’s progress along the
south coast of the Black Sea as a process of constructing a network of places that
in historical times were sites of Greek colonies, with the voyage thus forming the
eastward segment of a great loop that by the end of the poem takes in the Adriatic
Sea and the western Mediterranean and has mainland Greece as its c­enter.7
Whatever the relation between the two texts, they show alternative ways of han-
dling the same mythic material. The contrast shows all the more clearly that the
narrative dislocations and ellipses in Idyll 13 are a device to focus attention on
this place, Kios, and this story, Herakles’s loss of Hylas. In the Argonautika, the
episode is subordinate to the main narrative and a diversion from the Argonauts’
heroic purpose—​a permanent diversion in the case of Herakles, who is lost
from the expedition. Idyll 13’s emphasis is not on heroic achievement but on the
power of eros, which subdues both the mighty Herakles and the divine Nymphs.
Apollonius, by contrast, never makes it explicit that Herakles feels eros for Hylas.

7. See Thalmann 2011. On the question of the priority of Apollonius or Theocritus, see the
introduction to the present book. The contrasts I am drawing here imply no position on that.
49

Theocritean Spaces 2 49

We can infer from the narrative that he does, but there is no need to; Apollonius’s
emphases lie elsewhere.
Theocritus is interested in space but in one place, not in the grand sweep
of the Argonautic voyage. Kios is the place where the desires of Herakles and
the Nymphs for Hylas clash. At Kios, two locations are described in detail: the
beach where the Argonauts land, with the adjacent meadow from which they
collect brush for couches on which to eat dinner, and the spring whose Nymphs
pull Hylas into the water (Id. 13.32–​35, 39–​45). These two settings have been dis-
cussed in particular by Donald Mastronarde and by Einfried Elliger, who map
onto them the oppositions they see as structuring the poem: that between eros,
along with “realism (especially rusticism) and pastoral imagery,” and heroism for
Mastronarde and that between bucolic and epic for Elliger.8 Mastronarde con-
siders the scene at the meadow pastoral, or at least rustic, in nature, so that the
Argonauts, pulled away from epic in the direction of bucolic, are transformed
“into simple herdsmen in a Theocritean idyll.” The spring is if anything more
intensely bucolic (“the pastoral fantasy-​world”) and so the place of anti-​heroic
eros.9 Elliger essentially agrees, noting differences between the Argonauts’ prepa-
rations for the meal and the corresponding Homeric type scene. For him as well,
the spring remains within the bucolic framework but shows nature in a darker,
more sinister aspect than does the meadow.
As for the meadow, not every natural setting is bucolic, and at least in connec-
tion with Theocritus, it can be misleading to identify the countryside as a whole
with pastoralism. Theocritus always provides certain markers of the bucolic when
he wants us to think of a scene in that way, and most—​but not quite all—​are
missing here. In fact, he has identified Kios as an agricultural place (Id. 13.30–​
31), and this low-​lying meadow fits into that context, as with Augeias’s estate in
Idyll 25, even though meadows can also be part of the landscape of the bucolic
poems. These meadows are not distinctively bucolic. There are indeed two details
of the description that appear as appurtenances of the bucolic world: galingale
(κύπειρος; cf. Id. 1.106, 5.45) and couches of brush, στιβάδες, on which herds-
men take their ease and enjoy song (cf. Id. 5.34, 7.67).10 These are not enough to
make this setting bucolic, but I do not consider them insignificant, either. They

8. Mastronarde 1968 (quotation from 279); Elliger 1975, 351–​356.

9. Mastronarde 1968, 284, 285. I give a different view of Idyll 13, but I do so with great respect
for the quality of this deservedly influential article.
10. The other words that Mastronarde lists (1968, 284n25) seem to me to have far less spe-
cific connection to the bucolic world: χαμεύναν, a bed on the ground, occurs in an agricultural
pleasance at Id. 7.133; the meadow (λειμών) I have already discussed; and στόρνυμι appears also
at Id. 6.33 but can be used of making up a bed in almost any context (including epic).
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50 T heo crit us

show Theocritus reusing elements of his bucolic poetry in a new context that still
retains some contact with the bucolic world.11 Perhaps we could say that he is
conceiving this agricultural meadow scene to some extent through the lens of the
bucolic imagination. I will return to this point below.
No spring in the bucolic poems is given anything like the description lavished
on this one, although, as Elliger notes, the emphasis is on the plants that border
it (Id. 13.39–​42), none of which appears anywhere else in Theocritus, with one
exception.12 We learn little else, beyond the location in a “low-​lying place,” the
darkness of the water, and of course, the three Nymphs dancing in its midst (Id.
13.40, 49, 43–​45). The impression is one of natural lushness, but the atmosphere
is uncanny. This is not a bucolic place. Unlike bucolic springs, which are places
of leisure and relaxation, “this place does not invite one to tarry.”13 If it has any
affinities outside this poem, they are with Kalypso’s cave in the Odyssey (5.63–​75),
and, like that place, it has strong associations with female sexuality.14
This spring needs to be seen in relation to the meadow by the shore. The
meadow is a place of spatial clarity, a scene of pause in a linear journey (even if
that is not directly narrated), where nature furnishes the necessities of human
comfort, where human sociability finds expression, and where the social order
that prevails aboard the Argo is preserved: the Argonauts disembark κατὰ ζυγά,
in the order in which they sit in pairs on board ship,15 and Herakles and Telamon
intend to share a meal just as they always have shared the same table (Id. 13.32,
37–​38). At the spring, a human social relationship is severed, and the bound-
ary between human and divine is blurred, when Hylas is made immortal. The
Nymphs, as sexual aggressors, invert normative Greek gender relationships, and
Hylas, instead of being guided into manhood by Herakles, is reduced to childish-
ness, sitting in tears on the Nymphs’ laps as they try to comfort him (Id. 13.53–​54).
So the inland spring, unlike the shore, is a place where normal human categories
are disordered and where mortals are up against powers beyond their control.
Accordingly, spatial categories—​near and far—​are also confused. Three times,

11. On more general affinities between Idylls 13 and 11, see Sens 2021, 180, and 178–​181 on “the
porousness of the boundaries between the mimetic and narrative poems.” I fully agree with his
argument, but as he implies, even porous boundaries still exist.
12. The exception is celery, σέλινον; cf. Id. 3.23, 7.68. On the idiosyncrasies of this description,
see Elliger 1975, 354–​355. See also Foster 2016, 129–​135, who gives an ingenious explanation of
why celandine is here said to be “dark-​hued,” an apparent botanical impossibility.
13. Elliger 1975, 355.
14. Hunter 1999, 277.
15. I do not find the problems raised by Gow (1952 II, 238) and Hunter (1999, 275) serious
obstacles to understanding the phrase in this way.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 51

“with all the power of his deep throat” (Gow’s translation), Herakles bellows for
Hylas; “and three times the boy responded, but his voice came thin from [below]
the water, and although he was very nearby he seemed far off ” (Id. 13.59–​60).
Immediately afterward, like a lion charging after a fawn, Herakles rushes ran-
domly and without direction in search of Hylas (Id. 13.62–​67). His spatial disori-
entation reflects his mental derangement and therefore dramatizes the power of
eros that is the poem’s main theme. “In longing for the boy,” he “whirl[s]‌16 among
untrodden [hence, pathless] brambles” and “cover[s] much ground . . . over
mountains and through thickets.” As with the Argonauts’ voyage to Colchis
but for very different reasons, space is something to be passed through, and its
only features worth mentioning are the obstacles—​mountains and thickets—​to
Herakles’s mad flight. And these mountains (plural) are very different from “the
mountain” of bucolic poetry, which is constructed as benevolent and nurturing
according to human needs and desires. They are featureless except for their thick-
ets, devoid of cultural significance. Thickets (δρυμοί) do figure in bucolic poetry,
but they are on the margins of the bucolic world and help to define it by contrast.
Finally, and in sharp opposition to the scene in the wilds, the focus shifts back to
the shore, where the Argonauts wait in vain for Herakles so that they can resume
their purposeful journey to the Phasis River.
What, then, of the opposition between epic and bucolic as the structural basis
of Idyll 13? As we have seen, bucolic is not much in evidence in this poem; a few
of its elements are there, but they are just traces. For that reason, I doubt that
this opposition plays a role here, although I would agree with Mastronarde that
Theocritus places eros in strong contrast to traditional epic values. And questions
of literary genre certainly play a role in the poem. To leave Apollonius to one side
for a moment, in addition to echoes of Homeric and Hesiodic epic and perhaps
the Homeric Hymn to Demeter,17 the opening lines display “clear affinities with
sympotic elegy and lyric,”18 in keeping with the theme of eros. But I would sug-
gest that genres are not the main issue in the poem or its central focus but instead
that Theocritus uses them as a literary tool. That is, by reconfiguring conventional
elements of epic and lyric, he creates a novel text that escapes traditional generic
categories, something that is neither epic nor lyric—​nor bucolic, either: a poem

16. δεδόνητο: “this unusual passive . . . combines the whirl of Herakles’ emotions with the rapid
movement of his legs” (Hunter 1999, 285). This verb expresses the effect of erotic passion in
Sappho and Pindar (passages cited by Hunter).
17. Gutzwiller 1981, 22–​27. On Homeric allusions, see also Foster 2016: 122–​128.
18. Hunter 1999, 262. On the lyric (as well as epic) affinities of the simile in Id. 13.62–​63, see
Kampakoglou 2021, 251–​252. On “the sympotic Herakles,” see Foster 2016, 144–​146.
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52 T heo crit us

in hexameters that uses a mythic episode to demonstrate the sweeping powers of

eros.19
It would still be possible to claim that this poem takes an anti-​epic stance
or shows the incompatibility of eros with heroism.20 Even so, these are in ser-
vice to the poem’s main program, the depiction of eros’s effect, not that program
itself. David Halperin, however, offers a more complex view, in accordance with
his argument that the Idylls represent a Hellenistic form of “epos.” Through
his twin techniques of “epic inversion” and “epic subversion,” Halperin sug-
gests, Theocritus tries not to expose the obsolescence of traditional epic but to
forestall it by “[remaking] the genre of epos into a suitable vehicle for ‘modern’
(Alexandrian) aesthetic ideals and themes” and therefore by creating continuity
with earlier epic even when he took an “anti-​heroic” stance: “genuine continuity
with the past could be achieved only by the most radical departures from tradi-
tion.”21 A strength of this perspective, I think, is that Theocritus’s poetic project
appears more constructive than polemical, but as I have said in the introduc-
tion, we need to take account of the strong elements from lyric poetry as well.
Alexander Sens’s recent description of Theocritus’s relation to the epic tradition
seems partly to dovetail with Halperin’s view:

Broadly speaking, Theocritus’ mythological poems appropriate (a refined

version of ) the language and meter of the epic tradition to explore a range
of alternative perspectives on heroic and divine behavior. In this sense they
are not hostile to epic but rather call into question the privileged authority
of that genre in the tradition.22

The common ground with Halperin here is the idea of opening up alternative
perspectives. Doing so can result in exposing to question the traditional author-
ity of epic, but that would not be the main effect of these poems or the most
interesting one.

19. This will be discussed further in ­chapter 3.

20. Gutzwiller 1981, 19–​29, and Mastronarde 1968, respectively.
21. Halperin 1983, 217–​248 (quotations from 228 and 237, respectively). By “epic subversion”
Halperin means “the transferral of a traditional mythological subject to a mundane, anti-​heroic
situation,” and by “epic inversion” he means portraying “low mimetic subjects in roles previ-
ously assigned to heroes” (237). On Halperin’s argument about epos, see my introduction.
22. Sens 2021, 177. He elaborates this view in connection with each of the mythological poems
in the final section of his essay (188–​195).
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Theocritean Spaces 2 53

I approach the mythological poems in a similar spirit. Here I would like to

propose a way of looking at Idyll 13’s relation to epic that is suggested by the
few bucolic elements it does contain and that is consistent with the views of
Halperin and Sens. Theocritus took the Argonautic myth, which lent itself well
to epic treatment, and showed what else might be done with it by one whose
imagination was capable of producing bucolic poetry. One signal of this new
approach early on in the poem might be the time marker for the launch of the
Argo in lines 25–​26, which is thoroughly, and in the context somewhat jarringly,
bucolic: “when the farthest meadows pasture the newborn lamb” (quoted ear-
lier). This could be read as a polemical appropriation of epic to bucolic, or vice
versa, but it can be understood also as a sign that a characteristic story of the
epic repertoire is about to be told not as bucolic but from the perspective of a
bucolic sensibility. From this point of view, one might say that constructing
continuities with tradition, especially when such claims call attention to their
constructed nature by deliberately reading contemporary preoccupations back
into it, was as much in the spirit of Alexandrian poets’ dealing with the past as
irony was.
An element of this reimagining of the story as one of eros was to play with
vast distances and shrink them to insignificance in the treatment of the voyage
to Colchis, to condense the spatial and temporal scope of the myth to one sole
incident of a few hours in a single place. Conversely, in the scene at the spring in
which eros’s power was played out, Theocritus took a small distance and expanded
it: Hylas is close to Herakles, but his cry seems to come from far away. Another
move was to counterbalance the spatial clarity of shore and meadow with the
spatial confusion of the spring. In this way, Theocritus created an environment in
which the greatest hero of the Greeks, the killer of the Nemean lion, rushed lion-​
like in yearning for his lost love.

Idyll 22
In Idyll 22, two Argonauts, the Dioskouroi Kastor and Polydeukes, again leave
camp on the shore and go inland, where they, too, find a spring in possession of a
formidable inhabitant, not Nymphs this time but the monstrously huge Amykos,
who challenges Polydeukes to a boxing match. Now eros is not at issue but almost
its opposite, male competition as opposed to hospitality. The underlying issue is
the respective claims on a place by a native and a newcomer or guest—​a question
of more than casual interest to Greek readers in the wake of Alexander’s con-
quests or the long process of Greek colonization more generally.
Whatever is the relation between this poem and Idyll 13 on the one hand
and Apollonius’s treatment of the same stories on the other, the two Theocritean
54

54 T heo crit us

Idylls implicitly invite us to read them alongside each other.23 After a hymnic
proem, the Amykos section of Idyll 22 begins like this (Id. 22.27–​29):

ἡ μὲν ἄρα προφυγοῦσα πέτρας εἰς ἓν ξυνιούσας

Ἀργὼ καὶ νιφόεντος ἀταρτηρὸν στόμα Πόντου,
Βέβρυκας εἰσαφίκανε θεῶν φίλα τέκνα φέρουσα.

Well, the Argo, escaping the rocks that clash together

and the forbidding maw of the snowy Pontos [Black Sea],
arrived at the territory of the Bebrukes, carrying the gods’ dear sons.

Once again, the passage through the Bosporos is passed over with a quick sum-
mary in favor of a narrative focus on the place that will be the setting of the inci-
dent to be recounted. Theocritus locates the Amykos episode on the coast of the
Black Sea, after the Argo escaped the Clashing Rocks, whereas Apollonius put it,
like the Hylas episode, in the Propontis, before that point.24 Spatially and nar-
ratively, then, the two Idylls bracket the Clashing Rocks, and the effect is to make
all the more conspicuous the ellipsis of the passage through them, which in the
myth was a major exploit of the Argonauts and an important heroic achievement
that—​as Apollonius’s account of it shows—​offered an epic poet the opportunity
for bravura treatment. The emphasis is thrown all the more strongly on the major
themes of these two accounts, which are in some ways opposites: Herakles’s mad
dash through the spatially indeterminate wilds under the compulsion of eros, as
opposed to the reclaiming of a natural space for the civilized institution of ξενία
(“hospitality”) through the overcoming of Amykos, who considers this place his
alone and tries to enforce that claim violently. In short, in the two poems, respec-
tively, we see the limits of the greatest mortal hero as opposed to the civilizing
triumph of a god in the guise of a hero.
Polydeukes overcomes Amykos through brute force (whereas in Apollonius,
the struggle is between physical might and crafty intelligence), and the same is
later true of Kastor’s victory over Lynkeus, which carries a very different moral
valence. In both duels, it is easy to forget, at least temporarily and despite the

23. On the relation between the two Idylls, with 22 possibly “a kind of narrative completion” of
13, see Hunter 1996, 59–​61.
24. Cf. Sens 1994, 71–​72, who argues that Theocritus has already alluded to Apollonius’s
account of the passage through the Bosporos in the proem when he described ships in distress
rescued by the Dioskouroi (Id. 13.10–​12) and calls Theocritus’s placement of the Amykos epi-
sode a “correction” of Apollonius. If this should be right—​and again, it may involve a chrono-
logical difficulty—​it would sharpen the point I am making. Cf. Sens 1997, 28–​29.
5

Theocritean Spaces 2 55

poem’s “hymnic” opening, that (as Theocritus implies) these brothers are divine,
and so we are tempted to see the episodes as combats between mortal heroes. This
possibility is reflected in the ambiguity of the phrase “the dear sons of the gods”
in line 29. Conventionally, in epic this refers to the race of heroes, but in the case
of the Dioskouroi, it turns out to be literally true as they triumph in what are,
after all, unequal fights.
In both Idylls 13 and 22, arrival on the shore is followed by a scene of disembar-
kation (Id. 13.32–​35, Id. 22.30–​33). The two descriptions have much in common,
including verbal similarities.25 But the similarities, by inviting us to compare the
two scenes, accentuate a major difference. Idyll 13, as we have seen, constructs the
encampment on the shore and the nearby meadow as a place that is aligned with
and opposed to another place, the spring where Hylas disappears. In Idyll 22, no
such process occurs. We learn only that the beach was “deep” and sheltered from
the wind. What might have been a description of a meadow is replaced by the
summary phrase “they strewed couches” (εὐνάς τ’ ἐστόρνυντο); this is followed,
in the same line, by preparations for dinner, which are reduced to a mention of
the Argonauts twirling fire sticks. Clearly the interest in this account is not in the
shore and activities there, or in aligning two different places, but in the spring
itself.26
Whereas spring and shore are contrasting places in Idyll 13, then, they
have nothing to do with each other in this poem. The spring is a separate, self-​
contained space. A hint of this can be seen in the Dioskouroi’s departure from
the camp (Id. 22.34–​36):

Κάστωρ δ’ αἰολόπωλος ὅ τ’ οἰνωπὸς Πολυδεύκης

ἄμφω ἐρημάζεσκον ἀποπλαγθέντες ἑταίρων,
παντοίην ἐν ὄρει θηεύμενοι ἄγριον ὕλην.

Kastor of the swift horse and dark-​faced Polydeukes

both went off alone, wandering away from their companions,
observing the wild variegated wood on the mountain.

Whereas Hylas had a purpose in leaving the encampment—​to fetch water for the
meal—​and a destination, the brothers simply “wander away” from their compan-
ions and “are solitary”; both verb forms in line 35 are highly significant. They are
in a deserted place (the overtone of ἐρημάζεσκον), cut off from the human society

25. On these, see Matthews 1985, 68.

26. Elliger 1975, 357, makes several of these points but with little discussion.
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56 T heo crit us

of their companions. And they are “wandering away” without fixed path or des-
tination. This compound verb occurs in the Odyssey to indicate being destitute
of a safe or known place as well as uncertainty as to direction (it is also a favorite
of Apollonius).27 Like Odysseus, they are entering unknown places but, unlike
him, with no particular purpose. They are just looking at the natural scenery. But
as the sequel shows, they are “on the mountain,” not just as a place very different
from the flat seashore but in the specific sense Theocritus gives the phrase: they
are entering bucolic space. The Dioskouroi’s entry into what is virtually another
world seems all the more marked by contrast with Apollonius, who has Amykos
come to the shore to challenge the Argonauts (Arg. 2.8). And whereas in Idyll 13
the Argonauts wait on the shore for Herakles to reappear, here all the Argonauts
come to witness the boxing match when Kastor returns to the ship to lead them
into this other space. The Bebrukes seem to have been there already, since they
gather “swiftly” (θοῶς) in response to Amykos’s signal with the conch shell (Id.
22.75–​79).
Unlike the one in Idyll 13, this spring is part of a bucolic landscape (Id. 22.37–​
43). The abundant clear water beneath the smooth rock recalls the spring plash-
ing down from a rock at Id. 1.7–​8, except that there the sound is stressed, whereas
here the description is visual. Two of the four nearby trees—​firs and cypresses—​
appear in Theocritus’s bucolic poems,28 unlike those that surround the spring in
Idyll 13. The meadow with fragrant flowers offering “work dear to bees” might
remind us of the bees feeding the mythical goatherd and Komatas on honey gath-
ered from meadow flowers in Idyll 7 (78–​85). These flowers are “such as grow in
abundance throughout the meadows when spring is ending”—​the bucolic sea-
son, as we have seen. This time marker appeared in Idyll 13 (26), though not in the
identical phrase, not to describe a stylized timeless setting (where it seems always
to be spring) but to mark the particular time of the Argo’s launching. There it
signaled the difference between what starts as a heroic narrative and the bucolic
world; this narrative has moved into that world. All of this comes to us as observed
by the Dioskouroi: “they found it” (εὗρον, Id. 13.37, the initial word of the descrip-
tion). They are outsiders who gaze upon the fullness of this bucolic space.

27. Od. 8.573, 9.259, 12.285, 15.382. It is hard not to think of the uncompounded verb at the
beginning of the second line of the Odyssey. In view of the associations of Amykos with
Polyphemos, it may be significant that the instance in Book 9 occurs when Odysseus is identi-
fying himself and his men as wanderers from Troy and in the same position in the line as in Id.
13.35. On Apollonius’s use of the verb, see Thalmann 2011, 61.
28. πεῦκαι: Id. 7.88; κυπάρισσοι: Id. 11.45, Ep. 4.7 Gow (cf. Id. 5.104). On the relation between
Idyll 22 and bucolic, see Sens 1997, 40–​41, 95.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 57

But as we follow the Dioskouroi’s gaze, we become aware of a figure who

seems—​at least at first—​incongruously out of place in this peaceful scene: “there
a prodigious [ὑπέροπλος] man sat sunning himself [ἐνδιάασκε], terrible to look
upon.” With his cauliflower ears, his swelling chest and broad back, and his
muscles like boulders washed down by a winter torrent (an epic comparison)
in contrast to the pebbles visible at the bottom of the spring,29 Amykos seems
like a figure out of epic and—​at least initially—​alien to this bucolic space.30 The
lion skin he wears associates him with Herakles, now absent from the Argonautic
expedition, but this Herakles figure will be outclassed by Polydeukes. Theocritus,
in fact, combines a number of poetic strands in his narrative and his depiction
of Amykos. Apollonius’s treatment of the episode, even if Theocritus was not
responding to it, shows how this boxing match can be encompassed in epic poetry.
The boxing match in Book 23 of the Iliad (653–​699) lies behind the narrative
here, as does Odysseus’s encounter with Melanthios at a spring (Od. 17.204–​253).
Amykos himself combines traits of both Polyphemos and Iros in the Odyssey.31
Some have seen the influence of comedy on the narrative and give “ironizing”
readings of the whole episode.32 There is furthermore, as I have been suggesting,
Theocritean bucolic. And the poem begins by identifying itself as a hymn.
It is difficult to know what to make of this mixture. Many have seen in the
poem a commentary of one kind or another on traditional (i.e., epic) notions
of heroism, so that “the hero” no longer fits with the conditions and values of
the Alexandrian world (this view resembles Mastronarde’s influential reading of
Idyll 13).33 In a welcome move that goes beyond the notion of “die Kreuzung der
Gattungen” (intersection of genres), Richard Thomas has discussed Idyll 22 as an
example of generic “multiplicity” or “indeterminacy,” which he suggests, follow-
ing Todorov, can lead to the transformation of existing genres and the formation
of new ones.34 I think all these various readings can reasonably be elicited from

29. Noted by Hunter 1996, 62.

30. On the contrast, see Elliger 1975, 357–​358.
31. See especially Laursen 1992, 77–​81; Sens 1997, 96. That hospitality is also an issue in the
Polyphemos episode of the Odyssey is, as Sens points out, an important link between it and
Idyll 22.
32. See Elliger 1975, 358, and sources cited there; Effe 1978, 64–​71, who understands an ironized
distance between the poet and his subject as the hallmark of Theocritean poetry.
33. E.g., Griffiths 1976, 361; Laursen 1992: 92–​93. Cf. Sens 1994: 349 (on the Lynkeus episode).
34. Thomas 1996, 232–​238. I would not want to push this notion of “indeterminacy” too far,
however. Generic distinctions remain important in Theocritus; it would be hard otherwise
to recognize the way he recombines the features of various genres. As I hope this chapter and
­chapter 1 have shown, despite Thomas’s reservations, such distinctions do not necessarily
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58 T heo crit us

the text, but I would like to ask specifically why this scene is set in a bucolic space.
Given the prominence of bucolic in Theocritus’s poetic production, it does not
seem just one in an indeterminate mix of types, but it is especially marked. Those
who see the poem as a critique of epic or its ideas of the hero could answer that
displacing a duel set in mythic times into a bucolic environment while preserving
epic overtones is a way of launching a critique of that tradition by appropriating
it to a new context and, perhaps, diminishing it. I think this view is defensible,
but I would prefer to say more neutrally, as with Idyll 13, that the poem views epic
anew through a bucolic lens and shows what it would look like then, because
again I think that Theocritus uses genres and generic expectations as a language
rather than making them his main point. Something more than generic play may
be going on in this case.
Polyphemos is a memorable figure in an epic poem, the Odyssey, but even
there he is a herdsman and lives in a proto-​bucolic world. There is a richly sugges-
tive incongruity between his monstrous appearance and behavior and the natural
bounty amid which he lives. But this Polyphemos is also capable of tenderness
toward his pet ram, in contrast to his ferocity toward Odysseus (Od. 9.447–​460).
It was perhaps not a great leap for Theocritus (following Philoxenus, of course)
to depict him as both grotesque and vulnerable in his love for Galateia (Idylls 11
and 6). As the Odyssey and Theocritus’s own poems show, then, such a figure is
not entirely out of keeping with the bucolic world, even though we may also smile
at the thought of a Cyclops as a cheese-​eating shepherd. I suggest that the same
is true of Amykos. Let us look again at the line that introduces him, Id. 22.44
(quoted above). He is called ὑπέροπλος, “prodigious”—​probably a description at
once of his size and his arrogance. It looks like a Homeric epithet, and it is a
Homeric word; but it never is used of persons in either Homer or Hesiod. In view
of the prominence of Homer in this episode, Theocritus’s usage may be a hint
that Amykos is an epic-​style figure with a difference: not a warrior but an Iros
figure, as it turns out, a weak boaster.35 And in fact, when the Dioskouroi come
upon him, he is enjoying the leisure and pleasant surroundings of the bucolic
world: ἐνδιάασκε, “he was sunning himself.” This rare word occurs one other time

prevent us from drawing connections among poems in the corpus that belong to different types
(bucolics, urban mimes, and so on).
35. Apollonius does use the adjective for people, and he calls Amykos ὑπεροπληέστατος ἀνδρῶν,
“most prodigious of men” (Arg. 2.4; cf. Hunter 1996, 62; on the epithet, see also Campbell
1974, 40–​41, and Sens 1997, 29–​30, 113). If Theocritus should be responding to Apollonius, his
use of the adjective would signal that he is taking the Apollonian figure away from the shore
into the bucolic world and making the issue not a simple challenge by an overweening ruler
but the rights of hospitality.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 59

in Theocritus, again in a bucolic context (Id. 16.38), of shepherds pasturing their

flocks in the sunlight.36 He seems at home in this bucolic space, and from this
perspective the Dioskouroi are intruders who disrupt his peace. Of course, this is
not to deny his monstrosity or to claim that he is in the right vis-​à-​vis Polydeukes.
It is only to say that he, like Polyphemos, has his gentler moments. Book 9 of
the Odyssey shows the same ambivalence, although Odysseus-​as-​narrator seems
unaware of this. There is a sense in which Odysseus and his men intrude on the
Golden Age conditions that the Cyclopes enjoy (Od. 9.107–​111) and disturb the
closeness between the herdsman and his animals, the innocence of this proto-​
bucolic setting. This is only a countermovement to the main thrust of the episode,
but I would argue that the scene the Dioskouroi come upon also seems to have
a certain wholeness and innocence, in the sense that it is untouched by human
culture and its demands. Again a contrast with Apollonius may set this point in
relief. In the Argonautika, it is Amykos who comes down to the shore and inter-
feres with the Argonauts’ setting sail with his challenge to a boxing match, which
is unmotivated except by the fact that he challenges everyone who passes by.
What I am suggesting is that the line between epic and bucolic may not be
as sharp as many writers seem to suggest, that in Theocritus’s hands each form
can be accommodated to the other. By reconfiguring epic elements, he may be
putting them in a new context but not, from his point of view, perhaps, a wholly
alien one. We may, if we like, want to find in this process a critique of epic or
perhaps the creation of a new and rather ironic type of heroic poetry. But I think
that Theocritus is commenting on bucolic as well. With the figure of Amykos, he
is showing us, as he did in Idylls 11 and 6, that the bucolic world can contain the
grotesque and make it at home. Understanding this gives us an added sense of the
complexity and richness of his bucolic imagination.
This reconfiguration of epic, along with the different ways it can be read,
is perfectly encapsulated by lines 105–​106. Polydeukes delivers the first of two
knockdown blows:

          αὐτὰρ ὃ πληγείς
ὕπτιος ἐν φύλλοισι τεθηλόσιν ἐξετανύσθη.

       But he [Amykos], when struck,

fell sprawling on his back among the luxuriant leaves.

36. There is in addition ἐνδίους at Id. 16.95, also of shepherds in sunlight.

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60 T heo crit us

The epithet “luxuriant” especially invites us to visualize this ugly and now bat-
tered colossus against the background of natural abundance in a brief reprise of
the earlier description of the spring and his appearance. Once again, is the effect
simple incongruity, or might we also, without denying the incongruity, see mon-
strosity and its overcoming by a hero drawn into the bucolic world and given a
place in it? Would this effect not be heightened by the fact that Amykos falls
among leaves, whereas in epic poetry defeated heroes fall in the dust,37 or should
this be understood only, or even principally, as a diminishing of epic and heroism?
In fact, one way to read the relation between the setting and the action of this
part of the poem goes in the same direction. The episode ends with remarkable
self-​restraint on Polydeukes’s part and an oath by Amykos that he would cease
being a plague to strangers—​that is, with a vindication of the Greek norm of
hospitality and so of civility (Id. 22.131–​134). Usually we would expect that a hero
who conquers a monster would kill him, as the form of expression in line 131 sug-
gests: “although he won, [Polydeukes] did nothing extreme to him.” Polydeukes
does kill Amykos in Apollonius, and if Theocritus were writing in response, the
contrast would be calculated to make the result as he contrives it all the more
striking. In any case, given the traditional heroic emphasis on competitive honor,
this outcome is unexpected.38 But it fits well into the bucolic nature of this place.
At its best, the bucolic world is a welcoming place, one that promotes reciproci-
ties such as those in Idylls 1 and 6 or those at the heart of hospitality. The real
incongruity all along has been Amykos claiming this place solely for himself.
Now its bounty is open to all who come in need of it.
With the sparing of Amykos and the introduction of the Greek institu-
tion of hospitality to a non-​Greek place that lacked it, this episode might well
stand as “an idealized version of Hellenization.”39 It seems to present an ideal
resolution of the issue I pointed to earlier of the respective claims on a place by
newcomers and the indigenous inhabitants—​with, of course, Greeks dominant.
Through the mechanism of hospitality, newcomers are to be welcomed and are
to share in the local resources peaceably and without friction. This solution
might bear on the question of the relations of the Greeks in Alexandria to Egypt
in particular or the situation of Greek settlers in non-​Greek lands anywhere else.
The appropriation of territory through colonization or by other means and the

37. Laursen 1992, 86; Sens 1997, 149.

38. Odysseus, at a similar moment, considers killing Iros but then restrains himself—​and breaks
his jaw instead (Od. 18.90–​99)! He holds back only to keep the suitors from recognizing him
(line 94); his self-​restraint is strategic (κέρδιον).
39. Sens 2021, 183.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 61

hierarchical relations created in this way are presented in the guise of hospitality
and reciprocity.40 From this perspective, it seems fitting that this mystification
of intercultural relations occurs in, and has as its object, an idealized, virtually
enchanted, bucolic space.
Very different from the treatment of space in the Amykos episode is the
almost total lack of any landscape or spatial description in the third section of
the poem, which narrates the quarrel between the sons of Aphareus, Idas and
Lynkeus, and the Dioskouroi over their prospective brides, the daughters of
Leukippos, whom the Dioskouroi have abducted. The emphasis in the story as
Theocritus has shaped it is on kinship and the family, whereas in Pindar’s treat-
ment of the same myth (Nemean 10), the quarrel is over cattle. In Pindar, the
sons of Aphareus attack the Dioskouroi and kill Kastor. Polydeukes then pursues
them to their father’s tomb, they hit him with the stele, he stabs Lynkeus, and
Zeus incinerates Idas. Polydeukes is thus taking revenge for his brother’s death in
reaction to an attack by the sons of Aphareus. In Theocritus, on the other hand,
Lynkeus’s speech (Id. 22.145–​180) makes it clear that it is the Dioskouroi who are
bent on violence rather than a peaceful settlement.
Idas and Lynkeus have been pursuing their rivals and catch up with them at
the tomb of Aphareus, where Lynkeus and Kastor fight a duel, Lynkeus is killed,
and Idas, who tears off the stone marker on top of his father’s grave in order to
throw it at Kastor, is struck by Zeus’s thunderbolt. That tomb, with its stele, is
the only landmark mentioned. It figures already as “an adornment of Hades” in
Pindar (N. 10.65–​68). Here it fits with the narrative’s emphasis on the family; it
represents intergenerational kinship, which supplements the horizontal kinship
among the Dioskouroi, the Apharetidai, and the Leukippides: all three sibling
pairs are cousins. Theocritus makes the tomb a physical emblem of the dubious
morality of this episode, for Idas sits on it to watch the “battle within the fam-
ily” (μάχην ἐμφύλιον) taking place between Kastor and Lynkeus (Id. 22.199–​200).
Other than the tomb, however, there are no spatial markers of any sort.41 The
contrast with the spatial detail of the Amykos episode is stark, and by compari-
son with the lushness of the spring there, silence about the setting creates the
impression of a featureless landscape where the problematical destruction of
Lynkeus and Idas is all too much at home. This spatial difference works together
with all the other contrasts between these two sections of the poem. Both present

40. Here Theocritus seems to come close to Apollonius’s representation of colonization, espe-
cially in connection with the site of Heraclea Pontica. See Thalmann 2011, 101–​111.
41. For comments on the lack of setting of this section of the poem, see Gow 1942b, 15; Griffiths
1976, 362; Kurz 1991, 294; Laursen 1992, 87. Legrand 1898, 90–​91, gives a good general discus-
sion of the relation between the two mythic narratives in Idyll 22.
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62 T heo crit us

masculine competition that involves basic social institutions: in one, rights to a

place and hospitality and in the other, a contest over women that fits into a larger
mythic-​heroic background of marriage contests.42 Polydeukes clearly champions
justice and the rights of strangers, whereas Kastor is, along with his brother, just
as clearly in the wrong. Both sections involve duels as a means of trying to limit
violence, successful in the first case, in vain in the second.43 In the earlier episode,
the moral and social issues are debated in a passage of stichomythia (Id. 22.54–​
74) that is surprising in a hexameter hymn or other narrative poem and that has
affinities with tragic dialogue;44 in this episode, they are laid out in a long speech
by Lynkeus.45 There is also a marked stylistic difference. Frederick Griffiths speaks
of a reversal “between the gracefully variegated narrative of the Polydeuces epi-
sode and the oppressive Iliadic style of what follows.”46
With the combination of heroic and bucolic themes in the Amykos epi-
sode, through the relation of opposition between it and the third section of the
poem, and in the closing address to the twin gods (Id. 22.214–​222),47 Theocritus
seems to be engaging in a complex experiment in writing heroic poetry through

42. Sens 1992 shows in detail how the duel between Paris and Menelaus in Book 3 of the Iliad
is in the background of this narrative. That in turn is a realization of the more general pattern.
See Thalmann 1998, 153–​170, 193–​206.
43. Sens 1997, 15, makes a related point: “whereas in the first narrative a boxing match between
strangers ends without mortal violence, in the second φίλοι [‘friends, relatives’] fight each other
with the weapons of war, and with terrible results.”
44. The stichomythia could also be another touch that creates affinities with Theocritus’s
bucolic poetry, in which several poems contain or consist of dialogue constructed as exchanges
of speeches that have the same number of lines. See Thomas 1996, 233–​236; Sens 1997, 40–​41.
45. It will be obvious that I do not agree with Wilamowitz’s postulate of a lacuna after line 170
and his assignment of lines 170–​180 to Kastor. The question has been much discussed, but
I find the arguments of Moulton 1973 and Griffiths 1976 especially persuasive. See also Sens
1997, 190–​191.
46. Griffiths 1976, 362. On the contrast in styles, see also Gow 1952, II, 383; and Moulton
1973, 45–​46, who argues that “Theocritus has deliberately accompanied his stylistic contrast
between the two major sections of the poem with a moral contrast.” Sens, on the other hand,
offers a positive appreciation of the style of the Lynkeus episode and, although he leaves open
the possibility that “the episode can be read with profit as a subversion of the heroic tradition,”
is skeptical of claims that both narratives are critiques of epic poetry (Sens 1997, 41–​42, 19,
20–​21, respectively). I would prefer to speak neutrally of the poem as a rewriting of the heroic
or epic tradition. On the differences between the two narratives more generally, see also Kurz
1991, 243–​244; Laursen 1992, 87–​88; Sens 1997, 15. I would not follow Laursen in finding a
gradual transition in the character of the Dioskouroi; I think that the contrasts are intended
to be sharp and sudden.
47. On this final passage, see Sens 1992, especially 348–​349; Sens 1997, 22–​23.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 63

an Alexandrian sensibility48 by manipulating traditional forms. But this is not

just a formal experiment. He is also trying out a new way of writing a hymn: by
manipulating inherited stories and forms to explore both the beneficent and the
destructive power of the gods.49 His striking treatment of space in this poem is an
essential medium for carrying out this project.

Idyll 24
Herakles makes recurring appearances in Theocritus’s poetry, in keeping with his
importance to the Ptolemies, who claimed him as an ancestor.50 In Idyll 13 and
the possibly Theocritean Idyll 25, he is a man and engaged in the exploits that
established his heroic fame. In the Olympos scene near the beginning of Idyll 17,
he is immortal, living among the gods, and married to Hebe, goddess of youth, as
Teiresias prophesies in the poem to be discussed now, Idyll 24. There Herakles is a
ten-​month-​old baby who performs the prodigious exploit of throttling two huge
snakes sent by Hera to kill him, and the poem’s first two parts are set not in the
wider arena of heroic action but within the house of Alkmene and Amphitryon.
This location is, of course, entailed by Herakles’s infancy, and it naturally appears
in Theocritus’s two most important models for Idyll 24, Pindar’s Nemean 1 and
Paean 20. It has epic precedent in the second half of the Odyssey. But Theocritus
seems to emphasize the unheroic and mundane in, for example, the ineffectual-
ness of Amphitryon. Roused from sleep by his wife, he takes time to strap on his
sword and rushes to where the babies are lying, shouting for the slaves to bring
torches, only to find that Herakles has already strangled the snakes. Thereupon
he wraps Herakles back up in his blanket while Alkmene comforts the terrified
Iphikles and goes back to bed like any sleep-​deprived parent. Is the poem there-
fore a comedy set against epic models? Does it exploit the tension between the
outlooks of epic and lyric in order finally to undercut the heroic tradition?51 Does

48. Another dimension of that sensibility is the importance of the Dioskouroi to the Ptolemies’
self-​presentation, on which, especially as it is reflected in Alexandrian poetry, see Acosta-​
Hughes 2012b. For how the Lynkeus episode might have fit into that program, see the quota-
tion from Clayman in the next note.
49. See Hunter 1996, 72–​73. Clayman 2021, 570, has recently pointed out the political impli-
cations of the diverging portrayals of the divine brothers: “The contrast suggests the double
nature of Ptolemy, both a human who is expected to behave as a gallant aristocrat and an
immortal being with absolute power and no need for scruples.”
50. For a helpful discussion of Herakles’s various portrayals in Theocritus, see Acosta-​
Hughes 2012a.
51. Gutzwiller 1981, 10–​18.
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64 T heo crit us

it instead, or in addition, recast the heroic and mythic traditions in order to make
them accessible to the Hellenistic age, giving the old heroes “room to breathe”?52
Does it, in its main narrative and in many details, juxtapose the mortality and
immortality that are Herakles’s fate, showing the prevalence of the latter over the
former?53
Of course, there is deft humor in the poem, but it is mixed with the serious
theme of death and immortality that is central to earlier epic and tragedy, in keep-
ing with the heroic and comic potential in Herakles’s nature and story, and so a
focus on comedy and trivialization is not very helpful. As for the matter of genre,
Idyll 24 mixes in an interesting solution a large number of literary models even
for Theocritus, only some of which I will discuss here, but I am skeptical that the
point is entirely the overcoming of epic in a Callimachean rejection of large-​scale
poetry. I prefer to understand the poem as a renewal of the tradition and its liter-
ary forms to suit the interests and sensibilities of a new age. In this spirit, I would
like to draw attention to the poem’s central spatial feature, which is often over-
looked in this poem, perhaps because it is so obviously there: the house.
It is not easy to visualize this house, because Theocritus gives only piecemeal
and cryptic references to parts of it as they suit the narrative. On the basis of
what clues we have, perhaps we should imagine the parents asleep in one room
while the infants sleep in another.54 While Herakles is strangling the serpents, an
unearthly light fills the house, but when Amphitryon is ready to go investigate
its source, it suddenly disappears, and the “spacious παστάς [pastas]” is plunged
again into darkness (Id. 24.46). The pastas could be the parents’ bedchamber,55
but the word could equally well refer to a colonnade connecting the doors of
various rooms and fronting on an inner courtyard—​a known arrangement in
Hellenistic houses.56 This meaning suits the context better, since the point should
be that darkness fills the whole house, not just a single room. This prepares for the

52. Griffiths 1979, 98. Acosta-​Hughes 2012a, 255, tends in a similar direction: “Theocritus’
Heracles is recognizably the Archaic hero, but seen from a perspective that is not Archaic, and
this results in an object of attention at once familiar and novel.”
53. Stern 1974.
54. This rather than the infants in an alcove in the parents’ bedroom; see Gow 1942a, 109.
55. Gow 1942a, 109; 1952, II, 423.
56. Nevett 1999, 22–​25, and discussions of houses found at various sites, particularly Olynthos.
That modern archaeologists refer to this type as a pastas house, of course, says nothing about
the ancient usage of the word. The epithet “spacious” (ἀμφιλαφής) could suit the bedchamber
as a reminder that we are reading about a house of heroic proportions, but in its literal mean-
ing, “spreading on both sides,” it seems especially apt for a portico viewed from the courtyard;
Herodotus (4.172) and Plato (Phdr. 232b) use it to describe the spreading canopies of trees.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 65

hubbub that follows. Amphitryon shouts to his snoring slaves to bring torches
and unbar the doors, and his order is seconded by a slave woman who has been
sleeping at her mill, perhaps in the inner courtyard (she recalls the slave in Od.
20.98–​121, just as the light evokes Athena lighting the way for Odysseus and
Telemakhos at Od. 19.33–​40). The slaves obey, and the whole house is filled with
people rushing here and there (Id. 24.47–​53). In the next line, all are in the chil-
dren’s room, shouting in amazement at the sight of the nursling Herakles holding
the two serpents in his soft fists (Id. 24.54–​56), but it is easy to infer that the slaves
have unbarred the door to the room57 and have crowded inside with Amphitryon
and Alkmene holding torches to light up the scene.
This is a possible reconstruction that might help us visualize the scene, but it
is far from certain. Gow attributes the lack of explicit description to Theocritus’s
failure to imagine clearly the circumstances of his own narrative,58 but I would
suggest instead that the layout of the physical house matters far less than its
significance to the narrative. The idea of the house helps create an emphasis on
boundaries and enclosure that underlies whatever meanings we give the story as
a whole.59
The infants are inside a room within a house. Inside that room, they lie in
another enclosure, a bronze shield, and they are wrapped in swaddling blankets.
Within all these nesting enclosures, they seem protected and secure. The shield is
a highly significant object. It is a war trophy; Amphitryon took it in battle from
the corpse of his enemy Pterelaos. As many have noted, it is a subtle reminder
of Herakles’s and Iphikles’s conception by two different fathers, Zeus and
Amphitryon, on the night of the latter’s return from the war; and as a destruc-
tive weapon, a καλὸν ὅπλον (Id. 24.5), put to new, peaceful use, it represents the
domestication of martial, heroic violence and of Amphitryon himself, who is
now in the role of a peacetime father. This is domestication in the literal sense
of “placed within the house.” In the Odyssey, weapons are locked in a storeroom
or hung on the walls of the hall or megaron, inert but kept ready for violent use;

57. I think that the door referred to in Amphitryon’s command (Id. 24.49) is that of the
children’s room rather than the one leading to the slaves’ quarters (possible) or the door of
Amphitryon’s room (a fainter possibility) or the outer door of the house (surely inappropri-
ate here). See Gow 1942a, 109–​110. The plural could be a poetic usage or a reference, as often
elsewhere, to the two leaves of a single door.
58. Gow 1942a, 109.
59. Difficult though it is to reconstruct the house as a whole, we are given an idea of its various
parts. In Pindar’s account (Nemean 1), by contrast, the action is confined to a single room, the
one in which Alkmene has just given birth to the twins. See Foster 2016, 168–​169. The differ-
ence shows the greater thematic importance that Theocritus gives the house.
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66 T heo crit us

a shield is not repurposed as a cradle. The Homeric phrase used to describe the
shield when Alkmene rocks the babies in it, σάκος μέγα (“the great shield,” Id.
24.10), seems incongruous,60 but it also stresses the weapon’s diversion to nurture
rather than destruction.
Alkmene’s prayer for the children as she is rocking the shield, with its repeated
εὕδετε . . . εὕδετε at the beginning of successive lines (Id. 24.7–​8), recalls Danae’s
words to the infant Perseus in Simonides’s “Danae Fragment” (PMG 543) as they
are tossed at sea inside a “well-​wrought chest” (λάρνακι . . . δαιδαλέᾳ), of which
the shield is the counterpart. The echo is well known but is usually discussed in
connection with Theocritus’s reworking of earlier Greek poetry.61 But the allu-
sion adds significantly to the scene, because it imports into it the wider context of
Danae’s prayer. She and her baby are in great danger; the wind is blowing, and the
sea is rough. These are her words to him before her prayer (lines 8–​20):

σὺ δ’ ἀωτεῖς, γαλαθηνῷ
δ’ ἤθεϊ κνοώσσεις
ἐν ἀτερπέι δούρατι χαλκεογόμφῳ
⟨τῷ⟩δε νυκτιλαμπεῖ
κυανέῳ δνόφῳ ταθείς·
ἅλμαν δ’ ὕπερθε τεᾶν κομᾶν
βαθεῖαν παριόντος
κύματος οὐκ ἀλέγεις, οὐδ’ ἀνέμου
φθόγγον, πορφυρέᾳ
κείμενος ἐν χλανίδι, πρόσωπον καλόν.
εἰ δέ τοι δεινὸν τό γε δεινὸν ἦν,
καί κεν ἐμῶν ῥημάτων
λεπτὸν ὑπεῖχες οὖας.

But you sleep, and in a nursling’s

way you slumber
in this joyless vessel with brazen bolts
night-​shining [?]‌
stretched out in the murky dark.
You have no care for the deep salt water above your head
as the wave passes by, nor of the wind’s
howling, lying in your purple

60. Gutzwiller 1981, 11.

61. Hunter’s discussion (1996, 26–​27) is especially suggestive.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 67

robe, lovely face.

If what is frightful were frightful to you,
you would lend your tender ear to my words.

Sea and wind outside all around them, but inside the chest a precarious but pro-
tecting shelter, in which Perseus can sleep with a baby’s obliviousness to the dan-
ger surrounding him. In the same way, Herakles and Iphikles sleep in the shield
within the protection of the house, unaware of the danger threatened by Hera’s
machinations.
But unlike Perseus’s chest, the house proves inadequate against this divine mal-
ice. Sent by “much-​contriving” Hera (πολυμήχανος, like Odysseus), two enormous
snakes, “bristling with dark coils,” reach the broad threshold between the posts of
the house’s outer door (Id. 24.13–​16).62 The narrative emphasizes this threshold
and doorway, the boundary between outside and inside, and therefore the moment
when the serpents pass it. Pindar’s account, by contrast, hurries by the passage
through a doorway with a genitive absolute, οἰχθεισᾶν πυλᾶν (“when the door had
been opened, Nem. 1.41), and the door in question seems to be that of the chamber
in which Alkmene has just given birth to the twins (no sooner are the doors opened
than the snakes go into the innermost part of the room). Theocritus dwells on the
description of the serpents slithering through the house, uncoiling their “blood-​
devouring” bellies and spitting out venom, their eyes flashing fire, until they reach
the children (Id. 24.17–​20).
Unlike Perseus, Herakles is far from helpless but mighty, even as an infant.
His strangling of the serpents restores the integrity of the house’s boundary. That
the reassertion of boundaries is at issue here is suggested when Teiresias tells
Alkmene the next day to burn the snakes on spits and to order a slave woman to
collect the ashes and throw them across the river, beyond the territory’s boundary
(ὑπερούριον, Id. 24.95). As Jacob Stern has argued, this ritual casting out rein-
forces another distinction that runs parallel to the spatial drawing of boundaries,
between mortal and immortal. That the serpents are to be burned at midnight, the
same hour at which they would have killed Herakles, suggests that they are a sub-
stitute for him. The fire that flashed from their eyes becomes the fire that reduces
them to ash and annihilates them. That fire contrasts with the fire of Herakles’s
funeral pyre, which will, years later, burn away his mortal parts and release him

62. The door is identified as such by the genitive οἴκου, “of the house.” See Gow 1942a, 109. The
force of the adjective in the phrase “the hollow posts of the door” is unclear. It may suggest an
aperture beside the posts or, on the analogy of κοιλόσταθμος, latticework or paneling in the
leaves of the door themselves (Gow 1942a, 108)—​some opening that the snakes can squeeze
through, at any rate.
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68 T heo crit us

immortal to Olympos, where he will become son-​in-​law to “the immortals who

set on these monsters that live in a lair to destroy the child” (Id. 24.79–​85).63 The
underground nest that is their home contrasts with the house, where their pres-
ence is polluting. The house itself enters into the pattern of association created by
fire. After the snakes’ ashes are ejected, it is to be purified with sulfur; the word
for “fumigate” has at its base the word for “fire”: πυρώσατε (Id. 24.96). As fire will
burn off the impurity of mortality from Herakles, so the house will be cleansed of
the impurity introduced by the serpents’ invasion, its wholeness restored.64
The house is a feminine space, and this explains why Amphitryon, who has
performed heroic deeds outside it and indeed beyond the boundaries of his ter-
ritory, plays such a peripheral role in the action and why Alkmene is the domi-
nant figure.65 Not only does she give orders to Amphitryon and he obeys her (Id.
24.41: ἀλόχῳ . . . πιθήσας), not only does she send for Teiresias, who prophesies to
her in private, whereas in Pindar, Amphitryon sends for him and he speaks pub-
licly (Nem. 1.60–​61: παντὶ στρατῷ, “to the whole host”) in a masculine setting,
and not only does she arrange for Herakles’s education when he reaches boyhood
(Id. 24.134: φίλα παιδεύσατο μάτηρ, “his dear mother had him taught”). What is
less often remarked on is that Teiresias’s prophecy depicts Herakles’s future glory
from a markedly female perspective. Pindar’s Teiresias goes into some detail about
Herakles’s future exploits, and his speech culminates in the apotheosis as recom-
pense for those labors (Nem. 1.62–​72). In Theocritus, Teiresias gives only a quick
summary of the labors as demonstration of Herakles’s superiority to all other
men and beasts (Id. 24.81–​83), and that is enfolded in the prophecy of the hero’s
immortalization, which gets the main emphasis in the account of Herakles’s fate.
But the apotheosis in turn is introduced as the reason for Alkmene’s future glory
and subordinated to it (Id. 24.75-​80):

ναὶ γὰρ ἐμῶν γλυκὺ φέγγος ἀποιχόμενον πάλαι ὄσσων,

πολλαὶ Ἀχαιιάδων μαλακὸν περὶ γούνατα νῆμα
χειρὶ κατατρίψουσιν ἀκρέσπερον ἀείδοισαι

63. Stern 1974, 355–​357; cf. Stephens 2003, 137–​138, for Egyptian parallels, although the ritual
can be explained in Greek terms as well.
64. There is an important parallel here with Odysseus’s purification of his house with fire and
sulfur after removal of the corpses of the suitors (Od. 22.481–​482, 493–​494). This act is “a rem-
edy of evils” (κακῶν ἄκος), a cleansing of the impurity in the house caused by the killing, and an
important step in the restoration of his house’s integrity after he has gotten rid of the intruders.
65. On Alkmene in the story of the infant Herakles and her neglect by modern scholars, see
Davidson 2000. On her central role see more recently Kyriakou 2018, 204–​217, especially
215–​216.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 69

Ὰλκμήναν ὀνομαστί, σέβας δ’ ἔσῃ Ἀργείαισι.

τοῖος ἀνὴρ ὅδε μέλλει ἐς οὐρανὸν ἄστρα φέροντα
ἀμβαίνειν τεὸς υἱός . . .

Yes, by the sweet light of my eyes lost long ago,

Many Akhaian women, while they rub with the hand the wool
on their knees to soften it, will sing toward dusk
of Alkmene by name, and you will be revered by Argive women.
Such a man will he be, and he will ascend to the starry heaven—​
  your son.

Publicly performed epic and epinician poetry may celebrate men’s achievements,
but within the community of women, Alkmene’s name will be kept alive in songs
that accompany their work within the house. Of course, she will be celebrated for
doing what women in Greece’s patriarchal culture were supposed to do: produce
mighty sons for aristocratic families or for gods, as in the catalogue of heroines
seen by Odysseus in his visit to the dead.66 But the emphasis here is on the contri-
bution of Herakles’s achievements to Alkmene’s lasting fame. From the women’s
point of view, his glory is hers.
Thus, spatiality (the house as a feminine, protecting place) and gender
(Alkmene’s active role and future glory) are mutually implicated and reinforce
each other. This intertwining is an essential part of the artistry of Idyll 24 and is
not merely to be expected. Pindar, after all, had no difficulty giving Amphitryon
control of the action after the killing of the snakes, even though that took
place in Alkmene’s bedchamber right after she gave birth. Theocritus’s empha-
sis on the maternal also seems related to, though it is probably not completely
explained by, the ambiguity regarding Herakles’s father. He hints delicately at
this when, relatively late in the poem, he describes Herakles as “called the son
of Argive Amphitryon” (Id. 24.103–​104)—​his son in name only or known as
his son because he was? Earlier, we are told that when the serpents entered their
room, the children woke up “because [?]‌Zeus knew all” (Id. 24.21: Διὸς νοέοντος
ἅπαντα). This genitive absolute strangely interrupts a straightforward statement
of fact and so stands out. What is Zeus up to? Is he contriving that this baby,
who is destined to be Greece’s greatest hero, begin his career with a display of
infantile might so prophetic of what is to come? Is he protecting his son from his
stepmother’s spite? Or both? Circumspection doubtless was necessary; questions

66. Od. 11.225–​330. When Kleobis and Biton failed to awake the morning after their exploit,
the Argive men gathered around and called them blessed (ἐμακάριζον) because of their strength,
while the Argive women called their mother blessed for bearing such sons (Hdt. 1.31.3).
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70 T heo crit us

surrounding Philadelphus’s legitimacy as Soter’s heir may have made legitimacy a

delicate subject.67 These hints about Zeus’s paternity—​to which the shield (dis-
cussed earlier) should be added—​would have been caught by any reader, but a
more active role for Amphitryon would have thrown this question into relief.
I doubt that these considerations dictated Alkmene’s prominence, but they
work with it and with the setting inside the house. Theocritus seems to have
developed the importance of the woman’s perspective through the use of sev-
eral mythic prototypes. The allusion to Danae and Perseus through Simonides
is effective for several reasons in addition to the spatial point made earlier. Like
Herakles, Perseus was also the son of Zeus, who gained access to both mothers
by a shapeshifting ruse: he took on the likeness of Amphitryon in the one case
and visited the imprisoned Danae as a shower of gold. Alkmene is, in addition,
Perseus’s granddaughter through her father, Elektryon, a fact made explicit when
Teiresias addresses her as Περσήιον αἷμα (“blood of Perseus,” Id. 24.73; cf. Id.
25.173). So the emphasis in Idyll 24, once again, is not on Zeus’s paternity but
on the matriline. Like his great-​grandson Herakles, Perseus was a monster slayer
(Medusa and the sea monster from which he rescued Andromeda). According to
Apollonius, the poisonous snakes in the desert of Libya, which was next door to
Alexandria and important to the Ptolemies, sprang from the blood dripping from
Medusa’s severed head as Perseus flew above.68 But there are two important con-
trasts between the stories of these two heroes. Both died, but Herakles’s immortal
part survives on Olympos. An even more significant difference is that Perseus
and Danae were set adrift in the chest by her father, Akrisios, in an attempt—​
ultimately vain—​to avoid fulfillment of an oracle that warned of Akrisios’s death
at the hands of any son his daughter should beget. The prophecy about Herakles
will also be fulfilled, but it involves not murder but immortality. Confined in an
enclosure analogous to the chest, he performs an exploit from which Teiresias
can read his entire future career. The strangling of the serpents is not just a display
of Herakles’s prodigious strength, but it embodies and condenses a future that,
beginning with the systematic education his mother arranges for him, will unfold
as a series of re-​enactments of what is already enacted here.69

67. Gow 1942a, 107. This would have been especially true if, as some have thought, Idyll 24 was
composed in honor of the Basileia of 285 BCE celebrating Philadelphus’s co-​regency with Soter,
though delicacy would have been prudent at any time. There may have been other reasons as
well to leave Herakles’s paternity ambiguous; see Griffiths 1979, 96–​97.
68. Arg. 4.1513–​1517. Cf. Stephens 2003, 133, who shows that “Perseus . . . provides the Ptolemies
with a Greco-​Egyptian pedigree.”
69. Cf. Cusset 1999, who interprets the killing of the snakes as a victory over death that will be
repeated years later on the funeral pyre.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 71

The light that fills the house in Idyll 24 evokes the light that shines through-
out Keleos’s house in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter when the goddess angrily
reveals herself after her attempt to make Demophon immortal by putting him
in the fire has been foiled by that child’s mother, Metaneira (h. Dem. 275–​280).
The allusion reinforces Idyll 24’s focus on the house along with maternity and
childrearing. Demophon’s mortality provides an obvious foil to Herakles’s over-
coming of death.
The line of Idyll 24 that reminds us of Herakles’s descent from Danae and
Perseus also refers to another mother–​son pair, Thetis and Akhilleus (Id. 24.73,
prominent by its position at the beginning of Teiresias’s speech):

θάρσει, ἀριστοτόκεια γύναι, Περσήιον αἷμα

Take heart, woman who has borne the best son, blood of Perseus

The compound adjective that Teiresias uses to describe Alkmene, aristotokeia,

“who has borne the best son,” surely recalls one of the most moving passages in the
Iliad, Thetis’s lament for Akhilleus, who she knows will soon die (Il. 18.54–​60):

ὤ μοι ἐγὼ δειλή, ὤ μοι δυσαριστοτόκεια,

ἥ τ’ ἐπεὶ ἂρ τέκον υἱὸν ἀμύμονά τε κρατερόν τε,
ἔξοχον ἡρώων· ὁ δ’ ἀνέδραμεν ἔρνεϊ ἶσος·
τὸν μὲν ἐγὼ θρέψασα, φυτὸν ὣς γουνῷ ἀλωῆς,
νηυσὶν ἐπιπροέηκα κορωνίσιν Ἴλιον εἴσω
Τρωσὶ μαχήσομενον· τὸν δ’ οὐχ ὑποδέξομαι αὖτις
οἴκαδε νοστήσαντα δόμον Πηλήϊον εἴσω.

Oh, my misery, bearer of the best son to my sorrow,

seeing that I bore a son blameless and mighty,
outstanding of all heroes. And he shot up like a young sapling.
I nurtured him, like a seedling in the rise of an orchard,
and then I sent him forth in the curving ships to Ilion
to fight the Trojans. I will not receive him back again,
returning home into the house of Peleus.

Thetis’s long, unforgettable compound adjective, dysaristotokeia, which strikingly

fills the entire metrical space between the fourth-​foot caesura and the end of line
54, and which I have needed eight words to translate into English, is answered
by Teiresias’s aristotokeia to describe Alkmene—​the same word without the omi-
nous prefix dys-​ (“badly,” “unluckily,” or, as I have translated it, “to my sorrow”).
72

72 T heo crit us

Thetis fulfilled her maternal function by Greek standards, even though, in the
myths about her, she married Peleus unwillingly. She produced a glorious son
who achieved lasting fame because of the complex mixture in his story of out-
standing success and outstanding failure. And—​to step away from the Iliad
momentarily—​according to a later story told by Apollonius (Arg. 4.866–​879)
and closely resembling that of Demeter and Demophon, Thetis attempted to
make the infant Akhilleus immortal by putting him in fire at night until she was
interrupted by her husband. She would be remembered as the goddess who had
to sorrow impotently at the death of that son. Alkmene will be celebrated as the
mother of the hero who, by his labors, transcended mortality. As though to make
these contrasts more emphatic, Theocritus again alludes to Thetis’s words in lines
that introduce the account of Herakles’s education (Id. 24.103–​104):

Ἡρακλέης δ’ ὑπὸ ματρὶ νέον φυτὸν ὣς ἐν ἀλωᾷ

ἐτρέφετ’, Ἀργείου κεκλημένος Ἀμφιτρύωνος.

Herakles was nurtured like a young sapling in an orchard

by his mother, in name the son of Argive Amphitryon.

In this allusion, the pathos of the flourishing child Thetis is about to lose, who
“shot up like a young sapling,” is replaced by the promise of the boy setting out on
the path that will lead to Olympos.70
Thus, Theocritus uses references to three mothers and their sons—​infants in
the first two cases, in the third a warrior facing death whose begetting and child-
hood are recalled—​to set off the splendid fates in store for Alkmene and Herakles.
This concentration on the maternal and childrearing is of a piece with the house
as the location of the action in Idyll 24, and vice versa. It acts as a reminder of
something latent in earlier poetry and myth, as the three examples that the poem
uses show, but not emphasized there: that however much the half-​divine heroes
accomplished, often seeking to equal or surpass their fathers, and however much
they might thus serve as models of heroic masculinity, they began life in a nurtur-
ing bond with their mothers. The emphasis on motherhood may reflect the newly
influential role of women in Ptolemaic Alexandrian culture that is also evident in
the importance given to Berenike and Arsinoe in Idylls 15 and 17. If so, it finds a

70. Kyriakou 2018, 213–​214; 2021, 642, 643, notes both allusions to Thetis but reads them dif-
ferently. On the first, she comments that it “raises the specter of maternal loss and suffering.”
I think the main effect is to draw a contrast between the two heroes (and their mothers), but
there could at the same time be an ominous undertone: with his struggles and terrible death,
was Herakles’s heroic career completely different from that of Akhilleus?
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Theocritean Spaces 2 73

place among the many other features of Idyll 24 that have a bearing on the first
two Ptolemies.71

Encomiastic Space
Idyll 16
Considered as an encomium, Idyll 16 is a peculiar poem. The many references to
Homer, Pindar, and Simonides put it in some relation to the tradition of praise
poetry. But the actual praise sets in only in the second major section of the poem
(Id. 16.66–​100), and its recipient, Hieron II of Syracuse, is only named twice.
In the first main section (Id. 16.5–​65), Theocritus deplores the present state of
poetry: no one is willing to pay for it or, presumably, read it anymore. The actual
praise of Hieron also takes an unusual form. He turns out to be the man prophe-
sied (future indicative tense, Id. 16.73) as one who will need Theocritus as a singer
by virtue of matching the accomplishments of Akhilleus and Aias at Troy. For
already now (present indicative) the Carthaginians are trembling, already Hieron
is arming himself in might. Then, beginning at line 82, all the verbs change to
optatives of “wish”: a prayer to Zeus that Hieron defeat the Carthaginians deci-
sively and restore Sicily to fertility, peace, and prosperity.
So Theocritus has seemed to many to project the persona of a poet in search
of a patron, possibly at the start of his career, praising a Syracusan ruler for a mili-
tary victory, as Pindar and Bacchylides had praised Hieron I, from whom they
had actual commissions. From this perspective, it would appear that Theocritus
has had to find a way to praise a possible patron newly or recently come to power
who has not actually done anything and who can only be celebrated for what he

71. The Ptolemies claimed Herakles and therefore Zeus, Perseus, Danae, and Alkmene as ances-
tors. Theocritus makes Herakles ten months old when he kills the snakes, whereas in Pindar
he is a newborn baby; this, together with the astronomical indication in Id. 24.11–​12, aligns
his birthdate with that of Philadelphus (Gow 1942a, 107; 1952, II, 418). (For an important
adjustment of the chronology, see Stephens 2003, 125–​126.) Soter was reputed to have been
exposed in a bronze shield as an infant and protected by an eagle (see especially Stephens
2003, 129–​130). Herakles’s education as outlined in the poem has been thought by many to
resemble that of a Hellenistic prince, since it begins with him learning “letters” (γράμματα,
Id. 24.105)—​an un-​Heraklean skill. Herakles’s divinization might be thought linked to that
of Soter, who appears with Alexander as one of Herakles’s Olympian drinking companions
in Idyll 17 (16–​33), and his marriage to Hebe, his half-​sibling, would naturally seem to reflect
that of Philadelphus to his sister Arsinoe. These last two parallels must be treated with caution,
however. They will not work if Idyll 24 dates from as early as the Basileia of 285 BCE (see note
67 above). Soter was, of course, still alive, and the marriage to Arsinoe was in the future. Still,
these possibilities are worth keeping in mind, since the connection with the festival cannot be
proven. If the early dating is correct, Theocritus was as prescient about his hero as Teiresias was
about his.
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74 T heo crit us

might do. It is not even clear that Hieron was undertaking a campaign against
the Carthaginians in Sicily.72 Griffiths well describes the artfulness with which
Theocritus negotiates this extraordinary task, with, he argues, inevitable incon-
cinnities between parts of the poem and an unusual mixture of genres as a result.73
Perhaps, others suggest, we should not see this poem as actually an encomium at
all. “It is [Theocritus’s] way in this poem,” writes Gutzwiller, “to give us an enco-
miastic mode but not encomium.”74
Norman Austin sees the poem, and the prominence given within it to
Simonides, as a response to the position of poetry in the early Hellenistic period.75
José González also downplays the notion of an encomiastic program and extends
Austin’s view. The poem, he argues, is a plea for the restoration of the poet to his
traditional function within the polis: to articulate and reinforce essential ethical,
religious, and civic values.76 A reading that might at first seem opposed to this
view has recently been offered by Dee Clayman, who argues that Idyll 16 is satiric
in the manner of traditional iambic poetry.77 This perspective is not in principle
incompatible with González’s reading, however, although she suggests that it is.
A poet concerned with problems in society and the displacement of poetry from
a central protreptic role might well adopt a satiric stance. And in fact, the best evi-
dence for Clayman’s view is in the poem’s first, critical section, where Hipponax
and the Callimachus of the Iambs seem to be significant presences. Finally,
Poulheria Kyriakou has offered a reading to which encomium and patronage are
central. Idyll 16, she suggests, “sketches, among other things, a spiritual journey of

72. Hans 1985, who says, plausibly, that the poem may instead reflect anti-​Carthaginian propa-
ganda that Hieron had used to gain power. In fact, Hieron fought not the Carthaginians but
the Mamertines and broke their hold on eastern Sicily (Bell 2011, 193–​197).
73. Griffiths 1979, 9–​50.
74. Gutzwiller 1983, 218. Her own interpretation, that the poem “is Theocritus’ response to his
own disinclination to write praise poetry” because of his “distaste for the grand” (213–​214),
risks taking a tendency in Hellenistic poetry and making it the interpretive key for this poem.
It also begs the question of why he should have written it at all.
75. Austin 1967. Cf. Kyriakou 2004.
76. González 2010. Like Griffiths 1979, 30, he sees the poem as “promoting a restitution of
poetry to its old role in society,” but unlike Griffiths, he would presumably deny that Theocritus
was simply ignoring all the changes that had taken place between the archaic period and his
own time (Gutzwiller 1983, 24, also denies this, for different reasons). González depicts the
first part of the poem as describing the unfortunate conditions that had resulted from such
changes, the second half as showing how these ills might be cured. In his treatment, then, Idyll
16 is in some sense a politically engaged poem and more protreptic than encomium.
77. Clayman 2021, 573–​580. I would not follow her in concluding from the satiric elements that
the poem is an “anti-​encomium.”
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Theocritean Spaces 2 75

the narrator in his quest for rewards,” a movement on the part of the “narrator,” in
the course of the poem, from eagerness to praise anyone willing to pay for a poem
to a project of needing “to praise men of means against a background of heroic
and encomiastic poetry.”78 We might then see the poem not as straightforward
encomium but as reflection on the function and purpose of encomium in the
conditions of the early Hellenistic period. But this issue seems part of the larger
question of the social and cultural position of the poet as set forth by González.79
I would like here to explore the spatial dimensions of the poem’s program
essentially as González describes it. At the same time, I take the encomiastic
aspect of Idyll 16 more seriously than he seems to, even though it takes a pecu-
liar form and even though in hindsight Hieron did not do much to fix what
Theocritus implies is wrong with society. That is why I have included the poem in
this section. On the other hand, I do not consider the poem a pitch for Hieron’s
patronage in particular. Encomium and patronage can be intertwined, as they are
in this poem, but again they are part of the issue of poetry’s purpose. The prospect
of praising Hieron serves as an example that brings larger questions into focus.
One of several advantages of González’s reading is that the apparent incoher-
ence between the poem’s two major sections disappears. They are complementary.
The first uses the poet’s plight to depict current social and political conditions,
the dysfunction resulting from individual greed and self-​interest on the part
of the elite. The second offers a utopian vision of peace and harmony resulting
from restored unity, which would be implicitly signaled by the poet’s integra-
tion into society as celebrator of civic values through praise of Hieron. There are
still differences between these sections on which the poem pivots, as Griffiths
shows. Images of enclosure give way to global images, descent (for example, to the
Underworld) gives way to return, money yields to herds as the pertinent measure
of wealth, and time is replaced by space.80 In regard to this last contrast, I would
say instead that space-​time is configured differently in the two parts. But all of
these contrasting pairs—​including the different measures of wealth, as we shall
see—​are represented spatially in the course of the poem.
In the first place, the poem is full of movement of various kinds;81 I will cen-
ter my discussion on movement (or its lack) involving houses. The first example,
which is essential to the poem as a whole (Id. 16.6–​12), is the return of the poet’s

78. Kyriakou 2018, 278–​279.

79. Kyriakou seems to come very close to this viewpoint in her concluding remarks about Idyll
16 (2018, 297–​299).
80. Griffiths 1979, 33–​35.
81. On the idea of the traveling poet in Idyll 16, see Hunter 1996, 92–​94.
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76 T heo crit us

“Graces”—​his poems as well as their divine patronesses—​homeward (οἴκαδε)

because the master of another house (οἶκος) has not spread wide its doors (πετάσας)
to welcome them in but (by implication) has shut them out. The “Graces,” now in
the form of papyrus rolls, “sit in the bottom of the empty chest” with their heads on
their knees—​a posture of mourning as well as a sign of how cramped and oppres-
sive this enclosing space is, unlike the protective enclosure of the shield in Idyll 24.82
“There they always have their seat, whenever they come home unsuccessful.” The
frustrated journey of the “Graces” sets up a spatial relation: to the would-​be patron’s
closed house correspond the poet’s house and the chest within it. These images of
enclosure and the frustration of movement that results in stasis encapsulate—​in
some sense are—​the problem. The counterpart to the “Graces” shut within the
chest is the money within the wealthy house (Id. 16.22–​23). Neither circulates. And
that means neither is used for good—​or any—​purposes. The poems are not read
and do not spread their subjects’ fame, and the money is not used for its owner’s
benefit or that of his kin, of others, of the gods (through sacrifices), or of guests—​in
a word, for the benefit of society. When the poet says that it should also be used to
pay poets, he is not just being mercenary. Poetry, if it circulates, can promote social
cohesion by celebrating “good men” (ἀγαθῶν . . . ἀνδρῶν, Id. 16.2) and in this way
reinforcing civic values held in common (and also hierarchical structures, since the
phrase can also mean “aristocrats”). The closed house, by contrast, is an emblem of
the isolated individual and thus of the fragmentation of the city.
The positive model is the house open to guests (Id. 16.27–​28):

μηδὲ ξεινοδόκον κακὸν ἔμμεναι ἀλλὰ τραπέζῃ

μειλίξαντ’ ἀποπέμψαι ἐπὴν ἐθέλωντι νέεσθαι.

And do not be a bad receiver of guests, but at the table

gratify them and send them on their way whenever they wish to leave.

That is, do not send visitors away by closing your doors before they have even
been admitted, but give them hospitality and let them choose when to leave.
Because of the contrast with the scene of the “Graces” turned back from the door,
hospitality to guests, in addition to being an appropriate way to spend money,
is parallel to the reception of poetry, which thus is assimilated to this important
social ritual and has, or should have, the same crucial function of knitting people
and households together. This analogy has precedent in earlier praise poetry.

82. Gow 1952, II, 309.

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Theocritean Spaces 2 77

Consider, for example, the opening of Pindar’s Seventh Olympian (1–​4, 7–​9; I am
citing this passage as a parallel, not claiming for it direct influence on Theocritus):

Φίαλαν ὡς εἴ τις ἀφνειᾶς ἀπὸ χειρὸς ἑλών

ἔνδον ἀμπέλου καχλάζοισαν δρόσῳ
δωρήσεται
νεανίᾳ γαμβρῷ προπίνων
οἴκοθεν οἴκαδε,
******************
καὶ ἐγὼ νέκταρ χυτόν, Μοισᾶν δόσιν, ἀεθλοφόροις
ἀνδράσιν πέμπων, γλυκὺν καρπὸν φρενός,
ἱλάσκομαι . . .

Even as a man who takes a golden bowl,

his best possession,
brimming with the froth of wine inside it,
and gives it
with lavish hand to his new son-​in-​law,
toasting him from home to home,
**************
So I, sending a stream of nectar,
the gift of the Muses, the sweet yield of my mind,
offer libation . . .
(translation by Nisetich 1980)

Here the institution that unites households and underpins society is marriage
rather than hospitality, but the two are closely related. Pindar makes a very precise
analogy between the wine that seals the marriage and the poem that he sends to
its recipient, Diagoras of Rhodes. Both are media of exchange intended to create
social relationships that are based on reciprocity, as hospitality is, too. The com-
mon noun that underlies Theocritus’s “Graces,” χάρις, in fact, implies reciproc-
ity,83 which is occluded by the closed door that sends the “Graces” home. That
reciprocity is expressed materially and spatially in the Pindar passage by οἴκοθεν
οἴκαδε, “from home to home.” Pindar’s poems travel and are intended to create a
reciprocal relationship between poet and honorand, just as in Idyll 16 the poet

83. Gutzwiller 1983, 221; González 2010, 85–​90, who discusses the rejection of the “Graces” as
“the breakdown of the political order” (88).
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78 T heo crit us

hopes to create one with Hieron (poetry for money).84 That is to say, praise and
the poetry that encapsulates it have an important spatial dimension.
Thus, the opening vignette of the “Graces” repulsed at a rich man’s door and
crouching doubled over in the chest within the poet’s house generates issues devel-
oped over the course of Idyll 16. And we are not done with it yet. For there is a
striking contrast between their situation as papyrus rolls out of circulation fixed at
a single point of space at the bottom (ἐν πυθμένι) of the chest and the poet’s later
prayer, “may singers carry Hieron’s fame [κλέος] on high [ὑψηλόν], both across the
Skythian sea and where Semiramis, who fitted the wide wall together with asphalt,
reigned” (Id. 16.98–​100). As Gow comments, Skythia and Babylon mark the north-
ern and southern extremities of the eastern edge of the Greek world as conven-
tionally understood, and Sicily is near the western limit.85 So the phrase means
“throughout the world.” Spatially, then, the two passages set up a contrast between
high and low, vertical descent and horizontal movement across the earth’s surface,
breadth and depth, fixity and mobility. It is tempting also to suggest that there is
a contrast between written and oral,86 between the poems stored on papyrus rolls
and their wide dissemination in sung performance throughout the world, although
that depends on how far one wants to press the implications of ἀοιδοί (“singers”)
in line 98. The phrase “carry Hieron’s fame on high” may be a reminiscence of Od.
9.20 and 107: καί/​ἦ γάρ μευ/​σευ κλέος οὐρανὸν ἵκει/​ἱκάνει (“and my/​your fame
reaches heaven”). The first occurrence of the phrase comes when Odysseus iden-
tifies himself to the Phaiakians; the second is among the first words he speaks to
Penelope and begins a passage that was probably in Theocritus’s mind when he
wrote the description of a newly flourishing Sicily (discussed below). The allusion
to Odysseus is significant because elsewhere in the poem, Theocritus describes him
as one who “wandered for 120 months throughout all of humankind, and went
alive to farthest Hades [horizontal movement across the stream of Ocean, earth’s

84. Critics have been troubled by the open plea for money in Idyll 16, which is underscored by
the prominence in this poem of Simonides, who was notorious in antiquity for insisting on
the importance of monetary payment (the image of the “Graces” in the chest seems based on
an anecdote about him that was supposed to illustrate this). But Pindar and Bacchylides also
composed poems on commission. It is easy to forget this fact because Pindar is so successful at
tricking out this economic relationship as gift exchange (cf. δωρήσεται, “will give,” in the pas-
sage quoted), in line with contemporary aristocratic ideology that sought to disguise economic
as personal relationships (Kurke 1999). Idyll 16 makes the same move by contrasting with each
other the houses closed and open to guests and by moving from money to livestock as a mea-
sure of wealth, though it is more candid, finally, about the role of money. But Theocritus is not
departing from encomiastic tradition even as that is embodied by Pindar.
85. Gow 1952, II, 322.
86. On this, see Griffiths 1979, 24–​26.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 79

boundary] and escaped the cave of the murderous Cyclops [vertical movement]”
(Id. 16.51–​53, almost at the center of the poem). Odysseus, who functions in the
poem as a paradigm of return and restoration of homeland,87 recapitulates in his
journey the contrast between downward (immobility, possible death) and horizon-
tal (movement, life, fame), which provide the axes of Idyll 16.
Finally, for a reader of Theocritus, poetic texts immobilized in a chest might
recall the goatherd and Komatas imprisoned in chests and kept alive on honey
brought by bees, the counterpart of the “sweet nectar” that the Muse poured into
the goatherd’s mouth and so an image of poetic inspiration (Id. 7.78–​85). The
goatherd’s plight, like that of the “Graces,” was a sign of social disruption; its cause
was the “arrogant folly” of his master, or a king (κακαῖσιν ἀτασθαλίαισιν ἄνακτος).
So right at the beginning of the poem, questions of poetry and its rightful place
are implicitly framed from a bucolic perspective that anticipates the vision of a
restored and peaceful Sicily toward the end.
That vision is as follows (Id. 16.88–​97):

ἄστεα δὲ προτέροισι πάλιν ναίοιτο πολίταις,

δυσμενέων ὅσα χεῖρες ἐλωβήσαντο κατ’ ἄκρας·
ἀγροὺς δ’ ἐργάζοιντο τεθαλότας· αἱ δ’ ἀνάριθμοι
μήλων χιλιάδες βοτάνᾳ διαπιανθεῖσαι
ἂμ’ πεδίον βληχῷντο, βόες δ’ ἀγεληδὸν ἐς αὖλιν
ἐρχόμεναι σκνιφαῖον ἐπισπεύδοιεν ὁδίταν·
νειοὶ δ’ ἐκπονέοιντο ποτὶ σπόρον, ἁνίκα τέττιξ
ποιμένας ἐνδίους πεφυλαγμένος ὑψόθι δένδρων
ἀχεῖ ἐν ἀκρεμόνεσσιν· ἀράχνια δ’ εἰς ὅπλ’ ἀράχναι
λεπτὰ διαστήσαιντο, βοᾶς δ’ ἔτι μηδ’ ὄνομ’ εἴη.

May cities be dwelt in by their former citizens,

all the cities that the enemies’ hands devastated top to bottom.
May the citizens work teeming fields. And may countless
thousands of sheep, fattened on the fodder,
bleat throughout the plain, and cows returning in herds
to the steading urge the twilight traveler on his way.
May fallow fields be worked toward seed time, when the cicada
high in the trees watching shepherds in the sunlight
chirps on the boughs. May spiders weave their fine webs
in weapons, and not even the name of the war cry be heard.

87. Griffiths 1979, 41.

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80 T heo crit us

“After a long time,” says Diodorus, describing Sicily in the late fourth century
BCE, “because of internal dissension and civil wars, and also because of the mul-
titude of tyrants who kept rising up, the cities were depopulated and the coun-
tryside had turned wild because it was not worked and the fields no longer bore
cultivated produce.”88 It is striking how exactly Theocritus imagines the reversal
.

of these conditions: cities repopulated by their original citizens and fields now
worked productively, the wilds tamed and controlled, fields providing crops
and fodder for domestic animals. The war cry will be replaced by the bleating of
sheep and the chirping of cicadas (a well-​known figure for poetry). This vision
is spatial—​city and countryside—​and its mode, as many scholars comment,
is bucolic. Even though the vista resembles that of the agricultural system of
Augeias’s farm in Idyll 25, which integrates farming and herding and is related to
a town by the owner’s visit from there, the emphasis here is on herding: livestock
grazing and returning to the steadings at nightfall, their homecoming contrasting
with the wayfarer’s continued journey (bucolic leisure as opposed to purposeful
travel). In this description, bucolic time dominates. Agricultural time is measured
by the succession of seasons of the year that bring distinct tasks in annual rota-
tion. Bucolic time is founded on the rhythm of the day: grazing and returning
to steadings (this circularity provides another contrast with the traveler’s linear
journey).89 The time marker in lines 94–​95 is bucolic, the time of day, noon or
the afternoon. It plays off against the season marker for the agricultural workers’
task of preparing fields for sowing (“toward seed time”), and it is the shepherds,
not the workers, whom the cicada watches.90 The first major section of the poem
presented a very different space-​time: a present time of social fragmentation and
closed houses in town or city (Syracuse?) when the poet looks to the past by allud-
ing to earlier praise poets for a model of social integration. The second section is
oriented toward a wished-​for future of peace, leisure, and plenty described in the
idiom of bucolic ease: bucolic space-​time. The fact that this vision is contingent
and expressed with optative verbs—​it may or may not be attained—​is thoroughly
in keeping with bucolic poetry’s awareness of its own fictionality.

88. Diod. Sic. 16.83.1, quoted by González 2010, 76.

89. Agricultural labor can also be measured by the time of day, as in Id. 10.48–​51 (still tied to
the seasons, however), but this is not mentioned in the present passage, which emphasizes the
rhythm of the seasons in connection with plowing. In the bucolic Idylls, by contrast, it seems
to be perpetually spring or summer.
90. Contrast Id. 5.111, where cicadas are said to irritate or provoke reapers to work. The contrast
marks the difference between agricultural labor and bucolic leisure (see especially the discus-
sion of Idyll 10 in ­chapter 4).
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Theocritean Spaces 2 81

In certain ways, this picture of Sicilian peace and prosperity looks back
to the earlier description of the wealth of Simonides’s Thessalian patrons (Id.
16.34–​49), which is also bucolic in character. But there are differences. In the
earlier passage, there is a much more pronounced emphasis on quantity as
a measure of riches—​“many . . . and many . . . and ten thousand” (lines 34,
36, 38)—​whereas in the Sicilian description, there is only one such reference,
“countless thousands” (lines 90–​91), and here it seems to imply fertility at least
as much as wealth. And dependent workers are prominent in the earlier pas-
sage, right at the beginning: “many were the penestai [virtually, “serfs”] who
measured out their monthly rations in the houses of Antiokhos and lord
Aleuas” (lines 34–​35; shepherds are also subject of the sentence in line 39). The
number of dependents is as much an index of wealth as the number of animals,
and the implied social and economic hierarchy is part of these rulers’ prosper-
ity and power. In the later passage, human workers are almost entirely effaced,
as though the sheep fattened themselves on the fodder in the pastures and the
cattle came back to their steadings by themselves. “May the fallow fields be
worked toward seed time”—​worked by whom the passive verb leaves unspeci-
fied. Shepherds are mentioned, but not as part of this picture itself; instead,
they appear in the Hesiodic-​style91 time indication in lines 94–​96, the object
of the cicadas’ watchfulness, and the emphasis is on the insects’ chirping.92 The
passage thus gives an impression that this bucolic space is relatively indepen-
dent of social and economic structures. In addition, whereas the earlier passage
describes individual wealth as the basis of fame attained especially in racing
contests (lines 66–​67: more animals, horses, and mules), in Sicily we are given
a picture of collective prosperity that is to be brought about and, it is implied,
maintained by Hieron’s military achievement, for which he is to get worldwide
fame through poetry (lines 98–​100 again, which cap the whole description).
This bucolic space is constructed as a common good produced by an effec-
tive ruler.
Scholars often cite Hesiod’s description of the just and unjust cities (Works
and Days 225–​247) as the inspiration for this passage.93 The allusion emphasizes
that the prosperity of the just city depends on the goodness of its rulers. But a

91. Cf. Hes. Op. 582–​584.

92. It is true that people carry out the (agricultural) work in line 90: “may they work teeming
fields.” But the subject of the verb is the citizens of two lines before, and so the sentence does
not affect my point about the effacement of subordinate labor.
93. See the excellent discussion in Hunter 1996, 87–​89.
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82 T heo crit us

more direct statement of this idea appears in Odysseus’s words to Penelope in

Odyssey 19.107–​114, which must also be in the background here:94

ὦ γύναι, οὐκ ἄν τίς σε βροτῶν ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν

νεικέοι· ἦ γάρ σευ κλέος οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἱκάνει,
ὥς τέ τευ ἢ βασιλῆος ἀμύμονος, ὅς τε θεούδὴς
ἀνδράσιν ἐν πολλοῖσι καὶ ἰφθίμοισιν ἀνάσσων
εὐδικίας ἀνέχῃσι, φέρῃσι δὲ γαῖα μέλαινα
πυροὺς καὶ κριθάς, βρίθῃσι δὲ δένδρεα καρπῷ,
τίκτῃ δ’ ἔμπεδα μῆλα, θάλασσα δὲ παρέχῃ ἰχθῦς
ἐξ εὐηγεσίας, ἀρετῶσι δὲ λαοὶ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ.

Lady, no mortal anywhere on the boundless earth

could find fault with you: for your fame reaches the wide heaven,
as of some blameless ruler, who reverently
holding sway among many noble men
upholds right judgments, and the dark earth brings forth
wheat and barley, and the trees are weighed down with fruit,
and the unfailing flocks bring forth young, and the sea provides fish,
as a result of good leadership, and the people flourish beneath his rule.

Just ruler, thriving people, and abundant nature form a coherent and interdepen-
dent complex. The final element of this picture, not mentioned in the Homeric
passage but explicit in Theocritus (Id. 16.40–​47, 98–​100) is a poet to celebrate the
ruler’s achievements and the people’s benefit. This unity is set against the opening
picture of disunity (individual houses, not the city) of the opening lines, where the
poet and his art are separated from the city. Right after the description of Sicily
restored, an interesting thing happens, one that should give pause to those who see
this poem as simply a pitch by Theocritus for Hieron’s patronage (Id. 16.101–​103):

εἷς μὲν ἐγώ, πολλοὺς δὲ Διὸς φιλέοντι καὶ ἄλλους

θυγατέρες, τοῖς πᾶσι μέλοι Σικελὴν Ἀρέθοισαν
ὑμνεῖν σὺν λαοῖσι καὶ αἰχμητὴν Ἱέρωνα.

I am one, but the daughters of Zeus cherish many others as well.

May they all be concerned to hymn
Sicilian Arethousa with its people, and spearman Hieron.

94. Cited also by Griffiths 1979, 41.

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Theocritean Spaces 2 83

Pindar would never hide within “many,” and he is not shy about criticizing rival
poets. But Theocritus is not making a gesture of modesty, either. Along with the
plural “singers” in line 98, these lines make it clear that at least by this point in the
poem, the focus is on “the poet” as a type, any poet, and what his role in a properly
structured and functioning polity should be.
This understanding of poetry, that it must be integrated into a unified city
and is useless, even ignored, outside that context, of course looks back to the
archaic and early classical periods. Is Theocritus therefore ignoring all the cul-
tural and political changes that had taken place by the third century BCE? I would
say that he seems very aware of them. All the optatives from line 82 to line 103,
which express wishes and in fact a prayer to Zeus, make it clear that the whole
passage is an idealizing vision, in the same way that bucolic, at its most idealizing,
is utopian.95 They are very different from the factual indicatives that earlier have
described things as they are now. Like that of so much of Theocritean bucolic
poetry, this vision is contingent, and it is no accident that it is couched in the
bucolic idiom. A final sign that it is provisional comes in the immediately suc-
ceeding lines, which end the poem (Id. 16.104–​109), where optatives of wish are
replaced by potential optatives and the focus shifts from open bucolic space back
to the enclosed space of the house, as in the poem’s beginning:

ὦ Ἐτειόκλειοι Χάριτες θεαί, ὦ Μινύειον

Ὀρχομενὸν φιλέοισαι ἀπεχθόμενόν ποτε Θήβαις,
ἄκλητος μὲν ἔγωγε μένοιμί κεν, ἐς δὲ καλεῦντων
θαρσήσας Μοίσαισι σὺν ἁμετέραισιν ἴοιμ’ ἄν.
καλλείψω δ’ οὐδ’ ὔμμε· τί γὰρ Χαρίτων ἀγαπητόν
ἀνθρώποις ἀπάνευθεν; ἀεὶ Χαρίτεσσιν ἅμ’ εἴην.

Oh Eteioklean divine Graces, O you who love

Minyan Orkhomenos, once hateful to Thebes,
If I am not invited I would remain at home, but to the houses of
those who invite me
I would go, taking heart, along with my Muses.
And I will not leave you behind, either; for without the Graces
what loveliness is there for men? May I always be in the Graces’
company.

95. In fact, Hieron’s reign apparently did usher in a period of agrarian prosperity in eastern
Sicily, perhaps as a result of his uniting cities there into a koinon and his organizing of agricul-
tural administration (Bell 2011). But this is evidently in the future from the perspective of Idyll
16, which thus expresses a wished-​for ideal.
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84 T heo crit us

If the poet is invited to others’ houses, that would be a sign of social integra-
tion and the fulfillment of the wishes he has articulated. But the text leaves open
the equal possibility that there will be no invitation. And so by the end of the
poem, the initial picture of the poet in his house, his papyrus rolls lying cramped
and rejected in the storage chest, has unfolded into a double image, one super-
imposed on the other: either a prolongation of that scene or the poet received in
the houses of others along with his “Graces”—​both the goddesses who personify
loveliness and reciprocal social relations and the poems that are their individual
manifestation.
Far from ignoring the differences between the archaic period and his own
age, I think that Theocritus is using traditional ideas about poetry, civic virtue,
and prosperity and refashioning them to fit a world in which the polis was still an
important element but a world that was now shaped by the conditions of auto-
cratic and imperial rule—​a project facilitated by the fact that Pindar, Bacchylides,
and Simonides had written for tyrants and oligarchic families as well as for citizen
athletes. This means that he is retooling a traditional ideological complex to fit
his own age. To observe him doing so is to recognize not only the politics, in a
broad sense, of Idyll 16, along with those of Idyll 17 (discussed below), but also
the ideology of his bucolic poetry in general, which, as we have seen, provides the
idiom for the climactic passage of Idyll 16.
As regards that ideology, let us look back to the passage on the Thessalian rul-
ers in that poem. In connection with lines 34–​35 (“in the households of Antiokhos
and lord Aleuas, many were the penestai who had their monthly ration measured
out”), Gutzwiller speaks of the “contentment of the [penestai] who have generous
masters.”96 This contentment on one side and generosity on the other are not to
be found in the text, but it is not surprising that a reader might infer them because
of the ideological allure of bucolic and pastoral poetry in general. As William
Empson argues, pastoral makes social and economic inequalities seem natural
and self-​evidently right.97 The penestai and shepherds are depicted as having
their rightful, subordinate place in a structure of wealth enjoyed by Antiokhos
and Aleuas. What they get from it is sustenance that enables them to do further
work. Gutzwiller’s account of lines 31–​33 also seems to me to reverse their mean-
ing: Theocritus “suggests to potential patrons that being forgotten in Hades is
no worse than poverty on earth.” I would say “just as bad as.” Both poverty and
being forgotten after death are the lot of people such as the penestai. Theocritus’s

96. Gutzwiller 1983, 226–​227.

97. Empson 1974, 3–​23. Cf. Griffiths 1979, 40, who also cites Empson.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 85

addressees enjoy wealth and, if they use it correctly, will be remembered through
poetry. The traditional role of poetry that Theocritus implicitly evokes in this
poem was to help maintain distinctions of wealth and standing as well as to trans-
mit certain values, which themselves had class affiliations. The Thessalian passage
carries out this same function in that it depicts dependent workers as part of elite
households’ wealth; the same can be said of Idyll 25.
The utopian vision of a restored Sicily produces a similar effect, though in a
different way. Like the passage from Odyssey 19 quoted above,98 with its focus on
natural abundance produced by a good ruler, it disguises its hierarchical nature
by eliding the labor on which it is based. The bucolic poems, by contrast, con-
centrate on herdsmen, but to similar effect. As we saw in ­chapter 1, they depict
the bucolic world and its inhabitants as more or less autonomous, with generous
opportunities for leisure amid natural abundance, and they leave vague or omit
any references to cities and to the herdsmen’s place in larger economic and social
relations and to their actual labor.99 Idyll 4, with its explicit setting near Kroton,
and Idyll 5, with its references to servile status and the city of Sybaris, along with
Idyll 25, whether or not it is by Theocritus, suggest what the other bucolic poems
leave out: the position of the bucolic world within a hierarchical system that is
taken for granted and therefore unquestioned.100 As we saw in ­chapter 1, a few
lines (126–​127) in the urban Idyll 15 offer another perspective: the economic
integration of the bucolic world into the Ptolemaic empire. There the shepherd’s
work is not glossed over, but we get instead his pride at contributing material for
the Alexandrian Adonis festival. The implied picture of natural abundance and
social harmony, with the shepherd happy in his subordinate role, supplements the
praise of Ptolemy’s rule in Idyll 17, to which we now turn.

Idyll 17
As Susan Stephens has suggested, the bucolic poems fit into the larger frame-
work of Theocritus’s Idylls in that the prosperity of the land is the standard by
which a king should be judged, and as she further argues through reading Idylls

98. This passage has complex effects. For one thing, the beggar Odysseus attributes to Penelope
the role of a male ruler. But it is also important that it occurs just before Odysseus’s own resto-
ration to his position of authority in his household and on Ithaka—​that is, the restoration of
hierarchy that is legitimated by this kind of idealizing vision.
99. On the realities of country life, including harsh toil and servile status, glossed over in
Vergil’s Eclogues, see Leigh 2016.
100. The exceptional nature of Idylls 4 and 5 in this respect will be discussed further in c­ hapter 4.
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86 T heo crit us

16 and 17 together, the good king is not Hieron but Ptolemy.101 Thus, when Idyll
17 is considered with Idyll 16, it emerges that Ptolemy and his empire represent
the fulfillment of the vision of civic and natural peace and prosperity that can
only be wished for in the case of Syracuse and Sicily. If so, then what Theocritus
implies in Idyll 16 about the wished-​for connection between poets and people
of wealth and power is transferable to the (actual or desired) relation between
himself and Ptolemy. As in the case of Hieron, it would be an oversimplifica-
tion to say that Theocritus is staking a claim to Ptolemy’s patronage. Relations
of patronage are all but explicitly described in the poem, but once again as a
way to integrate poetry into (what is ideally to be) a well-​ordered state under
an enlightened ruler.
In Ptolemy, according to Idyll 17 (especially lines 106–​116), we have the reverse
of the hoarder who withholds his patronage and closes his house to guests; his
“wealthy” or “rich” house (Id. 17.96, 106) is very different from the house of the
man who hoards his riches in Id. 16 (22–​23). Ptolemy’s wealth does not lie use-
less in his rich house but is depicted as a means to be generous. He contributes
to the gods’ temples, and he gives money to kings, cities, and his own compan-
ions. And—​the climax to this list—​to poets who flock to the poetic festivals of
Dionysos, he gives worthy recompense for their art, in the kind of reciprocal
exchange depicted as missing at the beginning of Idyll 16. He actually rewards
the “mouthpieces of the Muses” (Μουσάων ὑποφῆται, Id. 17.115), the very ones
the speaker in Idyll 16 (line 29) can only exhort the rich man to honor. In con-
trast to Ptolemy’s productive use of wealth, all the riches that the sons of Atreus
plundered from Troy molder in the darkness, “from which there is no return” (Id.
17.118–​20). In their fate they would resemble the hoarder mourning “nameless”
(ἀκλεής) in Hades (Id. 16.30–​34) if not for one essential difference: the sons of
Atreus had a poet to keep their name alive—​Homer—​like the other epic figures
mentioned at Id. 16.48–​57. But Ptolemy has the advantage even over them. He
recirculates his wealth and he has a poet to spread his fame—​the one whose poem
is now in progress—​and so on Theocritus’s terms, he fulfills the model of king-
ship more completely than the sons of Atreus did.

101. Stephens 2018, 79–​83. Developing an idea of Gutzwiller 1996, 141, Stephens also raises
the intriguing possibility that Idyll 16 might have opened and Idyll 17 closed a papyrus roll of
Theocritus’s non-​bucolic Idylls, so that the two poems would have been “read contrastively.” (I
would add that this is far from suggesting that Theocritus intended this arrangement; it could
have been made, if at all, by any editor at any time.) I owe a more general debt to her discussion
of these two poems and of the bucolic Idylls, which has been of great help to me in getting my
own ideas in order. On imagery of peace and abundance used to legitimate the Ptolemaic and
other empires, see Strootman 2014.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 87

Ptolemy is a “spearman” (αἰχμητής), as is his father, Ptolemy Soter (Id.

17.56–​57):

    σὲ δ’ αἰχμητὰ Πτολεμαῖε,

αἰχμητᾷ Πτολεμαίῳ ἀρίζηλος Βερενίκα.

     You, spearman Ptolemy [Philadelphus],

to spearman Ptolemy [Soter] famous Berenike [bore].

For the Greeks, the son’s resemblance to the father was highly desirable. It guar-
anteed the son’s legitimacy, and it was part of the epic heroic ideal that the son
should measure up to, and even surpass, the father.102 But it was also part of
the Egyptian ideal of kingship, which Ptolemy, as pharaoh, fittingly is shown
to embody.103 In addition, the spear played an important role in imperial self-​
fashioning from Alexander through Roman times, especially insofar as it implied
the notion of δορίκτητος χώρα (“spear-​won land”).104 And finally, Hieron is also
called “spearman” in Idyll 16 (line 103). These are the only instances of the epi-
thet in the entire Theocritean corpus, and the passages are surely connected. As
André Looijenga points out,105 Theocritus can call Ptolemy “king” (βασιλεύς)
but not Hieron. Of course, Hieron was not a hereditary king, and Ptolemy was,
or claimed to be, but the difference may be another sign that Idyll 16 wishfully
points toward what is fully realized in Idyll 17.
Unlike Hieron, Philadelphus rules a land that is actually fertile and teeming
(Id. 17.77–​94). This is not just expressed as a wish, although the poem only sug-
gests that his kingship is the cause of Egypt’s prosperity without making it explicit;
the emphasis is rather on his wealth and imperial power. But he does, according
to Theocritus, protect Egypt and benefit it with his generosity, as Egyptian kings
were traditionally expected to do.106 As for Theocritus, the poet who in Idyll 16
depicted thriving cities and countryside in bucolic terms actually wrote bucolic
poetry, likely at Ptolemy’s court, where it provided a useful heterotopia for urban
readers and reflected well on the order and natural bounty promoted by imperial

102. E.g., Od. 3.120–​125; Hes. Op. 235 (cf. 182). There may be a specific epic prototype here
in the spear of Akhilleus, which was given to him by his father, Peleus; see Kyriakou 2018,
287–​288.
103. Stephens 2003, 155–​158; cf. Hunter 2003, 141–​142.
104. Looijenga 2014, 217–​218, 226–​229 (discussions of Idylls 16 and 17).
105. Looijenga 2014, 230.
106. Stephens 2003, 159–​165.
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88 T heo crit us

rule. If we see Idyll 16 as background and context for Idyll 17, we can say that in
both poems, taken together, Theocritus expresses some ideas about the possible
relation of poetry to autocratic power and suggests an important role for the poet
in providing Ptolemy with cultural, if not political, capital—​as, in fact, we see
him in the act of doing in Idyll 17. It would be a wild exaggeration to claim that
Alexandrian poetry had a central place in the life of the city or empire; in that
sense, the old model of praise poetry that Theocritus seems to evoke in Idyll 16
is perhaps a nostalgic way of speaking. But neither is Theocritus’s poetry disen-
gaged from its cultural and political world. In some sense, at least, poetry and
other cultural productions were integrated into structures of authority, just as the
Mouseion and Library were integrated into the court.
Idyll 17 thus seems to be an experiment in connecting poetry with royal and
imperial power by explicit praise of Ptolemy, and its spatiality matches its encomi-
astic program. All of Theocritus’s poems considered so far have been locally rooted.
Idyll 17, by contrast, ranges far and wide in space, in keeping with its emphasis on
empire, and it gains chronological depth by including the Ptolemies’ alleged ances-
tor Herakles and their imperial prototype Alexander, as well as Soter and Berenike
in the generation before Philadelphus and Arsinoe. So in this poem, as in Idyll 16,
though in a different form, we have another example of encomiastic space-​time.
Celebration of Ptolemy’s parents, with emphasis on the locations of their
immortality (Olympos for Soter, Aphrodite’s temple for Berenike), is followed
by Philadelphus’s birth on Kos, with an analogy drawn to Apollo’s birth on Delos.
Next comes a list of the regions and countries subject to Ptolemy’s encroachment
or hegemony.107 This is a kind of map of Ptolemy’s power, and like a map, it is an
abstraction of space, here as often for hegemonic purposes. At the same time, it
brings these areas into relation to one another as elements of an empire. The wealth
of its ruler, Ptolemy, and of its center, Alexandria, next becomes the focus. Vast
riches flow daily “from all sides” (17.97) into Ptolemy’s wealthy house, which exerts
a centripetal force as in Idyll 15. At the same time, Ptolemy keeps enemies outside
the borders of Egypt. Corresponding to the inflow of wealth is its redistribution
outward by Ptolemy’s generosity as described above. The poem’s final section
praises Ptolemy’s relationships: his filial piety in instituting shrines and sacrifices
to his parents and his marriage to Arsinoe, which corresponds to that of his par-
ents, praised earlier.108 The encomium proper ends, as it began, on Olympos,109 this

107. On this catalogue, see Hunter 2003, 159–​161.

108. On Arsinoe’s eros for Philadelphus, see Hunter 2003, 191–​192.
109. As Griffiths 1979, 73, points out, an elaborate pattern of reverse symmetry frames the
poem: Hades (120), Olympos (131 ff.), Mount Ida (133 ff.) at the end, corresponding to Mount
Ida (9 ff.), Olympos (14–​33), Acheron (or Hades, 46–​99) earlier. Mount Ida, Griffiths says,
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Theocritean Spaces 2 89

time with the marriage of Zeus and Hera (also brother and sister) as an analogy
to the relationship between the royal couple. Thus, in its construction of imperial
space, the poem moves horizontally over a large area on the surface of the world
and vertically from Olympos to the earth and then back again to Olympos. In this
way it puts Alexandria in context, as hegemonic power exerting a centripetal force
over much of the surface of the earth and with close connections, through its ruling
dynasty and its ancestor Herakles, with Olympos and its gods.

Idyll 14
Considered from a spatial perspective, Idyll 14110 takes a narrower view, with a
focus on two places on the earth’s surface, and suggests something of the dynam-
ics of the relationship between Alexandria and the territories under its sway.
In that poem, the space in which the conversation between Aiskhinas and
Thyonikhos takes place is indefinite, and correspondingly the poem emphasizes
mobility. Burton centers her discussions of the poem on the symposium, which
she describes as one of those traditional institutions through which Greeks
could retain their ethnic identity in a Hellenistic world characterized by mobil-
ity and fluidity of categories.111 As others have remarked, when Aiskhinas tells
Thyonikhos about the drinking party at his house at which the terrible episode
occurred between himself and Kyniska and he punched her twice in a fit of jeal-
ousy, he lists as his fellow symposiasts an Argive, a Thessalian, and a mercenary
soldier whose origin is not specified.112 This gathering of people from various

serves as “a point of intersection between the divine and mortal spheres, a permeable boundary
which suggests that certain privileged natures can pass from one realm to the other.”
110. This poem might be considered a mime and combines town and country (Pretagostini
2006, 67). My reasons for discussing it here will, I hope, become clear.
111. Burton 1992; 1995, 24–​28. See more recently Pausch 2011, 27–​28, who suggests that this
non-​elite symposium, despite obvious contrasts, sets up a relationship between the place where
it occurs and the Ptolemaic court at Alexandria, a relationship between center and periphery
that is emphasized by the vagueness of the poem’s setting. That relationship will be central to
the point I want to make about Idyll 14.
112. Significantly, he does not include Kyniska in the list, even though she joins in the drinking
and is expected to take part in the game of toasting one’s love object (Id. 14.20–​21). Similarly,
having identified her as ἁ χαρίεσσα Κυνίσκα (“the lovely Kyniska”) in line 8, he uses her name
only one more time, at the climax of his story when she gives herself away by bursting into
tears (line 31). Otherwise, Kyniska is simply “she” (ἅ, αὐτά, lines 21, 23) or “that woman” (τήνα,
line 41). The reason for this mode of reference could be that the symposium was traditionally
a men’s club, and the only women present were hetairai, there for the men’s sake and taken
for granted as part of the normal furnishings for such an occasion, although Kyniska’s status
is indefinite. But it could also tell us a great deal about Aiskhinas’s attitude to her, lovelorn
though he now says he is, and so about Aiskhinas himself; this would be another of the signs of
his insensitivity and lack of self-​awareness that Stern 1975 discusses well.
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places seems to be a sign of how much a fact of life mobility was. Then there is the
pale and barefoot Pythagorist to whom Thyonikhos compares Aiskhinas in his
lovelorn squalor. “He arrived the other day and said he was from Athens” and was
in love—​with food he could cadge (Id. 14.6–​7). A true philosopher, who might
fittingly be from Athens, or a charlatan posing as a philosopher? At any rate, he
exemplifies another type of itinerant person who might show up anywhere in this
itinerant world.
Aiskhinas says that the drinking party took place “in the country, at my
house” (ἐν χώρῳ παρ’ ἐμίν, Id. 14.14). He and Kyniska must have spent some time
there for her to fall in love with the neighbor’s son. By implication, the present
meeting between Aiskhinas and Thyonikhos must be taking place in a town or
city somewhere in the Ptolemaic sphere of influence. After enumerating the deli-
cacies he served, Aiskhinas says, “ἦς πότος ἁδύς: the drinking party was sweet.”
“Sweet” is, of course, a key word of the bucolic Idylls that describes the beauty of
bucolic space. This party would be, for a town dweller, the counterpart of bucolic
leisure in a non-​bucolic sympotic setting. But the drinking gets out of control
and ends in chaos and with Kyniska’s flight, a conclusion that presumably has
sent Aiskhinas back to town. I would connect this result also with the theme of
mobility because it reflects a failure to fit into a place, a χῶρος—​a word that is
used of the country in this poem but also means place. Aiskhinas has failed to use
the pleasures of a house in the country, to enjoy the company of friends, and to
love properly. As for the town that would normally be the opposite pole to the
countryside, it is not explicitly mentioned, and we have no idea where it is sup-
posed to be. “Since nothing in the poem points to the islands or to the West,” says
K. J. Dover, “we are perhaps meant to think of the Peloponnese.”113 But perhaps
we are not to think of any region in particular; lack of definition is the point.
Under these conditions of movement, places are often what people pass through
or leave dissatisfied.
This indefiniteness as to place is matched by uncertainty about status. Is
Kyniska a hetaira or higher on the social scale, her presence at the symposium a
mark of the new relative freedom of women in the Hellenistic period, as Burton
argues?114 How can we tell? As for Aiskhinas, we have a few more hints. He
is affluent enough that he has a country farm as well as (probably) a house in
town. He would be the social equal of his drinking companions, two of whom
are identified as a horse trainer and a soldier—​of middling standing or perhaps
a bit lower. The profession he now aspires to is commensurate with that: “your

113. Dover 1971, 189.

114. Burton 1992, 237–​238; 1995, 25–​26; cf. Pausch 2011, 21.
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Theocritean Spaces 2 91

soldier is not the worst of men nor yet the first, maybe, but as good as another”
(Id. 14.55–​56, Gow’s translation; the last phrase, ὁμαλὸς δέ τις, essentially means
“just like everyone else”). No epic heroism for our Aiskhinas! By becoming a mer-
cenary, he is proposing to join those itinerant soldiers who by definition had no
fixed attachment to place but went wherever there was warfare and they could
find employment, in a direction he only vaguely refers to as διαπόντιος, “across
the sea” (Id. 14.55), like his friend Simos (Id. 14.53–​54).115 From this point of view,
it is significant that Aiskhinas does not say where his drinking friend Kleunikos
is from, only that he is a soldier. The omission seems to reflect how such a man
was viewed: his profession mattered more than his birthplace as a marker of
identity.116
But in the concluding section of the poem, everything changes. Thyonikhos
gives Aiskhinas a definite destination for his career as a mercenary: Alexandria.
There Ptolemy is such a generous paymaster, Thyonikhos implies, that men at
loose ends flock to Alexandria to serve under him. As we saw with the movement
of goods in Idyll 15, so it is with the movement of people: Ptolemaic imperial
power, centered on its capital city, exerts a centripetal force on the rest of the
Greek world and gives the space of the empire definition. Thyonikhos makes it
sound as if Alexandria will provide a fixed point, as if the Greek world is in flux
with a purpose, to feed into Alexandria, and as if Aiskhinas, though a common
soldier, can share vicariously in Ptolemy’s prosperity and will even have a personal
relationship with the king (“Ptolemy is generous, but don’t ask him for every-
thing you need”—​a paraphrase of Id. 14.63–​65). So the emphasis on fluidity of
place and social categories in most of the poem has a point: this is a structured
mobility, flowing to the center of imperial power. We can appreciate the effect of
this spatial refocusing all the more if we follow Jan Kwapisz’s recent suggestion
that this poem forms a “diptych” with Idyll 15: Aiskhinas’s proposed journey from
somewhere in the empire to Alexandria is matched by the women’s expedition
from a home within the city to the royal palace, so that “these are two stages of
the same journey, or even two versions of the same journey.”117 Together, then, the
two poems explore aspects of immigrants’ experience in an empire dominated by

115. It is true that Simos returned home, cured of love, and Aiskhinas expects to do the same.
But that does not affect the point made here about his deracination and placelessness while he
is abroad.
116. Contrast Agis, the Thessalian horse trainer (Id. 14.12), whose profession and region go
together, because Thessaly, with its wide, fertile plains, was famous for its horses, as we see
already in the Iliad, where the Thessalian Eumelos has the best horses of all the Greeks at Troy
(Il. 2.763–​767).
117. Kwapisz 2021, 111–​112. Cf. Pausch 2011, 28–​30.
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92 T heo crit us

Alexandria and its rulers, and they show different ways in which men and women
of middling standing might become involved with, benefit from, and (modestly)
contribute to the power of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, through military service and
cult, respectively. Writing poetry under royal patronage might well come into
sight here as an implied third way.118
This portrait of Ptolemy and his power may be meant as flattery, but in car-
rying out this encomiastic program, Idyll 14, like the bucolic Idylls but more
directly, speaks to the condition of uprootedness and the uncertainties of social
and spatial definitions in its contemporary Greek world. Interestingly, and some-
what paradoxically, it offers Alexandria, the new, diverse city of immigrants,
where old certainties were open to question as never before, as a center of stabil-
ity. Perhaps this idealized view of Alexandria is a sign of how much Theocritus’s
readers needed such reassurance.
Everything comes back to Alexandria. The encomiastic poems may seem
distinct from the other Idylls discussed in these first two chapters, but they are
not. They provide a wide spatial and political context for the Alexandria through
which housewives walk to the festival of Adonis, for the town that is the scene
for Simaitha’s erotic desperation, and for the hillsides on which herdsmen sing of
love and loss.

118. For an interesting “metapoetic” reading of Idyll 14 along these lines, see Pausch 2011,
although his suggestion that by narrating the story of the unfortunate dinner party to
Thyonikhos, Aiskhinas engages in the same kind of “self-​therapy” as Polyphemos does in Idyll
11 seems a bit of a stretch.
93

The Poetics of Absence

Absence, Desire, and Song

An unnamed goatherd stands before the mouth of a cave, pleading with
“Amaryllis” just to look out at him, while one Tityros tends his herd. Pleas turn
into futile exclamations of despair and a threat of suicide. Then, leaning or sitting
against a pine tree, he serenades her with a song cataloguing examples from myth
of goddesses or mortal women falling in love with men. When this performance
produces no result beyond a headache for him, he resolves to lie on the ground
and let wolves devour him, to her satisfaction, as he sarcastically hopes (“may this
be sweet honey trickling down your throat”).
The poem is the third Idyll of Theocritus, and it is a brilliant mime-​like rustic
version of the usually urban kômos; the poem’s illocutionary first word (κωμάζω)
sets it in relation to what was to be a popular situation in Hellenistic and Roman
poetry: the lover pleading and singing at the barred house door of the beloved,
who remains silent and aloof.1 This poem beautifully exemplifies a pervasive
element of Theocritean poetry, the interplay of presence and absence, and par-
ticularly the role of absence in generating and sustaining the poem. The impor-
tance of absence is especially marked in the bucolic poems; Idyll 1, I will argue,
presents it as foundational for bucolic.2 But it is not limited to those Idylls, and
I will discuss several non-​bucolic poems to suggest its importance for the whole
Theocritean corpus.

1. For a helpful summary of the conventions of the kômos, see Hunter 1999, 107–​108. See also
Gow 1952, II, 64. The kômos is referred to in its characteristically city context in Idylls 2.118–​
128, 153; and 7.122–​125.
2. Absence is central to Purchase’s reading of Idyll 1 (2003–​2005), which draws on Lacan and
Winnicott. For Konstan’s excellent remarks, see below.

Theocritus. William G. Thalmann, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197636558.003.0003
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94 T heo crit us

Absence, loss, and discontinuity are a well-​recognized condition of later

pastoral poetry. Vergil’s Eclogues begin with Meliboeus’s departure from his
country and “sweet fields,” while Tityrus remains in possession of the pleasures
of the pastoral world. The importance of absence in Theocritus’s bucolic poems
has occasionally been noted, but for the most part in passing, as though it were
obvious and unremarkable. I hope that this chapter will show that it repays
sustained attention across Theocritus’s poetry. The discussion that follows will
complement and fill out the consideration of space in the first two chapters. If
many of his poems construct spaces and the natural features, objects, animals,
and people and their social relations within them, what is absent is, perhaps
somewhat paradoxically, part of that construction. Presence and absence are
mutually implicated; as the example of Vergil shows, Tityrus’s continued enjoy-
ment of pastoral fullness is balanced, and made to seem more fortunate, by
Meliboeus’s loss of it.
A closer look at Idyll 3 will help bring out important aspects of this topic.
The kômos presupposes absence—​of the beloved—​and expresses the anguish
of the lover, who is present within the implied narrative of the poem. This sep-
aration is spatialized in the sharp opposition between the area in front of the
door and the inaccessible interior of the house. The first is the space of desire,
the second the space of desire’s imagined but always deferred fulfillment. The
absolute dividing line between them is the house door or the doorposts. It
represents the minuscule distance that would have to be traversed in order for
the absent one to become present, and, if the desire were mutual, as it presum-
ably would be if entrance were granted, for the lovers to become fully present
to each other. Generally, however, that distance remains insuperable. All the
lover can do is either try to force entry (a dubious proposition) or—​sing. That
is, the beloved’s absence and frustrated desire produce the song. That is clearly
the case in Idyll 3, where the house is replaced by a cave and its door by a screen
of ferns. The goatherd’s situation seems to be summed up by the name of the
plant whose leaf he uses to divine whether or not “Amaryllis”—​the quotation
marks will be explained presently—​loves him: τηλέφιλον or “love in absence”
(Id. 3.29).3
But the poem complicates this basic situation in interesting ways. The goat-
herd expresses this wish (Id. 3.12–​14):

3. If the leaf that the goatherd smacked onto his arm withered and fell off—​an indication
that “Amaryllis” did not love him—​that would be a physical sign, alongside the verbal one, of
absence. For this interpretation and the difficulties of lines 29–​30, see Gow 1952, II, 70–​71, and
Dover 1971, 116, accepted by Hunter 1999, 119.
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The Poetics of Absence 95

            αἴθε γενοίμαν
ἁ βομβεῦσα μέλισσα καὶ ἐς τεὸν ἄντρον ἱκοίμαν
τὸν κισσὸν διαδὺς καὶ τὰν πτέριν ἅ τυ πυκάσδει.

           I wish I could become

that buzzing bee and come into your cave,
slipping through the ivy and the fern that covers you over.

A barred door is not the obstacle, as it is in the urban kômos; there is only a screen of
foliage over the mouth of this cave. If a bee can fly inside, why can’t the goatherd just
walk in?4 He cannot for two interrelated reasons. First, the bucolic poems show an
awareness of the differences between animal and human sexuality. Animals can sat-
isfy their sexual desire directly and simply, but humans cannot, because human eros
is directed and limited by the conventions of culture, even (or perhaps especially) in
a bucolic setting.5 This distinction seems to be behind Priapos’s taunt to Daphnis in
Idyll 1 (85–​88) that he is δύσερως (unfortunate or inept in love) and like a goatherd
rather than the cowherd he is called. Perhaps goatherds were proverbially randy. But
if a goatherd, seeing his animals copulating, can only weep in frustration because he
was not born a he-​goat, he at least acknowledges the differences and is bound by
the constraints of culture that make of desire and its fulfillment a process, a game
(in a non-​frivolous sense) shaped by rules.6 A contrasting passage that reverses the
situation is Id. 5.41–​42, where Komatas claims to recall his pederastic intercourse
with Lakon, which was witnessed by the goats. The she-​goats bleated (out of lust
or in sympathy with Lakon’s pain?), and “the he-​goat drilled [ἐτρύπη] them.” Here,
unlike the goatherd of Idyll 3, the animals matter-​of-​factly satisfy their mimetic lust.

4. For further comments on the bee, see Isenberg and Konstan 1984, 305–​306.
5. Cf. Gutzwiller 1991, 118, on Idyll 3: “that he [the goatherd] looks like his goats and yet leaves
them to pursue Amaryllis suggests the basic paradox that love is both a product of our animal
nature and a distinctly human emotion.” On Hellenistic philosophical discussions about the
relation of humans to nature, particularly regarding sexuality, see Samson 2013, 201–​328.
6. Galateia’s teasing of Polyphemos in Id. 6.7 by calling him δυσερώτα καὶ αἰπόλον ἄνδρα
(“unfortunate [or inept] in love and a goatherd”) seems to assume the same contrast. There
the shepherd Polyphemos is tending his flocks and pretending to ignore the nymph. She in
effect tells him that if he rejects her, he may as well resort to animals as goatherds are said to
want to do. The irony is that he is playing, or trying to play, the human game of “hard to get.”
The probably post-​Theocritean Idyll 27 shows a successful seduction in progress and ends in
the mutual satisfaction of desire by Daphnis and Akrotime. As Bernsdorff (2006, 192–​193)
says, this contrasts strongly with the depiction of human and animal sexuality in Theocritus’s
bucolics and points in the direction of the romance novel. In Theocritus, there are no such
moments of erotic fulfillment, Idyll 5 being hardly an exception. On Priapos’s speech, see also
Stanzel 1995, 88–​90.
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96 T heo crit us

The description minimizes, if it does not efface, the difference between humans
and animals, since Komatas is gratifying his lust just as straightforwardly (and the
verb used, ἐπύγιζον, is not metaphorical but anatomically explicit). The he-​goat’s
imitation of his human master comments on the latter’s act, which is not accom-
panied by the usual choreography of inaccessibility and desire. The contrast with
other poems in this respect helps us appreciate the way they depict the importance
of absence in human sexuality. This effect is all the sharper if the incident Komatas
boasts of is only a fiction invented as a move in his agonistic game with Lakon.
Second, if the goatherd simply entered the cave, there would be no song. As
David Konstan has pointed out, pastoral song is elicited by a sense of loss, distance,
frustration, and loneliness—​the very conditions of desire. Thus, the song “always has
something of the plaintive strains of a lament for a lost wholeness, an irrecoverable
moment of oneness with others in a garden universe. The feeling of desire and loss
is constitutive of the pastoral lover’s subjectivity.”7 Bucolic song is therefore both a
complaint about absence and distance and an attempt to overcome that distance that
is always doomed to failure, except, occasionally, through imagination, for example,
by recourse to the mythical, as in Idyll 3. These repeated failures are what keep song
going. The conventions of the kômos and of the bucolic poetry that incorporates it
are a counterpart to, or more precisely an expression of, the cultural conventions that
complicate human as opposed to animal sexuality. Human culture is separate from
nature, and bucolic poetry, which depicts humans in a natural setting, in a liminal
area where domestic meets wild space, and in close contact with domesticated ani-
mals, is an especially pointed medium for exploring that distinction and its implica-
tions through the extremes of proximity and distance.
Desire caused by a sense of loss understandably gives rise to an impulse toward
idealization. “What seems specific to pastoral poetry,” Konstan writes, “is the
extraordinary magnification or exaltation of the object of desire in the mind of
the lover. Thus the beloved is frequently represented as remote and unattainable,
separated by an uncrossable divide that suggests a difference in kind or order of
being between her (or him) and the anguished admirer.”8 In the case of Idyll 3,
we might go further and ask, with Hunter, whether “Amaryllis” even exists.9 If

7. Konstan 1994, 169. For the same ideas applied to Idyll 3, see Isenberg and Konstan 1984,
especially 303–​304 (with a more explicit connection to Lacanian theory of subject formation).
See also Goldhill 1991, 252, and especially Goldhill 1988, 88, in connection with Greek poetry
in general as well as Idyll 11: “It is a constitutive factor in the rhetoric of desire that pursuit is
precisely for the one who flees.”
8. Konstan 1994, 168–​169. See Konstan 2021 for an elaboration of the dynamics of eros in
Theocritus, with particular emphasis on the way that idealization of the beloved entails dimin-
ishment of the lover’s self-​regard.
9. Hunter 1999, 109.
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The Poetics of Absence 97

we assume that she does, we can put together an implied narrative of a lovely
(χαρίεσσα) girl (or perhaps Nymph, since she lives in a cave) who used to peep
out of her cave and invite a goatherd—​her sweetheart (τὸν ἐρώτυλον)—​inside but
does so no longer (οὐκέτι, 3.6–​7); who asked him to bring her apples (conven-
tional love tokens) from a certain tree (3.10–​11); but who got close enough to him
(ἐγγύθεν) to see that he was ugly, snub-​nosed, and with a jutting beard (3.8–​9);
and who now, repelled, refuses him entrance, so that all he can do is stand outside
the cave with his tribute of apples and a promise of more tomorrow, wearing a
wreath that he threatens to shred (3.21–​23), and plead with her and sing to her,
to no effect. In this case, we have a rustic version of the standard kômos situation,
with the beloved’s presence followed by absence and the arousal of desire.
Or, if “Amaryllis” is an illusion, this narrative of their past relationship is a
coherent fiction. The goatherd animates this illusion by emphasizing her beauty
(χαρίεσσα again) and her dark eyebrows (ὦ κυανόφρυ/​νύμφα, 3.18–​19), and espe-
cially by imagining her as the subject of sight (ἠνίδε, “look!” 3.10; θᾶσαι μάν, “come
on and see!” 3.12; ὦ τὸ καλὸν ποθορεῦσα, “you with the beautiful glance,” 3.18). We
see how complete and systematic his illusion is. And that means that we appreci-
ate all the more the power of desire to fill a void by creating a fiction that issues
in a song set within a bucolic poem, and to constitute not only its own subject, as
Konstan says, but also its object. We may laugh at the goatherd, but what does it
matter if “Amaryllis” is his fantasy? He has filled his solitude (except for his goats)
with an other, and he has engaged in the human activity of desiring, even if he
finds Eros a “heavy god” (3.15) and even if the poem ends in an impasse.10
Somewhere between these extremes (“Amaryllis” as an actual Nymph or
as pure figment of the goatherd’s imagination) is the possibility, suggested by
Gutzwiller, that “Amaryllis” is a statue.11 In that case, τὸ πᾶν λίθος (“all stone,”

10. There is a parallel, it seems to me, in the story known from Stesichorus, Herodotus, and
Euripides that for ten years the Akhaians and Trojans fought a war not over Helen herself but
over an image (εἴδωλον) of her. This seems to have made no difference to the Trojan War itself.
What kept the war going was the relation of mutual hostility between the two sides, fueled by
Girardean “mimetic desire.”
11. Gutzwiller 1991, 118–​121. A parallel possibility is that the woman in the first scene on the
cup in Idyll 1 is a statue—​an idea already found in the scholia and well developed by Payne
2007, 29–​31. There the statue would be an artifact represented on another artifact (the cup) set
within a verbal description and not looked at during most of the poem by either the goatherd
or Thyrsis. Similarly, in Idyll 3, the statue would be located within a cave that is set within a
fictional landscape and would be animated by the goatherd’s imagination. Both cases would be
analogous to Theocritus’s technique of framing and of embedded (sometimes multiply embed-
ded) songs that will be discussed below. Cf. Payne’s remark (2007, 64) on Idyll 3: “the cave is
a cancelled mise en abyme of the poem itself; it figures the allure of fictional experience as the
desire to enter a world available only through that experience.”
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98 T heo crit us

Id. 3.18) would have a literal meaning as well as a metaphorical one (“hard-​
hearted”), and “you with the beautiful glance,” which immediately precedes this
phrase, could be an expression of aesthetic as well as erotic appreciation.12 We
would have a gesture to a story that resembles that of Pygmalion and an extreme
illustration of the potential of the imagination to construct nature—​here the ele-
ment of stone—​as sentient through its fiction-​making, to do in its own way what
Daedalus was said to do with his statues. For one reading this poem for the first
time surely entertains the possibility, while reading, that “Amaryllis” will appear.
At the same time, by the end of the poem, we have been able to take the measure
of fiction and its limitations, because she never emerges.
The name “Amaryllis” occurs again in Idyll 4 (35–​40), where Korydon recalls
how Aigon dragged a bull by the hooves down from the mountain and gave it
to “Amaryllis,” and how the women screamed and “the cowherd” bellowed with
laughter. Battos responds with an outburst of grief for the now dead “Amaryllis”
(Id. 4.38–​40, discussed in c­ hapter 4). Whether or not the “Amaryllis” of Idyll 4
is literally the same person as the one of Idyll 3,13 I would suggest that the name
functions the same way in both poems: to mark absence. “Amaryllis” is, then, the
signifier not necessarily of an actual person but of the missing object of desire
whose absence provokes the song of longing or nostalgia;14 that is why I have
been enclosing the name in quotation marks. She is more of a poetic function
than a person.15
One description of bucolic poetry is that it is about “herdsmen who sing.”
A more precise account would be that it is about “herdsmen who desire and for
that reason sing.” Even when love and song are alternatives to herding and seem

12. The scholia on line 18 give three explanations of “all stone”: (1) gleaming white like a marble
statue (a sense adopted by Prioux 2021, 390–​391); (2) hard-​hearted; and (3) capable of turning
men to stone with her beauty, like a Gorgon.
13. The scholia consider her the same and identify the goatherd of Idyll 3 as Battos. The echo
of Id. 3.6 in Id. 4.38 implies some sort of connection between the two poems, but there is no
indication that Idyll 3 is set, like Idyll 4, near Kroton in southern Italy. Since “Amaryllis” figures
in Korydon’s anecdote about Aigon (Id. 3.36), she presumably was a real person, at least within
the fiction of the poem. That does not affect my point about the similar function of her name
in both poems.
14. Cf. Stanzel 1995, 30.
15. It is symptomatic of this that we are given no physical description other than two epi-
thets: κυάνοφρυς, “dark-​browed” (Id. 3.18), and χαρίεσσα, “lovely” (Ids. 3.6, 4.38). In Homer,
the latter epithet can describe objects such as a temple or clothing, abstractions such as song,
and the head, face, or forehead, but never the whole person. Even the name “Amaryllis,” which
suggests something like “Sparkles,” points more toward her function as object of desire than
toward individual identity. The name is borrowed by Longus and Vergil and becomes “almost
an emblem of the bucolic world” (Hatzikosta 2008, 56).
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The Poetics of Absence 99

to disrupt the bucolic world, as, for instance, in Idylls 3 and 11, they are basic to it.
Such cases, in fact, assume an innocent world of wholeness (what I am going to call
presence) that is now lost because it was invaded by desire and need and that is itself
an object of longing. Thus, the bucolic world is always already alienated from itself.
From this perspective, bucolic poetry seems a development of the Platonic insight
that eros is always desire for what one does not have, that absence is the constitutive
ground for desire (Pl. Symp. 199c3–​206a12).16 In fact, the goatherd of Idyll 3 sounds
very much like Diotima’s description of Eros in the Symposium (203c5–​d3):

ἅτε οὖν Πόρου καὶ Πενίας ὑὸς ὢν ὁ Ἔρως ἐν τοιαύτῃ τύχῃ καθέστηκεν.
πρῶτον μὲν πένης ἀεί ἐστι, καὶ πολλοῦ δεῖ ἁπαλὸς καὶ καλός, οἷον οἱ πολλοὶ
οἴονται, ἀλλὰ σκληρὸς καὶ αὐχμηρὸς καὶ ἀνυπόδητος καὶ ἄοικος, χαμαιπετὴς
ἀεὶ ὢν καὶ ἄστρωτος, ἐπὶ θύραις καὶ ἐν ὁδοῖς ὑπαίθριος κοιμώμενος, τὴν τῆς
μητρὸς φύσιν ἔχων, ἀεὶ ἐνδείᾳ σύνοικος.

As befits the son of Resourcefulness and Poverty, Eros exists in the follow-
ing condition. First, he is always poor, and he is far from being delicate and
beautiful, as the many think; but he is rough and parched, barefoot and
homeless. He always sleeps on the ground and without bedding, lying in
doorways and streets under the open sky, possessing his mother’s nature,
always a housemate of neediness.

Rough and no doubt dirty,17 determined to sleep on the ground in front of

“Amaryllis’s” cave, the goatherd is not only a subject of desire but the very figure
of Eros, of want and longing.18 Because he is not named, and so given an indi-
vidual identity, he seems no different from any other goatherd19 and therefore
seems to represent a type. That is to say again that absence and desire are basic to
bucolic subjectivity.

16. This connection is also briefly made by Fantuzzi 2017, 331. On the relations of Theocritus’s
poetry to philosophical issues surrounding love raised by Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the
Epicureans, see Samson 2013. She organizes her discussion according to Diotima’s description
of types of lovers but does not discuss this passage.
17. For a fuller description of a goatherd (Idyll 3 gives almost no details), see Id. 7.13–​19.
18. In her excellent chapter on “The Herdsman in Plato,” Gutzwiller 1991, 78–​79, discusses
Socrates as a figure of Eros but not the Theocritean herdsman.
19. On the importance of not naming, as well as of names, see Kossaifi 2002, 357–​358. Even in
connection with the named Lykidas, Id. 7.13–​14 suggests that there is a category of goatherds
that is recognizable on sight: “his name was Lykidas, and he was a goatherd. No one seeing him
would have mistaken him, since he looked just like a goatherd.”
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100 T heo crit us

From one perspective, it may seem that love is antithetical to the values of
the bucolic world because it is disruptive of that world’s serenity.20 In some ways,
this is undeniable, but I would go further and say that absence and the desire
it arouses are also constitutive of the bucolic world and that tranquility, which
would involve humans seamlessly fitting into it, is an ideal never fully realized.
This distinction seems important. Love, as an element of human culture, is one of
the obstacles to humans merging with nature, as we have now seen in connection
with Idyll 3. In ­chapter 1, I argued that the beginning of Idyll 1 shows in a different
way that such merging, or fullness, can never be fully attained. So I do not see
love in Theocritus’s bucolic poems as disrupting an already existing, or an other-
wise existing, peace so much as a condition of even existing in the bucolic world.
What would the fulfillment of desire be like? In Plato, it would ultimately be
philosophical noêsis, but for bucolic poetry, it is harder to answer this question.
But imagine if a fully embodied Amaryllis appeared at the entrance to her cave
and exchanged gazes with the goatherd, if he could see (or see again) her beauti-
ful glance (ὦ τὸ καλὸν ποθορεῦσα), and if they were not separated by the division
between beauty and ugliness and were fully present to each other as lovers. More
generally, we might imagine the full realization of the beauty and fertility of the
natural world, and humans living in oneness with it and with one another. This
is the condition that I will call “fullness” and “presence,” and there are moments
in the Idylls that at least gesture toward it and even envision it—​but always in a
distanced way that recognizes it as a not fully attainable ideal. And what would
poetry be like in such a state? Would bucolic poetry be possible, if on its presup-
positions it is desire aroused by absence and need that generates the energy of
seeking and therefore of poetic creation? To put the point another way, according
to the terms of Idyll 3, can the notion of an Amaryllis and a goatherd in love with
each other strike us as anything but grotesque? Would we be interested in reading
a poem that described it? But we are interested in the goatherd’s song of need.
Idyll 12, in which an older man addresses the boy he loves after the latter has
returned from absence, might seem to suggest that a poem can be written about
presence as I have defined it; its first word is ἤλυθες (“you have come”), and the
first nine lines describe the speaker’s joy in terms that fit the relationship into
nature at its most alluring. But line 10 introduces a wish and the consequences,
including poetic immortality, that might flow from its fulfillment: “I wish the
Erotes might breathe equally on both of us.” The very utterance of the wish
opens the possibility that the Erotes do not breathe on the boy as much as on
the speaker, that if the boy left once he can do so again, and that he may not fully

20. Fantuzzi 2017.

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The Poetics of Absence 101

share the lover’s pleasure in their reunion. The speaker imagines the song that will
be sung in the future about himself and the boy, which concludes (Id. 12.15–​16):

            ἦ ῥα τότ’ ἦσαν

χρύσειοι πάλιν ἄνδρες, ὅτ’ ἀντεφίλησ’ ὁ φιληθείς.

               Then indeed
men were of gold again, when the loved one loved in return.

Full and lasting reciprocity in love would mean a restoration of the Golden Age,
and that is tantamount to admitting its impossibility. So the initial moment of
fullness and presence is qualified by questions about the future—​questions that
are not canceled but only intensified by the self-​fictionalizing fantasies in the
lines that follow (Id.12.12–​21). As Diotima says, one can possess something good
and still feel eros—​desire for continued possession in the future.21
In what follows I will examine absence and presence and their interplay in
other poems of Theocritus, principally but not only the bucolic poems.

Idyll 1: A Version of Bucolic Origins

If Idyll 1 is, as most scholars agree, “programmatic” for Theocritean bucolic
poetry and deserves its initial position in the corpus;22 if Daphnis represents the
archetypal herdsman-​singer; if his suffering and death from love represent the
founding moment of bucolic poetry, so that “the sufferings of Daphnis” could be
a condensed reference to its origins (Id. 7.72–​77), the title of a song (Id. 1.19), or
otherwise treated as proverbial (Id. 5.20), and the “bucolic song” that the Muses
are asked to begin and then end in the refrains to Thyrsis’s song embedded in Idyll
1 is the bucolic song; and if, therefore, in Idyll 1, bucolic poetry is constructing a
history for itself; then the inaugural event of that poetry is a loss, and absence is
the founding condition of bucolic.23 Thyrsis is Daphnis’s successor, and to the
extent that his song is “programmatic,” every bucolic song in some sense represents

21. Pl. Symp. 200b9–​d10. For discussion of Idyll 12, see Payne 2007, 100–​111.
22. Even if this position was not planned by Theocritus, ancient editors clearly thought that
Idyll 1 belonged first. See Gutzwiller 1996. Gutzwiller 2006 has also suggested that Idyll 1 encap-
sulates the full range of meanings that βουκολεῖν (“to bucolicize”) had acquired by Theocritus’s
time—​an excellent way of appreciating how “foundational” for bucolic this poem is.
23. On the refrains, with their emphasis on the processes of beginning and ending, as expres-
sions of the inaugural function of Daphnis’s story for bucolic song, see also Billault 2006, 326,
328–​329.
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102 T heo crit us

an attempt to overcome the loss of Daphnis, to restore that archetypal voice. But
Daphnis’s death can be read as the loss of the full presence of the bucolic world
itself, a condition in which humans and animals share a sympathetic bond (the
wild animals howl in the forest in grief for the dying Daphnis, and his cattle
gather at his feet to mourn) and gods appear freely to mortals.
By implication, then, bucolic poetry would be an attempt to reconnect with
the fullness of that world. Thyrsis claims that his voice is “sweet” (Θύρσιδος
ἁδέα φωνά, Id. 1.65). The adjective is, of course, the first word of the poem,
where it describes the whispering of the pine trees and seems programmatic for
Theocritean bucolic.24 Thyrsis then says that the goatherd’s piping is also “sweet,”
and the goatherd says that Thyrsis’s singing is “sweeter” than the sound of spring
water running down a rock (Id. 1.1, 7–​8). The echo of the poem’s opening in line
65 places Thyrsis’s song about Daphnis in close relation to the harmony of nature.
But Thyrsis’s song is fleeting; its three refrains emphasize beginning and then
ending, and the middle one (lines 94–​122) calls on the Muses to begin the song
again (πάλιν). At the end, with a significant recurrence of the word “sweet,” he
anticipates further performances of his song when he promises the Muses that he
will sing to them “more sweetly” (ἅδιον, Id. 1.145). The song lacks the permanence
and continuity of the plashing water; it must end and has to begin again repeat-
edly. Thus, each song is at best an approximation; it can never succeed in realizing
the fullness of nature or in restoring Daphnis’s voice to full and lasting presence.
Even if that were possible, in Idyll 1, it comes to us mediated by Thyrsis, whose
own voice can only be recreated by someone else in performance or, through the
medium of a written text, by a reader’s imagination. Any attempt to recreate the
song can only ever be repetition and replication, but this is what keeps bucolic
song always “beginning again.” Moments in which Theocritus’s poems seem to
grasp some of that fullness are rare and, as we shall see, always somehow qualified.
More often the poems dwell on absence.
The situation that precipitates Daphnis’s death also is one of absence. Priapos,
who cannot see what all the fuss is about, asks him (Id. 1.82–​85):

   Δάφνι τάλαν, τί τὺ τάκεαι; ἁ δε τυ κώρα

πάσας ἀνὰ κράνας, πάντ’ ἄλσεα ποσσὶ φορεῖται—​
    ἄρχετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι φίλαι, ἄρχετ’ ἀοιδᾶς.
ζατεῖσ[α] . . .

24. On this word as creating an aesthetic of sweetness and pleasure in bucolic poetry in
opposition to Plato’s criticisms of poetry and as an alternative to Callimachean aesthetics, see
Sistakou 2021.
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The Poetics of Absence 103

    Wretched Daphnis, why are you melting? The girl

is running among all springs, all groves—​
    Begin, dear Muses, begin the bucolic song—​
searching for you . . .

Whatever the exact circumstances—​whether his and the girl’s mutual love for
some reason cannot be satisfied, or he is keeping himself aloof from her in order
to keep a pledge of fidelity to a Nymph, or something else25—​Daphnis is a vic-
tim of eros, and for some reason, he and the girl are irremediably absent from
each other. That is, bucolic poetry’s foundational story of Daphnis’s absence from
the bucolic world contains within it, evidently as its cause, another and parallel
absence. The latter is emphasized by the heavy enjambment across the refrain of
the participle ζατεῖσ[α] (”searching”), the only instance of such enjambment in
Thyrsis’s song. The Nymph is permanently frozen in a frenzy of movement across
the enjambment, always searching (as is emphasized by the heavy stop after the
participle) and never finding Daphnis—​the condition of bucolic poetry itself.
Judith Haber has suggested that the refrains in this song “[serve] to remove us
from the events being portrayed, to foreground the formal qualities of the artist’s
performance, and to affirm the primacy of stasis and continuity over movement,
disruption, and death.”26 In this case, interruption by the refrain creates a stasis
of the girl’s perpetual movement that replicates bucolic poetry’s continual seek-
ing for wholeness and fulfillment and its compulsion to keep “beginning again.”
This textual effect imitates on the page or papyrus scroll the narrative’s spatial
enactment of the separation between the girl and Daphnis. This enactment takes
place through the contrast between the woods where she runs and the open pas-
tureland where he is wasting and between the frantic motion of her body and the
immobility of his. Priapos’s words imply a question similar to the one we raised in
connection with the goatherd and the bee in Idyll 3: why cannot Daphnis and the
girl simply get together? The answer is the same: because human sexuality is more
complex than that of the animal world—​a distinction that Priapos by his nature
would never understand. This reminder of the separation between the human

25. For a helpful consideration of various possibilities, see Ogilvie 1962. If the girl is the same
as the one named as Daphnis’s love object in Id. 7.73, her name, Xenea, would stress her inac-
cessibility to him; she is “the stranger, the foreign, the alien.” A new interpretation has been
advanced by Anagnostou-​Laoutides and Konstan 2008: Daphnis loves Aphrodite, whose now-​
abandoned consort he is in accordance with Near Eastern myth. Presumably, Id. 7.73 would
reflect a different version of the Daphnis story. In this case, too, Daphnis desires what is inac-
cessible to him—​a point explicitly made by the authors (2008, 522–​523). The situation presup-
posed in Thyrsis’s song is murky, but my point is the same whatever view one takes.
26. Haber 1994, 18.
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104 T heo crit us

and the bucolic world, which is sharpened by Priapos’s subsequent words (Id.
1.85–​88, discussed earlier), cuts against the notion of bucolic presence, in which
humans fit harmoniously into nature and its conditions. Now we see that whereas
the poem presents such fullness at the moment of its disappearance, it was an
impossible ideal all along; its “loss” is a way of speaking about something we never
had to begin with. Thus, even if we wish to see the story of Daphnis as a “mythic”
expression of a lost harmonious presence, it seems that Theocritus is qualifying as
an artificial construct what he is at the same time depicting as one of the founding
presuppositions of bucolic as a poetic type.
In fact, it seems that when Daphnis is on the point of death, he is already in
some sense outside the bucolic world. First in a succession of three gods, Hermes
comes to him “from the mountain” (ἀπ’ ὤρεος, Id. 1.77). The natural inference
is that Daphnis is not there, and so, as John van Sickle suggests,27 not in bucolic
space if that is what “the mountain” designates here, as it seems to do everywhere
else in the bucolic Idylls. It is difficult to tell where Daphnis is. He refers to hav-
ing pastured his cattle “here” and having watered his bulls and cows “here” (Id.
1.120–​21), so that he is still amid bucolic surroundings. Perhaps, then, just as the
bucolic world is not literally on a mountain elsewhere, since the landscape seems
to be in the foothills, “mountain” is used quasi-​metaphorically here: the dying
Daphnis no longer belongs to that world and is visited by divinities who do,
Hermes, Priapos, and (by virtue of having been Adonis’s lover) Aphrodite, who
step out of it briefly.
Not only is Daphnis displaced, but the scene of his death also takes place amid
another absence. The first words of the song proper, after a line identifying the
singer, are these (Id. 1.66–​69):

πᾷ ποκ’ ἄρ’ ἦσθ’, ὅκα Δάφνις ἐτάκετο, πᾷ ποκα, Νύμφαι;

ἦ κατὰ Πηνειῶ καλὰ τέμπεα, ἢ κατὰ Πίνδω;
οὐ γὰρ δὴ ποταμοῖο μέγαν ῥόον εἴχετ’ Ἀνάπω,
οὐδ’ Ἀἴτνας σκοπιάν, οὐδ’ Ἄκιδος ἱερὸν ὕδωρ.

Where were you, when Daphnis was wasting, where, Nymphs?

In the beautiful valleys of the Peneios or of Pindos?
For indeed you were not present at the great stream of Anapos,
nor on the peak of Aitna, nor at the holy water of Akis.

27. Van Sickle 1969, 137.

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The Poetics of Absence 105

The Nymphs, rather than the Muses (at least in most cases), seem to be the inspir-
ing patronesses of Theocritean bucolic.28 Their absence would then signal the end
of archetypal bucolic song as embodied by Daphnis, to which later herdsmen-​
singers such as Thyrsis can only look back as their model.29 Or perhaps the idea is
that the Nymphs could have saved Daphnis if they had been present (but how?),
but their absence, especially if it is to avoid a death that they as divinities have
foreseen, can be taken as a sign of indifference and so as another disjunction
within the bucolic setting in Sicily.
And there is another absence that should surprise us. Just as Thyrsis addresses
the Nymphs, Daphnis calls upon the absent Pan (Id. 1.123–​130):

ὦ Πὰν Πάν, εἴτ’ ἐσσὶ κατ’ ὤρεα μακρὰ Λυκαίω,

εἴτε τύγ’ ἀμφιπολεῖς μέγα Μαίναλον, ἔνθ’ ἐπὶ νᾶσον
τὰν Σικελάν, Ἑλίκας δὲ λίπε ῥίον αἰπύ τε σᾶμα
τῆνο Λυκαονίδαο, τὸ καὶ μακάρεσσιν ἀγητόν.
   λήγετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι, ἴτε λήγετ’ ἀοιδᾶς.
ἔνθ’ ὦναξ, καὶ τάνδε φέρευ πακτοῖο μελίπνουν
ἐκ κηρῶ σύριγγα καλὸν περὶ χεῖλος ἑλικτάν·
ἦ γὰρ ἐγὼν ὑπ’  Ἔρωτος ἐς Ἅιδαν ἕλκομαι ἤδη.

O Pan, Pan, whether you are on the huge mountain range of Lykaion,
or if you frequent great Mainalos, come to the island
of Sicily, leave the ridge of Helike and that high tomb
of Lykaon’s son there, wondered at by even the gods.
   Cease, Muses, cease the bucolic song.
Come, lord, and receive this syrinx honey-​fragrant

28. Walker 1980, 42–​43; Fantuzzi 2000, 145–​147; 2004, 152–​156. That Thyrsis invokes the
Muses to begin and end the bucolic song Fantuzzi attributes to its subject, Daphnis, being a
mythical as well as a bucolic figure, which would bring the song at least partly into the orbit
of Homer and Hesiod. Line 141 can be read as reflecting Daphnis’s simultaneous mythic and
bucolic identities: Daphnis, as he dies, is described as “the man dear to the Muses, the man not
hateful to the Nymphs.” We might also see the line as an acknowledgment at once of bucolic’s
affinities with epic and, through the Nymphs, of its distance from most of epic in subject mat-
ter. More pointedly, we might see the Nymphs as rivals to the Muses as patronesses of bucolic
poetry and in the process of displacing them. Displacement of the Muses could also be a ques-
tioning of traditional ideas of poetic inspiration that had been associated with orality in favor
of textuality. Who needs the Muses when you have the Library? Cf. Berger 1984, 33, who sug-
gests that Idyll 7 “shows that [bucolic poetry] finds both inspiration and art by moving into the
city and toward the Library.”
29. Or one could take Stanzel’s approach (1995, 267): bucolic song is about herdsmen in love,
but since Daphnis resists love, the Nymphs cannot help him. On this view, it is the archetypal
singer’s own character and choice that spell the end to fully authentic bucolic song.
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106 T heo crit us

from hardened wax and with its lip beautifully fastened all around.
For I am dragged by Eros to Hades now.

As in Thyrsis’s invocation of the Nymphs, the list of places where the divinity
might be focuses attention on Sicily, the “here” of the narrative, as a place from
which he is absent. The epithets μακρά, μέγα, αἰπύ, and ἀγητόν (“huge,” “great,”
“high,” “wondered at”) make those other places vivid to the mind’s eye, and
the imperatives ἔνθ(ε) and λίπε (“come,” “leave”) seek to overcome the distance
between them and Sicily through language and to summon Pan’s presence. The
demonstrative τάνδε and the detailed description call particular attention to the
syrinx as a significant object in this bucolic landscape that would forge a relation-
ship between the dying Daphnis and Pan if the god were to come and receive
it (the verb literally means “carry it off for your own”). All of this happens at
the moment of loss, when Daphnis is being dragged to Hades “now”; the adverb
gains emphasis by its placement at the end of its line and sentence, and the Muses,
previously invoked to begin the bucolic song, are now for the first time asked to
end it, so that the ending of the song is coordinated with Daphnis’s death and per-
haps re-​enacts it. Pan’s arrival would therefore mean some kind of continuity in
the form of the syrinx amid that absence: a memorial and reminder of Daphnis,
and presumably the survival of bucolic song after the death of the archetypal
singer, even if in attenuated form—​a survival now enacted by Thyrsis’s singing.
So far there seems to be a positive meaning here for the genealogy of bucolic
song. But the passage is peculiar from another perspective. Formally, with the
εἴτε . . . εἴτε (“if . . . if ”) clauses, it follows the pattern of prayers to gods to appear,
or at any rate to aid the speaker.30 Instead, Daphnis summons Pan in order to give
him a syrinx, and against the background of the Muses’ gift of a staff or skeptron
to Hesiod31 and in the context of song, the gift of a significant object has the aura
of a poetic investiture.32 Here, however, the usual relationship is reversed, and it is
a mortal who seems to be conferring the gift of song on a god—​one who, in fact,
is presented at the beginning of the poem as the syrinx player par excellence (Id.
1.3).33 Are we to take seriously the implied claim that one type of bucolic music
descends from a mortal through a god? Or should we understand it as part of

30. Cf., e.g., Il. 16.514–​516; Aesch. Eum. 292–​298.

31. Hes. Theog. 30–​34; cf. Id. 7.128–​129.
32. For this syrinx as a symbol of bucolic poetry, see Cairns 1984, 101. He suggests (107–​108)
that the passage has affinities with “the motif of dedicating the tools of one’s trade to a god at
the end of a career,” but surely the Hesiodic model is also operative.
33. For other paradoxes at work in this passage, see Haber 1994, 16–​17.
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The Poetics of Absence 107

Daphnis’s deathbed rhetoric, in which he seems to take self-​dramatization a bit

far (see below)? In support of the latter possibility is the fact that singing and syr-
inx playing are distinct—​in fact, mutually exclusive—​and that the opening of the
poem seems to imply a distinction between Pan’s activities and the singing that
will take place (Id. 1.12–​22).34
In fact, within Thyrsis’s song, Pan never appears to claim the syrinx, so that
we have, most unusually, an abortive Dichterweihe. We cannot look here for the
genealogy of bucolic, and Pan remains part of the imagined bucolic world but
not at its origin. We are left with Thyrsis’s song as an attempt to reconnect with
Daphnis’s singing by celebrating his death. But even here the success of restoring
that lost presence through song is not straightforward—​a subject I would like
to explore by drawing on Jonathan Culler’s essay “Apostrophe.”35 Culler is con-
cerned with post-​Enlightenment English, French, and German lyric poetry, but
his insights will transfer readily to Theocritean bucolic, in which, as Payne has
shown, fictionalization is so prominent.36
Apostrophe, Culler observes, is peculiar because “it makes its point by troping
not on the meaning of a word but on the circuit or situation of communication
itself.”37 By its nature, it is founded on absence: it addresses someone who is not
actually there, or inanimate physical surroundings, and seeks to summon them
into presence. Thus,

to apostrophize is to will a state of affairs, to attempt to call it into being by

asking inanimate objects to bend themselves to your desire. In these terms
the function of apostrophe would be to make the objects of the universe
potentially responsive forces. . . . The apostrophizing poet identifies his
universe as a world of sentient forces.38

By constituting the world or objects in it as a responsive subject, the apostro-

phizing speaker creates an “I–​thou” relationship with his or her surroundings.

34. Cf. Walker 1980, 35: “In this section of Idyll 1 [lines 1–​20] Theocritus is intent on defining
a hierarchy of pastoral art forms, from simple piping to that recreation of ancient myth and
legend which was one of the preoccupations of Alexandrian poetry.”
35. Culler 1981. On various kinds of address in Theocritus (including, briefly, apostrophe) used
to create the bucolic world and bring it to life for the reader—​an approach compatible with
mine—​see Myers 2016.
36. Payne 2007.
37. Culler 1981, 135.
38. Culler 1981, 139.
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108 T heo crit us

In this very act, furthermore, the speaker at the same time constitutes him-​or
herself as a subject: “one who successfully invokes nature is one to whom nature
might, in its turn, speak.”39 “To read apostrophe as a sign of fiction which knows
its own fictive nature,” therefore, “is to stress its optative character, its impossible
imperatives.”40
An excellent example of what Culler describes occurs when Daphnis, on
the point of death, takes leave of his surroundings (Id. 1.115–​121; this comes just
before his invocation of Pan, quoted above):

ὦ λύκοι, ὦ θῶες, ὦ ἀν’ ὤρεα φωλάδες ἄρκτοι,

χαίρεθ’· ὁ βουκόλος ὔμμιν ἐγὼ Δάφνις οὐκέτ’ ἀν’ ὕλαν,
οὐκέτ’ ἀνὰ δρυμώς, οὐκ ἄλσεα. χαῖρ’, Ἀρέθοισα,
καὶ ποταμοὶ τοὶ χεῖτε καλὸν κατὰ Θύβριδος ὕδωρ.
   ἄρχετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι, πάλιν ἄρχετ’ ἀοιδᾶς.
Δάφνις ἐγὼν ὅδε τῆνος ὁ τὰς βόας ὧδε νομεύων,
Δάφνις ὁ τὼς ταύρως καὶ πόρτιας ὧδε ποτίσδων.

O wolves, O jackals, O bears with lairs throughout the mountains,

Farewell. I, Daphnis, the cowherd, am no longer present for you among
the forest,
no longer among the thickets, or the groves. Farewell, Arethusa,
and you rivers who pour your lovely water down from Thybris.
   Begin, Muses, begin again the bucolic song.
I whom you see here am that Daphnis, the one who herded cows here,
Daphnis, who watered his bulls and calves here.

Before considering this passage in detail, it will be useful to discuss why it is not
wholly satisfactory to call it an example of the “pathetic fallacy.” Some scholars,
in fact, have expressed skepticism that this phenomenon has much significance
in Theocritus’s poetry.41 On the other hand, J. L. Buller42 makes a strong case for
its importance and argues that, although there are precursors in earlier poetry, it

39. Culler 1981, 142.

40. Culler 1981, 146.
41. For example, Dick 1968 argues that the “pathetic fallacy” is not essential to Theocritus’s
bucolic poems in the way it is to Vergil’s Eclogues. Rosenmeyer 1969, 249, who says that
“Theocritus . . . has little room for the pathetic fallacy,” shows why it is necessary to be precise
as to what we are talking about when we use the term.
42. Buller 1981.
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The Poetics of Absence 109

makes its appearance in the form in which we know it in the Hellenistic period
in tandem with certain other intellectual and cultural developments. His view,
however, that the pathetic fallacy implies an actual unity between humanity and
nature goes to my central point here. For example, he writes in connection with
pseudo-​Moschus’s Lament for Bion, and particularly its first four lines, “there is
nothing in the universe which does not grieve for Bion.”43 This claim overlooks
the fact that all the verbs in that passage are imperatives urging natural elements
and flora to mourn, not statements that they do so. At the end of his article, Buller
makes the interesting point that the reason nature grieves at human death is that
plants die and germinate again, whereas individual humans die absolutely. But
that is to say that the “pathetic fallacy” is predicated on a gap between humans
and nature that it only draws attention to by striving to overcome it. This is exactly
the point I want to make. The advantage of doing so in terms of apostrophe is that
the label “pathetic fallacy” too often blocks further examination of how passages
like the one just quoted really work. Recognizing the rhetorical trope that under-
lies them brings out the fictive, wishful assumptions about the world that inform
them. It also illuminates what they essentially have in common with invocations
of gods, such as Daphnis’s apostrophe of Pan.
What are the implications, then, when Daphnis addresses wild animals
and natural features—​the spring Arethusa and the rivers that pour down from
Thybris (perhaps the mountain with rocky gorges above Syracuse)?44 The first
thing to notice is that the domesticated herd animals are not addressed in apos-
trophe here, even though they are earlier mentioned alongside wolves, jackals,
and lions as mourning for Daphnis (Id. 1.71–​75). There the herd animals were
present at his feet, whereas the more distant untamed beasts could only be heard
howling. Here Daphnis invokes wild animals and inanimate features of the natu-
ral world, both of which are separate from human culture, and seeks to make
them present, to constitute them as feeling and responsive to him, and to put
them into relation with himself. This “I–​thou” relationship is indicated by the
pathos-​laden ὔμμιν (“for you”) in line 116, which I have translated rather clumsily
above in order to bring out this attempt at forging a connection whereby the ani-
mals and streams are expected to feel sorrow at the loss of Daphnis. Word order
stresses this assumed connection: “for you” is enfolded between “the cowherd”
and “I” (ὁ βουκόλος ὔμμιν ἐγώ). Daphnis’s anaphoric use in line 115 of the particle
ὦ, which was not used in spoken Greek in the Hellenistic period, seems also to
claim a special relationship with the animals and may convey intense feeling as

43. Buller 1981, 36.

44. On Thybris, see Hunter 1999, 99.
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110 T heo crit us

well.45 Right after these lines and the intervening refrain, Daphnis asserts his own
identity and significance as a cowherd (that is, he constitutes himself as a bucolic
subject), and he does so emphatically: the first four words of line 120 mean lit-
erally “Daphnis-​I-​this one here-​that one [who].” In lines 120 and 121, Daphnis
names himself for the third and fourth time out of five instances. In the other
places, he speaks of himself in the third person; he “sees himself in a dramatic
light.”46 Here he is claiming an identity as an “I,” a subject.47 The demonstrative
ὅδε marks, as it often does, a person present physically or in one’s thoughts. With
it, Daphnis is claiming his presence to the animals and elements that he seeks
to make present to himself (hence my translation, “whom you see”). The other
demonstrative, τῆνος, will then mean “that one you know about,” or “the famous
one,” and asserts Daphnis’s place in the world he is leaving, which his addressees
are assumed to know.48
These are all presuppositions underlying Daphnis’s apostrophe and
reflected in his language. Nature—​even the untamed animals lurking in the
wilds beyond the more gentle bucolic world—​is constructed as sympathetic, as
though there were a deep connection between it and humans. Notice, however,
that the vision Daphnis assumes is a human-​centered one that sees nature as an
extension of the human. What if the natural world is actually indifferent? True,
these same wild beasts howl as Daphnis lies dying, but that they do so in grief
is a human inference. Then there is Daphnis’s situation itself, caused by desire

45. See Williams 1973, 66, who classifies the line as a “hymnic formula” (i.e., one in which a
mortal tries to establish a special connection with a god) and notes that it is the only certain
case in genuine Theocritus of animals being addressed with ὦ.
46. A phrase I owe to T. S. Eliot 1960, 81: “The really fine rhetoric of Shakespeare occurs in
situations where a character in the play sees himself in a dramatic light” (emphasis in original).
The other instances are Id. 1.103, 113, and 135.
47. See Purchase’s excellent treatment of Daphnis’s self-​naming and of the passage discussed
here (2003–​2005, 89). Daphnis’s attempt at self-​constitution fails, Purchase says, because he
cannot bring his desires for dependence and autonomy into proper alignment (note especially
his remark that Daphnis “swings between immersion and difference, between nature and
Aphrodite, in his relationship with the external”). Purchase goes on to argue that Thyrsis is
more successful, in virtue of his singing. We can see this difference, I would add, if we contrast
Daphnis’s ὔμμιν ἐγώ, addressed to the animals in farewell (line 116) with Thyrsis’s ἐγὼ δ’ ὔμμιν,
addressed to the Muses with a promise of a “sweeter” song in the future (line 145): finality as
opposed to continuity.
48. Hunter 1999, 99, comments on lines 120–​121, “As Virgil saw (and made explicit), Daphnis
here writes his own epitaph.” An epitaph couched in the first person at least notionally addresses
someone (a passerby at the tomb), and the dynamics are similar to those of apostrophe; so my
reading of the lines is compatible with Hunter’s (and Vergil’s). The Vergilian passage is Ecl.
5.43–​44, where Vergil both captures the flavor of Daphnis’s self-​assertion and does Theocritus
one better: Daphnis ego in silvis, hinc usque ad sidera notus.
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The Poetics of Absence 111

and absence. Priapos’s rebuke (Id. 1.86–​91), as we have seen, sets the complex-
ity of culture off from the natural world’s direct fulfillment of desire, so that
humans are not finally one with nature, whatever unity Daphnis has enjoyed
before now.
There is, in fact, a series of three apostrophes on Daphnis’s part, from line 115
to line 136: to wild animals and streams, to Pan who does not appear, and finally
to nature itself in optatives of wish (Id. 1.132–​136; recall Culler’s phrases about
apostrophe: “its optative character, its impossible imperatives”):49

νῦν ἴα μὲν φορέοιτε βάτοι, φορέοιτε δ’ ἄκανθαι,

ἁ δὲ καλὰ νάρκισσος ἐπ’ ἀρκεύθοισι κομάσαι,
πάντα δ’ ἄναλλα γένοιτο, καὶ ἁ πίτυς ὄχνας ἐνείκαι,
Δάφνις ἐπεὶ θνάσκει, καὶ τὰς κύνας ὥλαφος ἕλκοι,
κἠξ ὀρέων τοὶ σκῶπες ἀηδόσι γαρύσαιντο.

Now bring forth violets, you brambles, bring them forth, thornbushes,
and may the beautiful narcissus blossom on junipers,
let everything change, and let the pine tree bear pears,
since Daphnis dies, and let the stag harass the hounds,
and may the owls hoot from the mountain in competition with
nightingales.

These are Daphnis’s last words. He expects his absence in death to disorder nature,
but in fact nothing happens.50 Nature retains its lovely order and harmonious
sounds, as the opening lines of this poem, set in the post-​Daphnis world, make
clear. The last line quoted may have poetological overtones, since nightingales
are often a figure for skilled poets. Daphnis would then be envisioning a world
in which inferior poets can compete on an equal footing with the pure-​voiced

49. At least, the passage begins as a direct apostrophe, although the verbs then shift into the
third person.
50. For a different view of these lines, see Gershenson 1974. As in other cultures, he argues,
though nowhere else in Greco-​Roman literature, a “topsy-​turvy world” is a world of enhanced
loveliness that is emblematic of death. Daphnis is thus inviting nature to join him in dying.
A problem, I think, is that whereas the first two lines of the passage might be read as describing
improvements to nature, it is hard to say the same about stags attacking hounds and owls hoot-
ing against nightingales. But if Gershenson is correct, that would not affect my point: nature
does not, in fact, die with Daphnis, and he is not as central to it as he seems to expect. On
either reading, as Gershenson says, Daphnis “pictures himself as Nature’s Life. When he leaves
all things can be subject to reversal, for he is no longer with them to give them life” (27), but
nature remains itself without him.
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112 T heo crit us

singers of bucolic like himself.51 But there is Thyrsis’s song to show that poetry has
not been altogether degraded, and the victory that he won with it over Khromis
seems sufficiently memorable that his rival was a worthy competitor (Id. 1.23–​24).
Thyrsis’s rebuke of the Nymphs falls into the same pattern as Daphnis’s apostro-
phes. It also seeks to construct nature as responsive to human needs and desires,
but it is unanswered. It, too, is paradigmatic, like the story of Daphnis’s death: it
shows bucolic poetry always striving to overcome the gap between humanity and
nature that was opened up by the loss of Daphnis and never quite succeeding. As
I argued in ­chapter 1, the spatial relations in the first part of Idyll 1 imply that the
bucolic world inhabited by Daphnis’s heirs, the goatherd and Thyrsis, is condi-
tioned by the same interplay between identification with nature and distinctness
from it. That is to say that there is a deep connection between the poem’s frame
and the song that is its center.
To say these things is not to deny that Daphnis’s death really is a loss or that
there are differences between conditions before and after that event. In other
ways than I have mentioned, Daphnis represents a time of particular closeness
between humans and nature. His herd animals evidently do mourn for him, and
wherever the Nymphs and Pan might be, three divinities—​Hermes, Priapos,
and Aphrodite—​do come to him in his last moments. But this is a world at
the moment of its slipping away, a crisis that bucolic poetry represents as the
moment of its own birth as a means of attempting to renew that lost presence
and fullness. At the same time, it is a world already marked by absences, of Pan
and the Nymphs. And we have seen how the series of Daphnis’s apostrophes
highlights—​for the reader, at least—​the fictionality of that world and of the
whole notion of the presence of the human and natural orders to each other.52
I do not mean mere fiction. As Wolfgang Iser argues, fictionality is important to
human beings. It “provides the paradoxical (and perhaps, for this very reason,
desirable) opportunity for human beings simultaneously to be in the midst of
life and to overstep it.” And “it presents the constitutive dividedness of human
beings as the source of possible worlds within the world.”53 And so I am not
arguing that fictionality undercuts bucolic fullness as an authentic object of

51. Cf., e.g., Id. 7.41, 47–​48, Id. 5.136–​137. On further implications of the line, see Hunter 1999,
103–​104.
52. Miles 1977, 145, seems to come close to this point when he says, in connection with the
opening of Idyll 1, “the herdsmen’s relationship to the landscape, to their gods and to each other
is largely a reflection of their own attitudes and their own perceptions.”
53. Iser 1993, 79–​86 (quotations from 83 and 84). This is the last section of a chapter titled
“Renaissance Pastoralism as a Paradigm of Literary Fictionality.” I think that Iser’s ideas can
also be applied to Theocritus, whom he discusses early in the chapter.
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The Poetics of Absence 113

desire. Rather, the two coexist, and perhaps the former is even the ground for
the latter.54
Fictionality raises the issue of the relation between poetry and the bucolic world,
which we can address by asking one more question of Idyll 1: what makes Thyrsis’s
song especially good? As readers, we might want to give various answers, but the text
emphasizes one: the quality of his voice. Right at the beginning of the song, when
Thyrsis identifies himself and his place of origin, the one other thing he tells us about
himself is the sweetness of his voice (Id. 1.65):

Θύρσις ὅδ’ ὡξ Αἴτνας, καὶ Θύρσιδος ἁδέα φωνά.

I here am Thyrsis, the one from Aitna, and Thyrsis’s voice is sweet.

This emphasis is, as we have seen, in keeping with the beginning of the poem,
which describes the sweetness of natural sounds and the herdsmen’s music. At the
end, the grateful goatherd also mentions sweet things in his tribute to Thyrsis’s
singing (Id. 1.146–​148):

πλῆρές τοι μέλιτος τὸ καλὸν στόμα, Θύρσι, γένοιτο,

πλῆρες δὲ σχαδόνων, καὶ ἀπ’ Αἰγίλω ἰσχάδα τρώγοις
ἁδεῖαν, τέττιγος ἐπεὶ τύγα φέρτερον ᾄδεις.

Full of honey may your lovely mouth be, Thyrsis,

and full of honeycombs, and may you eat the fig from Aigilos,
the sweet fig, since you sing better than the cicada.

Honey was traditionally associated with eloquence and poetry.55 To the extent
that this usage is metaphorical, it gives a picture of the flow of beautiful speech

54. Here I am trying to get beyond the opposition between the “ironic” and “nostalgic” read-
ings of Theocritus, as discussed by Berger 1984, who takes Miles 1977 and Segal 1981 as rep-
resentative of these approaches, respectively. I find those labels rather misleading. Miles, for
instance, acknowledges that Theocritus holds up the “ideal of innocence” to the reader but
shows its inadequacy as a way of living or understanding the world. My own discussion of
absence and presence goes in a different direction but fits well within his argument, although
I would rather see the pulls toward the bucolic ideal and toward a recognition of the complex-
ity of life as forming a tension or dialectic within the poems instead of a rejection of the former
in favor of the latter. Kühn 1958, 74–​79, interestingly, sees both as constituent elements of the
poems, represented in Idyll 7 by the songs of Lykidas and Simikhidas, respectively, but the
move he then makes into biographical speculation tends to obscure the value of his insight for
our reading of Theocritus.
55. E.g., Il. 1.249: Nestor’s voice flowed from his tongue sweeter than honey; Hes. Theog. 83–​
84: the Muses pour on the tongue of the basileus a sweet liquid (to be identified with honey,
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114 T heo crit us

as the sweet ooze of honey. In the present passage, there is a pleasing, if somewhat
extravagant, reciprocity in the notion of the mouth filled with honey as a reward
for the flowing out of honey-​sweet song.56 Emphasis on the mouth also works with
honey to give a physical heft to the “sweet voice”—​an effect that is set off by con-
trast with the “deep gullet” from which Herakles’s inarticulate roars for the absent
Hylas issue (Id. 13.58: ὅσον βαθὺς ἤρυγε λαιμός; the verb is indistinguishable in form
from a possibly related word for “belch”). In the goatherd’s compliment to Thyrsis,
note especially “your lovely mouth”; the point is probably not so much Thyrsis’s
appearance, to which we are otherwise given no clue, as the beauty of his singing.
Elsewhere in the Theocritean corpus, the voice, honey, and the mouth also
form an interrelated complex to describe the physical origin and the effect of
beautiful song. I will discuss the case of Komatas in Idyll 7 below, but in the
same poem, Simikhidas claims that he is the καπυρὸν στόμα, “pure (?) mouth,” of
the Muses. We do not do justice to the physical implications if we translate the
noun as “mouthpiece”; the Muses literally sing through his mouth, he boasts. The
meaning of the adjective is unknown. It is cognate with καπνός, “smoke,” and may
be associated with the breath, as the related verb καπύειν is (e.g., Il. 22.467); in
that case, it, too, has a physical reference. The adjective also can mean “dry”57 or
can describe a piercing sound.58 Possibly, then, it refers to the shrill voice of cica-
das, themselves a common figure for poetry; the goatherd compliments Thyrsis
by saying that he sings more sweetly than they do (Id. 1.148, quoted above). An
epigram attributed to Theocritus (A.P. 9.437 =​4 Gow) has these lines (11–​12):

ξουθαὶ δ’ ἀδονίδες μινυρίσμασιν ἀνταχεῦσι

μέλπουσαι στόμασιν τὰν μελίγαρυν ὄπα.

West 1966, 183), and the words flow soothing (μείλιχα, perhaps associated by popular etymol-
ogy with honey, μέλι). For the conceptual background, see Waszink 1974, 6–​19, although he
does not discuss Hellenistic poetry. On sweetness and honey in the Theocritean passages I have
just mentioned here as linking Theocritus’s poetry to that of Callimachus, see Cairns 1984,
93–​95. Along similar lines, for the mouth filled with honey as a marker for “a light, delicate,
refined style,” see Worman 2015, 203–​204; and on honey as a “synaesthetic symbol” that helps
to create a Theocritean aesthetics of “sweetness,” see Sistakou 2021, 330–​336. I am interested in
how those passages and others discussed below all show a marked emphasis on the physicality
of the mouth, the voice, and its sweetness.
56. The last line of Idyll 3 (54) is a sarcastic parody of this image: the wolves will eat me here, and
“may this be like sweet honey in your throat” (ὡς μέλι τοι γλυκὺ τοῦτο κατὰ βρόχθοιο γένοιτο).
57. It refers to a “parching” disease at Id. 2.85. On this meaning, see Allègre 1906, who discusses
κραμβότατος at Ar. Eq. 539, for which the scholiast gives κάπυρος as a synonym.
58. See Chantraine 1999, 494. On the sense “clear,” see Legrand 1907, especially 11, for the con-
nection between this meaning and “dry.”
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The Poetics of Absence 115

And the quavering (?) nightingales in their warbling sing in response

pouring forth with their mouths their honey-​toned voice.

Post-​Theocritean bucolic picks up on this nexus of ideas, as in these lines (Id.

20.25–​28):59

ὄμματά μοι γλαυκᾶς χαροπώτερα πολλὸν Ἀθάνας,

τὸ στόμα δ’ αὖ πακτᾶς ἁπαλώτερον, ἐκ στομάτων δέ
ἔρρεέ μοι φωνὰ γλυκερωτέρα ἢ μέλι κηρῶ.
ἁδὺ δέ μοι τὸ μέλισμα, καὶ ἥν σύριγγι μελίσδω . . .

My eyes flashed more brightly than those of gray-​eyed Athena.

My mouth was softer than cream cheese, and from my mouth
my voice flowed sweeter than honey from the comb.
Sweet is my song, and if I play on the syrinx . . .

A wordplay associates honey (μέλι) with song (μέλισμα) and the act of singing
(μελίσδειν), and this may also be drawn from Theocritus. We might hear a similar
association in the first two lines of Idyll 1 (ἁδὺ . . . μελίσδεται), and it is unmistak-
able at Id. 7.89, in the fantasy of Komatas lying ἁδὺ μελισδόμενος (“sweetly sing-
ing”), just after he is said to have fed on the honeycomb; the word for “bees” is also
brought into the sound play (Id. 7.84–​85: καὶ τὺ μελισσᾶν /​κηρία φερβόμενος).60
Why should bucolic poetry insist so emphatically on the quality and physi-
cal presence of the singing voice? Because we—​the audience—​never hear it. It
always comes to us mediated in some way.61 Let us consider again lines 115–​121 of
Idyll 1, quoted earlier as an example of apostrophe. This farewell to the animals
and his surroundings and the dramatic self-​presentation by Daphnis on the point
of death seems intended to convey the effect of the last song of this archetypal

59. Cf. Id. 8.82–​83, appropriately addressed to Daphnis: “Sweet [ἁδύ] is your mouth, Daphnis,
and lovely is your voice. /​Hearing you sing is better than licking honey.”
60. Presumably, Id. 10.37 is a parody of the associations we have been examining: ἁ φωνὰ δὲ
τρύχνος (“and your voice is a poppy”—​or more accurately, it seems, “fleabane”). For possible
implications, see Gow 1952, II, 203; Hunter 1999, 210. Their opposite is represented by Id.
25.74–​75 (the old man’s harsh voice when he threatens his dogs): τρηχὺ δὲ φωνῇ /​ἠπείλει μάλα
πᾶσιν. This phrase is all the more effective when we set it beside the normal bucolic idealization
of the honeyed voice.
61. On this point and what follows, see Payne 2007, 46–​48, especially 46: “the poem [Id.1]
deconstructs its own illusion of primitive, oral song even as it produces it.” For a different and
equally illuminating account of the way Theocritus capitalizes on the shift from oral perfor-
mance to writing, see Berger 1984, 26–​28.
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116 T heo crit us

singer, very likely under the influence of Hellenistic euphonist theories. In line
115, the procession of omegas and alphas; the repeated –​u-​and –​ou-​sounds; the
repetitions (or anaphora) of O (“O wolves, O jackals, O . . . bears,” line 115), of
“no longer” or “not” and “farewell” in lines 116–​117; the name Daphnis begin-
ning lines 120–​121 and the end rhymes in those same lines (νομεύων, ποτίσδων,
nomeuōn, potisdōn)—​all these are effects that Hellenistic euphonic theorists
considered essential to the beauty and the musicality of poetry from Homer
onward.62 Here this effect of musicality seems designed to bring us as close as
possible to the sound of Daphnis’s voice singing. But in fact we hear his song only
as part of Thyrsis’s performance. If we were tempted to think that we were being
put into contact with that archetypal singing, we are reminded of the “now” of
performance when one of the refrains that run through Thyrsis’s song interrupts
Daphnis’s farewell (Id. 1.119):

ἄρχετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι, πάλιν ἄρχετ’ ἀοιδᾶς.

Begin, Muses, begin again the bucolic song.

Although this is the fourteenth occurrence of the refrain in Daphnis’s song, it

is especially significant in this context (and its recurrence for the fifteenth and
last time at line 122, immediately after the passage we are discussing, drives home
the effect). Not only does Thyrsis’s voice break through what he represents as
Daphnis’s voice, but also the self-​conscious naming of the type of song he is
singing, bucolic, places him in a tradition (at least within this Idyll’s fiction; it
is in fact in the process of creating a tradition for itself ), and the emphatically
repeated “begin,” along with “again,” locates his performance as the latest in a
series of repetitions. The goatherd mentions “the sufferings of Daphnis” as a song
Thyrsis is accustomed to singing and as the one with which he competed against
Khromis the Libyan (Id. 1.19–​20, 23–​25), and Lykidas imagines Tityros singing
of Daphnis’s love for Xenea and his wasting away (Id. 7.72–​77). Repeated perfor-
mances of this theme, of course, keep Daphnis’s story alive through generations
and spread his fame.63 But all the repetitions create an ever-​growing distance
from the authentic, original bucolic song (assuming that there was one). Thyrsis
can only invoke the Muse to begin the bucolic song again.

62. Gutzwiller 2010, 346–​354.

63. Kossaifi 2017, 44–​46.
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The Poetics of Absence 117

This question of keeping a song alive is raised at the end of the goatherd’s
speech asking Thyrsis to sing, immediately before he starts to do so (Id. 1.62–​63):64

πόταγ’, ὠγαθέ· τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδάν

οὔ τι πᾳ εἰς Ἀίδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα φυλάξεις.

Come on, my good friend. For that song of yours—​

there is no way that you will carry it off to Hades that causes
forgetfulness and preserve it.

Hades causing forgetfulness means the death of song; its effect is the opposite
of the life-​affirming gift of the Muses, daughters of Memory. Note the complex
layering in these lines. Thyrsis, whose death will bring forgetfulness of his song,
is admonished to revive in his singing, while he lives, the memory of Daphnis,
whose singing has already been stilled. It seems that the best he can do is keep
Daphnis’s story alive in some form and renew it, but he can only approximate
that story and try without complete success to make contact with Daphnis. And
where is Theocritus, where are we, in relation to Thyrsis’s song? It seems legitimate
to extrapolate from these lines difficult questions about a poetic tradition and the
relation of each new generation of poets to the past—​questions that clearly were
of concern to Hellenistic poets.
What was the original, authoritative story of Daphnis? Was there ever one?
As Theocritus and the erudite among his readers surely knew, Daphnis’s story
existed in several mutually irreconcilable versions.65 There was no way to get to
any original, “true” story. I suggest that it is in acknowledgment of this situation
that Theocritus is—​notoriously—​vague about the nature and cause of Daphnis’s
erotic sufferings and also about the exact manner of his death. The existence
of multiforms of a story might remind us of an oral poetic tradition, in which,
within certain limits, a song is created anew in each performance and there is no
single song, only songs. And perhaps Theocritus is deliberately suggesting that
his poem, Idyll 1, has a place within such a tradition. But, however rooted in oral
song traditions the story of Daphnis might ultimately have been, it was available
to Theocritus through written texts. His poem fits at least as much into a literary
tradition as into an oral tradition.
I am suggesting, then, that Theocritus is in the same position with regard to
Daphnis’s singing as Thyrsis is, but at one further remove: his is the latest in a

64. For helpful discussion of these lines, see Kyriakou 2018, 169–​171.
65. These are conveniently summarized and discussed by Hunter 1999, 64–​67.
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118 T heo crit us

chain of repetitions. And so the audience or reader cannot directly experience

Daphnis’s voice in its full presence; it comes to us as the voice of Thyrsis. But we
do not actually hear that, either. Of course, if we take seriously the sweetness of
Thyrsis’s voice and its superiority to the sound of plashing water, aided by the
euphonic effects described above, we might feel that we are getting at least an
approximation of Daphnis’s voice, although there is always an insurmountable
difference. On the one hand, Naomi Kaloudis has recently pointed to Hellenistic
euphonist theories to suggest that Theocritus tries to recreate something of the
music of folk songs that lie behind bucolic poetry, and she uses Idyll 1 as a case
study.66 The many examples she discusses show that the poem as a whole, includ-
ing Thyrsis’s song, and not just Daphnis’s farewell, strives for musical effects. So
with assonance and other kinds of repetition, including refrains, we can come
closer to the immediacy of Thyrsis’s performance—​but without ever actually get-
ting there. For on the other hand, his song, like Idyll 1 as a whole and all the
bucolics, is in dactylic hexameter, which is not a sung meter and which, evoking
as it does the epic tradition, works together with the allusiveness and generic play
of Alexandrian poetry to distance the poem from folk songs even while these
are perhaps suggested. And of course, the poem was written and existed from
the beginning in written form, so that it is a repetition just as Thyrsis’s song is,
even though Theocritus may have tried to preserve the fluidity of oral traditions
through imprecision about the fundamentals of Daphnis’s story. In these respects
as in so many others, Theocritean poetry holds opposites in dynamic suspension.
Because Theocritus’s poems were disseminated and received through writing,
euphonic effects would have been all the more useful as a way to give the reader a
greater sense of immediacy, however fictive. The written text, even if read aloud,
would have been one more layer of mediation between the reader and Theocritus,
who had to attempt to recreate the sweetness of Thyrsis’s voice, while Thyrsis in
turn tried to reproduce the sweetness of Daphnis’s voice in the context of an
archetypal bucolic world that was in the process of being lost. The regression of
voices here resembles the one we will soon observe in Idyll 7. The issues here,
however, should not be reduced to a straightforward opposition between oral-
ity and writing. Kaloudis argues that in the Hellenistic period, a newly strong
book culture did not entirely supplant the earlier “song culture.”67 Although we
lack certainty, we should always reckon with the possibility that the Idylls were

66. Kaloudis 2017.

67. Kaloudis 2017, 211–​213, especially “A culture of sound still permeated the pages of this
newly educated populace” (212) and “Alexandria’s performance aesthetic had a profound liter-
ary dimension” (213).
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The Poetics of Absence 119

performed before audiences, possibly at symposia or at public festivals, as well

as being read in solitude. In a performance of Idyll 1, a performer (a professional
actor? Theocritus himself ?) imitated the voice of Thyrsis just as he had imitated
the goatherd’s voice, and Daphnis’s voice, imitated by Thyrsis, came to the lis-
teners twice removed. Did the listeners, helped by euphonic and other effects,
though not by the mode of delivery, which was not singing but at most rhythmi-
cal chanting, succumb to the illusion? Or did the circumstance of performance
remind them of the distance? We cannot be sure, of course, but it could fairly
be asked whether the musical effects differed from those in earlier poetry and
whether a performance of Theocritus would have been received differently from
performances of earlier poetry.68
The answer to the first question is that there would have been no difference
in the effects themselves; Hellenistic literary critics found them in texts from the
whole range of the Greek tradition. But there was still something new as well: the
very fact that, beginning (it seems) in the early third century BCE, euphony was
being made the object of study and of theorizing. If, in fact, Theocritus was
responding to euphonist theory and putting it into practice, as seems very likely,69
then he self-​consciously aimed at the effects of music and song as earlier poets
evidently had not, and he did so in a context in which the presence of the voice
was at issue and his poetry sought to recover it. This attempt in itself points to the
problem and becomes part of the fabric of the poem.
My answer to the second question runs along similar lines. I do not have to
claim that there was an essential difference in general between performances of
Theocritus and those of earlier poetry in regard to audience reception. A great
proportion of the Homeric epics consists of direct speech. The first time that
Nestor speaks in the Iliad, the narrator introduces him by saying that “from his
tongue the voice flowed sweeter than honey” (Il. 1.249) and then quotes him
directly in a long speech in which he tries—​unsuccessfully—​to mediate the quar-
rel between Agamemnon and Akhilleus. The audience might well have tacitly
accepted the fiction that they were hearing Nestor’s voice and experiencing the
power of its eloquence when in fact they were hearing the narrator quote him in
direct speech (the performer might have changed delivery to imitate Nestor, of
course, but that would only have reinforced the fiction). So, too, with Theocritus,

68. Questions, in fact, posed by a referee for Oxford University Press, whom I would like
to thank.
69. In addition to Kaloudis 2017, see the excellent discussion of the intersection of this the-
ory with Alexandrian poetry in Gutzwiller 2010, 351–​354, which includes examples from
Theocritus. That the influence of the theory can be traced in other poets as well makes it all the
more likely that he responded to it.
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120 T heo crit us

except for one key point: his repeated insistence on the sweetness of the voice,
which is much more sustained than in Homer. In one way, this might have pro-
moted the fiction as in Homer, but it also pointed to the fact that the audience
was not experiencing that sweetness directly. In a parallel way, they were hear-
ing chanted hexameters and not an actual song in lyric meters, even though they
were assured that Thyrsis was in fact singing. Significantly, when the Homeric
poems incorporate an internal song such as the one about Ares and Aphrodite
(Od. 8.266–​367), they generally describe its contents in indirect speech, very
likely because the hexameter cannot accommodate lyric.70 Theocritus’s emphasis
on song and its sweetness lays bare the gap and stresses, rather than conceals, the
artificiality of his poetry. It is a reflex of absence. If you are delivering the real
goods, you do not have to keep insisting on their authenticity.
“Sweet” (ἁδύ), the first word of Idyll 1, sets the tone for this poem and, inas-
much as Idyll 1 is programmatic and exemplary, for the rest of Theocritean bucolic.
This poetry gathers the elements of the bucolic world at its best into a unity of
sensory experience for the humans in it: the sweet sounds of whispering pine,
plashing water, singing and piping, and the harmony of song with the place of
singing; the fragrance of the cup, covered with sweet wax and still smelling of the
chisel (no rankness of goats and goatherds intrudes on this loveliness); the sweet
taste of honeycomb and figs.71 Using the powerful resources of his art, Theocritus
comes so close to creating this world and inviting us into it. And yet Thyrsis and
the goatherd do not enter the place of complete merging of human and natural
sounds limned in the poem’s opening lines but enjoy song in another place close
to but not identical with it. And the listener or reader is treated to musical effects
rather than music. There is always a gap, some kind of distance, that the poem
acknowledges and tries to overcome without ever quite succeeding. And so the
poem does not merely embody the dynamics of absence and desire. Absence and
desire are its very essence, the ground of its being.
So the listener or reader, the poet, and the very text are in an analogous posi-
tion to that of the characters within bucolic poetry: aware of the fullness of the
bucolic world and even enjoying something like it at times, trying to come close
to the song but writing, reading, and hearing only transcripts of songs, never fully
attaining the object of desire. And it is this desire, aroused by the absence of the

70. An exception is the Sirens’ song within Odysseus’s internal narrative to the Phaiakians (Od.
12.184–​191). Demodokos’s song about Ares and Aphrodite (Od. 8.266–​327) contains within it
direct speech by various gods but is itself extended indirect speech, as the beginning and end
make clear (Od. 8.268, 367).
71. Kossaifi 2017, 43–​44. Cf. Daspet 2017, 111.
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The Poetics of Absence 121

authentic bucolic world, which is always an imagined world, that keeps them—​
us—​listening and reading.

Idyll 7: Lykidas’s Song

Voice is very much at issue in Idyll 7, and especially in Lykidas’s song (lines 52–​
89). If the difficulty of hearing the bucolic voice makes us experience the absence
and desire that are basic to bucolic poetry in a poem with a mimetic frame, what
happens in a poem structured on third-​person narrative in which two songs are
embedded, one of which imagines a song that only might take place and that in
turn imagines another act of singing that cannot occur?
Lykidas’s song is generated by desire for someone he does not possess: “scorch-
ing eros for him [Ageanax] is burning me up” (Id. 7.56). This is Lykidas’s pres-
ent state within the terms of his song, and everything he sings is a wish-​fulfilling
fantasy in response to his feeling. It is remarkable, then, that what he imagines
is the opposite state: Ageanax’s absence but his own freedom from desire that
would make possible the enjoyment of leisure, comfort, food, drink, and song.
The relation between the outer frame of his song and the internal narrative (if
we ignore for the moment Tityros’s further embedded song) is the opposite of
that in Idyll 1: in the latter, a scene of enjoyment framing a narrative of suffering,
and in Idyll 7, a situation of torment from desire leading to a (wished-​for) scene
of pleasure. Other bucolic figures sing about the torment of absence and loss, but
Lykidas, who is the type of the goatherd-​poet, sings of the contentment that will
accompany Ageanax’s absence in Mitylene. Is he then not typical after all? I will
argue instead that Lykidas’s imagined scene of peace is so contingent that its ful-
fillment is doubtful and that therefore Ageanax’s absence will not free him from
desire. So his song is finally about absence after all, even as it constructs a picture
of presence.
Everything Lykidas describes depends on one premise, which is expressed in a
conditional sentence, a rhetorical form that avoids guaranteeing fulfillment (Id.
7.52–​56):

ἔσσεται Ἀγεάνακτι καλὸς πλόος ἐς Μιτυλήναν,

χὤταν ἐφ’ ἑσπερίοις Ἐρίφοις νότος ὑγρὰ διώκῃ
κύματα, χὠρίων ὅτ’ ἐπ’ ὠκεανῷ πόδας ἴσχει,
αἴ κα τὸν Λυκίδαν ὀπτεύμενον ἐξ Ἀφροδίτας
ῥύσηται· θερμὸς γὰρ ἔρως αὐτῶ με καταίθει.

Ageanax will have a fair voyage to Mitylene

both when, with the Kids appearing at evening, the south wind chases
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122 T heo crit us

the liquid waves, and when Orion holds his feet on the ocean,
if he rescues Lykidas, who is being roasted
by Aphrodite; for scorching desire for him is burning me.

How is Ageanax to rescue Lykidas—​by gratifying his desire? If so, the condition
Lykidas envisions for himself is one on the other side of desire, one matched,
as Hunter says, by the calmness of the sea for Ageanax’s voyage.72 But per-
haps Hunter is right to say that “the satisfaction of desire normally leads only
to increased desire.”73 And yet the alternative interpretation, which Hunter
adopts—​that Ageanax’s absence will tamp down Lykidas’s desire—​is even more
unsatisfactory. It is hard to believe that such a tepid lover as Lykidas would turn
out to be in that case is now being “roasted” by desire.74 Perhaps the uncertainty
is the point. Lykidas himself may not have thought through what form his—​or
anyone’s—​rescue from desire might take. The vagueness makes the possibility of
rescue rather remote. The reference to the evening appearance of the Kids and
the setting of Orion may support this suggestion, since the season designated in
this way—​late October and November—​was notoriously stormy and the wrong
time to undertake a sea voyage, a point underscored by the picture of the south
wind chasing the waves. This is incongruously juxtaposed with καλὸς πλόος (“fair
voyage”) in the preceding line. An ancient reader would surely have been aware
of the contradiction. The sentence can be read, then, as saying in effect that
Ageanax is as likely to rescue Lykidas from desire as he is to have an easy late-​
autumn voyage.75 The continuation of the sentence (lines 57–​60) after the lines
quoted above, which describe the halcyons calming the waves, may point in the
same direction if the passage refers to halcyon days, which were believed to occur

72. Hunter 1999, 167.

73. Hunter 1999,168.
74. A further possibility, that with the mention of the stormy season at sea Lykidas is subtly
trying to keep Ageanax with him, involves the difficulty that the scene Lykidas goes on to
describe, which is to take place on the day Ageanax reaches Mitylene (τῆνο κατ’ ἆμαρ, line 63),
will not occur if he stays. One could argue that for Lykidas, enjoying Ageanax’s love would be
better than that scene of solitary enjoyment. This would dovetail with my argument about the
contingency of that scene, but it depends on some rather tenuous inferences. So does Stanzel’s
suggestion (1995, 273–​274) that Lykidas is trying at once to remove any possible obstacles to
Ageanax gratifying his desires by reminding him that the journey can be made later and to keep
him from leaving by describing the attractions of staying.
75. An alternative is Hunter’s explanation (1999, 168): “the point does not lie in chronological
specificity: if Ageanax ‘saves’ Lykidas, he will have a fair voyage whenever he sails, even if he
sails at the least propitious time of the year.” This is possible, and I offer my own reading only
as another possibility. It has the advantage of turning the obscurities of the passage to positive
account.
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The Poetics of Absence 123

at the winter solstice.76 The blending of incompatible time markers adds to the
impression of unreality surrounding this voyage. This unreality and the parallel
vagueness about how Lykidas might be rescued from desire, then, point to that
rescue as inconceivable—​appropriately so, because bucolic poetry, according to
its basic premise, cannot exist without restless desire.
Thus, the scene of post-​desire contentment that Lykidas goes on to describe
is contingent on an impossibility in the terms of bucolic poetry, and we have
bucolic singing imagined as taking place outside its own essential conditions. Its
contingency and unreality only affirm the strength of those conditions. But of
course, in its own way, desire for the end of desire generates song. The contin-
gency of this result is marked in other ways besides doubt that it can ever occur.
Lykidas’s vision of enjoyment is set in the future relative to the present time of his
song, as the verb tenses of lines 64–​72 show, and the two lines (61–​62) that make
the transition to the description of quiet festivity and recapitulate the preceding
passage are couched as wishes, with verbs in the optative (“may Ageanax reach
harbor safely”).77
“On that day” of Ageanax’s arrival (if it happens), Lykidas will, he imagines,
lie wreathed by the fire drinking wine, munching beans, and listening to song in a
rustic symposium78 of one, undisturbed by unruly desires (Id. 7.69–​70):

καὶ πίομαι μαλακῶς μεμναμένος Ἀγεάνακτος

αὐταῖς ἐν κυλίκεσσι καὶ ἐς τρύγα χεῖλος ἐρείδων.

And I will drink at ease, at ease remembering Ageanax

among the very wine cups and pressing my lip to the dregs.

The first line loops from the future (the tense of the verb) back to the present time
of Lykidas’s singing with the thought of remembering Ageanax. Lykidas foresees

76. The lines may just mean that halcyons calm the waves whenever they appear (Gow 1952,
II, 147; Hunter 1999, 169), but I think they are more naturally taken as a description of the
halcyon days.
77. I think it is unnecessary, and somewhat awkward, to assume with Hunter (1999, 170) that
in these lines “Lykidas now imagines that Ageanax has ‘got the message’ and is indeed about
to set sail.” If we see their function as recapitulative and transitional, it is easy to supply “if he
saves Lykidas from love” from the foregoing lines. That is, the wish is spoken on the assumption
that Ageanax is willing to do so; then he deserves good wishes for his voyage. The shift from a
“future more vivid” condition to optatives of wish suggests a little less certainty in the outcome.
78. On this passage as an example of Theocritus transferring an urban institution to a rus-
tic setting and implicitly claiming it as a feature of the oral prehistory of bucolic song, see
Pretagostini 2006, 63–​65.
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124 T heo crit us

a time when Ageanax will no longer be present but will be the object of memory
rather than of desire, and so an undisturbing memory; the significant μαλακῶς
(“softly, at ease”), as Hunter says, “colors” both “I will drink” and “remembering”
(and so I have translated it twice).79 Even though Lykidas, in good sympotic style,
will drink to his beloved, and although pressing the lips into the wine cup to the
dregs suggests a kiss, the feeling is more commemorative than erotic. Elsewhere
the symposium is the setting in which desire, usually for an absent beloved, bursts
forth without restraint and is revealed for all to see; we might compare Delphis’s
distracted behavior at a drinking party in Idyll 2 (149–​153).80 In addition, this is a
most unbucolic scene. The mention of a fire suggests that it takes place indoors,
in contrast to the usual outdoor bucolic setting, and in cold weather, probably
winter, a season that is usually ignored in bucolic poetry. It is as if bucolic poetry
could accommodate a scene of ease and fullness resulting from the absence of
desire only by departing from its own conventions and embracing those of sym-
potic lyric poetry.
But the singing that is to take place in this setting will be bucolic through
and through. Two shepherds will play the aulos, and Tityros will sing the stories
of two archetypal bucolic singers. The name “Tityros” indicates a rustic figure;
it seems to be Doric for “satyr” or “he-​goat.” So he is a part of the bucolic world
brought into this non-​bucolic setting with his songs. This juxtaposition may
imitate the original circumstances of reception of Theocritean bucolic, in which
readers or listeners in an urban environment were invited to imagine a very dif-
ferent and distant world from their own. Like the audience of Idyll 7, Lykidas
will be put in touch through song with a fictional world that contrasts with the
circumstances he now enjoys. That Lykidas is himself a goatherd may be one of
the ironies of the poem. To Simikhidas he represents the authentic bucolic world
to which Simikhidas is trying to gain entry through his poetry (opinions of read-
ers differ as to what success he has). But as we have seen, when Simikhidas meets
him, Lykidas is oddly out of place: not in the mountains or pasturelands or with
his goats but alone and on the road. And in his song he imagines himself in a rus-
tic symposium that is the counterpart to the harvest festival in which Simikhidas
participates at the end of the poem, which is not bucolic. Through his account
of Tityros’s song, Lykidas points beyond himself to what seems a more authentic
version of “the bucolic.” Notice how that bucolic world keeps receding.

79. Hunter 1999, 172.

80. Cf. Id. 14.18–​49 and Callimachus epigr. 43, and note Hunter’s observation (1999, 171) on
φυλάσσων, Id. 7.64: “Poets treat the disintegration of a symposiast’s garland as a sign that he is
in love . . . so the verb here may indicate Lykidas’ release from passion.”
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The Poetics of Absence 125

If we identify this Tityros with the one mentioned in the opening lines of
Idyll 3, an interesting contrast between the two poems emerges. That Tityros
silently tended the animals “on the mountain” (Id. 3.2) while the goatherd (as we
saw in ­chapter 1) stepped at least partly out of the bucolic world to deliver the rus-
tic equivalent of the urban kômos at the mouth of a cave. Now Tityros will come
forward to sing, also in a non-​bucolic setting, but his themes will be bucolic; and
Lykidas, the counterpart of the goatherd of Idyll 3, will be silent. Perhaps in Idyll
7 the singing that seeks to connect with bucolic fullness is imagined to happen in
the absence of erotic desire, when that desire is redirected to the bucolic itself. In
Idyll 3, where the goatherd has turned away from the bucolic world, this cannot
happen. Furthermore, both Gow and Hunter remark that in Idyll 3, it is impos-
sible to tell whether Tityros is goat or human.81 The Tityros of Idyll 7 is obviously
human, but his songs are to tell of a fuller merging of humanity and nature than
Idyll 1 manages.
Tityros will first sing about how Daphnis loved Xenea, and how the mountain
and the oaks on the banks of the Himeras River suffered and mourned for him
as he melted like snow beneath the peaks of northern mountains or the Caucasus
range (Id. 7.72–​77). Embedded in the imagined scene of contentment by the fire
is a contrasting story of absence and loss; the relation is the same as that between
frame and embedded performance in Idyll 1 and the inverse of that between
Lykidas’s present state of desire and the fantasy enclosed in it. We have here a
reprise also of the narrative of the origin of bucolic song told at greater length in
Idyll 1. It is as if the gist of Idyll 1 (harmonious frame plus story of passion and
loss) were further enclosed within the story of Lykidas’s desire, so that Daphnis’s
story shows the tragic potential of longing and absence that in Lykidas’s case is
to be turned into its opposite if only Ageanax somehow rescues him from love
(perhaps an impossibility). Tityros’s song depicts Daphnis as fully integrated into
the landscape so that the mountain and oak trees mourn for him, and so this story
implies an imagined harmony and presence, even as these are being disrupted; the
mountains associated with the snow to whose melting Daphnis’s wasting away is
likened are the cold spatial antithesis of the warm Sicilian setting.
Tityros will also sing about a goatherd shut in a chest whom the bees fed
“because the Muse poured sweet nectar down into his mouth”—​that is, he had a
consummate poetic “gift” (Id. 7.78–​82). Here is another story of presence involv-
ing another paradigmatic bucolic poet, one that involves not loss but the preser-
vation of life and the collaboration of nature with the human that sets right an

81. Gow 1952, II, 65; Hunter 1999, 110–​112. On the contrast between the silent Tityros of Idyll
3 and the singing Tityros of Idyll 4, see Segal 1981, 198.
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126 T heo crit us

injustice in the human world: the goatherd was closed in the box to die “because
of the folly of his master [or the king].” Here for once is a tale of complete fulfill-
ment in the bucolic world in which poetry has a central place; just as the Muses
poured nectar into the goatherd’s mouth, so the bees keep him alive by feeding
him on flowers (or honey). But as in other examples discussed earlier, even as
we are given this vision of presence, it is carefully distanced at the same time. It,
along with the Daphnis song, is distanced from Lykidas because it is imagined as
narrated in a song set within a scene sometime in the future that will only take
place if Ageanax rescues Lykidas from desire in some unspecified way and has
a safe voyage to Mitylene. It is distanced from the reader for the same reason,
and additionally because it comes to us in indirect statement, so that we do not
hear Tityros’s voice even in fiction, much less those of the singers he tells about.
In fact, it is not clear whose voice we do hear, because of the multiple frames.
Lykidas’s song, which projects Tityros’s song, is set within Simikhidas’s narrative
of his encounter with the goatherd, which is in turn mediated for the audience
by the poet Theocritus, in writing or by his own voice, in a scene of narration
that may be distant from Kos, where Idyll 7 is set. How can we connect with the
authentic bucolic world and hear the bucolic song in its full presence, experience
with our own ears the sweetness of that voice? The answer to this fundamental
question posed by Theocritean bucolic seems to be that we can do so only par-
tially, through an act of imagination triggered by a fiction that goes out of its way
to make us aware of its own fictionality even as we indulge it. In short, here again,
Theocritean bucolic works by arousing our desire for something absent.82
This effect is heightened by what happens next. Immediately after the account
of the goatherd fed by bees, the text breaks the anaphoric structure of Tityros’s
song (each narrative introduced by ᾀσεῖ, “he will sing”) with an apostrophe to
Komatas (Id. 7.83–​89):83

82. Payne 2007, 126, makes the interesting point that the successive embedded passages grow
progressively shorter in a process of “embedded miniaturization,” at the end of which the voice
of Komatas “is figured . . . only as a suggestive absence” (he sees the same process in the descrip-
tion of the cup in Idyll 1). Formally, then, the poem enacts the distancing and central absence
I have been describing.
83. For my purposes, it does not matter much whether Komatas is the same as the goatherd of
lines 78–​82 or another figure. For what it is worth, I agree with Hunter (1999, 176) that the
latter is more likely, for one thing because that is the best way of understanding καὶ τύ . . . καὶ τύ
in line 84. The advantage of this view is that we then have a poetic succession, the goatherd and
Komatas, into which the speaker seeks to insert himself, though at a distance.
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The Poetics of Absence 127

ὦ μακαριστὲ Κομᾶτα, τύ θην τάδε τερπνὰ πεπόνθεις·

καὶ τὺ κατεκλᾴσθης ἐς λάρνακα, καὶ τὺ μελισσᾶν
κηρία φερβόμενος ἔτος ὥριον ἐξεπόνασας.
αἴθ’ ἐπ’ ἐμεῦ ζωοῖς ἐναρίθμιος ὤφελες ἦμεν,
ὥς τοι ἐγὼν ἐνόμευον ἀν’ ὤρεα τὰς καλὰς αἶγας
φωνᾶς εἰσαΐων, τὺ δ’ ὑπὸ δρυσὶν ἢ ὑπὸ πεύκαις
ἁδὺ μελισδόμενος κατεκέκλισο, θεῖε Κομᾶτα.

O most blessed Komatas, you had experience of these pleasures.

You too were shut into a chest, you too, feeding on the bees’
honeycombs, toiled during the springtime of the year.
I wish that in my time you had been numbered among the living.
So that I would pasture your beautiful goats for you among the mountains,
listening to your voice, while you, beneath the oaks or beneath the pines,
reclined singing sweetly, divine Komatas.

The scene conjured up in the last three lines evokes Thyrsis’s offer early in Idyll 1
(14) to pasture the goats while the goatherd plays the syrinx near a space of full
bucolic presence where it seems for a moment possible to experience that fullness
and its sounds—​but only for a moment; the fear of Pan’s anger at being awakened
sends them to a less enchanted place where Thyrsis will sing.84 Here the scene of
Komatas’s singing is similarly impossible. It can only be evoked through apostro-
phe, an attempt to make him present and responding to desire with song, as an
unfulfilled fantasy.
The apostrophe is made emphatic by the occurrence of the vocative Κομᾶτα
at both beginning and end, and the ring composition marks off the passage from
the rest as a self-​contained unit. These lines show the dynamics of apostrophe, as
described by Culler, particularly well. They construct Komatas as someone who
might respond and attempt to summon up presence from absence. They seek
to put the speaker in relation to this consummate singer, whom the bees fed on
honey and whose springtime labor of singing (ἐξεπόνασας) is echoed by Lykidas’s
labor (ἐξεπόνασα, line 51) in composing the song that enfolds this passage. But this
attempt is offset by the unattainable wish in the last four lines, which both construct

84. Again, contrast Idyll 3, where Tityros’s pasturing the speaker’s goats allows him to distance
himself from bucolic fullness in a vain search for Amaryllis’s presence.
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128 T heo crit us

a fantasy of bucolic fulfillment85 and, through their rhetorical form, recognize its
impossibility.86
But whom are we to imagine speaking or singing these lines? Is it Tityros,
whose voice breaks through Lykidas’s indirect statement and suddenly becomes
audible to us, though enclosed within frames that re-​enact the chests in which the
goatherd and Komatas were imprisoned? If so, Tityros tries to connect his own
singing with theirs. The same is true if it is Lykidas, breaking through the frame,
demolishing the distance created by his indirect statement, and responding in
his own voice to what he imagines Tityros will sing. Even though line 90 makes
it clear that Lykidas’s speech continues until line 89, might we hear in the back-
ground Simikhidas, who is, after all, the narrator of all these embedded songs,
trying to insert himself into a poetic type and its ethos to which his own rela-
tion is still not secure? And behind him, perhaps, Theocritus himself is making
a metapoetic statement about his own bucolic ambitions. How can we tell, and
why do we have to? I think that we should keep all these possibilities open at once
and read as though they are all simultaneously true. They show us how all those
involved in this poetic transaction, from Tityros at the center of these nested
perspectives to the poet at the outside, are related in different ways to the always
receding ideal that Komatas represents. Lykidas’s song demands a multidimen-
sional reading that asks us to adopt all these different viewpoints at once and to
ask about our own participation in the bucolic ideal—​our own desire provoked
by its absence, our need for fictions and their paradoxical but comforting distance
from reality.87

85. A small but telling detail is the imperfect ἐνόμευον in line 87, which refers to present time
after an unfulfilled wish (“I would now be pasturing,” Goodwin 1965, 333; the pluperfect
κατεκέκλισο in line 89 would then refer to an act—​of lying down—​completed in present time
(as the pluperfect can do in counterfactual conditional clauses with ἄν, Goodwin 1965, 410). So
the scene is conjured up in the speaker’s and the reader’s minds as present, in a way much more
vivid than the aorist could have achieved (“I would have pastured”).
86. On Lykidas’s song, see also Goldhill 1986, 38; 1991, 235–​236, especially his comments on the
“recession of voices” in it and his statement that “it is as if the instantiation of bucolic poetry
in the programmatic poem [i.e., Id. 7] comes complete with a history of past pastoral, or as if
an essential part of the ‘bucolic muse’ is the desire for what is lost” (emphasis in the original).
Cf. also Haber 1994, 32–​33: “But Lykidas secures Komatas’ presence only by simultaneously
acknowledging his absence; he unites his own time with that of his predecessor by recognizing
the gulf that divides them.” I would put more stress on the poem’s acknowledgement of the
final impossibility of Komatas’s presence (with all that implies).
87. Many have wished to read Lykidas’s song as showing the pangs of erotic desire subsumed
into the aesthetic pleasures of song, e.g., Ott 1969, 149–​153; Segal 1981, 140–​143. Similar is
Kühn 1958, 51–​52, who, however, sees the wish about Komatas as tied to Lykidas’s present situa-
tion: he would like Ageanax to play the same role toward him as he wishes he could have played
for Komatas. The view that erotic desire is replaced by aesthetic satisfaction tends to ignore the
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Idyll 6: Breaking the Frame

Framing and its porousness are prominently at issue also in Idyll 6, one of the
most complex of Theocritus’s poems.88 The poem contains four discursive levels
corresponding to three different temporal stages.89 There is the song exchange
between Daphnis and Damoitas, set at an indefinite time (ποκα, “once,” Id. 6.2).
Within that frame is a segment of the story of Polyphemos and Galateia, the
subject of their songs, which presumably is assumed to have occurred before the
time of their singing. Next, the narrator’s address to Aratos means that the whole
poem is addressed to him and implies a scene of narration later than the meet-
ing between Daphnis and Damoitas. And finally there is the reader or audience
and an even later time of narration than the others. Whoever this Aratos is, and
whatever else may be implied by this address,90 we as readers are witnessing a frag-
ment of conversation between him and the narrator. The result is a further layer
of separation between the reader and the scene of presence in which Daphnis and
Damoitas narrate a story of the disrupted relationship between the Cyclops and
the sea Nymph. As in Idyll 7, then, Theocritus puts a barrier between his audience
and a scene of fullness, though not as elaborately or obtrusively.
Everything in the frame emphasizes mutuality and unity in the relationship
between Daphnis and Damoitas and the similarity, stopping just short of complete
identity, between them. They lead a single herd to “one place.” Since Daphnis is

way Tityros’s song is premised on Lykidas’s love having already been calmed. But to the extent
that it has some validity, it cannot be a complete account of Lykidas’s song. The passage may
show how we all need this healing function of song and what that experience might be like, but
it simultaneously qualifies it as based on wish-​fulfilling fantasy.
88. And I do think that Idyll 6 is by Theocritus, despite the interesting case made by Reed 2010
that this poem should be grouped with Idylls 8 and 9 as representing the post-​Theocritean
development of bucolic poetry. It seems to me equally possible that the innovations Reed finds
in Idyll 6 were due to Theocritus himself and that the composers of the other two poems took
their cue from them—​a possibility that Reed also admits (2010, 249–​250). The experimenta-
tion in narrative and other formal techniques on display in Idyll 6 seems to me characteristic
of Theocritus, and this, in my view, tips the balance in favor of his authorship. Still, nothing
I say here depends on who wrote it. It is a remarkable achievement whomever we have to thank
for it.
89. See Cusset 2011, 44–​46, who describes three levels, omitting the relation between
Theocritus and the reader. See also Billault 2006, 20–​21, who discusses these levels as “screens”
that Theocritus erects between the story of Polyphemos and Galateia and the poem’s audience
but does not consider how those barriers are then crossed (see below). For a reading of Idyll 6
based on the complex combination of communication and discontinuity among these levels,
see Foster 2016, 35–​73.
90. See Bowie 1996, who suggests that the poem is an indirect declaration of love to Aratos by
Theocritus.
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130 T heo crit us

explicitly called a cowherd, Damoitas is, too. This is unique in Theocritus’s bucol-
ics, where encounters regularly take place between different kinds of herdsmen.91
Even formally, the complementarity between them is stressed: the ὁ μέν . . . ὁ δέ
in lines 2–​3, referring to Daphnis and Damoitas, respectively, reverses the order
of their names in line 1, in a chiastic arrangement that is picked up again in the
double chiasmus of lines 42–​44, which reflects the reciprocity in their exchange
of gifts. Still, there is a slight difference between them. Daphnis’s cheeks are cov-
ered with a golden fuzz, whereas Damoitas is half-​bearded (lines 2–​3), so that
he is somewhat older. This distinction reduces the usual age difference between
erastês and erômenos to almost nothing, but there is just enough of a gap to allow a
love relationship between them and avoid, on the one hand, such thoroughgoing
likeness that each would be completely loving an image of himself in the other
and, on the other hand, so much difference that the relationship would be asym-
metrical and vulnerable to problems.92 With all this emphasis on complementar-
ity, the last word of line 5 comes as a surprise: “First Daphnis began, since he first
provoked a competition (ἔρισδεν).” When two herdsmen are together, they often
sing, and when they trade songs or snatches of songs, they might compete for an
agreed-​on prize. The tone can range from the genial, as in the competitions envi-
sioned at the beginning of Idyll 1 between the herdsmen and Pan and the Muses
(where the divinities are already acknowledged as superior), to the mean-​spirited,
as in Idyll 5. The awarding of prizes in those poems establishes winner and loser
and therefore a hierarchy. But the song exchange in Idyll 6 does no such thing.
Daphnis and Damoitas exchange gifts on an equal basis, and the last line of the
poem tells us that neither won, and both were undefeated. Whatever eris is built
into the situation is reduced to almost nothing.93
Here, then, is another scene of what I have been calling bucolic presence: sym-
metry of desire, songs and kisses exchanged on an equal footing between two
almost identical cowherds sitting by a spring in the heat of a summer midday
(lines 3–​4), although we should bear in mind that it is distanced from the reader
and so has at least a slight air of unreality. The contrast with the situation depicted
in the songs within this frame could not be stronger. For there the relationship,

91. Myers 2016, 23–​25, with discussion of Idyll 6.

92. I agree with Hunter (1999, 249) that the relationship is erotic. For the contrary view, see
Lawall 1967, 69–​70 (“love of a spiritual, ‘Platonic’ temper”).
93. For fuller discussion of the formal elements of a poetic agon in the framing sections and the
minimalization of actual competition, see Ott 1969, 67–​69. As will emerge in c­ hapter 4, I am
skeptical that a poetic agon was a constitutive element of Theocritus’s bucolic, whatever may
have been the case with his imitators.
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The Poetics of Absence 131

instead of being grounded in the two parties’ presence to each other, is constantly
misfiring (Id. 6.17):

καὶ φεύγει φιλέοντα καὶ οὐ φιλέοντα διώκει.

And she flees you when you love her and when you don’t love her she
pursues you.

Again we have chiastic word order, but it reflects not the static symmetry of the
relationship between Damoitas and Daphnis but the symmetry of, let us say, a
swinging pendulum. Galateia, who in Idyll 11 did not respond to the desiring
Cyclops’s entreaties and appear to him, now seems to be on land and teasing him
when he pretends not even to notice her. If he did respond to her, presumably she
would run away. These are the familiar dynamics of desire in Theocritean bucolic;
this perpetual being out of phase is what keeps desire alive.
What is not typical is the reciprocally fulfilled desire of Damoitas and
Daphnis that is suggested by their exchange of kisses and pipes. But this ideal-
ized picture is not the whole story of Daphnis, if we understand this Daphnis,
as I think we should, as the younger, happier version of the one who melts from
love of Xenea (Idyll 7) or lies dying while a girl searches the woods for him (Idyll
1). Hans Bernsdorff has argued that within the inset story of Polyphemos and
Galateia there are striking anticipations of Daphnis’s fate, of which Daphnis
cannot be aware, whereas the reader who makes the connection with the other
Idylls can.94 So Idyll 6 represents a carefree and innocent stage in Daphnis’s life,
before he falls victim to the complexities of mature (hetero-​)sexuality. Alongside
Bernsdorff ’s emphasis on Daphnis’s tragic blindness, I would suggest that our
awareness of what is to come colors our perception of this scene of bucolic pres-
ence. One could also sense something foreboding even here by applying Philip
Purchase’s Lacanian perspective on the Daphnis of Idyll 1.95 There is not enough
difference between Daphnis and Damoitas for Damoitas to be truly other to him,
and so at this early stage there would be problems for Daphnis in autonomous
subject formation (or more simply, here as well as in Idyll 1, he has not found
the proper balance between autonomy and immersion). In any case, once again,

94. Bernsdorff 1994. Against this, Stanzel 1995, 41–​42. The name seems more than a signifier
of poetic talent (Legrand 1898, 151). If the cowherd Daphnis’s ill-​fated love was an item in the
repertoire of bucolic song (Id. 7.72–​77), the name inevitably would carry his story with it. On
the different narrative levels on which Daphnis appears in Idylls 1, 6, and 7, see Payne 2007, 100.
95. Purchase 2003–​2005.
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132 T heo crit us

Theocritus offers us a vision of plenitude, but the reader might well wonder about
its reality or its stability.
Illusion and reality are, in fact, major themes of the poem, and their relation
is built into its formal features, as we can see already in the first lines of Daphnis’s
song (Id. 6.6–​7):

βάλλει τοι, Πολύφαμε, τὸ ποίμνιον ἁ Γαλάτεια

μάλοισιν.

Galateia is pelting your flock, Polyphemos,

with apples.

We might have expected the two songs to be third-​person narrative (after all,
Polyphemos must have lived long before Daphnis), but the vocative of the
Cyclops’s name signals a more dramatic form. We could suppose, as many do, that
Daphnis is assuming the voice of an acquaintance and adviser of Polyphemos.
That is a legitimate reading, but a stronger one is also available: Daphnis the singer
is directly addressing a character within his song, and the boundary between two
of the distinct discursive levels is being overcome.96 Daphnis’s song is not quite an
apostrophe, but it works in the same way. The vocative assumes that Polyphemos
will hear and respond; that is, it constructs this mythical and fictional figure
(from Homer, Euripides, and Philoxenus) as a presence. It is in turn Daphnis,
the fictional character in Theocritus’s poem, who is breaking the frame. The outer
frame holds, but our awareness of Daphnis’s fictionality is heightened by the rela-
tion he constructs with Polyphemos. And so the sense of immediacy of contact
with the pre-​tragic bucolic world of this cowherd that the poem’s first five lines
may have tempted us with is blocked. Paradoxically, however, I would suggest
that Polyphemos’s presence is, at the same time and to some extent, summoned
up for us through Daphnis’s address to him, even though that address is playful
or even mocking.
What happens after Daphnis finishes singing advances this process of mak-
ing Polyphemos fictively present. Another vocative of Polyphemos’s name (ὦ
Πολύφαμε, Id. 6.19) rounds off Daphnis’s song, as if to reinforce the effect of

96. On these two possible readings, see Cusset 2011, 78; Kyriakou 2018, 115. Examples of the first
are Damon 1995, 122; Köhnken 1996, 177; Foster 2016, 47–​50. Hunter 1999, 245–​246, intrigu-
ingly suggests two other roles that Daphnis might be playing as a third-​person observer: Eros
or Odysseus. But I prefer to see Theocritus boldly experimenting with form. On the failure of
the frame to enclose completely, see Goldhill 1991, 259–​261.
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The Poetics of Absence 133

his presence.97 Then a transitional line in the narrator’s voice (20) takes us back
momentarily to third-​person narrative and the present time of narration; this
only makes more remarkable what happens when Damoitas begins to sing (Id.
6.21–​22):

εἶδον, ναὶ τὸν Πᾶνα, τὸ ποίμνιον ἁνίκ’ ἔβαλλε,

κοὔ μ’ ἔλαθ(ε).

I saw, by Pan, when she was pelting the flock,

and she didn’t evade my notice.

Polyphemos speaks. He answers Daphnis, in whose song he was a character,

across the narrative frame.98 Even though his voice comes to us through that of
Damoitas, we can enjoy his fictive presence and his self-​delusion: his failure to
believe Telemos’s prophecy about his blinding by Odysseus, his interpretation
of Galateia’s behavior (is she infatuated or just teasing him?), and his opinion of
his good looks. Even though we remain at a skeptical (mocking or sympathetic?)
distance from him, we are actually hearing a figure out of distant myth and the
poetic tradition—​or that is our illusion, if we give ourselves over to the fiction.
Galateia’s presence is more elusive. In Idyll 11, Galateia never appears, and the
boundary between land and sea separates her from Polyphemos. The situation
there is the same as that in Idyll 3, and although we have Polyphemos’s word for
it that she came up on land to gather flowers with his mother (Id. 11.25–​29), how
reliable is he when he cannot tell the difference between dreams and reality (Id.
11.23–​24)?99 In Idyll 6 we have Daphnis’s testimony that she is throwing apples at

97. This time, the vocative is preceded by ὦ, which seems to lend a condescending or mocking
tone in keeping with the sentence in which it occurs (a comment on how the beautiful Galateia
could be infatuated with the ugly Cyclops). Williams 1973, 64, sees the particle as just adding
emphasis “to underline still further the force of the sententia within which it occurs,” although
he recognizes its possible ironic or teasing force in other Theocritean contexts. I think it can
also have a similar overtone here as well as adding emphasis. In this way, it puts Daphnis into a
relation to Polyphemos—​one of superiority.
98. Cusset 2011, 122, comments that by adopting a viewpoint external to Polyphemos, Daphnis
forces Damoitas into the more difficult task of adopting the Cyclops’s perspective. This plays
down the surprise of Damoitas ventriloquizing Polyphemos’s voice, even though it is at the
same time a very good maneuver in a song contest, though surely not Damoitas’s only option.
As Matthew Chaldekas points out to me, he could sing as Galateia. She would then be present,
and Idyll 6 would be a very different poem.
99. Payne 2007, 76–​77: while he dreams, “his unconscious mind is a veritable fiction machine.”
Cf. Cusset 2017, 228: “Elle [Galatée] n’est que l’effet du désir du Cyclope.”
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134 T heo crit us

the Cyclops’s flock—​or is he making that up? And can we rely on Polyphemos’s
“I saw her”? How well does his single eye see? The point is not to decide whether
or not Galateia exists. Her presence is evanescent, like that of the foam on the
sea that Galateia perhaps represents if her name suggests the whiteness of milk
(γάλα).100
For example, Daphnis describes how Galateia throws apples at Polyphemos’s
dog as well as at his sheep (Id. 6.9–​14):

       πάλιν ἅδ’, ἴδε, τὰν κύνα βάλλει,

ἅ τοι τᾶν ὀίων ἕπεται σκοπός· ἃ δὲ βαΰσδει
εἰς ἅλα δερκομένα, τὰ δέ νιν καλὰ κύματα φαίνει
ἅσυχα καχλάζοντος ἐπ’ αἰγιαλοῖο θέοισαν.
φράζεο μὴ τᾶς παιδὸς ἐπὶ κνάμαισιν ὀρούσῃ
ἐξ ἁλὸς ἐρχομένας, κατὰ δὲ χρόα καλὸν ἀμύξῃ.

        Look, there she goes again, she’s pelting the dog
that follows you as a guard of your sheep. And she [the dog] barks
looking at the sea, but the beautiful waves show her
running upon the softly plashing shore.
Take heed lest she dart at the girl’s shins
as she [Galateia] emerges from the sea, and tear the beautiful skin.

In the first two lines, Galateia is (supposed to be) visible as she throws more
apples, this time at the dog; the demonstrative and imperative (ἅδ’ ἴδε, “look
there!”) stresses this. As the dog barks and looks toward the sea, we mentally fol-
low its gaze. The second half of the third line (“the beautiful waves reveal her”)
seems at first to mean that Galateia can be seen among the waves (with the pro-
noun νιν referring to her), but as we read on into the fourth line, it becomes clear
that it could also be the dog that is running on the shore, since “dog” is feminine
and the participle θέοισαν (“running”) could describe either it or Galateia. The
last two lines tip the balance in favor of the dog, since Galateia is still in the water.
(Is she actually emerging so that she is visible, or is the force of ἐρχομένας “when
she emerges,” so that she may not be? There is no way to tell.) But the possibility
remains that it is Galateia running along the shore (she could be emerging so that
the waves reveal her but close enough to the water’s edge that she could be at least

100. Cusset 2017, 228–​229, usefully links this evanescence to the contrasts in the poem between
land and sea, solidity and fluidity, and male and female (I would add reality and illusion).
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The Poetics of Absence 135

loosely said to be on the shore).101 That is less likely, but I suggest that it remains
in the reader’s mind even as he or she pictures the dog barking at the waves and
seeing only a reflection of itself. We might call this a “textual afterimage.” Galateia
seems to be present, but when you look, she is gone and perhaps was never there.
You only see yourself.
What I am suggesting is that the text puts the reader or listener through the
same experience the dog has: sensing Galateia’s presence (why would the dog bark
unless someone were there?) but following the narrative injunction to “look” (ἴδε)
and seeing mirrored back our own perplexity. And there is another textual effect
that also reproduces this strange absence amid presence. The name “Galateia”
occurs only once in the poem, at the end of line 6, where she is throwing apples
at the flock and seems most fully present.102 But as Christophe Cusset points out,
sounds from her name recur throughout the rest of the poem (for example, ἅλα,
γαλάνα, and the many instances of καλός).103 So the name disappears but retains
a shadowy acoustic life; or we might say at the same time, it survives as only an
echo.104 Like her name, Galateia is as fugitive as the foam on the waves of the sea
or the dry thistledown in summer to which the lines that follow those quoted
above compare her.
In Idyll 6, the interplay of presence and absence is closely related to questions
of illusion and reality, and mirroring plays an important role here. After all, the
image in a mirror confirms the presence of the one who gazes into it, but how real
is the image itself, and how trustworthy is the reflection? The situation of the dog
looking at the waves and seeing not Galateia but itself is repeated in Damoitas’s
song, when Polyphemos recalls his gaze at his own image reflected in the sea (Id.
6.34–​38):

καὶ γάρ θην οὐδ’ εἶδος ἔχω κακὸν ὥς με λέγοντι.

ἦ γὰρ πρᾶν ἐς πόντον ἐσέβλεπον, ἦς δὲ γαλάνα,

101. Gow 1952, II, 121; Dover 1971, 142; and Hunter 1999, 251, are all certain that the reference
is to the dog. I would allow for more ambiguity, as does Cusset 2011, 98–​99. The scholia under-
stand the reference to be to Galateia, who thus sees her own reflection in the waves, but one
scholion records a variant reading ῥαίνει (“spray”) for φαίνει (“reveal”), which, it says, would
imply the dog.
102. Notice that the article is used, so that the implication is “that Galateia whom you and
I know, Polyphemos”; this is a small touch that gives her more substance and reality.
103. Cusset 2011, 80–​81, who gives a complete list.
104. Cf. Cusset 2011, 81: “toutefois, si le nom est productif, on voit q’il n’a qu’une seule occur-
rence dans le text, comme s’il disparaissait aussitôt après avoir été nommé, tout en se répétant
peu à peu à travers les noms qui lui font echo.”
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136 T heo crit us

καὶ καλὰ μὲν τὰ γένεια, καλὰ δέ μευ ἁ μία κώρα,

ὡς παρ’ ἐμὶν κέκριται, κατεφαίνετο, τῶν δέ τ’ ὀδόντων
λευκοτέραν αὐγὰν Παρίας ὑπέφαινε λίθοιο.

You know, I don’t have an ugly appearance as people say I do.

I was looking into the sea the other day—​there was a calm—​
and handsome appeared my beard, handsome my one eye,
so far as my judgment goes, and as for my teeth,
the sea reflected a gleam whiter than that of Parian marble.

The Cyclops looks into the sea, and like the dog he sees himself. But the possible
presence of Galateia pervades the language of this passage. As commentators have
seen, γαλάνα (“calm”) evokes her name, as does the repeated καλά; Polyphemos
sees his beautiful eyeball, κώρα, but the word also means “girl”; and as Cusset
observes, the comparative λευκοτέρα occurs only one other time in Theocritus, at
Id. 11.20, where Polyphemos is describing the beautiful appearance of Galateia.105
Is Galateia, then, nothing more than the projection of the Cyclops’s narcissistic
self-​regard?106 We can at least say that, sea Nymph or illusion, by her elusiveness
Galateia provokes desire that, instead of remaining directed at another, is frozen
into a mirror-​like self-​contemplation. Commentators cite Plato, Phaedrus 255d,
where the beloved without realizing it sees himself in the beloved “as in a mir-
ror.”107 The allusion is, of course, ironical, since in Plato this is only one stage
in the growth of love between two people, whereas Polyphemos seems fixated
not on the Nymph but on his own eyeball (κώρα). But the relationship between
Daphnis and Damoitas, who, as we have seen, are almost mirror images of each
other, comes close to Plato’s description. On the other hand, we have seen that
this close resemblance may be problematic, and narcissism has seemed to some
to be at the root of the older Daphnis’s troubles in Idyll 1.108 Polyphemos’s self-​
contemplation, then, could be another way, in addition to those discussed by
Bernsdorff, in which his story carries implications for Daphnis’s later fate.
Polyphemos’s state of solitary desire and its result in self-​contemplation in
Idylls 11 and 6 are set off by contrast with their Homeric models. In Book 1 of the

105. Hunter 1999, 257–​258; Cusset 2011, 160–​167.

106. Cusset 2011, 163–​164, 166.
107. Hunter 1999, 258; and especially Cusset 2011, 159–​160. The whole passage emphasizes see-
ing and the role of the eyes in the arousal of desire and love.
108. Zimmerman 1994; Purchase 2003–​2005.
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The Poetics of Absence 137

Iliad (348–​351), after his quarrel with Agamemnon and the removal of Briseis,
Akhilleus sits on the shore gazing over the sea and making many prayers to his
mother, just as Polyphemos in Idyll 11 sits on a rock looking out to sea and sing-
ing, pleading with Galateia to come to him on land.109 But Akhilleus’s words
get a response, and a sea Nymph emerges from the water onto dry land, Thetis,
who happens to be Galateia’s sister (Il. 18.45). In Book 5 of the Odyssey (81–​86),
Odysseus, having separated himself from a Nymph110 as Polyphemos does in Idyll
6, sits weeping on the shore and looking out at the sea. But he is not looking at his
own reflection in the water but longing for Penelope, and Hermes has just arrived
to set in motion the events that will result in his reunion with her—​reciprocal
love, in sharp contrast to Polyphemos’s solipsistic self-​admiration.
Polyphemos’s admiration of his own appearance contrasts strongly with his
description in Idyll 11 (30–​33) of those same, and other, facial features as ugly
and as the reason Galateia shuns him. What makes a difference, clearly, is one’s
perspective and interpretation and perhaps also what one wants to see. That is
the point of Polyphemos’s qualification of his evaluation of his face: ὡς παρ’ ἐμὶν
κέκριται (“as it is judged in my opinion”). The phrase accentuates the distance
between his perspective and that of readers, who evaluate those features very dif-
ferently, especially if they have the description of them in Idyll 11 in mind; and as
Hunter points out, they will know the use to which those gleaming teeth will be
put.111 Readers, that is, are in a position to take the measure of Polyphemos’s delu-
sion. For them, his self-​admiration bears out Daphnis’s comment on Galateia’s
supposed infatuation with him (Id. 6.18–​19):

             ἦ γὰρ ἔρωτι

πολλάκις ὦ Πολύφαμε, τὰ μὴ καλὰ καλὰ πέφανται.

           Ah! for love [or by means of love]

frequently, Polyphemos, the not-​beautiful appears beautiful.

Like Titania when she sees Bottom wearing the ass’s head, Galateia is said to
see ugliness and mistake it for beauty, as Polyphemos actually does. But for the

109. ἐς πόντον ὁρῶν (Id. 11.18) may echo ὁρόων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον (Il. 1.350, of Akhilleus). Cf. Od.
5.84: πόντον ἐπ’ ἁτρύγετον δερκέσκετο (of Odysseus).
110. Kalypso is a daughter of Atlas in the Odyssey (1.52) but an Oceanid (and hence a sea
Nymph) in Hesiod’s Theogony (359).
111. Hunter 1999, 258.
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138 T heo crit us

reader, the line preserves the difference between the two: the side-​by-​side words
for “beautiful” are not quite identical, because the first has a short alpha in the
first syllable and the second has a long alpha. The latter tends to stand out because
out of nine occurrences of this adjective in this short poem (only 46 lines), only
one other has the first alpha long (line 14). The same variation in quantity in the
word within a single line occurs elsewhere in Hellenistic poetry, but without such
a sharp contrast or any particular effect.112 So in Idyll 6, Daphnis and the reader
of line 19 are in the position of dispassionate observers who see the spell to which
Galateia (supposedly) succumbs when her desire transforms Polyphemos’s ugli-
ness to beauty.113 Later, in Damoitas’s song, Polyphemos similarly confuses illu-
sion with reality (except that he really does it, whereas we cannot be sure about
Galateia) when he admires his reflection in the sea (Id. 6.36):

καὶ καλὰ μὲν τὰ γένεια, καλὰ δέ μευ ἁ μία κώρα.

And beautiful was my beard, and beautiful my single eye.

The word for “beautiful,” repeated in an emphatic anaphora, both times has the
first alpha short. Now there is no skeptical interlocutor passing judgment and
calling attention to the difference between ugliness and beauty; Polyphemos lives
completely within his own delusion. In the same way, in a line that recalls Id. 6.19,
Theocritus, stressing the accuracy of his and Nikias’s appraisal of beauty, gives the
syllable in question the same (short) quantity (Id. 13.3):

οὐχ ἁμῖν τὰ καλὰ πράτοις καλὰ φαίνεται ἦμεν.

We are not the first to whom beautiful things seem to be beautiful.

On a larger scale, the two songs of Idyll 6 together suggest how extensively
our understanding of reality is shaped by our interpretation of appearances,
and in fact, interpreting appearances is exactly what the reader is challenged to

112. See the examples cited by Cusset 2011, 118. AP 7.726.10 should actually not be included;
both alphas are long. But there, too, the quantity may be effective: ἡ καλὴ καλῶς produces a
heavy, dragged rhythm at the beginning of the last pentameter that adds emphasis. Cusset sees
a contrast between appearance and reality in Id. 6.19, much as I do (I would say illusion and
reality), but sees in it “the magic of art” as “thanks to love Polyphemos enters into the sphere
of Galateia’s beauty.”
113. On line 19 and the sympotic background to Idyll 6 as a whole, including especially Plato’s
Symposium, see Acosta-​Hughes 2006, 47–​49.
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The Poetics of Absence 139

do. It is not clear how we should understand the situation these songs describe.
The uncertainty revolves not only around whether or not Galateia is real and
present, although that is a major part of it. Let us suppose that she is fictive or at
least not visible. Daphnis then is making up her pelting of the flocks and is per-
haps teasing Polyphemos, who we know, from Idyll 11 and Philoxenus earlier, is
in love with her. Polyphemos, with his emphatic εἶδον (“I saw her”) at the begin-
ning of his reply, is pretending in order to save face and then develops Daphnis’s
hints to explain his own behavior; perhaps he was just sitting and playing the
syrinx (lines 8–​9), without seeing Galateia because she was not there, but now
he turns that behavior into a pretense of playing hard to get. This seems to me
a viable reading, according to which Daphnis and Damoitas would be collabo-
rating in creating a new episode in the story of Polyphemos’s love for Galateia
(and fictively summoning up Polyphemos’s presence, as we have seen). Or sup-
pose that Galateia exists and really is throwing apples. In that case, there are two
other possibilities. She might really be in love with him now that he is aloof,
and his stratagem, which is based on the dynamics of absence and desire, is pay-
ing off. After all, apples are conventionally love tokens. In that case, we might
imagine a time when Polyphemos will respond to her and she will flee in turn.
But how can we be sure that Galateia is infatuated with him and not instead
teasing him without any thought of a relationship with someone so ugly (the
apples could be just apples, convenient missiles)? In this case, Daphnis would
be teasing him, encouraging him in the illusion from within which he speaks
in Damoitas’s song, and part of our pleasure in the poem derives from the gap
between his delusion and our superior understanding.114
It is not necessary to choose among these different and mutually exclusive
possibilities in order to enjoy the poem. What is remarkable, because it shows the
power of fiction, is that the poem induces us to ask what, if anything, Galateia is
“really” up to and what Polyphemos’s “real” motives are—​as if Daphnis actually is
addressing the Cyclops and we hear his voice through that of Damoitas. In all the
ways I have outlined, Idyll 6 puts to the test our understanding of the world and
our ability to interpret it and leaves us uncertain how to locate the point at which
that knowledge fails and illusion begins.

114. In any case, I take Polyphemos’s studied indifference as a sign that he is still in love with
Galateia, whom he still wants to come and “tend his bed” (Id. 6.32–​33). I therefore would not
agree with Hutchinson 1988, 184–​185: “He treats Galatea so roughly not simply in order to
win her but because he exults in his own freedom from ungovernable longing, and in Galatea’s
subjection to it.”
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140 T heo crit us

Idyll 2: Desire in Town

It is not only in the world of Theocritus’s herdsmen that we find a close connec-
tion between absence and desire. Idyll 2 takes us into a town big enough to have a
palaistra, if it is not a city. Here, too, however, the absence of the beloved gener-
ates, if not a song, a monologue by Simaitha that includes magic ritual and incan-
tation followed by a long address to the moon, in which she narrates how she fell
in love with Delphis, induced him to consummate that love, and now has been
betrayed by him.115 As Cusset has remarked, in contrast to the systematic absence
of women in the bucolic poems, two of the urban Idylls, 2 and 15, are “saturated”
with women’s voices, and it is men who are mostly absent.116
Simaitha’s situation, however, resembles those of Polyphemos and the goat-
herd in Idylls 11 and 3; her plight is the urban and feminine counterpart of theirs.
In all three poems, although the speaker struggles in words to make the desired
person present, that person never appears (and even the moon, which might
be expected to be sympathetic, remains aloof and never responds to Simaitha).
But Simaitha never addresses Delphis directly, whereas the direct addresses
by Polyphemos and the goatherd at least suggest the possibility of a response.
Delphis is always referred to in the third person; and even in the narrative of their
lovemaking, although Simaitha quotes his disingenuous words to her, she never
recounts any words that she may have spoken to him. As a result, Delphis seems
more distant than he otherwise would, less likely to make an appearance, and
this tells us something about his relationship with Simaitha: that it is definitively
over, and that it was never a marriage of true minds. Polyphemos finds in song a
φάρμακον (“drug” or “remedy”) against love, although it seems doubtful that he
succeeds in curing it.117 Simaitha has recourse to magic, intended now to charm
Delphis back into her love, now to harm him.118 At the end of the poem, she puts
these motives in some kind of order (Id. 2.159–​162):

115. The refrains that run through the two parts of the poem may suggest song or incantation
or both.
116. Cusset 2017, 229–​230.
117. I think that the imperfect verb tenses at Id. 11.14, 18, and 80 and the ambiguity of both
φάρμακον as either “remedy” or “poison” and ἐποίμαινεν as either “controlled” or “nurtured” in
line 80 (see Goldhill 1988, 90–​92; 1991, 254–​255) suggest that the scene of his singing on the
shore took place repeatedly—​that is, that his desire was assuaged or at least controlled by song
but then was aroused again and again, and it either found temporary relief in singing or (more
in line with Goldhill) was indulged through song.
118. Gow 1952, II, 40, although he concludes that all the charms are intended to bring Delphis
back and not to harm him. I think it is more vivid to see two contradictory but related impulses
in Simaitha, love and desire for revenge.
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The Poetics of Absence 141

νῦν μὲν τοῖς φίλτροις καταδήσομαι· αἰ δ’ ἔτι κά με

λυπῇ, τὰν Ἀίδαο πύλαν, ναὶ Μοίρας, ἀράξει·
τοῖά οἱ ἐν κίστᾳ κακὰ φάρμακα φαμὶ φυλάσσειν,
Ἀσσυρίω, δέσποινα, παρὰ ξείνοιο μαθοῖσα.

Now I will bind him with my charms. But if he continues

to grieve me, he will knock, by the Fates, at Hades’s gate.
Such drugs [φάρμακα] do I claim to keep for him in the chest,
which a foreigner from Assyria, mistress moon, taught me.

In contrast to the healing drugs of medicine, Simaitha chooses the sinister drugs
that she associates with the “barbarian” world.119 And whereas Polyphemos comes
to some kind of accommodation with his feelings, either indulging them or calming
them at least for the time being, it is not clear that Simaitha does. That depends on
what she means when she says (Id. 2.164):

ἐγὼ δ’ οἰσῶ τὸν ἐμὸν πόθον ὥσπερ ὑπέσταν.

But I will bear my desire as I have endured/​undertaken it.

The question is the meaning of ὑπέσταν. Both Gow and Dover cite Euripides Tro.
414–​415 for the meaning “undertook, incurred,” and Dover explains: “Simaitha’s
point is: ‘it was I, not you, mistress Moon, who fell in love; and I who will endure
it, while you depart.’ ”120 That is a conceivable meaning, though it requires some
work to elicit it. Another possibility, still with this meaning of the verb, is “I will
bear my desire in the same state as I was when I fell in love,” that is, passion-
ately. Gow, rejecting the Euripidean parallel, says, “the meaning however seems
to be rather as I have borne it hitherto than as I incurred it.”121 That is, the verb
can be taken to mean “I have endured.” But she has not been bearing her desire
with any kind of equanimity.122 So rather than the resigned endurance that both
Dover and Gow want to find here, on either meaning of the verb—​“incurred” or

119. Drugs kept in a chest (κίστα) evoke Apollonius’s Medea, who is one of the three sorceresses
Simaitha mentions at Id. 2.15–​16 as her role models. See Arg. 3.802, 808, 844; 4.25 (Apollonius’s
word for “chest” is φωριαμός). For another parallel with Apollonius, see Dover 1971, 97.
120. Dover 1971, 112.
121. Gow 1952, II, 63. Id. 1.93, which he cites, seems to me not much of a parallel.
122. Cf. Stanzel 1995, 225–​228, who nevertheless sees Simaitha as having reached a certain clar-
ity about her situation, though not full resignation.
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142 T heo crit us

“endured”—​it seems more plausible to hear in Simaitha’s words a desire for the
absent Delphis that is doomed never to be satisfied or diminished, and this brings
her closer to the goatherd at the end of Idyll 3 than to Polyphemos at the end
of Idyll 11. As she has just said, either her magic of this night will bring Delphis
back to her, or she will kill him with her drugs. On the other hand, the view that
Gow and Dover adopt cannot be completely excluded. We simply cannot tell
how this story will turn out.123 Idyll 2 presents us with only part of the trajectory
of Simaitha’s passion. As a result, what the poem puts squarely at the center of
attention is an irremediable absence, a hopeless desire (unless those magic charms
work), and a vulnerable124 woman’s attempts to respond to them.
But Simaitha has already contrived to satisfy her desire for Delphis, so that
we have a story of presence and fulfillment in the past framed within a situation
of absence in the present, and Simaitha’s situation now illustrates the Platonic
idea that even when one satisfies desire, one still feels eros to possess the object
of desire in the future. As usual in Theocritus, however, that picture of erstwhile
presence is heavily qualified by a series of ironies and reversals.
It makes a great deal of difference that the speaker of this poem is a woman
whereas the central figures of the two most closely comparable poems are male.
The town setting perhaps facilitated this change, since women do not figure among
Theocritus’s herders. Instead of bucolic song, Simaitha deals in magic incanta-
tions and destructive drugs, which were especially associated with foreigners and
women in Greek literature, if not in life.125 Accordingly, in lines 15–​16, Simaitha

123. I agree, therefore, with the excellent discussion of Segal 1985, 114–​119, and with Goldhill
1991, 269–​270 (with discussion of earlier views). Parry 1988, 48, also allows for complexity
in this ending when he says, “the fire of her conflicting emotions seems more subdued than
extinguished.” For a different view of the ending, one based on careful consideration of changes
in Simaitha’s use of language in the course of the poem, see Griffiths 1979, 87–​88. See also
Klooster 2007, 104–​105.
124. Simaitha is a woman living alone, though not a hetaira, who is well off enough to keep
a slave (not necessarily affluent) and to hire a flute player but seems to be at the lower end of
the social and economic scale. Delphis, who spends his time at the palaistra and symposia,
probably occupies a significantly higher position. See Legrand 1898, 129–​131; Gow 1952, II, 33;
Dover 1971, 95–​96; Burton 1995, 19. This mismatch helps explain why Simaitha is unrealistic to
expect him to maintain a relationship with her and why he seems to take it for granted that he
can enjoy her without a serious commitment.
125. The relation between Simaitha’s witchcraft and her gender is a rich topic. As Gibbs-​
Wichrowska 1994, 255–​256, suggests, the contrast between her magic and her ordinariness can
be read either as trivializing the power of magic or as showing (from a male point of view)
the explosive power latent even in “the girl next door.” Parry’s sensitive reading (1988) offers
a Simaitha using the only resources for coping with intense desire that were open to Greek
women in their powerlessness: the therapeutic effect of telling her story to the moon and
magic as a parallel way of ritualizing and ordering her experience even if it has no effect on
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The Poetics of Absence 143

refers to the φάρμακα (“potions,” “drugs”) of Kirke, Medea, and Perimede (again,
contrast the φάρμακον, “medicine” or “cure,” that the male Polyphemos found in
song in Idyll 11, although the word can also mean “poison”). The fact that Simaitha
is the initiator of the relationship with Delphis and so takes the active role entails
various reversals. To the feminine space of Simaitha’s house is opposed the palais-
tra, the setting of Delphis’s homosocial relations with other young men, with its
homoerotic associations. These associations are captured well by lines 124–​125: καὶ
γὰρ ἐλαφρός/​καὶ καλὸς πάντεσσι μετ’ ἠιθέοισι καλεῦμαι (“for I am called elaphros
and beautiful among all the youths”). Delphis is seeing himself as the object of
attention in the context of his age-​mates. If elaphros means “nimble,” he fulfills the
upper-​class ideal of outstanding athletic ability and physical beauty expressed espe-
cially in the gymnasium. But it could also, among other things, mean “fickle”; in
that case, the emphasis is on his role as lover or love object, again with homoerotic
overtones but also with ominous implications for his relationship with Simaitha.126
Delphis is, in fact, ambiguous sexually. There is Simaitha’s and her informant’s
uncertainty about whether he is now in love with a man or a woman (lines 44,
150). If a man, ἀνήρ in both lines would suggest that he has the role of erômenos;
but his departure to cover the other person’s house door with garlands would, if
that person is male, put Delphis in the role of erastês. In that case, or if he is in love
with a woman, he seems to have passed beyond the age when he is sexually attrac-
tive to men. And in fact, he has a beard (line 78), not the facial fuzz of the attrac-
tive boy. This uncertainty leads to a further possibility. The Philinos whom he
tells Simaitha he beat in a foot race (line 115) could be, in the context, the famous
Koan runner, or his name could be used to give a vague suggestion of athletic abil-
ity.127 But there could also be at least a secondary association with the Philinos of
Idyll 7 (line 121), the boy with whom Aratos is in love and whose charms are said,
in an echo of Archilochus’s invective against Neoboule, to be overripe (that is, he
is getting too mature for a pederastic relationship). That description might also
fit Delphis’s time of life, and it is at least suggestive that allusions to Archilochus’s

Delphis. Duncan’s subtle interpretation (2001) depicts Theocritus using Simaitha’s gender and
magic to arouse in the male reader a “delicate combination of distancing and identification”
that enchants him. Lambert (2002) takes a different approach: Simaitha’s “bungled” ritual is a
parody of magic in keeping with a depiction of her as banal, because the idea of a woman with
initiative and agency was still not acceptable in Greek culture as late as the Hellenistic period.
126. On the ambiguity of this word, see Goldhill 1991, 266–​268).
127. On this Philinos, see Gow 1952, II, 55. Note Gow’s remark that “the name is common at
Cos.” Note also that Philinos is given the epithet χαριείς (“charming,” as Gow translates it), in
keeping with the atmosphere of the gymnasium.
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144 T heo crit us

Cologne Epode are associated with both the Philinos of Idyll 7128 and Delphis
(see below).
When Simaitha first sets eyes on him, both she and Delphis are acting appro-
priately for their respective genders: she is going to a religious festival, conven-
tionally one of the reasons deemed legitimate for women to leave the house, and
he is coming with a male friend from the gymnasium (lines 76–​80). But now
the usual roles are reversed. She sees him; there is no indication that he also sees
her. There is already a lack of mutuality that is especially pronounced, because
in Greek culture the exchanged gaze could be erotic. Physically and emotionally
stricken with love, she sends her slave to invite him to her house. He gains entrance
easily. What is missing, as we saw in ­chapter 1, is the kômos, in which he would
have played the active role and she would have been—​at least for the moment—​
inaccessible. When Delphis himself tries to excuse its absence (Id. 2.118–​122), we
might hear in his words a certain uneasiness at his passive and her more aggres-
sive role, as well as a need to cover up his tepid feelings. Just before this speech,
he has glanced at her (no answering look from her, it seems) and then fixed his
eyes on the ground (line 112: ἐπὶ χθονὸς ὄμματα πάξας). This phrase echoes Iliad
3.217 (ὑπαὶ δὲ ἴδεσκε κατὰ χθονὸς ὄμματα πάξας, “he kept looking down, fixing his
eyes upon the ground”), which refers to Odysseus, that consummate manipula-
tor of words—​a sign to the reader that Delphis’s speech is as artfully calculated
as his.129 But we might also think of Apollonius’s Jason on his way to Hypsipyle,
walking through the town with his eyes resolutely on the ground, oblivious of
the Lemnian women crowding around him (Arg. 1.782–​786). There, too, a male
enters the intimate space of a woman, Hypsipyle’s bedchamber, with clear over-
tones of sexual penetration, in a scene that also involves gender reversals.130 Like
Thyrsis with Simaitha, Jason will leave Hypsipyle after their affair, but only after
telling her frankly that he cannot stay on Lemnos and receiving her assent.

128. See Henrichs 1980; Hunter 1999, 188.

129. On the Homeric echo and the tension between it and the allusions to Sappho in this
passage, see Segal 1984, 203–​204, 206. See also Goldhill 1991, 262–​263. However, Delphis is
not really a smooth trickster; as Legrand points out (1898, 118), there is a contrast between
his flowery, banal love jargon and Simaitha’s language of true passion. I would add that it says
something about Simaitha or about the power of eros, or both, that she is taken in by his insin-
cere speech.
130. Cf. also Arg. 3.1022–​1023, where Jason and Medea both look shyly at the ground. It is
tempting to read Delphis’s lowered gaze as a feminine expression of modesty, and it is true
that when Jason enters her bedroom, Hypsipyle gives him sidelong glances as she blushes (Arg.
1.790–​791), but looking down is not a gesture characteristic of women only, as the example of
Odysseus shows. It is not, however, “manly” (by Greek standards) in Apollonius; in addition
to the other instances, see Arg. 3.422.
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The Poetics of Absence 145

But any overtones of sexual penetration there may be when Delphis enters
Simaitha’s house are muted. Goaded, as he perhaps meant her to be, by Delphis’s
description of the effects of love, Simaitha takes the lead (Id. 2.138–​139):

  ὣς ὁ μὲν εἶπεν· ἐγὼ δέ νιν ἁ ταχυπειθείς

χειρὸς ἐφαψαμένα μαλακῶν ἔκλιν’ ἐπὶ λέκτρων.

  So he spoke; and I—​credulous one—​

taking him by the hand laid him upon the soft bedding.

Seldom in Greek poetry is there so frank a description of sexual intercourse as there

is in these and the lines that follow, and never does the woman exert such mastery.
The inversion of gender roles is all the more strongly marked because these lines
echo the description of a similar moment in Archilochus’s Cologne Epode, where
it is the male speaker who is physically in control (fr. 196a.42–​48 West):131

τοσ]αῦτ’ ἐφώνεον· παρθένον δ’ ἐν ἄνθε[σιν

τηλ]εθάεσσι λαβών
ἔκλινα· μαλθακῇ δ[έ μιν
χλαί]νῃ καλύψας, αὐχέν’ ἀγκάλῃς ἔχω[ν,
*********************
μαζ]ῶν τε χερσὶν ἠπίως ἐφηψάμην . . .

So many things I said; and the girl—​taking hold of her

amid the flower blossoms
I laid her down. And covering her
with a soft cloak, holding her neck in the crook of my arm
****************
I touched her breasts gently with my hands.

This inversion of gender roles (by Greek standards) is coordinate with the
breaking down of distinctions between spaces considered proper to each gender.132

131. Perhaps because he concentrates on Archilochus as an invective poet in the Cologne Epode
and on echoes of him as such in Simikhidas’s song (Id. 7.120–​124), Henrichs 1980 does not
mention the equally striking allusion to the end of the epode in Idyll 2. As I pointed out earlier,
the mention of Philinos at Id. 2.115 prepares for this allusion if it is a cross-​reference to the
Philinos of Idyll 7, where the echoes of Archilochus discussed by Henrichs occur.
132. See ­chapter 1.
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146 T heo crit us

In addition, Simaitha’s story of events leading up to their affair inverts what seems
to have been the conventional narrative pattern of irregular love affairs, of which
we may take as representative Euphiletos’s account of the beginning of his wife’s
adultery in the first speech of Lysias.133 Eratosthenes saw Euphiletos’s wife at
her mother-​in-​law’s funeral (like a religious festival, a legitimate occasion for a
woman to appear in public); Simaitha saw Delphis as she was on her way to a fes-
tival of Artemis. Eratosthenes waylaid Euphiletos’s slave woman as she was going
to the marketplace (a typical errand for a female slave) and corrupted her into
serving as his go-​between with her mistress; Simaitha sent her slave woman to
watch for Delphis at the palaistra and convey her invitation to her house.134 So
Simaitha takes on the seducer’s role that in Lysias’s narrative is played by the male
Eratosthenes.
“We went all the way, and we both achieved our desire,” says Simaitha (Id.
2.143: ἐπράχθη τὰ μέγιστα, καὶ ἐς πόθον ἤνθομες ἄμφω). But this moment of ful-
fillment has been contrived by means that are everywhere marked as revers-
ing socially prescribed gender roles, and its irregularity reveals it as precarious,
although Simaitha, the narrator, seems unaware of this. It is clear, furthermore,
that Simaitha and Delphis have very different expectations of each other. And
so it is no surprise that this past moment of presence is set within a monologue
by Simaitha that is all about absence. Even the phrasing with which this con-
summation is described reflects its questionable reality. Literally, the second half
of line 143 means “and we both arrived at our longing.” As Dover comments,
“πόθος is usually a state of longing and desire (as in 164).”135 Rather than gloss
over the strangeness of the phrase, as he does and as my initial translation does,
we should appreciate the paradox. What does it mean to come to your longing?
Can desire be desire when it is fulfilled? If, as many of Theocritus’s poems seem to
be telling us, absence, lack, and yearning are the conditions of human life, how do
we manage our feelings? The goatherd of Idyll 3 and the Cyclops of Idyll 11 sing

133. Lysias 1.7–​9. I want to stress that I am not claiming that Theocritus alludes to this speech
(although there is no reason to rule that out, either) but comparing narrative patterns. I take
the Lysias passage as representing the norm because it is more consistent with conventional
Greek gender roles. After writing this, I saw that my point had been briefly anticipated by
Hutchinson 1988, 157, and more fully by Segal 1985, 105n6.
134. There is a further parallel between the two stories in how the infidelity is revealed—​
another sign that we may be dealing with a typical story pattern. In Lysias, a woman who has
had an affair with Eratosthenes and has been abandoned by him sends her slave woman to tell
Euphiletos of his wife’s affair (Lysias 1.15–​17). In Theocritus, the mother of Simaitha’s flute
player visits her and in the course of gossip tells her that Delphis is in love (Id. 2.145–​149).
135. Dover 1971, 110.
147

The Poetics of Absence 147

pleadingly to the Nymphs they love but get no response. Simaitha tells her desire
to the moon, which she animates through an apostrophe that assumes the pos-
sibility of an answer. But the moon goes its way: “But you fare well, Mistress, and
turn your colts toward the ocean. I will bear my longing [πόθον] as I undertook
it” (lines 163–​164). Simaitha, who came to her desire, is left in a state of yearning.
How she will bear it—​or if she will—​is left uncertain.

Idyll 13: Herakles in Love

Like the “urban mime” of Idyll 2, Idyll 13 is non-​bucolic, but its depiction of
absence and eros resembles that of the bucolic poems. As Hunter points out,
Herakles wandering in frantic search for Hylas resembles the girl of Idyll 1 run-
ning through the forest in search of Daphnis, so that “Herakles’ story has been
assimilated to the archetypal bucolic story.”136 As I argued in c­ hapter 2, however,
I would put less emphasis on “the bucolicisation of epic”137 or an opposition
between the two forms than on the poem’s demonstration of the power of eros
through the interplay between presence and absence. I would read the similarity
between the stories of Herakles and Daphnis as showing that heroes are just as
susceptible to the problematics of eros as herdsmen are. From this point of view,
the poem would seem to be constructing a continuity between epic and bucolic
with, as we saw in ­chapter 2, an admixture of sympotic elegy and lyric.
Writing in the epic meter, Theocritus extends eros into heroic myth. That
does not mean that he portrays eros as entirely compatible with heroism; the ten-
sion between them is what gives Idyll 13 its power and its delicately playful tone
even as it portrays the magnitude of Herakles’s grief at the loss of Hylas. That
is not to say that there is a firm opposition between them, as modern scholars
often assume. In fact, Theocritus had precedents in his linking of eros and the
heroic. By the time he wrote, Aeschylus had depicted Akhilleus and Patroklos as
lovers in his Myrmidons, and Phaedrus in Plato’s Symposium (179e–​180a) used
Akhilleus as an example of someone spurred to deeds of excellence by his love
for his erastês, so that he was willing to die on Patroklos’s behalf. In this reinter-
pretation of Homer, eros becomes the very basis for heroic action. That will not
work for Theocritus’s Herakles, whose love for Hylas interrupts—​for a time and
not permanently—​his participation in the Argonautic quest. But these examples
show that by Theocritus’s time, eros and heroism were not in principle mutually
exclusive. An anti-​heroic reading of Idyll 13 is not the only one possible.

136. Hunter 1999, 284.

137. Hunter 1999, 263.
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148 T heo crit us

As an example of the combination of the martial and the erotic, consider the
passage in which Herakles, who withstood and killed the Nemean lion (Id. 13.6),
is compared to a lion when he hurls himself through the woods, propelled by
πόθος, “longing,” for the vanished Hylas (Id. 13.62–​65):

νεβροῦ φθεγξαμένας τις ἐν οὔρεσιν ὠμοφάγος λίς

ἐξ εὐνᾶς ἔσπευσεν ἑτοιμοτάταν ἐπὶ δαῖτα·
Ἡρακλέης τοιοῦτος ἐν ἀτρίπτοισιν ἀκάνθαις
παῖδα ποθῶν δεδόνητο, πολὺν δ’ἐπελάμβανε χῶρον.

When a fawn cries out in the mountains a raw-​meat-​eating lion

rushes from its lair toward a very ready meal.
Such was Herakles when among untrodden thorn bushes
he hurled himself in longing for the boy, and he covered much ground.

The lion slayer becomes lion-​like; the conqueror of nature on behalf of civiliza-
tion becomes like a beast in the untamed wilds. In addition, the cry of the fawn
seems linked to Hylas’s voice issuing faintly from the water immediately before
this passage (the transmitted line 61 being spurious), so that Hylas is figured as
the lion’s (Herakles’s) prey. The simile generally recalls a certain kind of battle
simile in the Iliad that describes the ferocity of a warrior and the defenseless-
ness of the opponent he is about to kill.138 Though it makes no specific allusion,
Theocritus’s simile evokes the violence of the Homeric battlefield, but now to
describe the extremity of desire. This reframing of the Homeric animal simile in
an erotic context could, of course, be taken as a commentary on epic or as ques-
tioning “the relevance of the epic hero in a post-​heroic era.”139 But it is equally
possible, and I think more in keeping with the theme of the poem as announced
in the opening lines, to say that it emphasizes the lover’s subjection to the same
ferocious compulsions as the epic warrior in the moment of battle fury and the
hungry lion.

138. There are no exact parallels, but cf. Il. 3.23–​26, 11.113–​119, 16.756–​758, and 22.189–​192.
There are also points of resemblance between this simile and the one at Od. 6.130–​136, which
itself draws on the kind of battle similes we see in the Iliad. Odysseus emerging from the thick-
ets to meet Nausikaa and her slaves is compared to a hungry lion: “so Odysseus was about to
mingle among the girls with beautiful tresses.” His mature masculinity is sharply opposed to
their sheltered virginity, and sexual tension is palpable. In Idyll 13’s simile, there is not such
a stark contrast between heroism and eros. For one thing, a heroic warrior is precisely what
Herakles hopes to educate Hylas to be; for another, the Nymphs are the true threat to Hylas,
not Herakles.
139. Mastronarde 1968, 275.
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The Poetics of Absence 149

What facilitates this merging of warrior and lover is that the simile draws not
only on epic but simultaneously on conventions of sympotic poetry; as Hunter
points out, “the image of the lion and the fawn as a way of figuring the erastês-​
erômenos relationship is found at Theognis 949–​50 and PMG 714, and is common
in heterosexual contexts, where the point is often that the young fawn is exposed to
danger because it is separated from its mother.”140 As Hunter’s description suggests,
the image has somewhat different implications depending on the erotic context,
and Theocritus seems to combine them, just as he brings Herakles’s pederastic desire
into confrontation with the Nymphs’ heterosexual eros. Hylas’s role as the object of
desire is the same in both. From the perspective of pederastic desire, Herakles is
straightforwardly the lover engaged in erotic pursuit, but there is an important dif-
ference from the conventional situation. Usually the love object is assumed to be
somehow within reach; but Hylas has disappeared, and Herakles does not know
where he is. From the perspective of heterosexual desire, the simile involves ironic
displacements and gender inversions. The role of predatory lion would suit the sex-
ually aggressive Nymphs, and Herakles would more appropriately be the protective
maternal figure. And Hylas is not simply in danger but already their prey. I suggest
that the reuse of the image, with the evocation of the conventions of pederastic and
heterosexual love poetry simultaneously, emphasizes that Idyll 13 portrays not the
usual situation of erotic pursuit but the more intense longing provoked by loss and
absence and that even so great a hero as Herakles fell victim to it.141
This is one kind of eros; the poem shows us another, leading up to it. Even
before the voyage of the Argo, Herakles has been in love (Id. 13.5–​9):

ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἀμφιτρύωνος ὁ χαλκεοκάρδιος υἱός,

ὃς τὸν λῖν ὑπέμεινε τὸν ἄγριον, ἤρατο παιδός,
τοῦ χαρίεντος Ὕλα, τοῦ τὰν πλοκαμῖδα φορεῦντος,
καί νιν πάντ’ ἐδίδασκε, πατὴρ ὡσεὶ φίλον υἱόν,
ὅσσα μαθὼν ἀγαθὸς καὶ ἀοίδιμος αὐτὸς ἔγεντο.

140. Hunter 1999, 284. Cf. Hunter’s remarks on Idyll 13’s relations with sympotic and lyric
poetry as well as with epic (262).
141. For a very different reading of the simile that sees it as condemning Herakles’s pederastic
love for Hylas as “unworthy of the hero,” see Mastronarde 1968, 277–​278. Gutzwiller’s interpre-
tation (1981, 28) is along the same lines: the simile “transforms Heracles’ martial aggressiveness
into a lover’s aggressiveness. Theocritus does not even allow Heracles a genuine concern for
Hylas’ safety but mocks him by implying a sexual motivation for his search.” Where Gutzwiller
sees an opposition between warrior and lover in this passage, I see a combination of roles that
may seem incongruous, but is in fact Theocritus’s innovation. The second sentence quoted
assumes that a sexual motivation should open Herakles to ridicule, but is that consistent with
the wider context of this poem? The other Argonauts taunt him at the end of the narrative for
a different reason.
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150 T heo crit us

But even the bronze-​hearted son of Amphitryon,

who withstood that savage lion, loved a boy,
the charming Hylas, who wore his locks long,
and as a father does his own son, he taught him all things
that he himself learned in order to become noble and celebrated in song.

This is the pederastic ideal,142 according to which the erastês instructs the erôme-
nos so as to shape his character and physical abilities and produce him as a model
of Greek manhood, “noble and celebrated in [epic] song” (the latter, of course, a
catchword of epic poetry). Pederasty is not, of course, a Homeric institution but
rather the subject of sympotic elegy and lyric poetry. But epic is also concerned
with the father teaching his son the standards of manhood, just as Herakles here
takes a quasi-​paternal role, and this endeavor shares with pederasty (in its ideal
form) the goal of passing on to younger generations traditional ideas of masculin-
ity. Here once again, we see the poem constructing a line of continuity between
itself and heroic epic with the help of sympotic poetry. Herakles’s education of
Hylas, in fact, recalls the education Herakles’s mother Alkmene arranged for him
(Id. 24.103–​134). Herakles, Idyll 13 continues, was never apart from Hylas, morn-
ing, noon, or night, “so that the boy could be wrought with toil to his satisfac-
tion” (Id. 13.14: ὡς αὐτῷ κατὰ θυμὸν ὁ παῖς πεποναμένος εἴη)—​like a poem (cf. Id.
7.51) or a work of art—​and turn out to be “a true man” (Id. 13.15: ἑς ἀλαθινὸν ἄνδρ’
ἀποβαίη).143
This is a very different kind of love from what we have seen elsewhere in
Theocritus. The text names it as eros, but it is characterized not by absence but
by the inseparability of Herakles and Hylas. But as with Simaitha in Idyll 2, and
in a way accounted for by Plato, this fulfilled relationship leads to separation and
fierce desire. The controlled, constructive love that promised to produce a tra-
ditional masculine hero for a new generation is first disrupted by the Nymphs’

142. Cf. Hunter 1996, 168–​171; Miles 1977, 142. My own reading of the poem overlaps with
Miles’s. But although I agree that the poem has touches of “gentle humor,” I am not so sure that
they distance the reader from Herakles. The effect may just as well be gentle mockery of lovers,
among whom the narrator includes himself and Nikias, and so self-​mockery. See especially line
66, discussed below.
143. I am not ignoring the near-​bathos in which the first two lines of the quotation end (“loved
a boy”) after the heroic buildup in what precedes. But again, is this mocking of Herakles and/​
or pederasty, or is it—​just as probably, I think—​a demonstration of the power of love to subject
even the greatest of heroes to itself ? Hutchinson 1988, 195, well captures some of the complex-
ity of this poem in his comment on ἀοίδιμος: “we think of this figure [Herakles] as the subject
of high poetry; we think also, wryly, of the poem we are reading.”
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The Poetics of Absence 151

overwhelming desire for Hylas144 and then replaced in Herakles by the passionate
madness of the longing conditioned by separation and absence that is familiar
from other Idylls. So turbulent is this version of eros that it disrupts even normal
spatial relations, as we saw in c­ hapter 2. The contrast between Herakles’s bellow
and Hylas’s thin voice issuing from beneath the water at his feet (Id. 13.58–​60)
not only confuses the spatial sense of near and far, but especially because of the
graphically physical description of Herakles’s deep throat, which suggests his size
and also, perhaps, his proverbial gluttony and therefore his larger-​than-​life quali-
ties, there seems also to be a contrast between the mature man and the boy—​one
that very likely will now be permanent (Id. 13.48–​49):

Νύμφαι μὲν σφετέροις ἐπὶ γούνασι κοῦρον ἔχοισαι

δακρυόεντ’ ἀγανοῖσι παρέψυχοντ’ ἐπέεσσιν.

The Nymphs held the weeping boy on their knees

and tried to calm him with gentle words.

This tableau—​the last we see of Hylas—​shows him, childlike, on the Nymphs’

laps, tearfully resisting the Nymphs’ attempts to soothe him, permanently cut off
from Herakles’s masculine guidance into maturity and instead surrounded, even
dominated, by female figures. The Nymphs are now transformed from sexual
predators to maternal figures. They may have achieved the object of their desire,
but it does them little good. They will never have a sexually mature lover. In sharp
contrast to the goal of Herakles’s efforts, Hylas, it seems, will never become a
man but will be immortalized as a boy (Id. 13.72, where κάλλιστος, “most beauti-
ful,” suggests a youth in accordance with κοῦρον in line 48).145 Perhaps we should

144. This is described in strong terms (Id. 13.48–​49): πασάων γὰρ ἔρως ἁπαλὰς φρένας
ἑξεφόβησεν/​Ἀργείῳ ἐπὶ παιδί (“for eros for the Argive boy turned in utter rout the tender minds
of all [the Nymphs]”). The verb is a military/​epic term, strengthened by a prefix: the domina-
tion of the Nymphs’ minds by eros is like a victorious army turning the opposing army to pan-
icked flight (Gow’s “fluttered” misses this implication entirely). See van Erp Taalman Kip 1994,
163–​164. There is an exact parallel at Aesch. Pers. 606 (ἐκφοβεῖ φρένας, “routs the mind”), where
we may also hear military overtones (the Persian queen has just heard the news of the defeat at
Salamis). But the use of the verb with “eros” as subject is surprising, especially in conjunction
with the epithet “tender” describing the Nymphs’ minds, and suggests the merging of warfare
and love that this poem performs.
145. Segal 1981, 57–​58, points in this direction without going quite so far, but I would not see
this, as he does, as part of an irony directed at epic heroism. Another, widespread opinion is
that through a liaison with the Nymphs, Hylas makes a transition to mature (hetero-​)sexuality
(e.g., Mastronarde 1968, 275). The text does not encourage this notion, although it does not
give conclusive evidence for my view, either.
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152 T heo crit us

think of him as the heterosexual counterpart of Ganymede: forever pubescent.

Such is the power of desire to disrupt human projects and goals. Even divinities,
who have the power to satisfy their desires at whim, do not in this case get all that
they presumably want. This poem’s depiction of eros is disturbing. It shows to
what extremes the overwhelming force of eros can drive mortals and immortals
alike, how there is finally no way of controlling it, and how even in fulfillment
there is still some unsatisfactory remnant, a restlessness that never can be stilled.
One reason I have been arguing against taking Idyll 13 merely as a commen-
tary on or appropriation of the epic tradition and in favor of taking its depiction
of eros seriously is the way the first four lines of the poem offer a particular per-
spective on the narrative that follows (Id. 13.1–​4):

οὐχ ἁμῖν τὸν Ἔρωτα μόνοις ἔτεχ’, ὡς ἐδοκεῦμες,

Νικία, ᾧτινι τοῦτο θεῶν ποκα τέκνον ἔγεντο·
οὐχ ἁμῖν τὰ καλὰ πράτοις καλὰ φαίνεται ἦμεν,
οἳ θνατοὶ πελόμεσθα, τὸ δ’ αὔριον οὐκ ἐσορῶμες.

Not for us alone, as we thought, did he beget Eros,

Nikias, to whomever of the gods this child was born.
We are not the first to whom beautiful things seem beautiful,
we who are mortals and do not look upon tomorrow.

Although the first two lines might lead us to expect that both the speaker and
Nikias are in love and that the idea that “we are not the first” is offered as con-
solation, the second couplet makes it clear that “we” are “all mortals.”146 “Not
to us first,” then, means that we are not the first generation to admire beauty.
Herakles is then offered as an extreme example: “for even Amphitryon’s bronze-​
hearted son . . . loved a boy” (lines 5–​6); that is, if anyone could have withstood
eros, it should have been Herakles, but he could not. More than that, in good
epic fashion,147 a hero from the past is offered as a paradigm of behavior that
should guide “us” in confronting present circumstances, much as, within the nar-
rative, Herakles sought to train Hylas in traditional masculine virtues. But here,
by contrast, the lesson is that, like Herakles, we are all at the mercy of a desire so
passionate that it overthrows reason and restraint. In this sense, we might speak
of the appropriation of epic to a new use in service of the poem’s insistence on

146. Hunter 1999, 265.

147. Cf., e.g., Il. 9.524–​528.
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The Poetics of Absence 153

the universality of eros and what it drives us to do—​something that, by implica-

tion, Homer left out. It is entirely in keeping with that theme, and not neces-
sarily an “ironizing” of epic, that the poem also shows that eros and heroism go
strangely together. In fact, as Hutchinson points out, if a rejection of traditional
heroism were the point, it would be hard to explain why Herakles in the end gets
to Colchis in this poem and in no other known version of the Argonautic story.148
He therefore fulfills his heroic role, as he will continue to do until his apotheo-
sis. At the same time, eros has left its mark on Herakles’s heroic record: when
he arrives, he has to endure the other Argonauts reproaching (or teasing?) him
as a “ship deserter” (λιποναύταν, Id. 13.73, something that Agamemnon dreaded
becoming in Aeschylus Ag. 212: πῶς λιπόναυς γένωμαι;). But Herakles’s walking
a vast distance to get to Colchis shows his ultimate loyalty to the expedition.149
Thus, when the narrative voice intervenes with a comment on Herakles’s
crazed wanderings through the woods by exclaiming σχέτλιοι οἱ φιλέοντες (“lovers
are hopelessly self-​defeating”), he means “all of us.” Not only do we mortals not
look upon tomorrow, but our lives are also conditioned by lack and the desire it
engenders, as Plato’s Diotima tells us. Idyll 13, then, complements and supports
the bucolic poems. It looks outside the bucolic world to the heroic tradition and
reconstructs it150 so as to align it with bucolic by including in it the same absence
and longing that founded bucolic itself.

148. Hutchinson 1988, 194. I would not agree with his suggestion that the poem’s last line play-
fully undercuts its beginning. Rather, the ending, I think, reinforces it.
149. My point is not affected if line 75 is part of the Argonauts’ words to Herakles (as I prefer to
think) rather than the narrator’s conclusion to the story. The tone does not have to be condem-
natory. The Argonauts could be using what is, after all, quite a feat of strength and endurance
to tease a comrade they essentially admire for being so driven by eros—​banter with a bit of a
sting. For a good statement of the more usual view, see van Erp Taalman Kip 1994, 167–​168.
150. I have in mind the fact that the story of Herakles and Hylas seems to have been of relatively
recent date and enjoyed something of a vogue among Hellenistic poets. See Gow 1952, II, 231.
154

On the Margins of Bucolic

Poems Concerning Margins

The collection of Theocritus’s poetry that we now have may seem at first bewil-
deringly miscellaneous, as it did for a long time to me. But although each poem
can stand on its own and be grouped with some other poems into a particular
type, it can also enrich our reading to consider certain poems in relation to others
that belong to different types, as we have already seen in some cases. That is, we
can often observe a loose and flexible coherence of theme and outlook that both
gives the bucolic or encomiastic poems, for example, a distinct profile and, just
as important, cuts across these categorical distinctions. One obvious commonal-
ity that has often been discussed is a concern with the making and functions of
poetry itself. Another, as we have seen here, is the nature of desire, the interplay of
absence and presence, and the creative artistic and other energies that are stimu-
lated by desire for what is absent. Again, a spatial reading of Theocritus allows us
to see that each category of poems constructs space in distinctive ways but also, in
the end, that these spatial configurations are themselves interrelated. Whether or
not we can sense here the traces of an original poetry book—​and we will probably
never know—​it is surely legitimate to read the Theocritean corpus as a whole, as
we now have it, including even some poems that are often thought spurious.
For many readers, bucolic poetry is most characteristic of Theocritus, and
it has drawn the most scholarly attention. The central place often attributed to
bucolic may be more than just a matter of reading fashions. We have seen how
bucolic can be a strong presence in non-​bucolic poems (Idylls 21, 16, and even 15),
where it provides an idiom for describing certain places and settings. Such pas-
sages may reflect what I have called a bucolic sensibility, but they also represent
the extension of the possibilities of bucolic into the world outside the charmed
space of “the mountain.” Idyll 16 even shows bucolic’s possible political use in the
vision it offers of the prosperous and harmonious state, which is cast in bucolic

Theocritus. William G. Thalmann, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197636558.003.0004
15

On the Margins of Bucolic 155

terms. Such moments do not dilute the distinctiveness of bucolic, but they do
raise the question of its boundaries. Spatially, as we saw in c­ hapter 1, the bucolic
world is defined in significant part by its margins, but although it seems at times
to be autonomous, it is not sealed off; the bucolic and non-​bucolic worlds inter-
penetrate, as we have also observed. Boundaries, after all, are the locus of distinc-
tions and of the creation of differences, but they are places of communication
as well.
In this chapter, I consider three Idylls that, in one way or another, are con-
cerned with those margins and help to define what is at stake in bucolic, its world,
its way of life, and the values that inform them. One of the poems I have chosen
is often thought not to be by Theocritus, but whatever its authorship, its presence
adds something significant to the collection we now have.

Idyll 4: The Waning of Bucolic

Idyll 4 is always counted as among Theocritus’s bucolic poems—​appropriately
so. It centers on herding and herdsmen (of sorts, at least), and the setting of the
encounter between Korydon and Battos is evidently “the mountain” (Id. 4.46).
But this bucolic space is in tension with Olympia; South Italy, the herdsmen’s
home, with mainland Greece; the local with the Panhellenic; and herding with
athletics. The advantage seems to have gone to Olympia, which has attracted
Aigon to compete in the games, leaving his cows in the care, such as it is, of
Korydon. Like other Theocritean poems, then, Idyll 4 is informed by absence,
of both Aigon and the dead Amaryllis. The key question I want to consider is
whether those absences are productive of anything and, more generally, whether
the bucolic world in this Idyll retains its integrity. My argument will be that Idyll
4 shows us that world suffering disintegration in important aspects, diminished
though not destroyed. It is thus temporally marginal in relation to the other
bucolic Idylls. If Idyll 1 represents the inauguration of bucolic and its construction
of its own history in the death of Daphnis, with his heirs Thyrsis and the goatherd
in possession of the bucolic world, Idyll 4 stands at or near the end of the cycle,
with the bucolic world under stress and Battos and Korydon only questionably
at home in it.
Idylls 4 and 5 seem to form a pair, since they are the only poems set in South
Italy; I will have a suggestion to make about this location eventually. Not only
does Korydon’s attempt to drive the cows away from the olive shoots that they
have started eating (Id. 4.44–​46) have a parallel in Komatas’s similar command
to his goats (Id. 5.100–​101), but both poems also end with images of unbridled
sexuality. It is not clear whether Komatas succeeds in restraining his billy goat
or, similarly, whether Korydon gets his cows away from the olive trees. Idyll 5
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156 T heo crit us

remains squarely within the bucolic world and can hardly be called “marginal”
to it, but it does show an analogous tendency toward exploring limits in that, as
I argued in ­chapter 1, it combines the highest and the lowest registers, descrip-
tions of natural beauty with coarseness.
Idyll 4 has evoked a range of responses from critics. Some have taken the
poem as central to defining Theocritean bucolic and as raising questions critical
to its interpretation. Van Sickle has suggested that the two speakers of this “dra-
matic” poem, Battos and Korydon, represent types of poetry and that the ten-
sion between them reflects the artistic problems of the emerging bucolic genre.1
Segal sees a wider set of tensions that are resolved in the end in a way that makes
the poem typical of what bucolic (or pastoral) does for its readers. “The Fourth
Idyll,” he writes in the eloquent closing paragraph of his essay, “brings . . . a heal-
ing accord which runs beneath the antithetical structure. This accord might be
termed moral in so far as it rests on the experience of an encompassing natu-
ral order and the mutual perception, by both figures, of the beauty and vitality
of that order.”2 Gilbert Lawall considers the poem structured on an antithesis
between sentimental yearning and physical desire, with the balance finally tilted
toward the latter: Theocritus “is here attempting to define what it means to be
human, and he does this in terms of the lower forms of human existence (herds-
men) and of animal behavior.”3 Haber’s reading of the poem is more complex
than these. She sees Idyll 4 as typical of pastoral poetry’s constant need to mea-
sure itself against “the heroic,” which it both can and cannot replace, so that we
see at once the strength and the inadequacy of Korydon’s claim to be a worthy
substitute for the absent Aigon.4
On the other hand, Gutzwiller seems to have a sense of things not quite fit-
ting in this poem. The basic structural pattern of the poem, she says, is “noncor-
respondence because of nonequivalence.” “What the poem is about, then,” she
continues, “is unequal conflict, conveyed contextually by the absence of the cow-
herd who competes at Olympia, structurally by the failure of the conversation
between Battus and Corydon to develop agonistically, and thematically by the
misdirection of conflicts to nonequivalents both within and without the herding

1. Van Sickle 1969.

2. Segal 1981, 85–​106 (quotation from 106).
3. Lawall 1967, 50–​51 (quotation from 51).
4. Haber 1994, 20–​25. My own reading has points of contact with Haber’s, although I am less
concerned with bucolic’s relations with “the heroic” (a term that in her usage seems a little too
elastic, especially when applied to the old man who is described at the end of the poem).
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On the Margins of Bucolic 157

world.”5 Thus, for example, she notes a lack of the harmony between humans and
nature that is found in other poems. This she attributes to Battos and Korydon
directing onto nature the aggressive tendencies that would more usually have
found expression in equal competition between them—​a situation that is cor-
related with, if not caused by, Aigon’s absence.6 Here Gutzwiller’s reading is the
opposite of Segal’s.
I share Gutzwiller’s sense that Idyll 4 is not typical of the other bucolic poems
and that its dislocations are to be associated to a significant extent with Aigon’s
absence. But I think these dislocations are more far-​reaching than she indicates.
In developing my reading, I will be pursuing a line of interpretation also taken
by Stephens, who treats Idylls 4 and 5 in a section of her book on Alexandrian
poetry titled “The Failure of the Pastoral.”7 “The registers of heroic myth,” she
writes in connection with Idyll 4, “athletic achievement, and the timeless and
apolitical pleasance are competing and discontinuous. Intrusion of the first two
threatens the stability of the last.”8 This formulation accounts neatly for the way
the harmony between human beings and between them and the natural world
that Segal describes and that we have seen envisioned and wished for in some
of the other idylls—​what I have been calling presence and fulfillment—​however
self-​consciously fictional, seems not even to be contemplated in Idyll 4.9

5. Gutzwiller 1991, 147. As she notes, part of her argument is briefly anticipated by Ott 1969,
46–​47, who emphasizes the inequality of the partners to the conversation (which he calls an
agon nevertheless). Ott finds other kinds of incongruity, especially in the lowly herdsmen’s use
of diction typical of “high” literary forms and their pretensions to artistry of song. This dis-
sonance, he concludes, gives the poem a comic and ironic effect (56). Note also Kyriakou 2018,
32, on how Idyll 4 “projects an image of dislocation.”
6. Gutzwiller 1991, 152.
7. Stephens 2018, 69–​72. I had already drafted a version of this section when I saw Stephens’s
book and was pleased to see how well our readings dovetail. See her discussion for aspects of
the poem that I omit, especially the threatened intrusion of heroic myth and the possible allu-
sion at Id. 4.16 to an Aesopic fable about an ass and a cicada. Richer’s recent argument (2017)
that this poem systematically arouses and then frustrates the expectations the reader has gained
from the other bucolic poems also implies Idyll 4’s marginal position, although I would not go
so far as to call it “an Idyll about nothing.”
8. Stephens 2018, 71.
9. It is a mark of the richness and the fascinating elusiveness of Theocritus’s poetry that van
Sickle’s (1969) attractive reading of Idyll 4 is the exact opposite of my own; he sees the poem
as working out the conditions for the emergence of pastoral—​incrementum (in the term
he uses) as opposed to the devolution I see. I have toyed with the possibility that in Idyll 4
bucolic poetry symbolically charts its growth while containing within itself the seeds of its
own decay—​a dialectical inner structure that I find appealing. We might be able to trace this
in Theocritus’s bucolic poems taken as a group, but I doubt that it would be possible to do so
within this poem. In order for this line of interpretation to succeed, it would be necessary to
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158 T heo crit us

The athlete (or trainer?) Milon has taken Aigon to Olympia, and the open-
ing dialogue between Battos and Korydon revolves around whether the athletic
pretensions of a cowherd are incongruous or not. Korydon takes Aigon’s ambi-
tion at face value, but Battos’s caustic comments at least raise the possibility that
Aigon is out of his element at Olympia and that Korydon is hardly a fit judge of
athletic potential. The accouterments Aigon has taken with him, a pickaxe and
twenty sheep (Id. 4.10), encapsulate these two possibilities. They would have
their uses in either context, so that Aigon might be acting as either an athlete or a
rustic. But those uses are antithetical: digging the soil with a pickaxe as part of an
athlete’s strength training as opposed to productive labor in the countryside, and
eating sheep as a source of protein but on a prodigious scale (as athletes were said
to do) as opposed to the protecting and nurturing of flocks by shepherds. The two
worlds seem opposed, and it is difficult to envision Aigon passing easily between
them. That opposition appears more pointed if we consider what Battos says of
Aigon in line 7: “and when did he set eyes on olive oil?” (Gow’s translation). The
reference to oil conjures up not only the sophisticated and higher-​status environ-
ment of gymnasia (as with Delphis and his oil flask in Idyll 2)10 but also the world
of Panhellenic athletics associated with Olympia. This cultural processing and
use of the olive contrasts sharply with the olive shoots growing naturally that are
eaten by the cows later in the poem (lines 44–​45).11
The diction describing Aigon’s absence associates it with the finality of death
(Id. 4.5):

αὐτὸς δ’ ἐς τίν’ ἄφαντος ὁ βουκόλος ᾤχετο χώραν;

To what place did the cowherd their master12 go and vanish?

follow van Sickle in seeing Korydon as an effective cowherd and Battos’s detached perspective
on the bucolic world as without critical effect; Korydon’s sample of what he sings as embodying
the continued vitality of bucolic poetry (rather than as a reduced form of epinician); Korydon’s
attempts to shoo the cows away from the olive shoots as successful bucolic labor; and the old
man’s sexual activity at the end of the poem as signaling natural vitality rather than as a debase-
ment of bucolic desire. All of these points would command agreement from other writers
besides van Sickle, such as Walker 1980, 48–​53; Segal 1981, 101; Vox 1985, 175–​177, 178. I read
the poem differently and lay out my arguments below.
10. Hunter 1999, 133.
11. A connection made with a different point by Segal 1981, 98–​99.
12. My translation follows Gow’s for αὐτός (see also Hunter 1999, 132), but the phrase can also
mean “the cowherd himself,” that is, the real cowherd as opposed to Korydon, whose compe-
tence is open to question.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 159

The verb ᾤχετο by itself can suggest death, as in the English “he is gone,”13 but the
phrase ἄφαντος ᾤχετο has several precedents in Homer and tragedy.14 I would sug-
gest that there is a particular reference here to line 657 of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon,
which occurs in the messenger’s description of the storm and the shipwreck of the
Greek fleet returning from Troy. The ships, he says, crashing against each other
in the gale,

ᾤχοντ’ ἄφαντοι ποιμένος κακοῦ στρόβῳ.

are gone and vanished by the whirling of the evil shepherd.

Commentators generally ascribe a comic or ironical effect to the many allusions

in Idyll 4 to “high” poetry, an effect created by the incongruity between the char-
acters’ rusticity and their high-​flown language.15 And there does seem to be an
unusual concentration of such allusions in this poem. But whatever one wants to
say about irony and the like, the gap between levels of diction and subject matter
may also be a sign of the waning of bucolic, not only of the bucolic world but also
of the bucolic poetry that is one with it, as though it can no longer find a language
and style of its own. At the same time, we could say that the fact that Battos is the
one alluding to Aeschylus suggests sarcasm on his part that fits with his skepti-
cism about Aigon. Above all, none of these effects rules out the seriousness of the
suggestion that Aigon’s absence is permanent and that it is as catastrophic to the
bucolic world as the storm and shipwreck were to the glory of Agamemnon’s vic-
tory over Troy. Hunter suggestively comments that the overtone of death in line 5
connects Aigon to Daphnis: Aigon was drawn on by an eros for “an evil victory”
(Id. 4.27), and so was Daphnis in a way (Id. 1.97–​98).16 But Aigon’s lust, although
it is for something he does not possess, is not of the bucolic kind. As Daphnis’s
death inaugurates the bucolic life and its poetry in the world he leaves, so Aigon’s
disappearance threatens to destroy them.
The oxymoron of the “evil shepherd” in the Aeschylean line is echoed by
Battos’s comment on the cows’ longing for Aigon (Id. 4.13):

13. For οἴχεσθαι implying death as well as absence (or death as a particular form of absence), see,
e.g., the opening line of Aeschylus’s Persians. The verb re-​echoes insistently with this overtone
throughout the play (lines 13, 60, 178, 252, 546, 916).
14. For these, see Gow 1952, II, 78; Ott 1969, 50; Hunter 1999, 132–​133.
15. See especially Ott 1969, 50–​56.
16. See Hunter 1999, 131, 133.
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160 T heo crit us

δείλειαί γ’ αὗται, τὸν βουκόλον ὡς κακὸν εὗρον.

Poor things,17 how they have found their cowherd to be evil.

“Evil cowherd” refers to Korydon and Aigon at once. As a reference to Aigon, it

condemns his remissness (from the perspective of the bucolic world) in abandon-
ing his herd. In Korydon’s case, “evil” means “incompetent”; it comments on the
cows’ sorrowful lowing and their emaciation, which is described in the lines that
follow.
As in other Idylls, absence provokes longing: the cows “yearn” (ποθεῦντι, Id.
4.12) for Aigon.18 But in those other poems humans feel this emotion, and it
is productive of song as an effort to overcome absence, to fill the gap. And, to
continue with the analogy of Daphnis, his death stimulates commemorative song
and herdsmen’s attempts to reproduce his archetypal singing and to restore a lost
bucolic fullness—​in short, bucolic poetry itself. Here, instead, there is only the
cows’ mooing. We have only Korydon’s word for it that they are giving voice to
their longing for Aigon. They could just be hungry.19 So much for the “pathetic
fallacy” in this poem; at least Daphnis’s cattle mourned at his feet (Id. 1.74–​75).
Many scholars have remarked on sharp contrasts between the personalities
of Battos and Korydon, although these have been evaluated in different ways.20
Partly on the basis of the opposition between them, Gutzwiller has suggested that
because of Korydon’s obtuse literal-​mindedness and failure to take the bait that
Battos offers, they fail to get a proper agon or contest going of the sort that occurs
in Idyll 5, animated by the mutual hostility between Lakon and Komatas, so that
we end up with “an agon that is no agon.”21 In a similar vein, Hunter suggests
that “the matching triplets of [lines 17–​28] reinforce the sense of an agon” that
never actually occurs.22 Such a failure of a full-​blown song contest to materialize

17. δείλαιαι, repeated emphatically by Korydon in the next line, is also in grand tragic style (Ott
1969, 51).
18. Lawall 1967, 43, notes the similarity here with the erotic situations in other Idylls.
19. Cf. Hunter 1999, 134, on line 12: “Subsequent verses and the pointed ambiguity of 13—​is
the βουκόλος Aigon or Korydon?—​invite us rather to interpret the cattle’s lowing as a sign of
hunger.”
20. See Ott 1969, 47–​48; van Sickle 1969, 135–​136; Lattimore 1973, 319–​321; Walker 1980, 49;
Segal 1981, 90–​92; Vox 1985; Haber 1994, 20–​22.
21. Gutzwiller 1991, 148–​149. I would not join her in characterizing Battos as angry and hostile;
he seems to me coolly (perhaps urbanely) cynical.
22. Hunter 1999, 130.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 161

could be another symptom of decaying bucolic; but I would not rely on it heav-
ily for my argument, although I would not rule it out, either. It does not seem
clear that an agon is such a conventional feature of Theocritean bucolic that we
should expect it here.23 We should, on the other hand, expect some kind of song.
But when Battos and Korydon get around to the subject of song as Theocritean
herdsmen generally do, the resulting song exchange, within the context of the
bucolic Idylls, is peculiar.
In lines 26–​28, Battos laments, in effect, that because of Aigon’s lust for “an evil
victory,” the cows will die of hunger, and “the syrinx that once you [Aigon] made
for yourself is getting flecked with mildew” (translation based on Gow’s). The issue,
then, is not the musical superiority of one herdsman over another, as it is in Idyll
5, but the survival of music itself in the void that, according to Battos, Aigon has
left behind him; and given the significance of the syrinx, that means the survival of
bucolic music and therefore the integrity of the bucolic world itself. It was, we recall,
a syrinx that the dying Daphnis wished to leave to Pan as a token of continuity, and
although that effort was unsuccessful, his music survives in some form in the syrinx
playing of the goatherd, whose piping is analogous to the whisper of the pine trees
and second only to that of Pan (Id. 1.1–​6). Even if we are to believe that Aigon was
accomplished on the syrinx, can Korydon fill the same role as the goatherd of Idyll 1?
Korydon replies that the syrinx is not moldering, that he is putting it to good
use, and that music is alive and well in the vicinity of Kroton (Id. 4.29–​37):

οὐ τήνα γ’, οὐ Νύμφας, ἐπεὶ ποτὶ Πῖσαν ἀφέρπων

δῶρον ἐμοί νιν ἔλειπεν· ἐγὼ δέ τις εἰμὶ μελικτάς,
κεὖ μὲν τὰ Γλαύκας ἀγκρούομαι, εὖ δὲ τὰ Πύρρω.
αἰνέω τάν τε Κρότωνα—​“Καλὰ πόλις ἅ τε Ζάκυνθος . . .”—​
καὶ τὸ ποταῷον τὸ Λακίνιον, ᾇπερ ὁ πύκτας
Αἴγων ὀγδώκοντα μόνος κατεδαίσατο μάζας.

23. It seems an overstatement to call “a formal amoebean contest” “characteristic of most of

Theocritus’ bucolic idylls” (Kampakoglou 2014, 23; cf. Stanzel 2021, 346–​347, who argues for a
“dominant role” of contest poems in Theocritus). A competitive spirit may inform Theocritus’s
representations of poetry, and this may hint at poetic festivals as a performance context for his
own poems, as in Id. 17.112–​114 (Acosta-​Hughes 2012c, 402–​408), but that is not the same as
claiming that formal song contests are a regular feature of the Idylls. In fact, agons occur in just
two of Theocritus’s genuine poems: Idylls 5 (highly competitive) and 6 (minimally competi-
tive). The song exchange between Lykidas and Simikhidas in Idyll 7 could be considered mildly
agonistic in that Simikhidas seems to be trying to prove himself to Lykidas (Id. 7.30–​31; his
actual rivalry is directed toward Asklepiades and Philitas, line 40), but to my mind it hardly
counts. The one in Idyll 10 is not competitive but contrasts different types of song, and that
poem is not bucolic anyway. For my purposes, it is enough to say that we expect some kind of
bucolic song.
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162 T heo crit us

τηνεὶ καὶ τὸν ταῦρον ἀπ’ ὤρεος ἆγε πιάξας

τᾶς ὁπλᾶς κἤδωκ’ Ἀμαρυλλίδι, ταὶ δὲ γυναῖκες
μακρὸν ἀνάυσαν, χὠ βουκόλος ἐξεγέλασσεν.

No it isn’t, no, by the Nymphs, because when he was leaving for Pisa
he left it to me as a gift. And I am something of a singer,
and skillfully I strike up the songs of Glauke, skillfully the songs of
Pyrrhos.
And I praise both Kroton—​“and a lovely city is Zakynthos . . .”—​
And the Lakinian shrine to the east, where the boxer
Aigon by himself downed eighty loaves.
There too he brought the bull from the mountain grasping it
by the hoof, and gave it to Amaryllis, and the women
screamed loudly, and the cowherd laughed.

Critics often give a positive evaluation of Korydon’s singing as he represents it.

Steven Walker, for instance, calls the passage an “enthusiastic evocation of the
joys of poetic creativity,” and says that Korydon here turns out to be “very much
the Theocritean herdsman-​poet.”24 But attention to what it is that Korydon
claims to sing will lead us to a different view.
To the extent that the gift of the syrinx by the departing Aigon was a gesture of
investiture in bucolic song and full participation in the bucolic world, it has failed
in that purpose. Whatever else is in Korydon’s repertoire, it is not bucolic song.
It includes “the drunken trifles of Glauke’s Muses” (Γλαύκης μεμεθυσμένα παίγνια
Μουσέων)25 and the compositions of Pyrrhos—​that is, the kind of salacious songs
enjoyed in sophisticated urban settings such as the court at Alexandria but also
by popular audiences.26 Simikhidas may boast that their reputation has carried
his songs “even, perhaps, to the throne of Zeus” (this is usually taken to mean
“to the ears of Ptolemy,” Id. 7.93), but his credentials as a bucolic poet are equally
suspect. Urbane and sophisticated though the idylls of Theocritus really are, they
present bucolic song as simple and in touch primarily with the energies of the
natural world; thus, by implication, it is being contaminated by music from a very

24. Walker 1980, 50 and 52, respectively. Others take a more nuanced view but still fit Korydon
into the bucolic ethos: Segal 1981, 91, 96; van Sickle 1969, 145; Vox 1985, 175–​176.
25. From an epigram by Hedylos quoted by Athenaeus iv, 176d. On Hedylos, this epigram,
Glauke, and the type of poetry she wrote, see Fraser 1972, I, 573–​574.
26. For what is known or guessed about these two poets, see Gow 1952, II, 83–​84; Hunter 1999,
136–​137.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 163

different cultural sphere. The incongruity is all the more vivid when we imagine
the songs of Glauke and Pyrrhos accompanied by snatches of music played on the
syrinx, the rustic instrument par excellence.27
Korydon gives us an idea of the contents of his other song, in praise of Kroton.
According to the most reasonable punctuation and interpretation of line 32, the
city is named, and then Korydon gives us a sample of his actual song, “and a lovely
city is Zakynthos” (this may have been clear in performance, with a switch to sing-
ing here). This phrase would have been the beginning of a priamel that culminated
in “but most lovely of all is Kroton.”28 The style is that of epinician, which often uses
the priamel as a focusing device, often praises the victorious athlete’s native city, and
often mentions the place where the winning athletic feat occurred (here the temple
of Hera at Lakinion near Kroton) as a transitional device to praise of the achieve-
ment itself.29 Here the achievements are eating a prodigious number of loaves and
dragging a bull from the mountain. Although epinician poetry suppresses it, in the
popular view, gluttony was thought to be characteristic of athletes, and especially of
the archetypal athlete Herakles, to whom Korydon likens Aigon in line 8.
Thus, when Korydon protests that Aigon’s syrinx is not spotted with mildew
and that he himself, its inheritor, is “something of a singer,” we expect to hear a sam-
ple of bucolic song, but we get a debased form of epinician instead. We could con-
sider it a parody that exposes epinician’s presuppositions as parodies do: Herakles,
founder of the Olympic games, was also, especially in his comic aspect, a prodigious
glutton, and in this he is followed by Aigon. From this perspective, through the
mention of Aigon’s bolting down eighty loaves, bucolic would seem to be drawing
epinician into itself, debasing it by contaminating it with comedy and so distin-
guishing itself from it. But that is only half the story. Even if in the form of parody,
epinician invades bucolic and displaces it, just as Aigon drags the bull “down from
the mountain” (Id. 4.35)—​and so out of the bucolic world—​in order to put it to
non-​bucolic uses. In the kind of antithetical reading recommended by Haber30 for
Theocritean bucolic and later pastoral, we can say that bucolic cannot appropriate

27. Van Sickle 1969, 142, although he sees Korydon as participating in the formation of a
bucolic world, observes that “the poetry of Corydon is that of a new arrival.” If Korydon in
fact is not established in the countryside, that fits with my argument that there is no authentic
herdsman to take care of Aigon’s cattle.
28. Gow 1952, II, 84; Dover 1971, 124; Hunter 1999, 137. On the much-​discussed textual and
interpretive questions of line 32, see especially the thorough discussion of Kampakoglou 2014,
6–​11, who favors Edmonds’s καλὰν πόλιν ἇτε Ζάκυνθον.
29. See Hubbard 1998, 29–​30, who does not ask why Theocritus represents a herder claiming
to sing epinician.
30. Haber 1994.
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164 T heo crit us

epinician without transgressing the boundary between the two forms that it is
trying to affirm. Bucolic poetry is “contaminated” by epinician’s concern for the
civic and communal (athletics, sacrifice, the shrine of Hera Lakinia) with which,
in other idylls, it has nothing to do. More generally, Aigon’s desire for athletic vic-
tory imports epinician values into the bucolic world even as he leaves it. Bucolic
and epinician poetry carry with them their own characteristic outlooks and val-
ues; each is shorthand for a way of being in the world, and they are incompatible.
Aigon incongruously combines them; in Korydon’s paraphrase of his song, he is
“the boxer” (ὁ πύκτας, line 33) but also the cowherd (ὁ βουκόλος, line 37) who laughs
when the women shriek. But he has decided in favor of athletics and left the bucolic
world crumbling. Or if the cowherd of line 37 is someone else, the owner of the bull
Aigon has forcibly brought out of the mountain, he stands for a certain corruption
of bucolic because he is amused at a use of the bull that objectifies the animal and
is hard to reconcile with bucolic poetry’s usual emphasis on the closeness between
herders and their charges.31
Why does Aigon give the bull to Amaryllis? As a joking love token? In the
bucolic world, apples (e.g., Id. 3.10–​11) or birds (Id. 5.96–​97, 133) serve this func-
tion, not herd animals.32 They are the object of the herdsman’s professional con-
cern. But the setting, the famous shrine at Kroton to Hera Lakinia, suggests that
the bull is ultimately for sacrifice. With only a few exceptions, the other Idylls
make no mention of the cultural uses to which herd animals were put in ancient
Greece. But in Idyll 4, there are specific references to eating their meat and sac-
rificing them: Aigon’s taking twenty sheep to Olympia for provisions, the refer-
ence to bull sacrifice in lines 20–​22, and most likely Aigon’s purpose in dragging
the bull to Hera’s shrine. In the other Idylls, there is a passing reference to the
tenderness of a kid’s meat (Id. 1.6), and Idyll 5 mentions sacrifice, eating the meat,
and animal skins (Id. 5.2, 11–​12, 50–​51, 56–​57, 139–​140). For the most part in the
bucolic poems, the herdsman is the protector, not the consumer, of his animals.

31. For a different reading of this passage, see Kampakoglou 2014. He, too, sees a tension
between bucolic and epinician but argues that it is resolved in favor of the former, that Idyll
4 “bucolicizes” epinician. He ends up in more or less the same place as van Sickle and Segal,
with oppositions harmonized and bucolic values affirmed. On Kampakoglou’s reading, the
poem shows the commodiousness of bucolic, the way it can incorporate other genres (comedy
as well as epinician). As with other poems, I think that there are issues that go beyond generic
play, although that is important to this and other Idylls.
32. Id. 3.34–​36 is a possible, but not certain, exception. Polyphemos is rearing eleven fawns and
four bear cubs for Galateia (Id. 11.40–​41), not herd animals. At Id. 5.98–​99, Lakon announces
his intention to give Kratidas the wool of a ewe for a cloak (that is, to be made into a cloak)
when he shears it, not the sheepskin itself. Since this answers Komatas’s reference to giving a
girl a ring dove, the wool functions as a love token, but it is an animal product, not the animal
itself.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 165

This suppression of the more practical (and less gentle!) aspects of herding is an
element of the idealizing picture of the bucolic world that these poems generally
give. In Idyll 4, the roles given to sacrifice and eating are another sign of the dis-
solution, if not of bucolic life itself, then of the other poems’ representation of it.
It is, furthermore, interesting that almost all of the other such references cluster in
Idyll 5, which is not shy about the grittier aspects of herding and, as we have seen,
works with Idyll 4 in exploring the boundaries of the bucolic world.
Because of the way, in Theocritus, song condenses so much about its environ-
ment, Korydon’s song and its affinities with epinician are a striking example of
the decay of bucolic in Idyll 4. But now the mention of Amaryllis provokes three
lines from Battos that seem (but only seem) squarely within the bucolic perspec-
tive and in the bucolic style (Id. 4.38–​40):

ὦ χαρίεσσ’ Ἀμαρυλλί, μόνας σέθεν οὐδὲ θανοίσας

λασεύμεσθ’· ὅσον αἶγες ἐμὶν φίλαι, ὅσσον ἀπέσβης.
αἰαῖ τῶ σκληρῶ μάλα δαίμονος ὅς με λελόγχει.

O lovely Amaryllis, even in death we shall not forget

you alone. As much as goats are dear to me, so [dear were
you when] your life was quenched.
O the harsh daimon to whom I was allotted!

Here we have an absence that generates something like bucolic song, as the echo
of Id. 3.6 in the first line quoted suggests, but it is actually an imitation. A love
song such as the goatherd’s in Idyll 3 or Polyphemos’s in Idyll 11 is based on the
hope that the Nymph it is addressed to may actually appear, even though we may
have our doubts about her reality. Here Amaryllis is dead; what is the use of apos-
trophizing her? As Korydon, in his cliché-​ridden attempt to console Battos, says
somewhat tactlessly, “hopes are among the living” (or “while there’s life there’s
hope,” ἐλπίδες ἐν ζωοῖσιν, line 42). As with Aigon’s cows, the longing based on
absence is drained of productive energy, and Battos’s lament becomes merely sen-
timental. And it is bad bucolic poetry, on the lips of someone who is ignorant of
recent events concerning Aigon and Korydon, who displays citified resentment
of a local deme (Id. 4.20–​22, one of the references to sacrifice in the poem), and
who needs to be told by Korydon not to come barefoot to “the mountain” if he
does not want to get thorns in his feet,33 and therefore seems an outsider to the

33. It may be true, as Hunter 1999, 142, suggests, that we should not assume that herders never
went barefoot. But Korydon’s phrasing, “when you come to the mountain,” implies that Battos
is not a habitué of this place.
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166 T heo crit us

bucolic world or someone who has only nodding acquaintance with it. Battos
is often said to be a goatherd, but the only basis for the claim is line 39, in his
lament.34 What if he is, as Steven Lattimore suggests, only “playing at being a
goatherd”?35 With the tribute he pays Amaryllis in line 39, he seems to be try-
ing to adopt the persona of the herdsman-​singer as Simikhidas evidently does in
Idyll 7—​and with considerably less success. Line 39 fails miserably as a “pastoral
analogy”; “I loved you as much as I love my goats” is not much of a tribute to
Amaryllis, even if we grant that the expression reflects the bucolic value of close-
ness between humans and animals. Simikhidas does a better job (Id. 7.96–​97):

Σιμιχίδᾳ μὲν Ἔρωτες ἐπέπταρον· ἦ γὰρ ὁ δειλός

τόσσον ἐρᾷ Μυρτοῦς ὅσον εἴαρος αἶγες ἔρανται.

The Erotes sneezed on Simikhidas. For the poor man

loves Myrtô as much as goats love the spring.

As goats love the spring, so Simikhidas loves Myrtô; she is then analogized to
springtime, with all its implications of life and fertility. Battos might be trying
to express sincere emotion using conventions that are under strain, or he might
be pretending to have the emotion because bucolic characters are expected to,
with the pretense showing through in his words. Either way, his attempt shows
the emptying out of bucolic song. It functions somewhat in the way parody often
does: its sentimentality and banal pretentiousness distance the reader and hold
up for examination the speaker’s diction and the rustic scale of values that he is
trying to express. It is precisely in poetry that expresses the waning phase of the
bucolic world that we might expect to find this kind of scrutiny of what is taken
for granted during that world’s flourishing.
So in this central passage of the poem (Id. 4.29–​40), we have a degraded
form of epinician imported into a bucolic context followed by an inept attempt
at bucolic lament, both produced by two characters, neither of whom is a satis-
factory bucolic figure. Now something else happens that occurs nowhere else in

34. See the (in my view) too credulous scholion on this line: ἐνταῦθα σαφὴς αἰπόλος ὣν ὁ Βάττος
(“here it is clear that Battos is a goatherd”). Cf. Cairns 2017, 348.
35. Lattimore 1973, 324, with earlier bibliography that shows commentators’ recognition that
Battos does not quite fit the bucolic environment. I would not follow Lattimore in consider-
ing Battos a mask for Theocritus himself. Van Sickle 1969, 142n16, sees incongruity in Battos’s
resort to pastoral and comments that “displacement, hence incongruity of sentiment and of
language, is the soul of the poem.” I fully agree. Hutchinson 1988, 168, takes a very different
view of Battos, namely that his words and attitudes are due to his having been Aigon’s rival for
Amaryllis’s affections. It hardly needs saying that there is no basis for this in the text.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 167

Theocritean bucolic. One of the suppositions of these poems is that the herds-
men have leisure to sing, and there are occasional nods to verisimilitude, as we
have seen, in the notion that someone else might take over the job of herding for
the duration of the song. But here talk of singing is interrupted, and for the only
time in Theocritus, a herdsman has to do some work. Some of the cows have gone
downhill and are eating the shoots of the olive trees, and Korydon has to drive
them back uphill. This he tries to do, with much bustle and not much apparent
success. He can only wish, impotently, that he had a curved club to beat the ani-
mals. And why does he not have one, since it seems to have been a standard part
of a herdsman’s equipment (Id. 7.18–​19, 128)?36 Its lack may be a sign of Korydon’s
inadequacy as a herdsman. As for Battos, all he can do is “gape” at one of the
cows (line 53) after telling Korydon to throw things at the cows to force them
back up the hill.37 So he is not much use. We never do find out whether the cows
obey Korydon, because the “work” is interrupted by the episode of the thorn in
Battos’s foot; his inexperience gets in the way of bucolic activity.
The poem ends with a discussion of the “little old man” (possibly Aigon’s
father, line 4), “hard at work,” “grinding that dark-​browed sweetie” (τήναν τὰν
κυάνοφρυν ἐρωτίδα) beside the cattle pen (lines 58–​63).38 In this version of labor,
desire is, for once, fulfilled, but in a debased way as the language describing it
shows and as is also suggested by both the location and the fact that, as Hunter
points out, the old man’s “sweetie” is as likely to be animal as human.39 The phrase
used to describe her recalls the goatherd’s language in his song of longing in Idyll
3, and the similarity underlines an essential contrast.40 This direct, matter-​of-​fact
satisfaction of desire is the antithesis of the recognition we have found in other
poems of the complexity of human sexuality, which is manifested in energetic
desire stimulated by lack and need, and again recalls Idyll 5.

36. See Gow 1952, II, 87–​88, and the passages cited there.
37. Battos’s ineffectiveness is, I take it, the point of χασμεύμενος rather than erotic attraction to
the cow (Lawall 1967, 48–​49).
38. Could ἠνήργει (“was hard at work”) in line 61, aside from its crudity, be a sly allusion to
Aristotle’s definition of εὐδαιμονία, “happiness” or “well-​being” (Eth. Nic. 10, 1177a12) as κατ’
ἀρετὴν ἐνέργεια, “activity in accordance with virtue”?
39. Hunter 1999, 143. I have to disagree with Segal’s (1981, 100–​101) optimistic reading of this
scene and of the end of the poem.
40. Id. 3.18–​19, ὦ τὸ καλὸν ποθορεῦσα, τὸ πᾶν λίθος, ὦ κυάνοφρυ /​νύμφα (“O you with beauty
in your glance, all stone, O dark-​browed nymph”); 3.7, τὸν ἐρωτύλον (“your sweetheart,” the
goatherd’s hopeful description of himself ). The similarities are merely noted by Gow and
Hunter. But taken with the widely acknowledged echo of Id. 3.6 at 4.38, these similarities seem
to underscore the significant differences between the two poems in their approaches to desire.
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168 T heo crit us

Within the framework of all the features that make Idyll 4 marginal in rela-
tion to Theocritus’s more usual bucolics, an explanation can be sought of why it
and Idyll 5 are set in South Italy, near Kroton and Sybaris/​Thurii, respectively.
This local specificity, although it is not extensive, is unusual in the bucolic Idylls,
as we saw in c­ hapter 1. Cities are a presence in Idylls 4 and 5. The contrast between
the bucolics’ usual vagueness about the herdsmen’s status and the explicitly ser-
vile status of Lakon and Komatas in Idyll 5 works in a parallel way. Their masters
live in the city and presumably exert control from there. Idyll 5 reveals the most
earthy extreme of the bucolic world while still, in the embedded songs, retain-
ing an appreciation of its beauties. Idyll 4 shows that world in the process of
disenchantment.
But how can we explain the choice of South Italy in particular? Along with
Stephens, I suggest that it adds to, and puts in a wider context, the atmosphere
of disintegration that is palpable especially in Idyll 4.41 Throughout the archaic
period, Kroton was a thriving and powerful city, but its fortunes waned in the
fourth century BCE. In the first quarter of the third century, it was sacked and
occupied several times, a victim of the political and military turbulence that
engulfed southern Italy.42 Thurii, the successor of Sybaris, fared no better. These
places provide a fitting backdrop for Idylls 4 and 5 as I have interpreted them.
It is true that the landmarks mentioned in Idyll 4.17–​24 construct a space lush
with fodder for cattle, but with the possible exception of Latymnon (if that is
a mountain), they imply lowland water meadows (as in Idyll 25). And for one
reason or another, Aigon’s cows are emaciated. This is not bucolic space, which
as we have seen does not fare well in Idyll 4. The name of the man who took
Aigon to Olympia, Milon (Id. 4.6), surely evokes the famous sixth-​century BCE
Krotonian athlete of that name. In stories about him, that Milon was credited
with habitual copious eating and drinking and with carrying a four-​year-​old
bull on his shoulders around the stadium at Olympia and then eating all of it

41. Stephens 2018, 70–​71, on Idyll 4. About Idyll 5, she says, “the Idyll calls attention to the
reduced circumstances of this region of Magna Graecia, and to the values that Theocritus
invests in the rural landscape and its fruitfulness” (72). On the South Italian setting, see the
more detailed discussion of Barigazzi 1974, 306–​311. He sees it working in a positive way,
because the mention of landmarks such as the Neaithos River would evoke in readers the
memory of Kroton’s past glories, especially its athletic renown. I emphasize instead its current
desolate state (which Barigazzi uses only to date Idyll 4) and suggest that memories of the past,
which I agree are alive in the poem, create a sad contrast with Kroton’s (and Sybaris’s) condi-
tion at the time of Theocritus’s writing.
42. For details, see Gow 1952, II, 76–​77; Barigazzi 1974, 310.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 169

in one day.43 Memories of Aigon in Idyll 4 show him miming the great Milon,
but with a difference. Milon carried the bull around the stadium at Olympia in
sight of all the audience—​to Panhellenic acclaim, we might say. Outside of that
context, Aigon’s imitative display of strength seems gratuitous and pointless, and
it is greeted not with admiring cheers but with women’s shrieks. Taking the bull
out of “the mountain” violates the integrity of the bucolic world. It may also be
significant that Aigon merely drags the bull by the hooves rather than carrying it
on his shoulders as Milon did. Aigon is a diminished and comic version of Milon,
a would-​be Milon, especially if we pay any attention at all to Battos’s cynicism
about his athletic pretensions (Id. 4.7, 9). The memory of Milon, which conjures
up Kroton’s glory in its heyday, serves only as a foil to the city’s diminished state,
which provides a civic analogy to the waning of the bucolic world in this poem.
Aigon truly, as Battos says, “is gone and vanished.” His absence becomes a symbol
for the disarray of bucolic. I would not, however, read Idyll 4 as cynical or destruc-
tive. It serves a positive purpose in relation to other bucolic Idylls. It sets in relief
the foundational values of the bucolic world and bucolic poetry that those poems
construct: that world’s self-​sufficiency and independence of the city and its forms
of human society; song as the encapsulation of its values and as a means of striving
toward a realization of the not-​quite-​attainable ideal of full bucolic presence; and
the productive results of absence and eros as well as their frustrations. In addition, as
Stephens has emphasized, the sorry state of Kroton may imply by contrast that the
bucolic world can only flourish within a protective and well-​ordered state ruled by
an enlightened king—​like Ptolemy!44 There is thus a link between this poem, where
the crumbling of bucolic matches civic decay, and the vision, expressed in bucolic
terms, of a restored Sicily in Idyll 16—​a vision that, it is evidently hoped, will be
fulfilled not so much by Hieron as by Ptolemy.

Idyll 10: The World of Labor

Work may be only occasional and not very effective in the bucolic world, but as
soon as the focus shifts to the adjacent setting of agriculture, the emphasis is heav-
ily on labor and its necessity. Work is what most sharply distinguishes between
these two worlds, which otherwise communicate.45 Idyll 10 consists of a dialogue

43. Athen. x, 412e–​f. Hunter 1999, 138, also points to Theseus’s dragging of the Marathonian
bull and possible connections between Idyll 4 and Callimachus’s Hecale.
44. Stephens 2018: 70, 82–​83.
45. Cf. Walker 1980, 87: “The accent put on work is a sign that Theocritus has left the domain
of the pastoral genre with this composition, however ingeniously it transposes pastoral themes
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170 T heo crit us

and song exchange between two reapers, so that in overall form it resembles the
bucolic poems; but the formal resemblance, in my view, serves only to underscore
the differences. Milon taxes Boukaios for his negligence in reaping, learns that
Boukaios is in love with Bombyka, and after some teasing invites him to sing a
love song to her in order to lighten his work. Milon then counters the love song
with a work song that he attributes to the mythical agricultural hero Lityerses,
and the poem ends with his saying that this is the kind of song that men working
in full sun ought to be singing.
Boukaios’s song, although not the most elegant composition, has clear affini-
ties with those embedded in bucolic idylls. The apostrophe of Βομβύκα χαρίεσσα
(“lovely Bombyka”) that frames it (Id. 10.26, 36) harks back to the goatherd’s ὦ
χαρίεσσ’ Ἀμαρυλλί in Idyll 3.6, and in good bucolic style Boukaios seeks to root
his “madness” in the instinctual behavior of the natural world, including goats’
preference for clover (Id. 10.30–​31; cf. 5.128). Idyll 10 thus incorporates a bucolic-​
style song, but only to show how out of place it is away from “the mountain.”
Precisely to the extent that Boukaios is a character with bucolic tendencies, he is
a failure as an agricultural laborer. According to Milon, love has no place in the
scale of values of the agricultural world. It is a mere distraction in an environment
conditioned by the necessity of work and the need for subsistence—​the Hesiodic
Age of Iron. For if Boukaios’s song is fashioned in the manner of bucolic singing,
Milon’s song takes the Works and Days as its model.
The first two words of the poem, Milon’s address to Boukaios, bring these
worlds into confrontation: ἐργατίνα Βουκαῖε (“Boukaios the laborer”). The name
“Boukaios” seems to mean “cowherd,”46 and on the terms of Theocritean bucolic,
the idea of a “cowherd laborer” is contradictory. If a cowherd is trying to reap,
can the results be anything but unfortunate? Another incongruous juxtaposi-
tion occurs in line 4: Boukaios lags behind the line of reapers “as a ewe behind
the flock, whose foot a thorn has pricked.” One reading of this line might be

and motifs from the pastures to the cultivated fields.” Here I want to examine that transposi-
tion and will argue that it serves to draw sharp distinctions. Hunt 2009, 391–​394, is attentive to
differences between this and the bucolic poems but includes Idyll 10 among them “on the basis
of the similarity of their fictional worlds.” He takes a carefully nuanced view, but in the end, it
tends to obscure the contrast between the two worlds that I think Idyll 10 is drawing. For brief
remarks about the unsentimental portrayal of work in this poem, see Scholten 2006, 76–​78.
She recognizes that the necessity of work leaves no room for love according to the poem but
does not mention the contrast with the bucolic poems.
46. See Gow 1952, II, 193. For a somewhat different view of the juxtaposition, see Hunt 2009,
394–​395. On the name, Hunter 1999, 201, comments, “Boukaios plays the ‘Daphnis role’—​the
bucolic hero suffering from love.” This is important. I would add only that the poem shows
how out of place the “Daphnis role” is for a reaper.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 171

that it “serves to remind (or perhaps to reassure us) that, though the immediate
surroundings may be different, we have not entirely escaped from the landscape
of the pastoral.”47 But to liken reapers to sheep is not entirely apt. The point of
contact is that they form a group moving together docilely in the same direction
and at the same speed. But the simile yokes two worlds that are distinct even if
they are parts of the countryside, and I suggest that the dissimilarity within like-
ness here is a calculated effect. Right at the beginning of the poem, then, when
the reader is not yet fully oriented to its themes and is only aware that Boukaios’s
lackadaisical reaping is a problem, there are signs that the setting is very different
from that of the bucolic poems.
What do we learn about this different world as the poem progresses? The
most obvious characteristic is that here work is what matters above all else, work
that, at least at certain seasons such as the harvest, is hard and unremitting. The
rhythm of work matches that of the year, but within that framework labor is mea-
sured by the day. In his song, Milon relays the Hesiodic-​sounding48 advice that at
certain times of the year, reapers should begin work when the lark awakens and
stop when it goes to sleep and should rest through the midday heat, but threshers
should avoid rest even then (Id. 10.48–​51). Just as Milon began his first speech
with a significant vocative, Boukaios in his reply does the same (Id. 10.7):

Μίλων ὀψαμᾶτα, πέτρας ἀπόκομμ’ ἀτεράμνω

Milon, reaper until late at night, chip of unyielding rock

A dedicated reaper, then, works until late in the evening. Boukaios’s comparison
of Milon to a piece of rock may imply insensitivity, in view of the question he goes
on to ask: have you never been in love? But it also reflects the strength and endur-
ance it takes to swing a scythe for many long hours. Reaping is harsh toil and not
for those who stay awake all night tormented by love (Id. 10.10).
Another characteristic of Idyll 10 is its emphasis on food and drink, especially
their scarcity.49 In the bucolic poems, herdsmen never seem to lack milk, cheese,
apples, and grapes. Outside of love, want is foreign to the bucolic world. But reap-
ers such as Milon, it is implied, whether slaves or free wage earners, have to work

47. Whitehorne 1974, 34. The landscape of the pastoral is precisely what we have escaped, since,
as we have seen, agricultural space is distinct from bucolic space.
48. There is no verbal echo here, but Hesiod also advises reapers to rise before dawn and work
all day (Op. 571–​581), a parallel noted also by Hunter 1999, 213.
49. On “eating and emaciation” in Idyll 10, see Grethlein 2012, 604–​607. He makes this the
basis for an ingenious metapoetic reading of the poem, to which I will return at the end of this
section.
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172 T heo crit us

for mere subsistence. That is why love is a luxury and a dangerous distraction
in his eyes. Milon expresses himself in pithy proverbial sayings that set his dic-
tion apart from Boukaios’s and that reflect, or at least give the impression that
they reflect, popular experience of the harshness of hardscrabble living. That only
Milon speaks in proverbs and Boukaios does not is expressive of the difference
between the two worlds and the outlook on life typical of each.50 So in answer
to Boukaios’s question about whether he has ever lain awake at night because of
love, Milon says, “it’s a bad thing to give a dog a taste of guts” (χαλεπὸν χορίω κύνα
γεῦσαι, Id. 10.11)—​that is, it is bad to give someone not used to it an experience
of luxury.51 In the same vein, when Boukaios confesses that he has been in love
for ten days, Milon responds acidly, “you’re clearly draining off the [whole] stor-
age jar, while I don’t even have enough vinegar [that is, the sour wine left at the
bottom of the jar]” (Id. 10.13). A work song might fittingly comment on the hard
conditions of a life of toil as a way of uniting the group of laborers by appealing
to their shared experience. This is how Milon ends his song, in lines addressed to
his fellow reapers (Id. 10.52–​55):

   εὐκτὸς ὁ τῶ βατράχω, παῖδες, βίος· οὐ μελεδαίνει

τὸν τὸ πιεῖν ἑκχεῦντα· πάρεστι γὰρ ἄφθονον αὐτῷ.
   κάλλιον, ὦ ’πιμελητὰ φιλάργυρε, τὸν φακὸν ἕψειν,
μὴ ’πιτάμῃς τὰν χεῖρα καταπρίων τὸ κύμινον.

   Pray for the frog’s life, boys. He doesn’t have to worry about
who is going to pour out his drink. There’s water in plenty all around him.
   Overseer, you miser! Better to boil the beans,
so that you don’t cut your fingers dicing up the cumin seeds.

A frog is better off than a laborer; he has plenty to drink. This takes up Milon’s
earlier complaint about having only the vinegar at the bottom of a wine jar and
makes literal what was a metaphor (though one clearly drawn from experience).
After scarcity of drink comes hunger. Since cumin seeds are very small, cutting
them up (literally, “sawing them into bits”) was a proverbial expression for stin-
giness, and the overseer is urged to stop stinting and cook soup for the workers

50. See now Palmieri 2021, 482–​483.

51. The translation and interpretation are those given by Hunter 1999, 203. If χόριον means
“skin” or “leather” without the meat, something attractive to the dog (Gow 1952, II, 195), the
resulting meaning is the same. Or if leather is unpleasant to the dog, Milon is expressing disgust
at the whole idea of being kept awake by love when he has to start work early in the morning.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 173

instead.52 This plea vividly conveys dependence for basic sustenance on another,
who can at will be either generous or grudging, as the condition of a worker’s
life—​dependence all the more complete if, as seems likely, Boukaios and Milon
are slaves.53 Milon’s song, like Boukaios’s, begins and ends with invocations, but
the difference between the figures invoked underlines the sharp contrast between
a love song and a work song. Boukaios calls upon the Muses and then Bombyka at
the beginning and Bombyka again at the end. Milon begins by invoking Demeter
as “bountiful in fruits, bountiful in grain” (Δάματερ πολύκαρπε, πολύσταχυ) and
then asks her to make the crop both abundant and easy to harvest (εὔεργον)—​
plenty of food with less arduous work (Id. 10.42–​43). And he ends, as we have
just seen, with a plea to the overseer not to leave his workers hungry.
How is Boukaios’s love portrayed in the poem? His language when he reveals
his love to Milon is key (Id. 10.7–​9):

ΒΟ. Μίλων ὀψαμᾶτα, πέτρας ἀπόκομμ’ ἀτεράμνω,

οὐδαμά τοι συνέβα ποθέσθαι τινὰ τῶν ἀπεόντων;
ΜΙ. οὐδαμά. τίς δὲ πόθος τῶν ἔκτοθεν ἐργάτᾳ ἀνδρί;

BO. Milon, reaper until late at night, chip of unyielding rock,

Has it never happened to you to long for someone [or some things]
among those that are absent?
MI. Never. What is longing for outside people [or things] to a laboring
man?

“To desire someone who is absent” could be the motto for bucolic poetry. And,
in good bucolic fashion, that desire generates a song, complete with apostrophes
to Bombyka that try to summon up her presence. But whereas this dynamic is
at home on “the mountain,” Milon’s reply shows that such desire is foreign to a

52. Hunter 1999, 213–​214. As Hunter says, there is the further implication that the overseer
should stop stinting on flavoring for the soup, cumin being extremely common and easy to
obtain in the Mediterranean.
53. An indication of their status is that Bombyka is said to be “Polybotas’s girl” (Id. 10.15), either
his daughter or his slave. The name Polybotas (“possessor of many cattle”) implies wealth, and
if Bombyka was playing the pipes for reapers at Hippokion’s farm, she is presumably of low sta-
tus and so Polybotas’s slave rather than his daughter. Boukaios must be of similar status. On the
other hand, there is the exhortation in Milon’s song to the sheaf binders to earn their wages (Id.
10.44–​45), so they would be thetes. But there is no reason that slaves and wage laborers would
not be at work in the same field, and sheaf binders might well be paid seasonal workers. In the
end, there will have been little difference between slaves and thetes in regard to the precarious
condition in which they lived.
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174 T heo crit us

context of work. He changes Boukaios’s wording slightly and, rather than “those
absent,” speaks of “those outside,” that is, those from outside the world of physical
labor (Bombyka piping to reapers does not count as labor, though it helps ease it)
or those people or things extraneous to the task at hand. By bringing to bear on it
the perspective of one who must work to survive, he punctures the pathos-​laden
bucolic longing for the absent.
But there is a further implication in these lines. Boukaios’s phrase could also
mean “things that are absent” (τινα and the participle in this case being neuter plu-
ral and referring to things rather than people). Desire for what one does not have
rather than being satisfied with what one does have was (outside Plato’s Symposium)
traditionally a dangerous compulsion in the eyes of the ancient Greeks, because it
meant ambition for more than what one was given by moira or one’s lot in life. Such
desire led to a fall, often in the form of divine retribution. Milon’s “those from out-
side” could then mean “those things outside the range of what one properly has” or,
more specifically, “those things alien to what a laborer ought to want,” that is, the
necessity of work and sustenance at a subsistence level. In this light, Milon is, by
the terms of traditional morality, prudent and thinks in the spirit of Hesiod’s Works
and Days. Boukaios is flighty on these terms, although not according to the presup-
positions of the bucolic world, which seems exempt from the dangers traditional
morality saw in loving what is absent. A number of passages in earlier literature
speak of such desire in this way.54 Thucydides, for example, ominously describes the
Athenians, in their enthusiasm for attacking Syracuse and enlarging their empire, as
δυσέρωτας . . . τῶν ἀπόντων, “lusting disastrously after absent things.” In the event,
they suffered a catastrophic defeat. But since Milon is a Hesiodic figure, these lines
from the Works and Days (365–​367) may well be behind the Theocritean passage:

οἴκοι βέλτερον εἶναι, ἐπεὶ βλαβερὸν τὸ θύρηφιν.

ἐσθλὸν μὲν παρεόντος ἑλέσθαι, πῆμα δὲ θυμῷ
χρηίζειν ἀπέοντος· ἅ σε φράζεσθαι ἄνωγα.

It is better to be in the house, since what is outside is harmful.

It is noble to take from what you have, but an affliction to the heart
to desire what is absent. I tell you to consider these things.

Just before these lines, Hesiod has been telling his brother to accumulate posses-
sions bit by bit, and eventually they will amount to a lot; what is stored in the
house never harmed anyone, whereas taking from someone is harmful. Milon’s

54. See Hunter 1999, 202–​203, for these passages, including the two I discuss.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 175

“the things from outside,” perhaps a distant echo of Hesiod’s slightly different
wording in the third line quoted, would imply “things we shouldn’t desire because
to do so is dangerous, or at least will make us discontented with what we do have.”
Boukaios’s words a few lines later, which scholars have often found puzzling,
can also be interpreted in this light (Id. 10.14):

τοιγὰρ τὰ πρὸ θυρᾶν μοι ἀπὸ σπόρω ἄσκαλα πάντα.

[I am in love and] therefore everything in front of my door has

been unhoed since the sowing.

The line has seemed to some to raise a problem of chronology in a poem that seems
so realistic. It is now harvest season, and Boukaios has been in love for only ten
days; hoeing should have occurred long before. But evidently some crops could be
planted late, and the young shoots would need the earth loosened around them
with the hoe.55 The difficulty, which thus may not exist, has distracted attention
from the line’s implication. Ιt may have a literal reference: Boukaios has a garden
plot in front of his house. “In front of the door” means that the garden is an
adjunct to his physical house and therefore, in Greek terms, is part of his oikos
or household (such as it is). But the line may point beyond itself to an extended
meaning, or it might be entirely metaphorical. In his desire for what is absent,
Boukaios is neglecting what is at home, what legitimately belongs to him, con-
trary to Hesiod’s advice. He fails to hoe and lags at reaping. His yearning for what
is absent invites, if not divine punishment, then starvation. In this sense, the line
has an interesting parallel in Polyphemos’s advice to himself to give up Galateia,
whom he cannot have: “milk the ewe that’s near” (Id. 11.75: τὰν παρεοῖσαν ἄμελγε).
That he naturally uses a bucolic figure whereas Boukaios uses one drawn from
agriculture reflects the difference between the two worlds.
When Milon learns whom Boukaios is in love with, he responds that the gods
see that people get what they wish for, and so Boukaios will sleep all night in the
embrace of a praying mantis (Id. 10.17–​18). Boukaios responds with his own piece
of traditional morality, in a passage that is worth quoting in its entirety because it
leads up to his song (Id. 10.19–​23):

ΒΟ. μωμᾶσθαί μ’ ἄρχῃ τύ· τυφλὸς δ’ οὐκ αὐτὸς ὁ Πλοῦτος,

ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡφρόντιστος Ἔρως. Μὴ δὴ μέγα μυθεῦ.
ΜΙ. οὐ μέγα μυθεῦμαι· τὺ μόνον κατάβαλλε τὸ λᾷον,

55. Whitehorne 1974, 35–​38. On the supposed problem, see Gow 1952, II, 196.
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176 T heo crit us

καί τι κόρας φιλικὸν μέλος ἀμβάλευ. ἅδιον οὕτως

ἐργαξῇ. καὶ μὰν πρότερόν ποκα μουσικὸς ἦσθα.

BO. You’re starting to make fun of me. Ploutos [Wealth] isn’t the
only blind god,
but that careless Eros is too. Don’t talk big.
MI. I’m not talking big. But you—​just cut down the crop,
and strike up some love song for the girl. That way
you’ll work more sweetly. Indeed, you used to be good at
  music before.

“Talking big” for a Greek was to defy or ignore the gods and put oneself above
them. Boukaios is answering Milon’s “the god discovers the wrongdoer” (Id.
10.17) with another piece of traditional morality and accusing him of underesti-
mating the might, and arbitrariness, of Eros as he claims that he himself is helpless
in the god’s power. Eros can be blind in two senses: he is indiscriminate in caus-
ing people to fall in love, and he blinds the lover to the beloved’s imperfections
(as, according to Milo, is the case with Boukaios). But Eros was rarely spoken of
in antiquity as blind, although the lover’s blindness was a commonplace.56 So if
Boukaios means to excuse himself as a victim of “blind circumstance” (as we say),
his understanding of reality may be deficient. It is interesting also that he pairs
Eros and Ploutos here, because he will do so again implicitly in his song, when he
wishes for the wealth of Kroisos. It is as though the two gods have more in com-
mon than blindness, that they are intertwined: a person needs to be prosperous
in order to afford being in love. And that has been Milon’s point all along.
Milon responds by urging Boukaios to get to work, and in what seems a con-
cession of sorts, he suggests that Boukaios sing a love song about Bombyka, for
“that way you’ll work more sweetly.” He uses a key word in the bucolic ethos, its
space, and its poetry. Against that background, to speak of working sweetly is a
surprising oxymoron. More specifically, Milon’s words recall Lakon’s invitation
to Komatas to join him in the locus amoenus where he is sitting: “you will sing
more sweetly [ἅδιον ᾀσῇ] sitting here under the wild olive and these trees” (Id.
5.31–​32).57 The contrast between bucolic leisure and the necessity of work could
not be sharper. Thus, the whole exchange between Milon and Boukaios leading

56. Gow 1952, II, 198–​199; Hunter 1999, 205.

57. A parallel noted by Ott 1969, 61n181, and Hunt 2009, 397n17, but without comment on the
incongruity when Milon uses the phrase. Hunt suggests that for Milon, work is sweet; in that
case, we see the very different values of these two worlds. But Milon’s song seems to depict work
as necessary rather than pleasant.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 177

up to Boukaios’s song frames it as inappropriate to this setting. Love is not easily

transported from an environment of leisure, where people can indulge longing
for absent things, to the harsh reality of Idyll 10’s Hesiodic world.
Critical opinions of Boukaios’s song have ranged widely.58 As he does so often,
Theocritus makes a variety of very different responses available to his readers.
One temptation is to smile at, or ridicule, a rustic’s lack of sophistication and
leave matters there. But I think we should recognize the depth of feeling in the
song, even if, for example, his comparison of Bombyka’s feet to knucklebones and
her voice to fleabane shows him unable to find language adequate to express it.59
Boukaios begins with an invocation to the Muses (Id. 10.24–​25):

Μοῖσαι Πιερίδες, συναείσετε τὰν ῥαδινάν μοι

παῖδ’· ὧν γὰρ ἅψησθε, θεαί, καλὰ πάντα ποεῖτε.

Pierian Muses, join me in singing the slender

girl. For all that you touch, goddesses, you make beautiful.

The first two words echo, not with entire accuracy, the first two words of Hesiod’s
Works and Days (Μοῦσαι Πιερίηθεν), as though he were trying to fit his song into
the agricultural context and produce a work song. But by the end of the line, with
the word “slender,” he has switched to Sappho as a model, and she remains a strong
presence throughout the rest of the song.60 Sappho, as the consummate poet of
desire, fits right in with bucolic poetry but not with agricultural labor. What we
see Boukaios doing in the song is attempting to reshape reality in accordance with
his desire, as the goatherd seeks to do in Idyll 3, and he asks the Muses to help him
do exactly this. The relative pronoun in the second line quoted (“whatever you
touch”) refers at once to his attempt at song and its subject, Bombyka. Milon has
described her as ugly, but song will make her beautiful. That transformation begins
in the next line: “Lovely Bombyka, they all call you Syrian, dried out, sunburnt,

58. Hunter 1996: “Deliberately bad poetry” (124), “a masterly text, but a poor love-​song” (26);
Whitehorne 1974: “not without art” (38), “a depth and fineness of texture that raise it far above
the string of apophthegms that go to make up Milon’s song” (39). Payne 2007, 75–​76, takes
the song seriously as bringing us closer to Boukaios’s mind and imagination, as I would. Hunt
2009, 401–​412, gives a detailed antithetical reading of Boukaios’s and Milon’s song, and his
argument that the result is to lay bare the presuppositions of bucolic is close to my view.
59. This is essentially Payne’s view (see note 58 above). In this sense, Boukaios resembles
Battos lamenting Amaryllis in Idyll 4. But Battos’s pretensions seem stronger because he is
self-​consciously trying to play a bucolic role, whereas Boukaios seems less artificial. A better
comparison is with the goatherd of Idyll 3.
60. Lentini 1998; Acosta-​Hughes 2006, 31–​32, 51–​52.
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178 T heo crit us

but I alone call you honey-​hued.” The violet and hyacinth, to which he goes on to
compare her, are dark (a concession here to what “they say”), but they are most in
demand for making wreaths. Even ugliness can be accounted beautiful if seen in
the right way, or given the right analogy. As Daphnis sang in Idyll 6 (18–​19), “to
desire, ugly things have often seemed beautiful.” In Boukaios, eros manifests itself
in the same way. Poetry and song enable him to transform reality as love wishes, in
a process not unlike Theocritus’s own fiction-​making in the bucolic Idylls.
Boukaios’s reverie of being as rich as Kroisos (Id. 10.32–​35), in sharp contrast
to Milon’s emphasis on neediness, works the same transformation. I say “reverie”
because although he starts with an “unfulfilled wish” that implicitly recognizes its
own impossibility (“If only it were possible for me [αἴθε μοι ἦς] to possess all that
they say Kroisos once had”), Boukaios proceeds to elaborate on what he would
do with that wealth, visualizing it in detail. Content outraces rhetorical form and
becomes a fantasy. Both he and Bombyka, says Boukaios, would stand as solid
gold statues dedicated to Aphrodite, Bombyka holding her pipes as a sign of her
specialty,61 or maybe a rose or an apple (both love tokens), he wearing new clothes
and slippers. This urge to memorialize their love, to make something permanent
of it, recalls that of the speaker of Idyll 12, who imagines the love between himself
and the boy he is addressing as the subject of song for future ages, so that two hun-
dred generations later, someone might bring him news in Acheron that it is still
on everyone’s lips (Id. 12.10–​21). This passage, too, begins as a wish that is then
elaborated into a detailed fantasy that is also doomed to remain just that, because
of the boy’s fickleness. Boukaios is no more tethered to reality. As Whitehorne
points out, gold statues would have been familiar to readers in Alexandria; a
number of them had figured prominently in Ptolemy Philadelphus’s grand pro-
cession.62 We might smile at this rustic with big-​city, even royal, ambitions (or
in Whitehorne’s phrase, “the comic enormity of Bucaeus’ ambitions”), but the
size of the gap between fantasy and reality is also touching. It gives us a measure
of the tribute Boukaios is paying to Bombyka and so of the depth of his feeling.
It also, somewhat paradoxically, makes the reality of his situation all the more
vivid. Boukaios the reaper is among the last people in the world likely to have new
clothes and fancy footwear. And finally, Boukaios’s fantasy—​indeed, the whole
song—​is effective as an example of what the imagination can do even when it has
little to work with.

61. The name “Bombyka” is evidently derived from the word for a type of flute (Gow 1952, II,
199), and Boukaios first identified her to Milon as “the girl who was piping for the reapers at
Hippokion’s farm the other day” (Id. 10.15–​16). On the name, see Payne 2007, 88.
62. Whitehorne 1974, 44. He uses this fact as an indication that Idyll 10 “belongs to Theocritus’
early days in Alexandria.”
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On the Margins of Bucolic 179

And yet a reaper indulging in this reverie would get very little work done. And
so Milon, after praising Boukaios’s musical ability (not the content of his song),
sings his own work song as a corrective; this is the kind of singing that reapers need
to get on with their work.63 Once again, everything that Boukaios’s song represents,
which would be at home in the bucolic world, is out of place in a field that needs
harvesting. Where Sappho is Boukaios’s model, Milon offers Hesiod. Lityerses, to
whom Milon attributes his song, was an archetypal heroic reaper, who is implic-
itly made the agricultural counterpart to Daphnis as inaugurator of a style of song
repeated by his successors in this labor, so that he stands in the same relation to Milon
as Daphnis does to herdsmen singers.64 It is intriguing that Sositheus, a dramatist
writing in Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus and so a contemporary
of Theocritus, wrote a satyr play called Daphnis or Lityerses, in which Daphnis, after
a long search, found the girl he was in love with enslaved by Lityerses. Could this
play also have opposed the bucolic and agricultural worlds, with Daphnis out of his
element and needing to be rescued by Herakles?
It seems beside the point to consider this pair of songs a singing contest in
which one party seeks to prove himself the better singer. More is at stake here: the
question of which kind of song is appropriate to this context and which is not,
and that means which outlook on life, which values and activities, belong in each
of these rural spheres, the bucolic and the agricultural. A bucolic contest, on the
other hand, revolves around which of two singers can better realize a single set of
values that they both share. Milon’s coda to his song in the final lines of the poem
makes the issue of appropriateness clear (Id. 10.56–​58):

ταῦτα χρὴ μοχθεῦντας ἐν ἁλίῳ ἄνδρας ἀείδειν,

τὸν δὲ τεόν, Βουκαῖε, πρέπει λιμηρὸν ἔρωτα
μυθίσδειν τᾷ ματρὶ κατ’ εὐνὰν ὀρθρευοίσᾳ.

This is what men who work in the sun ought to sing.

As for your starveling love, Boukaios, it’s the sort of thing
to tell your mother as she wakes up in bed in the morning.

63. On the contrast between the two songs and the different traditions that may have been
behind each, see Pretagostini 2006, 55–​57. The praise of Boukaios’s music may or may not be
ironic; the line that follows it (Id. 10.40) surely is, almost Socratically so: “alas for my beard,
which I’ve grown in vain” (i.e., I’ve grown to manhood without your talent)—​a witty preface
to a song that is intended to replace Boukaios’s song.
64. Hunt 2009: 402–​403. The name “Lityerses” also offers an implicit rebuke to Boukaios.
Lityerses challenged people to a reaping contest and killed them when they lost (he was even-
tually killed in turn by Herakles); Boukaios has been left behind by the other reapers. See
Whitehorne 1974, 40.
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180 T heo crit us

These are fitting words on the lips of someone who has the name of the great
Krotonian athlete.65 The antitheses operative in the poem are all here: labor
versus rest, subsistence versus starvation, outdoors (masculine) versus indoors
(feminine), fully developed manliness versus excessive association with women,
as though Boukaios were feminized by being in love. The Greeks associated tan
skin, such as that of athletes, with masculinity, because men’s activities kept them
outside, and paleness with femininity, because women stayed in the house. In
Euripides’s Bacchae (457–​459), the defensively masculine Pentheus taunts the
effeminate Dionysos in this vein: “you have white skin by contrivance, not because
of the sun’s rays but by hunting Aphrodite in the shadows.” There is something of
the same attitude in Milon’s final lines.66
In giving Milon the last word, Theocritus is not, I suggest, repudiating his
bucolic poetry or conceding the superiority of Milon’s values to those of Boukaios.
He is showing that the worlds of herding and agricultural labor, though spatially
close and conversant with each other, are in all other ways far apart. His method
in Idyll 10 of making the differences clear—​by incorporating a song with an essen-
tially bucolic outlook in the mouth of a less than bucolic character into an envi-
ronment where it is so out of place that it can seem ridiculous—​may appear to
put the bucolic at a disadvantage, but that very fact invites us as readers to put it,
in our minds, back where it belongs, on “the mountain.” The notion that Idyll 10
may have a metapoetic dimension—​that Theocritus is defining his own bucolic
poetry by contrasting it with what it is not—​is strengthened by Jonas Grethlein’s
suggestion that the emphasis on food and thinness should be connected to the
slenderness or λεπτότης (in various senses) that is a prominent part of the aes-
thetics of Hellenistic poetry and that the skinny Bombyka is thus a figure for
that poetry.67 Theocritus would then be suggesting that his brand of Hellenistic
poetry, at least, should be associated with bucolic values and that the slender
Muse is out of place in the workaday world but at home in a world of leisure,
desire, and the imagination. At the same time, with the more comic aspects of
Boukaios’s song and Milon’s strong advocacy of the necessity of work, Idyll 10
may contain an element of self-​parody, an acknowledgment of the practical limi-
tations of bucolic’s efforts to remake reality.

65. Cf. Hunt 2009, 395.

66. Cf. Acosta-​Hughes’s excellent comment on these lines (2006, 33): “A part of Milon’s criti-
cism is of Bucaeus’ personalization of song; his own song performance centers on public (and
plural) male work experience, the immediately perceptible (rather than internalized sensation
and imagination), and a natural world that is utilitarian rather than a field for erotic metaphor.”
67. Grethlein 2012.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 181

For that reason, I do not see in this poem a straightforward vindication of

the bucolic or an unqualified claim of its superiority.68 In the end, the two worlds
comment on each other. If the gritty reality of subsistence labor emphasizes the
fictive, impractical, wish-​fulfilling nature of the bucolic, the comparison also
works the other way by showing that the practical world of work precludes imagi-
nation and love. A concentration on work is necessary for survival and can be a
positive value, as Hesiod shows, but it has to do without the leisure and apprecia-
tion of beauty that herdsmen enjoy. Herdsmen are surrounded by natural abun-
dance, whereas reapers have barely what they need to survive. Nature may have
its dangers (thorns, wolves that prey on goats), but herdsmen seek to be part of it;
agricultural work intrinsically tames and exploits nature, though out of necessity,
for survival. We can be grateful that we have Idyll 10 alongside the bucolic poems
in the Theocritean corpus. Without it, they would seem sealed off within their
own fictions, while they in turn, as exercises in the imaginative life, offset Milon’s
workaday utilitarianism, which is often, of necessity, our own approach to life. In
the end, Idyll 10 helps us appreciate the bucolic poems all the more, while keeping
us grounded in an awareness of their fictions.

Idyll 21: The Dream of a Fisherman

Idyll 21 has come to us in two manuscripts, of the fourteenth and the fifteenth cen-
turies CE, respectively, one of which attributes the poem to Theocritus. Since the
Aldine edition (1495 CE), it has been included among the poems of Theocritus.
The thinness of the manuscript tradition and a few unusual metrical and lexical
features may point away from Theocritus as author, but these are not decisive.
Theocritean authorship has had its defenders,69 although most scholars think it
was written by someone else. And because “inauthentic” has often come to mean
“of low quality,”70 little attention has been paid to the features that make Idyll
21 an interesting poem, although positive assessments have not been lacking.71
Because it depends on only two manuscripts of the same family (the Laurentian)
and perhaps because the poem was neglected even in antiquity, the text is in poor

68. At the end of his article, for instance, Grethlein 2012, 617, argues that Milon may have the
last word but Theocritus outdoes him through the typically Hellenistic sophistication of his
own poem: “It is . . . the ultimate refinement of Idyll 10 that it features an attack against refine-
ment that seems to carry the day but, upon closer inspection, turns out to be subverted.”
69. E.g., Campbell 1938; Giangrande 1977.
70. See Hunter 2008, 384–​403, especially 394–​395.
71. Kirstein 2007 is one. See his history of interpretations on 151–​154. Because my views on
this poem coincide so often with Kirstein’s, I can keep my discussion short. Kirstein suggests
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182 T heo crit us

shape at many points. I follow Gow’s text, but the reader should be aware that in
a number of places, different readings would yield other meanings.72
For my purposes, the question of authenticity is not very important. The
poem has affinities with Theocritus’s bucolic Idylls, and Giuseppe Giangrande
seems correct in saying that “whoever wrote the Idyll, if not Theocritus, was a
Hellenistic poet who tried, not without success, to write in Theocritean style.”73
Idyll 21 concerns the life and outlook of lowly men—​fishermen—​who perform
menial work and coexist with the herdsmen of the bucolic poems but are depicted
as living a very different kind of life. To read this poem alongside those others,
even if it originally was quite independent of them, is to gain a perspective on the
bucolic world that has much in common with the one Idyll 10 offers.
After a narrative introduction, addressed to one Diophantos, that
announces the theme of poverty and the worries it causes and describes the
physical setting, the main part of Idyll 21 consists of a dialogue between two
fishermen, Asphalion and his unnamed companion, who are lying awake at
night. Asphalion has had a dream, which he asks his friend to interpret. In the
dream, he caught a large fish made of gold and swore an oath that he would
never again venture onto the sea but would stay on land and enjoy his new
wealth. He feared that he had caught a fish dear to Poseidon or belonging to
Amphitrite. Awake now and with no golden fish, he is afraid that if he returns
to the sea, he will violate his oath. The companion tells him that the dream was
deceptive and warns him to pursue fish of flesh and blood so that he does not
die of “starvation and false dreams.”
Although a fisherman on the shore about to cast his net is described in the
Hesiodic Shield of Herakles (213–​215), fishermen get little attention in Greek
poetry until the Hellenistic period, when they appear in poetry and sculpture.
These depictions are part of a new interest in representing humble people from
daily life and their occupations, perhaps at least partly under the influence of
Stoicism and Cynicism. In the case of fishermen, there may be an economic

that the poem might be by an imitator of Theocritus, if not Theocritus himself (215–​216),
and that seems possible to me, although not necessary. His further suggestion that it can be
included in the bucolic genre, in the broad sense, seems to me to stretch the term “bucolic”
beyond its usefulness for Theocritus. For the view that the poem was composed by an “emula-
tor” of Theocritus and not a “slavish imitator” (“un emulatore e non un pedissequo imitatore
di Teocrito”), see Belloni 2003, 286–​297.
72. Gow accepts a number of emendations by others and produces a serviceable text. His
approach seems preferable to Campbell’s wholesale rewriting of the text (at one extreme) and
(at the other extreme) Giangrande’s often forced attempts to extract a satisfactory meaning
from the transmitted text.
73. Giangrande 1977, 495.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 183

reason as well: the importance of seafood in provisioning cities.74 As we saw in

­chapter 1, fishermen are mentioned several times in Theocritus’s bucolic Idylls,
where they are peripheral to the bucolic world and help to define its limits. They
inhabit the boundary between land, the place of herdsmen, and sea, and their
work can either involve fishing from the shore, as with Olpis in Id. 3.26, or take
them onto (and into) the water. Several of these passages, as well as a few from
other poetry, will give us some context within which we can better imagine the
fishermen in Idyll 21.
The description of the fisherman on the cup in Idyll 1 (39–​44) emphasizes several
key themes:

τοῖς δὲ μετὰ γριπεύς τε γέρων πέτρα τε τέτυκται

λεπράς, ἐφ ᾇ σπεύδων μέγα δίκτυον ἐς βόλον ἕλκει
ὁ πρέσβυς, κάμνοντι τὸ κάρτερον ἀνδρὶ ἐοικώς.
φαίης κεν γυίων νιν ὅσον σθένος ἐλλοπιεύειν,
ὧδέ οἱ ᾠδήκαντι κατ’ αὐχένα πάντοθεν ἶνες
καὶ πολιῷ περ ἐόντι· τὸ δὲ σθένος ἄξιον ἅβας.

Next to them an aged fisherman and a rock are carved,

a rough rock, on which, laboring, he draws in a huge net for the cast,
the old man, looking like one straining mightily.
You would say that he is fishing to the limit of his limbs’ strength
from the way that his sinews swell everywhere along his neck
gray-​haired though he is. His strength would do credit to youth.

Scholars have often, and rightly, compared the fisherman described here with the
one represented by a black marble statue in the Louvre, probably a Roman copy
of a Hellenistic original.75 The figure is notable for its dilated veins and (yes) the
sinews standing out all around the neck, the muscular but aged body, and the
worn facial features. The strength of both fishermen should not mislead us into
thinking that these figures are in any way idealized—​quite the opposite. Those
muscles and those sinews popping out are graphic testimony to how arduous and
physically demanding a fisherman’s task was in antiquity.76 Furthermore, three
times in the lines quoted (and a fourth time in the line immediately following),

74. On fishermen in Hellenism, see Kirstein 2007, 184–​203.

75. On this statue, see Pollitt 1986, 143.
76. The description of the fisherman on the cup seems to be the only basis for Scholten’s claim
(2006, 80–​83) that Theocritus depicts labor as having the positive effect of strengthening the
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184 T heo crit us

the fisherman’s age is stressed (note in particular the emphatically enjambed ὁ

πρέσβυς in line 31). Fishermen are regularly old in Hellenistic poetry (including
Idyll 21), surely in order to suggest a long lifetime of toil that has left its marks
on the body and finally wears it down; in the line just after the quotation, the
fisherman is referred to as “the sea-​worn old man” (ἁλιτρύτοιο γέροντος).77 And
finally, the harshness of the fisherman’s environment is implied by the ruggedness
of the rock on which he stands, with the adjective λεπράς (“rough”) also empha-
sized by enjambment. All the details in this description stand in sharp contrast to
Theocritus’s depiction of herdsmen, their leisure, and the lovely natural surround-
ings of the bucolic world, where you evidently would not find any harsh crags.
In Idyll 7, when Lykidas imagines a fair voyage for Ageanax, he envisions a
calm at sea brought about by the halcyons, “who are most beloved of all birds to
the green Nereids and all those whose catch comes from the sea” (Id. 7.59–​60).78
For this brief moment of calm, which is set against the reminders of the usual
late-​autumn storminess (Id. 7.53–​54), the sea is gentle, the marine counterpart of
bucolic peace. Storms and rough seas, of course, are what fishermen more often
contend with.
The relation between land and sea and the hardships of fishermen are the
subject of a fragment of Moschus (fr. 1 Gow). This poem postdates Theocritus
by at least a century, but it gives a vivid idea of the way fishermen and their
environment were thought of in the Hellenistic period. “When the wind falls
gently upon the green sea,” the fragment begins, “I am restless in my unhappy
mind, land is no longer pleasing to me, and the great salt sea draws me much
more to itself.” But when a storm comes and the waves are wild, “I look toward
earth and trees,”

γᾶ δέ μοι ἀσπαστά χἀ δάσκιος εὔαδεν ὕλα·

ἔνθα καὶ ἢν πνεύσῃ πόλυς ἄνεμος ἁ πίτυς ᾄδει.

body (cursory discussion of the passage on 75–​76). I think the poet’s emphasis there and in
Idylls 10 and 21 is on its harshness instead.
77. Gow 1952, II, 10, very aptly cites Plato Laws 761D, πόνοις τετρυμένα γεωργικοῖς σώματα
(“bodies worn out by the toils of farming”).
78. ὅσοις τέ περ ἐξ ἁλὸς ἄγρα. A very similar phrase occurs in Theocritus fr. 3 Gow, ἐξ ἁλὸς ῷ
ζωή τὰ δὲ δίκτυα κείνῳ ἄροτρα, “one whose livelihood is from the sea, and his nets are his plow.”
Both phrases emphasize the fisherman’s dependence on catching fish for life and survival. Cf.
the description of the fishermen at Id. 21.6 as ἰχθύος ἀγρευτῆρες, “hunters of fish.” The fragment
concerns a goddess rewarding a sacrifice with a good catch and prosperity (ὄλβος)—​a some-
what more realistic hope than Asphalion’s dream in Idyll 21. The equation of nets with a plow
draws a parallel between labor on land and labor at sea.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 185

and land is welcome79 to me, and the luxuriant wood delights me.
There, even if the wind blows strong, the pine tree sings.

The singing pine tree will, of course, recall the musical whisper of the pine in
the opening lines of Idyll 1 and conjures up a bucolic place that blunts the force
of weather and turns it benign, in the strongest possible contrast to the storm at
sea. This pleasance leads to thoughts of fishermen, who have to be on the ocean:

ἦ κακὸν ὁ γριπεὺς ζώει βίον, ᾧ δόμος ἁ ναῦς,

καὶ πόνος ἐντὶ θάλασσα, καὶ ἰχθύες ἁ πλάνος ἄγρα.

Ah, miserable is the life a fisherman leads, whose ship is his house,
and the sea his toil, and fish his elusive prey.

The equation of ship and house only emphasizes the difference between them.
The fisherman is not at home on the sea, which is only his place of toil as he labors
for an uncertain livelihood. The speaker then differentiates himself from the fish-
erman, at least in his wishes:

αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ γλυκὺς ὕπνος ὑπὸ πλατάνῳ βαθυφύλλῳ,

καὶ παγᾶς φιλέοιμι τὸν ἔγγυθεν ἆχον ἀκούειν
ἃ τέρπει ψοφέοισα τὸν ἄγρυπνον, οὐχὶ ταράσσει.

But as for me, may I have sweet sleep beneath the deep-​leaved plane tree,
and may I be accustomed to hear the nearby sound of a spring
that delights with its plash the sleepless one, rather than disturbing him.

These lines, the last of the fragment, conjure up a vision of restful leisure in a
lush natural setting; they look back to the mention of the pine tree’s song, so
that evocations of bucolic peace enfold the diametrically opposed picture of the
fisherman’s harsh life. If ἄγρυπνον, “sleepless,” is the correct reading in the last
line (it is Gow’s very good emendation of the manuscripts’ unmetrical ἀγροῖκον,
“countryman”), we can contrast the man enjoying this peaceful setting with the
fishermen of Idyll 21, who are wakeful because of their cares. The mention of sleep
two lines earlier permits this in any case.

79. Likely an allusion to Od. 23.233–​240 (which itself recalls 5.394–​399), describing how wel-
come land is to shipwrecked sailors.
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186 T heo crit us

Writing in the early third century BCE, and so a little before Theocritus,
Leonidas of Tarentum composed four epigrams on fishermen.80 One, a grave epi-
gram, indirectly suggests the hazards that fishermen had to face (A.P. 7.295):

Θῆριν τὸν τριγέροντα, τὸν εὐάγρων ἀπὸ κύρτων

  ζῶντα, τὸν αἰθυίης πλείονα νηξάμενον,
ἰχθυσιληϊστῆρα, σαγηνέα χηραμοδύτην,
  οὐχὶ πολυσκάλμου πλώτορα ναυτιλίης,
ἔμπης οὔτ’ Ἀρκτοῦρος ἀπώλεσεν, οὔτε καταιγὶς
  ἤλασε τὰς πολλὰς τῶν ἐτέων δεκάδας·
ἀλλ’ ἔθαν’ ἐν καλύβῃ σχοινίτιδι, λύχνος ὁποῖα,
  τῷ μακρῷ σβεσθεὶς ἐν χρόνῳ αὐτόματος.
σῆμα δὲ τοῦτ’ οὐ παῖδες ἐφήρμοσαν, οὐδ’ ὁμόλεκτρος,
  ἀλλὰ συνεργατίνης ἰχθυβόλων θίασος.

Theris, the old, old man, who from traps good for catching fish
earned his livelihood, who swam more than the shearwater,
fish plunderer, seiner, diver into crevices,
no sailor on a many-​oared ship—​
nevertheless Arktouros’s stormy setting did not kill him, nor did the
tempest
hound to death his many decades.
But he died in his reed hut, extinguished like a lamp
of his own accord, from sheer length of years.
This tomb—​no children built it, nor wife,
but the brotherhood of his fellow workers, net casters after fish.

A great deal about Theris’s life is packed into these lines. In the piling up of epi-
thets in the first four lines, we get an impression of the various activities that
his profession demanded and, by implication, of their hazards: setting underwa-
ter traps and seine nets; diving into crevices for octopus, shrimp, and shellfish;
spending more time in (or on) the sea than a shearwater, a marine bird that flies
close to the surface of the water and dives for fish and shellfish and so an excellent
parallel to a fisherman. He did not sail on a large (“many-​oared”) ship but, by
implication, on a skiff (like that of the fishermen in Idyll 21), and so was exposed
to storms and rough seas. But despite the dangers and the harshness of his work

80. For discussion of these in relation to Idyll 21, see Kirstein 2007, 168–​175. One of these
epigrams, A.P. 6.4, concerns a fisherman with the same name as the addressee of Idyll 21,
Diophantos. The two texts may be related, although the name is a common one.
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On the Margins of Bucolic 187

(ἔμπης, “nevertheless,” in line 5 is a key word), storms and shipwreck did not kill
him, but he died a natural death of old age. There is perhaps a sense of achieve-
ment here, as if he were very skilled at his work, and so survived that way, or at
least fortunate—​for a fisherman. Materially, he seems to have lived at a basic level
of survival, in a reed hut (recall “his ship is his house” in the Moschus fragment)
and with no family, but within a network of other fishermen who clearly looked
out for one another. The fishermen in Idyll 21 also live in a wattled hut, with only
one another to depend on.81
All of these passages are consistent in depicting the fisherman’s life as one of
unremitting labor and poverty, and the one by Moschus explicitly contrasts it
with bucolic ease and pleasure. Idyll 21 fits easily into this context, although it has
some different emphases and offers more explicit detail, especially in the open-
ing lines. The first word of the poem is, in fact, “poverty,” and fishermen are then
used—​naturally, given their depiction in other texts—​to illustrate its effects (Id.
21.1–​3):

Ἁ πενία, Διόφαντε, μόνα τὰς τέχνας ἐγείρει·

αὕτα τῶ μόχθοιο διδάσκαλος, οὐδὲ γὰρ εὕδειν
ἀνδράσιν ἐργατίναισι κακαὶ παρέχοντι μέριμναι.

Poverty, Diophantos, alone stimulates the crafts;

she is a teacher of toil, because for laboring men
evil anxieties do not allow even sleep.

Gow finds in these lines little connection between the various concepts of pov-
erty, skills or crafts, toil, and anxieties,82 but I think they form a coherent and
significant complex. Poverty stimulates crafts in the sense that it forces people
to devise the means of survival, in this case techniques for catching fish, such as
diving, traps, and nets, and also strength. It is thus the teacher of toil in a con-
crete sense but also of the suffering that accompanies it (the word μόχθος, like
the English “toil,” can encompass this intangible meaning as well). This latter
meaning passes easily into the “anxieties” that keep poor people awake at night, so
that γάρ, “for” or “because,” is in place, and there is an effective contrast between
ἐγείρει, “stimulates” but literally “arouses” (often from sleep), at the end of the first
line and εὕδειν, “[not even] to sleep,” at the end of the second. Unlike the other
passages we looked at, which concentrated on fishermen’s material conditions,

81. For other similarities between this epigram and Idyll 21, see Kirstein 2007, 172–​173.
82. Gow 1952, II, 370–​371.
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188 T heo crit us

this poem from the beginning shows an interest in the psychological effects of
poverty, one that leads directly to Asphalion’s wish-​fulfilling dream of sudden
riches and release from the grinding necessity of toil. Idyll 21 is thus not about
fishermen for their own sake; it uses them to prove a larger point about poverty
and its effects.83
It is in service of that theme that we now get a detailed description of the
hut where the fishermen have lain down to sleep and of their possessions, almost
all of which—​except for the mats on which they lie, their clothes, and their felt
caps—​have to do with their work. “Near them lay their hands’ struggles” (τὰ ταῖν
χειροῖν ἀθλήματα, that is, “the instruments of their hands’ struggles,” Id. 21.8–​9).
There follows a list of fishing implements, all seen not as neutral parts of their
surroundings but as intimately connected with labor; even in sleep, these men
are not separated from their tools, and these tools are all they have. Οὗτος τοῖς
ἁλιεῦσιν ὁ πᾶς πόνος,84 οὗτος ὁ πλοῦτος, “this was their entire [means of ] labor, this
their wealth” (Id. 21.14). Their object-​world signifies only work, and it is all the
riches they have. The next lines seem to talk about what they lack, and, in fact, do
not need precisely because they are poor (Id. 21.15–​18):

οὐ κλεῖδ’, οὐχὶ θύραν ἔχον, οὐ κύνα· πάντα περισσά

ταῦτ’ ἐδόκει τήνοις· ἁ γὰρ πενία σφας ἐτήρει.
οὐδεὶς δ’ ἐν μέσσῳ γείτων πέλεν, ἁ δὲ παρ’ αὐτᾷ
θλιβομέναν καλύβᾳ τραφερὰν προσέναχε θάλασσα.

They had no key, no door, no dog; all these things seemed

superfluous to those men, for poverty protected them.
No neighbor was nearby, and beside the hut itself
the sea slid toward the hemmed-​in dry land.

83. My reading of Idyll 21 is the diametric opposite of Belloni’s (2003). He sees the poem as a
celebration of labor and poverty as an ideal way of life. Much of his argument hinges on his
interpretation of the phrase φίλος πόνος (“accustomed toil,” Id. 21.20), which he relates to ideas
of labor held by Stoics and other philosophical systems (289–​293). The context is a problem for
any such connection, which is in any case difficult to prove. “Accustomed toil” is what wakes
the fishermen up, and wakefulness has been said in lines 2–​3 to be caused by “evil cares” (κακαί
μέριμναι). The epithet shows that this is not the philosophical wakefulness that Belloni wishes
to claim that it is.
84. I would retain the manuscripts’ πόνος because it fits with τὰ ταῖν χειροῖν ἀθλήματα in line
9 as I have interpreted it; cf. also καὶ πόνος ἐντὶ θάλασσα, “the sea is his [source of ] toil” in
Moschus fr. 1.10, quoted earlier. The word also drives home the connection of these objects
with labor. Gow prints the emendation πόρος, “resource, revenue,” which is both unnecessary
and redundant with πλοῦτος. My explanation of πόνος is more or less consistent with that of
Giangrande 1977, 503 (“source of work”), although his explanation obscures the significance
that I think the phrase has.
189

On the Margins of Bucolic 189

This is the text that Gow prints, which incorporates a number of emendations
intended to fix a very corrupt transmitted text. Key, door, dog, poverty protect-
ing them, and dry land are all imported into it by these conjectures. There are
problems with the reconstruction, but if it is anywhere near correct—​and the
text of the manuscripts is very difficult, if not impossible, to interpret85—​the lines
make a good contribution to the context. The list of the men’s few possessions,
only those necessary for work, is followed by what they do not have: a key, a door,
and a watchdog, which are all unnecessary because they have nothing worth
stealing. And anyway, there are no neighbors (this, at least, is in the manuscripts);
this emphasizes their solitude. The hut itself is right beside the water, either on a
spit of land, as Gow suggests, or on a narrow beach, the slight margin squeezed
between sea and land. This physical detail stresses how constricted their life is and
how vulnerable. And it bears out the spatial significance of fishermen as discussed
in ­chapter 1: they inhabit the boundary between sea and dry land that marks one
of the defining limits of the bucolic world, and they cross that boundary and
enter the sea, as herdsmen such as Polyphemos cannot do and as the goatherd of
Idyll 3 contemplates doing, but only to commit suicide for love. The manuscript
text in these last two lines does make sense and has pretty much the same effect,
except that the hemmed-​in dry land is lost and the misery of the hut is stressed
instead: “the sea slid gently ashore beside the hut itself, which was oppressed by
poverty.”86
The dialogue that follows this scene-​setting description by the narrator needs
little comment, except for lines 39–​41, the beginning of Asphalion’s account of
his dream. He fell asleep, he says, in the late afternoon, “after our labors at sea”87—​
a sign of the exacting nature of their work. He adds that they had eaten their
evening meal early, and that “we spared our stomachs.” I take the phrase to be a
grimly ironical way of saying that they had little to eat.

85. Giangrande 1977, 502–​510, but some of his explanations seem far-​fetched and problemati-
cal, at least to me, especially in lines 15–​16. The repetition of πάντα, presumably for emphasis,
has little point. More seriously, οὐδεὶς δ’ οὐ χύθραν εἶχε ought to mean that everyone had a
pot, not that neither fisherman did, as Giangrande understands the phrase (when a negative
is preceded by a compound negative, both negatives retain their force; “no one did not” means
“everyone did”).
86. πενίᾳ δὲ παρ’ αὐτάν/​θλιβομέναν καλύβαν τρυφερὸν προσέναχε θάλασσα. The only change here
from the manuscripts is dative πενίᾳ for the nominative. This version of the line yields an inter-
esting contrast between the gentleness, almost daintiness, of the sea sliding ashore (τρυφερόν)
and the grinding effects of poverty.
87. Reading ἐπ’ for the manuscripts’ ἐν, despite the ingenious argument of Giangrande 1977,
514–​515.
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190 T heo crit us

Asphalion asks his companion to interpret his dream, because he has seen
favorable things; evidently, he expects that the dream signifies good fortune in
the future and assumes that it cannot have been literally true. So it needs a skilled
interpreter. The companion, in keeping with his grounding in the harsh realities
of the world, takes a matter-​of-​fact approach, saying in effect that the best dream
interpreter is common sense (Id. 21.32–​33).88 And in his response to the dream,
his common sense punctures the fantasy of unlooked-​for riches (Id. 21.63–​67):

μὴ σύγε, μὴ τρέσσῃς· οὐκ ὤμοσας· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἰχθύν

χρύσεον ὡς ἴδες εἷλες, ἴσα δ’ ἦν ψεύδεσιν ὄψις.
εἰ δ’ ὕπαρ οὐ κνώσσων τὰ πελώρια ταῦτα ματεύσεις,
ἐλπὶς τῶν ὕπνων· ζάτει τὸν σάρκινον ἰχθύν,
μὴ σὺ θάνῃς λιμῷ καὶ τοῖς χρυσοῖσιν ὀνείροις.

Oh, no, don’t you be afraid. You didn’t swear an oath. For you didn’t
catch any golden fish as you thought you did. The dream was as good as
a lie.
If you’re going to seek out marvels like this when you’re awake and not
slumbering,
your hope is as good as your dream.89 Go after fish of flesh and blood,
so that you don’t die of starvation and those golden dreams.

Poverty allows no room for hope of anything better. As the companion tells
Asphalion, and as the poem’s opening lines say, all a poor man can do is work. He
has the role of Idyll 10’s Milon to Asphalion’s Boukaios.
We are a long way from a world in which a goatherd can leave his flock in the
care of a friend (or a he-​goat), stand outside a cave, and serenade an Amaryllis
who may not even exist, indulging the hope that she will come to him.
The poems we have considered in this chapter depict spaces that are marginal
to the bucolic world and characters within them whose activities and outlook are
conditioned by those spaces. These Idylls are related to the bucolic poetry, and
shed light on its world and its values, in different ways.

88. For a different view of the passage—​that Asphalion claims to be a skilled dream interpreter
but that his companion, despite lacking that skill, induces him to tell his dream anyway—​see
Giangrande 1973, 79–​81.
89. I take τῶν ὕπνων as a defining genitive: “[you have] a hope consisting of dreams.” Hope was,
for the Greeks, a slippery and unreliable thing. For the sense “your dreams sound hopeful,” see
Giangrande 1973, 82. That hardly fits the context.
19

On the Margins of Bucolic 191

Idyll 4 is still more or less in that world and, like other bucolic poems, is con-
ditioned by an absence; but the situation is not a spur to creativity but causes
stasis, or worse. Amaryllis is dead, but grief for her produces only an inept gesture
toward bucolic song. The satisfaction of desire takes the form of the little old
man’s lechery by the cattle fold. Neither Battos nor Korydon seems up to the task
of carrying on the bucolic life, and Battos may not belong to it at all. In keeping
with the setting in South Italy, which was in disarray when the poem was writ-
ten, Idyll 4 shows us the bucolic world in the process of decay. It thus constructs
a fictional chronological limit that balances Idyll 1’s construction of the origin of
bucolic poetry in Daphnis’s death, and it acts as a foil to the vitality of the bucolic
world that is depicted in the other poems.
The other two poems discussed in this chapter concentrate on the realities
of labor. Idyll 10 moves out of bucolic space, with its leisure for singing songs of
desire, and into the neighboring agricultural world that is conditioned by the
necessity of labor, where only a work song is appropriate. It imports some bucolic
conventions into the world of work, but only to show how out of place they are
there—​but also, by implication, how in place they are in the world constructed
by the bucolic Idylls. Idyll 21 shows the life of the fishermen who are only casu-
ally mentioned a few times in the bucolic poems as inhabiting the edges of both
their world and the land. Whoever wrote it, the poem bears similarities to Idyll
10. It, too, depicts a category of people for whom work is the defining condition
of life; they are “laboring men” (ἀνδράσιν ἐργατίναισι, Id. 21.3), just as Boukaios
is “laborer Boukaios” (ἐργατίνα Βουκαῖε, Id. 10.1). But now the emphasis is on
grinding poverty and life materially reduced to the basics. As in Idyll 10, one char-
acter’s aspirational fantasy of something beyond work is punctured by the other’s
reminder of their actual conditions, and the last lines of the poem make explicit
the danger they face—​starvation—​that is only implied by Milon’s emphasis on
lack of food and drink.
These poems can fruitfully be seen in relation to the bucolic Idylls, and the
bucolic Idylls likewise can be read against them. They shed light on the limita-
tions of the bucolic vision of life even as they help us appreciate it by contrast, and
they act as a check on the urge that the bucolic poems might arouse to indulge
nostalgia for a prettified version of the natural world and a simple life within it.
On the other hand, they help show how the fictionality of the bucolic poems is
precisely their point. We would starve to death if we spent all our time indulging
in a bucolic daydream, but a life that by necessity makes no room for the imagina-
tion, they show, is impoverished. Such, these poems about labor remind us, is the
condition of much of the world.
192

Conclusion

How is it possible to gather together the various strands of suggested mean-

ings in these richly complex poems?
We can make a start by recalling how the space of the Ptolemaic empire as
it is constructed in Idyll 17 encompasses the bucolic, urban, and, I would say,
indirectly even the mythological spaces that other poems represent. The bucolic
poems build a world with clearly defined margins that seems largely self-​
contained and autonomous. But it is located, in Idyll 15, within the empire as
part of its economic system, with the wool of sheep on Samian hillsides trans-
formed into the coverlets for the couch of Aphrodite and Adonis. In the same
way, Praxinoa buys wool, spins it, and weaves it into the dress that Gorgo admires.
Urban space similarly fits into this larger spatial system. The centripetal force that
Alexandria exerts on the movement of people and goods is depicted from within
it in Idyll 15 and from outside, from somewhere else in the empire, in the town in
which Aiskhinas and Thyonikhos converse, in Idyll 14. The town or city in which
Simaitha lives has a distinctively Greek palaistra, but Delphis is a Myndian. These
small touches are a reminder of the multicultural conditions of the Ptolemaic
world, and Simaitha might be living in either Greece or Asia Minor. The bucolic
Idyll 1 similarly refers to Thyrsis’s victory in a singing contest over the Libyan
Khromis (line 24). The mythological Idylls depict spaces as they existed long
before the empire, and the relationship may seem more tenuous. But the links are
there, in the importance of both the Dioskouroi and Herakles in the Ptolemies’
self-​presentation. The connection becomes explicit in the vignette of Alexander,
Ptolemy Soter, and the latter’s tipsy putative ancestor Herakles, together on
Olympos at the beginning of Idyll 17. This picture represents the fulfillment of
Teiresias’s prophecy of Herakles’s apotheosis in Idyll 24, and that poem also seems
to look ahead, in the manner of aitia familiar from Callimachus and Apollonius,
through its apparent reference to the story of Philadelphus’s exposure as an infant
in a bronze shield and by the way Herakles is given the education of a Ptolemaic

Theocritus. William G. Thalmann, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197636558.003.0005
193

Conclusion 193

prince, as many have pointed out. Within this context, it might not be too much
of a stretch to suggest that some aspects of space in the mythological poems—​the
dangerous spring and the undifferentiated wild space Herakles rushes through in
Idyll 13, Amykos’s more benign spring that needs to be claimed for Greek values
of hospitality in Idyll 22, even the house that cannot keep the malevolent serpents
out in Idyll 24—​represent primitive conditions that some readers, at least, might
compare with the order brought by Greek culture, especially under imperial rule.
In similar fashion, as Stephens has suggested, the vision of a restored Sicily in Idyll
16 is a paradigm of the flourishing of nature and society brought about by a good
ruler, such as Ptolemy is supposed to be or—​it is hoped—​might become.1
From this angle, the Theocritean collection as a whole might be considered
homage to an autocratic patron.2 But this is only part of what these poems could
be said to be about. In tandem with this implicit depiction of empire, the poetry
speaks to the experiences of Greeks under the new conditions of mobility: deraci-
nation, issues of interethnic relations, and questions of place and placelessness.
The bucolic poems in particular address these matters, in an indirect but sugges-
tive way; and if I give pride of place to them in what follows, it is because what
I have called a “bucolic sensibility” pervades a number of the non-​bucolic poems,
so that the bucolic Idylls are somehow central.
In various ways that I will discuss, Theocritus’s poetry involves the relation
of self to other, a question that, as I suggested in c­ hapters 1 and 4, the bucolic
Idylls raise spatially by defining the margins of the bucolic world and showing
how the boundaries both define differences (such as the contrast between herds-
men’s leisure and agricultural labor) and are permeable. This seems a particular
case of a more general Hellenistic interest in boundaries and their instability, as
seen, for example, in the figure of Pan, who combines human and animal. In an
earlier publication,3 I argued that in the case of Apollonius’s Argonautika, this
interest reflects questions about relations between Greeks and non-​Greeks that
were of particular importance to Greeks living in Alexandria and elsewhere in the
extensive areas now under Greek rule after Alexander’s conquests. We might see

1. As the example of Pindar shows, telling an autocratic patron that he possesses certain virtues
can be as much a way of admonishing him to display them as it is of describing his actual
character.
2. Homage but not necessarily straightforward praise or flattery. Murray 2008 has argued that
these things were required by later forms of patronage but that Ptolemaic patronage followed
the archaic pattern with its sympotic features. This suggestion would neatly account for the
mixture of humor and seriousness that gives such a distinctive tone to the treatments, in Idylls
13, 17, and 24, of the alleged Ptolemaic forebear Herakles.
3. Thalmann 2011.
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194 T heo crit us

the same anxieties manifested more indirectly in the function of boundaries in

Theocritus’s bucolic poems; that would not be surprising in view of the obvious
relation between these two poets. In addition, I also suggested in ­chapter 1 of this
book that the bucolic poems raise the question of being in and out of place—​a
broader issue that includes interethnic relations. We can also appreciate how the
attractions of the bucolic world that they hold out to the reader might include
a desire to be fully “in place” that can never be entirely satisfied. That is, being
“in place” in nature in the Idylls’ terms would be a paradigm for being at home
socially, culturally, and in respect to interethnic relations in a world filled with
movement and displacement. That the representation of a fictional world would
offer the reader a vantage point for thinking about actual issues encountered in
daily life is in the very nature of a heterotopia.
In addition to this very important function—​which may help account
for why Theocritus created bucolic poetry at this historical and cultural
juncture—​the Idylls offer the reader attractions that have to do more generally
with the relations between self and other and between readers and fictional
worlds (here the inspiration of Payne should be obvious). If we consider the
bucolic Idylls from the perspective of space, we find that Theocritus builds
up a picture of a setting impressionistically by means of relatively few details
that recur here and there throughout the poems: springs and meadows, certain
shrubs and trees, bees, herd and wild animals, herders, and so on. This space
can be located in the physical world through indirect clues such as botany,
as the maquis or a typical Greek hillside in the Aegean basin and the eastern
Mediterranean, as Lindsell argues. And some Idylls are explicitly set in Sicily
and South Italy. Two of these, Idylls 4 and 5, mention nearby cities. But even
there we have few indications of where in the landscape the bucolic world is
to be located. Instead, Theocritus consistently sets the bucolic world vaguely
on τὸ ὄρος, “the mountain.” We get a little more definition through references
to places and activities at the boundaries of the bucolic world: the extremi-
ties beyond it, with thickets and brambles as opposed to pasturage and wild
rather than herd animals; agricultural fields and orchards; and the seashore,
the haunt of fishermen. Poems set in the latter two areas draw a clear contrast
between the hard labor that must occur there and herdsmen’s leisure, which
is so pervasive that only once (Idyll 4) are herdsmen shown having to do any
work at all—​and they seem ineffectual at it.
Then what do they do, and what is at the center of these clearly demarcated if
sometimes porous boundaries? The bucolic world does not constitute an absent
center, entirely. The Idylls explore the extremes of this world, from the idealizing
to the base, and there are nods toward mimetic realism, as in the reminders of
how goatherds smell. Theocritus’s bucolic world refers to a real-​life counterpart;
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Conclusion 195

there were herdsmen who pastured their animals on hillside vegetation much like
what he describes. But he gives us a stylized version of this world and of herds-
men’s activities. The bucolic world is therefore a fictional space, and it is entirely
in keeping with its character—​in fact, constitutive of it—​that within this space
Theocritus’s herdsmen do not labor but sing, and what they sing of is absence,
loss, and yearning. In this world, what is not there is at least as significant as what
is. Even the very act of their singing is a sign of absence. It descends from, and
without attaining it seeks to recapture, the singing of such herdsman archetypes
as Daphnis and Komatas. And the erotic longing their songs express is an attempt
to connect with what is absent and summon it into presence—​beautiful Nymphs,
of course, but also, as we see in Lykidas’s song in Idyll 7, the fullness of an ideal-
ized bucolic world itself. Such lovely visions of full presence as the poems offer
us are never more than momentarily successful, held alluringly before us but kept
at a distance, embedded within nesting songs and so always receding, or viewed
through the lens of human culture that keeps the natural world at least somewhat
apart. Even at the beginning of Idyll 1, whose opening lines offer an alluring pic-
ture of a place in which humans and the natural landscape might be fully present
to one another, we find, when we attend to the deictics in the passage, that it is
inaccessible to the goatherd and Thyrsis.
If the bucolic world is elusive in these ways, so is Theocritean poetry itself.
Again and again, we have found passages that can be interpreted in more than
one way and in which it seems best to keep the various possibilities open. One
potential meaning jostles with others, and readings can take several different
paths at once. Even on this small scale, the poetry resists interpretive closure. As
a whole, a given Idyll will create an impression of constructing a complete world
in language and at the same time call attention to its own fiction-​making. As
readers, we are in the same position as Theocritus’s herdsmen-​singers. The bucolic
Idylls arouse in us the same desire for something absent, a world apart from (let
us say) urban Alexandria, draw us into their fictions, and then remind us of those
fictions’ constructed quality. The effect is not necessarily the kind of frustration
that the goatherd feels at the end of Idyll 3 and that has him contemplating his
own death, devoured by wolves. More often, I think, we return to the poems
with desire to grasp their world, desire for a meaning, aroused again, and again
not fully satisfied—​just as Polyphemos seems to have sat again and again on the
shore singing in an always vain attempt to summon up Galateia, seeking to “shep-
herd”—​nurture or control—​his love. And can we be sure that Idyll 3’s goatherd
will not be back at the mouth of the cave on another occasion, trying to summon
up Amaryllis’s presence? If we as readers are allowed to enter the bucolic world
vicariously, it is largely through sharing the herdsmen’s desire for what they, and
we, cannot have. This is paradoxical: we grasp something of this world by not
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196 T heo crit us

being allowed to possess it. But if we attained this object of the desire the poems
arouse in us, we would stop reading.
Those passages in which the “bucolic sensibility” surfaces in non-​bucolic
poems work roughly in the same way. In Idyll 16, the bucolic mode in which the
picture of wished-​for peace is cast, together with the optative verbs in the descrip-
tion, leaves the fulfillment of that utopian vision uncertain even as it helps arouse
the reader’s desire for it. Idyll 15 also puts the bucolic to a political use. Just as the
reference to the Samian shepherd who is proud of having contributed his wool
for the coverlets used in the tableau of Aphrodite and Adonis explicitly assigns
the bucolic world to a place within the Ptolemaic empire, that bucolic tableau is
enfolded within the Alexandrian royal palace, as though to signal that the bucolic
has a function within the city, and perhaps by implication that its poetry can be
of use to urban readers. This lush and peaceful scene of union between divine lov-
ers contrasts sharply with, and helps to characterize, the bustle of the city streets
and the noise and the jostling of the crowds at the palace doorway, as well as the
housewives’ discontent with their husbands. But the tableau shows the goddess’s
futile embrace of her dying lover, and the scene of bucolic presence that it rep-
resents is fleeting. Adonis returns from the dead briefly once a year. Tomorrow
the women will bathe his image and lament him in preparation for another year
of his absence. And the sight of his image provokes in Praxinoa nothing else but
yearning: ὁ τριφίλητος Ἄδωνις, ὁ κἠν Ἀχέροντι φιληθείς (“the thrice-​loved Adonis,
Adonis loved even in Akheron,” Id. 15.86). Because the festival and this elabo-
rate spectacle are part of royal display, we see the dynamics of bucolic desire for
what is absent harnessed to Ptolemaic self-​legitimation, just as this poem, likely
produced under Philadelphus’s patronage, adds to his cultural capital as it seeks,
perhaps, to capture the reader’s desire for the dying god and joy at his return,
contrived under royal sponsorship.
A bucolic scene figures prominently in the first narrative part of Idyll 22 as the
setting in which the Dioskouroi encounter Amykos. It is tempting to see here a
confrontation between bucolic and epic or hymnic poetry, and there does seem
at first to be a lack of fit in this scene. But as the examples of Polyphemos and the
low mimetic register of Idyll 5 show, the grotesque as embodied by Amykos is not
necessarily foreign to bucolic poetry. What is incongruous from the point of view
of bucolic is the violence that results from this meeting at a spring. It is offset by
another feature of the narrative that is unexpected, this time from the perspec-
tive of epic: the peaceful resolution to the conflict, whereby Polydeukes spares
Amykos and Amykos promises never again to be hostile to strangers. Presumably,
Amykos can continue to enjoy his beautiful natural surroundings unmolested but
will share them with guests according to the Greek norms of hospitality. Bucolic
is thus part of an idealizing solution to the epic problem of competition, violence,
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Conclusion 197

and destruction arising from notions of honor that depicts violence as a means
of achieving peace. Such a resolution is, by epic standards, very difficult if not
impossible to attain.4 Even out of its usual context, then, bucolic remains a mode
for expressing what is elusive, the object of ungratified desire—​in this case, reso-
lution of a stubborn “real-​world” problem.
Other poems that do not incorporate bucolic elements still share with the
bucolic Idylls an interest in the nature and power of eros. In Idyll 2, Simaitha
recounts an episode of desire fulfilled, but that is in the past. In the poem’s pres-
ent, she is driven by desire for the absent Delphis, and the intensity of her feeling
is conveyed by her resort to magic either to lure him back or to harm him, even
to cause his death. By the end of the poem, she seems to have reached a pause of
some sort, but we have no way of knowing whether she has tamed her desire or
will again be overwhelmed by it. Idyll 13 (to which, I have argued, bucolic is not
central) takes the all-​pervasive power of eros as its theme and uses Herakles as an
extreme example of how it can make people act in ways that are uncharacteris-
tic of them (in Herakles’s case, his abandonment, for a time, of the Argonautic
expedition). Among Ptolemy’s virtues, in addition to kindliness, culture, and a
“sweet” disposition, is that he is ἐρωτικός, devoted to eros (Id. 14.62). In these
poems, eros may not trigger the reader’s desire for an elusive world, but it is still a
central preoccupation.
Theocritus’s poetry is remarkable for its verbal and narrative experimenta-
tion and its reworking of earlier texts, singly and in surprising combinations. But
besides the pleasure of these formal elements, what else is in it for the reader?
I have said that the bucolic poems arouse readers’ desire for a fictional world
because it is out of their reach. Why should that be important? Why should
readers, then or now, care about herdsmen and their erotic frustrations? Why
might we not, by comparison with, say, epic or tragic poetry, find these poems
trivial? Some readers do respond in just that way, but why are others drawn to the
poems? Various answers have emerged singly in the preceding chapters, where
I have drawn on the insights of writers such as Charles Segal, Harry Berger, Mark
Payne, and Susan Stephens. I shall try to bring those answers together here.
One of the recurring themes of Segal’s essays on Theocritus is that the poetry,
with its use of fundamental images such as water, draws us close to nature and
simplicity. This may well be a strong source of its appeal to urban readers in
ancient Alexandria or today. We have seen a number of passages in the poems

4. One might think of the ending of the Odyssey as an exception, but there it takes Athena’s
intervention to restore peace to Ithaka after Odysseus’s slaughter of the suitors and when he is
on the point of wreaking further bloodshed. The contrived nature of this ending marks it as
utopian.
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198 T heo crit us

that seem to idealize nature, images of full bucolic presence. But at the same time
as the poems offer this vision, they limit the temptation to lapse into mere nos-
talgia. They balance it with reminders of gritty realities underlying country life;
Idyll 5 is a good example of a poem that contains both the lofty and the base and
holds them in a kind of dialectic. Through framing and other distancing devices,
they hold the ideal out of reach, and they depict it through a complex and allu-
sive poetics. This is William Empson’s “putting the complex into the simple,”5 of
course, but what it means is that the reader cannot put off his or her sophistica-
tion and plunge into simplicity. Humans can never be fully a part of nature. The
artfulness of Theocritus’s poetry is that it at once tempts us into nostalgia and
makes us aware that it is a trap. It works through the dynamics of eros, arousing
desire for what we know we cannot have. Desire can be pleasurable as well as
painful, and as Idyll 13 suggests, it is a condition of being human.
Following the lead of Payne, I have also emphasized the importance of the
imagination, both in the poems’ own world-​building and in the way they provoke
the reader’s own imagination. When the Idylls show us characters in the grip of
eros and indulging in fantasies of fulfillment and when they call attention to their
own fictionality, they are telling us that they are exercises in imagination as they
invite us to join in their fictions. Idyll 10, on my reading at least, implicitly des-
ignates the bucolic world as the place of eros and imagination, which the world
of labor cannot afford without risk of starvation, and Idyll 21, even if it is not by
Theocritus, similarly opposes wish-​fulfilling dreams to labor, which is the neces-
sary condition of the fisherman’s world. These poems set in relief the impracti-
cality of the bucolic, but they also show the harshness of subsistence conditions
and by implication the richness of what the bucolic world and its poetry offer,
even if that is almost parodied in Boukaios’s song. By offering a perspective on
bucolic poetry from the margin in Idyll 10, Theocritus suggests both the rewards
of bucolic poetry and its limits. In this way, Theocritus seems to put another
check on any tendency to use the bucolic poems for mere escapism.
Payne’s own treatment of these poems as fictions is much too sophisticated
to succumb to this latter danger, although he sees them as offering readers access
to a world removed from “actuality,” self-​sufficient and alluring. When herdsmen
sing or listen to bucolic songs, this arouses readers’ desire to enter the bucolic
world and, through imaginative “self-​projection,” to become one with its inhabit-
ants: “being bucolic means becoming bucolic: merging the self with an imagined
counterpart is one of the attractions of this world.”6 For Payne, too, then, desire

5. Empson 1974, 22.

6. Payne 2007, 17.
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Conclusion 199

is fundamental, but I see it working in a somewhat different way. Although he

acknowledges here and there moments of frustrated desire in characters and read-
ers, he seems to understand them as successfully entering this other world in imag-
ination, whereas I see the poems as offering the reader entry into it as an object of
desire but constantly deferring its fulfillment. So the singers in the “monologue
poems” “[tell] stories in which they fashion an imaginative escape from the desire
that led them to sing in the first place.”7 In Idyll 11, he says, Polyphemos con-
structs in imagination a world that takes the place of Galateia’s presence.8 I am
less sure of Polyphemos’s success and have suggested above that he both controls
and feeds his desire; the double meaning of ἐποίμαινεν, “shepherded,” at Id. 11.80
precisely models for a character within the poem the reader’s experience of desire.
In a similar way, Payne sees the imagined song of Tityros in Idyll 7 as a form of
“therapy” for Lykidas: the longing it arouses in him for an idealized version of
his own world “displaces his grief over his lover’s departure.”9 This is an attrac-
tive way to understand the relation between Lykidas’s love for Ageanax and the
song he imagines Tityros would sing, but it seems to me hard to square with the
admittedly enigmatic lines 52–​56 of Idyll 7, together with τῆνο κατ’ ἆμαρ (“on
that day”) in line 63, which suggest that Lykidas’s rustic symposium and Tityros’s
singing are to occur, if they ever do, after Ageanax has “rescued” Lykidas from love
(however that is supposed to happen). Still, Payne’s approach to the bucolic Idylls
as fictions in the sense he gives that term goes a long way toward explaining the
complex ways in which Theocritus offers us “the pleasures of the imaginary” (the
title of one of Payne’s chapters).10
Another approach to the question of what these poems offer readers is to say
that it cultivates in them what Martha Nussbaum calls “the narrative imagina-
tion,” which she sees as a major function of literature in general.11 Literary fic-
tions, she says, extend our understanding beyond the limits of our selves and our
experience, especially as that is shaped by our position in society, and help us
to understand what it is to be someone very different from us and to develop

7. Payne 2007, 93.

8. Payne 2007, 79.
9. Payne 2007, 125.
10. In an important recent article, Yukai Li 2019 has extended the views of Payne and the art
theorist Michael Fried to propose a sophisticated model of “absorption-​distraction” and desire
to account for the ways that Theocritean characters can never fully “become bucolic” and
the reader can never fully enter the bucolic world. This is congenial to my own readings of
Theocritus and might underlie some of the features of the poems that I have pointed to. I regret
that the article appeared too late for me to take it into account in the body of this book.
11. Nussbaum 1997, 85–​112.
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200 T heo crit us

“compassion” for others. This view, like Payne’s, involves a kind of imaginative
projection, but rather than resulting in a merging with another world, this sym-
pathetic understanding is based on an awareness of differences between ourselves
and others. Another difference is that the effects of this understanding are car-
ried over into our daily lives in society. In the case of Theocritus, urban readers,
many of them elite and highly educated, would be put in touch with the natural
environment and would evolve a fellow feeling, but not identification, with lowly
herders and sympathize with their pleasures and pains. What would connect
these readers and fictional characters would be a shared experience of eros for
what they cannot have. That the poems often treat characters with humor and
irony is no obstacle for this view. It helps maintain a necessary distance from the
characters and their world, which the reader cannot fully enter.
On the other hand, one could see the use of imagination in Theocritus’s bucol-
ics in the opposite way, as Charles Isenberg and David Konstan do, as arousing
on the part of urban elite readers “a patronizing sympathy for lovesickness in the
humble.”12 This reading stresses the effect of all those elements in the poems that
create distance between their audience and their characters. It takes full account
of the difference in class and economic position between those at Ptolemy’s court
(let us say, but the readership was surely wider, eventually if not at first) and those
at the bottom of society and sees it as a gulf not fully bridged by any sympathy the
reader might feel, which would be condescending. It may be a point in its favor
that Nussbaum, who is very aware of the differences of ethnicity, class, and gender
between groups but argues that the narrative imagination can promote mutual
understanding and sympathy, writes with her eye on liberal democracy and draws
especially on Greek tragedy, a product of democratic Athens, whereas in a mon-
archy such as the Ptolemaic empire, hierarchies may have been more pronounced.
I should add that “patronizing sympathy” would not rule out the poems’ arousal
of eros in their readers as I have described it.
The texts are open to any of these responses, and I suspect that many readers
would have felt a complicated mixture of several. Their horizons would have been
extended by the poems, and they would have gained some understanding of what
it was like to be a victim of frustrated desire at the bottom of society; they would
also be made acutely aware of the attractions of a world for which a characteristic
adjective was “sweet” and be drawn toward it. At the same time, they would never
have forgotten their own higher standing and the more complex lives they led
even while attracted to simplicity. Consider again Polyphemos of Idyll 11. We are
entertained by the incongruity of a Cyclops’s love for a beautiful Nymph and by

12. Isenberg and Konstan 1984, 302–​303.

201

Conclusion 201

his delusion that he has a chance with her. We might read his song to her with a
sense of cognitive superiority, especially since some of his own words foreshadow
(to us, not to him) what will happen to him at Odysseus’s hands. He seems so
immersed in the bucolic ethos that he is unaware that she might be unmoved by
the attractions of his life in a cave on land. And yet that very absorption exercises a
powerful pull on the reader in ways that Payne discusses: according to the bucolic
scale of values, his life is attractive. And the narrator tells us (Id. 11.10–​11) that he
loved not with tokens but with ὀρθαῖς μανίαις—​“upright/​genuine/​true madness.”
His perspective may be limited, and he may use the bucolic idiom because it is all
that he knows, but the depth and sincerity of his passion come through as well.
Much the same might be said about the goatherd in Idyll 3. Perhaps the terms
“patronizing” and “compassion” are too polarized to capture the complicated
responses that Theocritus’s poetry potentially calls forth.13
Like all good literature, but in their own ways, Theocritus’s poems test our
willingness and ability to extend our horizons beyond our customary cultural
and social worlds. They challenge us to give ourselves over to their complexity
and imagine various places and modes of being: herdsmen and other rural types,
different trees and shrubs, wild and domesticated animals, cities, Alexandrian
housewives, men and women from myth and their physical environments,
authoritarian rulers. Whether we read with sympathy, condescension, or other
feelings depends on us and on what we bring to the poetry in the way of our
experiences and preconceptions. The poems have the power to make us think
about our assumptions concerning nature and human society, their relation to
each other, and all that fills them. Whether or not to avail ourselves of these pos-
sibilities is up to each of us. This book has been intended to give some idea, if only
an approximation, of the worlds Theocritus constructed for his ancient readers
and for us.

13. Some (probably) Hellenistic sculpture, with its realism bordering sometimes on the gro-
tesque, poses similar questions. Seeing an image of a drunk old woman or a straining fisherman,
does a viewer feel a sense of superiority or sympathetic interest in common people and the dif-
ficulties of their lives? See Pollitt 1986, 142–​146.
20
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215

Index of Passages Cited

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on
occasion, appear on only one of those pages.

Aeschylus Athenaeus
Ag. 13, 60, 178, 252, 546, 916: 159n.13 176d: 162n.25
Ag. 212: 152–​53 412e-​f : 169n.43
Ag. 657: 159 476f–​477e: 10n.26
Eum. 292–​298: 106n.30
Callimachus
Pers. 606: 151n.144
Epigr. 22: 45
Apollonius of Rhodes Epigr. 43: 124n.80
Argonautika
Diodorus Siculus
1.782–​786: 144
16.83.1: 67
1.790–​791: 144n.130
2.4: 58n.35 Euripides
2.8: 55–​56 Bacchae
3.422: 144n.130 457–​459: 180
3. 802, 808, 844: Troades
141n.119 414–​415: 141–​42
3.1022–​1023: 144n.130
Herodotus
4.25: 141n.119
1.31.3: 69n.66
4.26–​42: 42–​43n.116
4.172: 64n.56
4.866–​879: 71–​72
Hesiod
Archilochus
[Shield of Herakles]
fr. 196a.42–​48W: 145
213–​215: 182–​83
Aristophanes Theogony
Aves 23: 13n.37
240, 620: 15 30–​34: 106n.31
Aristotle 83–​84: 113–​14n.55
Eth. Nic. 10, 1177a12 359: 137n.110
216

216 Index of Passages Cited

Hesiod (cont.) 12.285: 56n.27

Works and Days 14.78: 10n.26
1: 177–​78 15.382: 56n.27
182: 87n.102 16.52: 10n.26
225–​247: 81–​82 17.204–​253: 57
235: 87n.102 18.90–​99: 60n.38
365–​367: 174–​75 19.33–​40: 64–​65
571–​581: 171n.48 19.107–​114: 81–​82
Homer 20.98–​121: 64–​65
Iliad 22.481–​482, 493–​494:
1.249: 64n.55, 119–​20 68n.64
1.348–​351: 136–​37 23.233–​240: 185n.79
2.763–​767: 91n.116 Homeric Hymn to Demeter
3.23–​26: 148n.138 275–​280: 71
3.90: 42–​43n.116 Leonidas of Tarentum
3.217: 144 A. P. 7.295: 186–​87
11.113–​119: 148n.138
Lysias
16.514–​516: 106n.30
1.7-​9: 145–​46
16.756–​758: 148n.138
1.15–​17: 146n.134
18.45: 136–​37
18.54–​60: 71–​72 Moschus
22.189–​192: 148n.138 Fr. 1 Gow: 184–​85
22.467: 114 Fr. 1.10 Gow: 188n.84
23.653–​699: 57 Lament for Bion: 108–​9
Odyssey
Pindar
3.120–​125: 87n.102
N. 1.41: 67
5.63–​75: 50
N. 1.60–​61: 68
5.81–​86: 136–​37 N. 1.62–​72: 68
5.394–​399: 185n.79 N. 10.65–​68: 61–​62
6.130–​136: 148n.138 O. 7. 1–​4, 7–​9: 76–​78
8.266–​367: 119–​20
8.573: 56n.27 Plato
9.20: 78–​79 Phaedrus
9.107: 78–​79 230b: 64n.56
9.107–​111: 58–​59 255d: 136–​37
9.259: 56n.27 Symposium
9.346: 10n.26 179e–​180a: 147
9.447–​460: 58–​59 200b9–​200d10: 101n.21
10.223: 39 203c5–​203d3: 98–​99
11.225–​30: 69n.66 Simonides
12.184–​191: 120n.70 PMG 543.8–​20: 66–​67
217

Index of Passages Cited 217

Theocritus 1.115–​136: 111

Epigr.4 1.120–​121: 104
7: 56n.28 1.122, C3P138
11–​12: 114–​15 1.123–​126: 12–​13
1.123–​130: 105–​7
Fr. 3 Gow
1.131–​132: 25n.66
C4P152 n78
1.132–​136: 5–​6, 111–​12
Idyll 1
1.143: 10n.26
1.1: 102
1.145: 102, 110n.47
1.1–​2: 5
1.146–​148: 113–​14
1.1–​6: 161
1.148: 114
1.1–​23: 25–​27
1.149: 10n.26
1.3: 106–​7
1.151–​152: 26–​27
1.6: 164–​65
1.7–​8: 5, 56, 102 Idyll 2
1.12-​23: 19, 107 2.15–​16: 141n.119, 142–​43
1.14: 127 2.35: 40n.109
1.19: 101–​2 2.44: 143–​44
1.19–​20: 116 2.56–​60: 42–​43
1.23–​24: 111–​12 2.76: 41–​42
1.23–​25: 116 2.76–​80: 144
1.27: 10n.26 2.78: 143–​44
1.39–​44: 183–​84 2.83–​85: 41–​42
1.45: 183–​84 2.86: 41–​42
1.45–​54: 9–​10 2.91–​92: 41–​42
1.57–​58: 9–​10 2.101: 42–​43n.116
1.62–​63: 117 2.104–​106: 42–​43
1.65: 102, 113 2.112: 144
1.66–​69: 12–​13, 104–​5 2.115: 143–​44, 145n.131
1.68: 10–​11 2.118–​122: 42–​43, 144
1.71–​75: 12, 109–​10 2.124–​125: 142–​43
1.74–​75: 160 2.124–​128: 42–​43
1.77: 104 2.136–​138: 42–​43
1.82–​85: 102–​4 2.138–​139: 145–​46
1.85–​88: 95–​96, 103–​4 2.143: 146–​47
1.86–​91: 110–​11 2.145–​149: 146n.134
1.94–​122: 102 2.149–​153: 123–​24
1.97–​98: 159 2.150: 143–​44
1.105: 39–​40 2.151–​153: 42
1.106: 49–​50 2.156: 42
1.106–​107: 25n.66 2.159–​162: 140–​41
1.115–​121: 12, 108–​11, 115–​16 2.160: 42–​43
218

218 Index of Passages Cited

Theocritus (cont.) 4.21: 11–​12

2.163–​164: 146–​47 4.23–​25: 13–​14
2.164: 141–​42 4.26–​28: 161
Idyll 3 4.27: 159
3.2: 6–​7, 13n.36, 125 4.29–​37: 161–​64
3.6: 6–​7, 98n.13, 165–​66, 167n.40, 170 4.29–​40: 166–​67
3.6–​7: 96–​97 4.32: 11–​12, 163
3.7: 167n.40 4.33: 163–​64
3.8–​9: 96–​97 4.35: 163–​64
3.10: 97 4.35–​40: 98
3.10–​11: 6–​7, 9–​10, 96–​97, 164–​65 4.37; C4P46
3.12: 97 4.38: 98n.13, 98n.15, 167n.40
3.12–​14: 94–​96 4.39: 165–​66
3.15: 97 4.42: 165–​66
3.18: 97–​98, 98n.15 4.44–​45: 158
3.18–​19: 97, 167n.40 4.44–​46: 13, 155–​56
3.21–​23: 96–​97 4.53: 166–​67
3.23: 50n.12 4.56: 13, 155
3.25–​26: 6–​7 4.56–​57: 12–​13, 13n.36
3.26: 182–​83 4.57: 12
3.29: 94 4.58–​63: 167
3.31: 16 Idyll 5
3.34–​36: 164n.32 5.1–​4: 16–​18
3.35–​36: 16 5.2: 164–​65
3.36: 98n.13 5.3–​7: 18
3.38: 6–​7 5.5: 16
3.39–​40: 6–​7 5.8: 16
3.46: 39–​40 5.10: 16n.49
Idyll 4 5.11–​12: 164–​65
4.4: 16, 167 5.20: 25n.66, 101–​2
4.5: 158–​59 5.31–​32: 176–​77
4.6: 168–​69 5.31-​34: 19
4.7: 158, 168–​69 5.34: 49–​50
4.8: 163 5.36–​37: 18
4.9: 168–​69 4.38–​40: 165–​66
4.10: 158 5.41–​42: 18, 95–​96
4.12: 160 5.43: 19–​20n.59
4.13: 159–​60 5.45: 20, 49–​50
4.16: 157n.7 5.45–​46: 25n.66
4.17–​19: 13–​14 5.45–​49: 19
4.17–​25: 5, 168–​69 5.50–​51: 164–​65
4.20–​22: 164–​66 5. 51–​52: 24–​25
219

Index of Passages Cited 219

5.52: 28n.73 6.10–​12: 7

5.56–​57: 164–​65 6.14: 137–​38
5.60: 17–​18 6.17: 130–​31
5.61: 20 6.18–​19: 137–​38, 177–​78
5.62: 11–​12 6.19: 132–​33
5.63–​65: 11–​12 `6.21–​22: 132–​33
5.66: 11–​12 6.32–​33: 139n.114
5.67: 17–​18 6.33: 49n.10
5.72–​73: 16 6.34–​38: 135–​36
5.78: 11–​12 6.36: 137–​38
5.78–​79: 11–​12 6.40: 16
5.80–​81: 25n.66 6.42: 18
5.88–​89: 9–​10 6.42–​44: 129–​30
5.96–​97: 164–​65 6.42–​46: 17–​18
5.98–​99: 164n.32 6.43: 18
5.100: 20 6.45: 6–​7, 18
5.100–​101: 155–​56 Idyll 7
5.101: 25n.66 7.10: 41–​42
5.104: 56n.28 7.10–​11: 28–​29
5.108–​115: 9–​10 7.13–​14: 30–​31, 99n.17
5.111: 80n.90 7.13–​19: 27–​28, 99n.17
5.117: 20 7.18–​19: 166–​67
5.118: 19–​20n.59 7.21–​23: 28–​29
5.120–​123: 21–​24 7.30–​31: 161n.23
5.128: 170 7.32–​34: 9
5.133: 164–​65 7.35: 18n.53
5.136: 17–​18 7.37: 114
5.136–​137: 112n.51 7.40: 161n.23
5.139–​40: 164–​65 7.41: 112n.51
5.141: 18 7.47–​48: 112n.51
5.142–​144: 17–​18 7.51: 13n.36, 27–​28, 127–​28, 150
5.147–​150: 25n.66 7. 52–​56: 121–​23, 198–​99
Idyll 6 7.53–​54: 184
6.1–​4: 17–​18 7.56: 121
6.2: 129 7.57–​60: 122–​23
6.2–​3: 129–​30 7.59–​60: 184
6.3: 6–​7 7.60: 7
6.3–​4: 130–​31 7.60–​61: 29–​30
6.6–​7: 9–​10, 132 7.61–​62: 123
6.7: 95n.6 7.63: 198–​99
6.8–​9: 138–​39 7.64–​72: 123
6.9–​14: 134–​35 7.67: 49–​50
20

220 Index of Passages Cited

Theocritus (cont.) 10.10: 171

7.67–​68: 29–​30 10.11: 171–​72
7.68: 50n.12 10.13: 171–​72
7.69–​70: 123–​24 10.14: 175
7. 72–​77: 101–​2, 116, 125, 131n.94 10.15: 173n.53
7.73: 103n.25 10.15–​16: 178n.61
7.76-​77: 12–​13, 29–​30 10.16–​17: 9
7.78-​79: 29–​30 10.17: 176
7.78–​82: 125–​26 10.17–​18: 175
7.78–​85: 56, 79 10.19–​23: 175–​76
7.82–​89: 24–​25, 126–​28 10.24–​25: 177–​78
7.84–​85: 115 10.26: 170, 177–​78
7.88: 56n.28 10.30–​31: 170
7.89: 115 10.32–​35: 178
7.91–​93: xviiin.13 10.36: 170
7.91–​95: 13n.37 10.40: 179n.63
7.92: 13n.36, 27–​28 10.42–​43: 172–​73
7.93: 162–​63 10.44–​45: 173n.53
7.96–​97: 165–​66 10.48–​51: 80n.89, 171
7.103–​114: 27–​28 10.52–​55: 171–​73
7.111–​114: 12–​13 10.56–​58: 179–​80
7.120–​124: 145n.131 Idyll 11
7.121: 143–​44 11.7: 11n.29
7.122–​125: 27–​28 11.10–​11: 200–​1
7.123–​126: 27–​28 11. 13–​16: 7
7.128: 166–​67 11.14: 140n.117
7.128–​129: 106n.31 11.17–​18: 7
7.131–​157: 4–​5, 32 11.18: 140n.117
7.132–​134: 29–​30 11.20: 136
7.133: 49n.10 11.23–​24: 133–​34
7. 155–​158: 27–​28 11.25–​29: 133–​34
[Idyll 8] 11.30–​33: 137
[8].2: 13n.36 11.34–​49: xviiin.13
[Idyll 9] 11.40–​41: 164n.32
[9]. 7–​13: 15 11.45: 56n.28
[9].15-​21: 15n.47 11.54–​60: 7
Idyll 10 11.75: 175
10.1: 191 11.77–​78: 16
10.1–​2: 170–​71 11.80: 140n.117, 198–​99
10.4: 170–​71 Idyll 12
10.7: 171 12.10: 100–​1
10.7–​9: 173–​74 12.10–​21: 178
21

Index of Passages Cited 221

12.13–​14: 38–​39n.103 14.8: 89n.112

12.15–​16: 100–​1 14.12: 91n.116
Idyll 13 14.14: 90
13.1–​4: 101–​53 14.18–​19: 124n.80
13.3: 138 14.20–​21: 89n.112
13.5–​6: 152–​53 14.23: 89n.112
13.5–​9: 149–​51 14.31: 89n.112
13.6: 148 14.41: 89n.112
13.8-​9: 21 14.53–​54: 90–​91
13.14: 150 14.55: 90–​91
13.15:C3P318 14.62: 197
13.19–​24: 45–​47 14.63–​65: 91–​92
13.23: 48 Idyll 15
13.25: xvii 15.1: 33n.87
13.25–​26: 53 15.4–​7: 35
13.25–​31: 46–​47 15.6: 35n.93
13.26: 56 15.7: 35
13.30–​31: 49–​50 15.18–​20: 33–​34
13.32: 50–​51 15.24: 33–​34
13.32–​35: 49, 55 15.34–​37: 36–​37
13.35: 56n.27 15.34–​38: 33–​34
13.37: 56 15.43: 33n.87
13.37–​38: 50–​51 15.45: 38
13.39–​42: 50 15.46–​50: 33–​34, 38,
13.39–​45: 49 39–​40
13.40: 50 15.51–​52: 35, 38
13.43–​45: 50 15.57: 37
13.48–​49: 150–​52, 151n.144 15.61–​62: 39
13.49: 50 15.73: 38, 39
13.53–​54: 50–​51 15.77: 33n.87
13.58: 113–​14 15.79: 39
13.58–​60: 150–​51 15.80: 33–​34
13.59–​60: 50–​51 15.80–​86: 33–​34
13.62–​65: 148–​49 15.86: 196
13.62–​67: 50–​51 15.87–​88: 38
13.66: 150n.142, 153 15.87–​95: 39–​40
13.72: 151–​52 15.106-​108: 39–​40
13.72–​75: 47–​48 15.106–​111: 38
13.73: 152–​53 15.118–​122: 39–​40
13.75: 48 15.125: 33–​34
Idyll 14 15.126–​127: 35–​37, 85
14.6–​7: 89–​90 15.136–​137: 39–​40
2

222 Index of Passages Cited

Theocritus (cont.) 21.15–​18: 188–​89

Idyll 16 21.20: 188n.83
16.2: 75–​76 21.32–​33: 190
16.5–​65: 73 21.39–​41: 189
16.6–​12: 75–​76 21.63–​67: 190
16.22–​23: 75–​76, 86 Idyll 22
16.27–​28: 76–​77 22.27–​29: 53–​54
16.29: 86 22.30–​33: 55
16.30–​34: 86 22.34–​36: 55–​56
16.31–​33: 84–​85 22.37–​43: 56
16.34–​35: 84–​85 22.44: 58–​59
16.34–​39: 81 22.54–​74: 61–​62
16.38: 58–​59 22.75–​79: 59–​60
16.40–​47: 82 22.105–​106: 59
16.48–​57: 86 22.131–​134: 60
16.51–​53: 78–​79 22.145–​180: 61
16.66–​100: 73 22.170–​180: 62n.45
16.73: 73 22.199–​200: 61–​62
16.88–​97: 79–​82 22.214–​222: 61–​62
16.95: 59n.36 Idyll 24
16.98–​100: 78–​79, 81, 82 24.5: 65–​66
16.101–​103: 82–​83 24.7–​8: 66
16.103: 87 24.10: 65–​66
16.104–​109: 83–​84 24.11–​12: 73n.71
Idyll 17 24.13–​16: 67
17.16–​33: 73n.71 24.17–​20: 67
17.56–​57: 87 24.21: 69–​70
17.77–​94: 87–​88 24.41: 68
17.96: 86 24.46: 64–​65
17.97: 88–​89 24.47–​53: 64–​65
17.106–​116: 86 24.49: 65n.57
17.112–​114: 161n.23 24.54–​56: 64–​65
17.118–​120: 86 24.73: 70, 71
[Id. 20] 24.75–​80: 68–​69
[20]. 25–​28: 115 24.79–​85: 67–​68
Idyll 21 24.81–​83: 68
21.1–​3: 187–​88 24.95: 67–​68
21.2–​3: 188n.83 24.96: 67–​68
21.3: 191 24.103–​104: 69–​70, 71–​72
21.6: 184n.78 24.103–​134: 150
21.8–​9: 188 24.105: 73n.71
21.14: 188 24.134: 68
23

Index of Passages Cited 223

Idyll 25 25.157–​158: 8n.22

25.7–​33: 8–​9 25.173: 70
25.13–​17: 13–​14
Thucydides
25.33: 9
6.13.1: 174
25.36: 9
25.45: 9 Vergil
25.153: 9 Ecl. 5.43–​44: 110n.48
24
25

Subject Index

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on
occasion, appear on only one of those pages.

absence, 93–​101 work song in, 171–​73, 179–​80

bucolic vs. agricultural responses to, See also bucolic world; labor
173–​74 Akhilleus, 71–​72, 73, 87n.102, 136–​37, 147
as constituting bucolic song, 96, Alexandria
194–​95 centripetal force of, 36–​37, 38, 88–​89,
as fundamental for bucolic, 93, 101–​2 91–​92, 192–​93
Idylls generated by, xiii centripetal force of royal palace in, 35–​36
in Id. 1, 101–​21 as city of immigrants, 92
in Id. 2, 140–​47 ethnic diversity of, 32–​33
in Id. 4, 160, 169 ethnic identity in, 31–​32, 33–​34
in Id. 6, 115, 129–​39 as imperial center, 89–​90
in Id. 7, 121–​28 interethnic relations in, 33–​34, 38,
in Id. 13, 147–​53 60–​61, 193–​94
as presupposed by kômos, 94 as microcosm of Ptolemaic empire,
and readers, 195–​96 33–​34
tragic potential of, 125 as spatial system, 33–​34
of voice, 119–​20 See also Ptolemaic empire
See also eros Alpers, Paul, 3, 16–​17
Acosta-​Hughes, Benjamin, 44n.1 Anagnostou-​Laoutides, Eva, 103n.25
Adonis Andrews, N. E., 42–​43n.116
festival of, 33–​34, 36, 39–​40, 196 Apollonius of Rhodes, xvi–​xvii, 1, 44–​45,
agon. See competition 46–​47, 70, 71–​72, 192–​93
agricultural world Theocritus’s relation to, xvii, 48–​49,
vs. bucolic world, 9–​10, 20–​21, 27–​28, 54–​56, 58–​59, 60, 144, 193–​94
169–​81 apostrophe, 107–​12, 127–​28, 132, 146–​47
eros alien to, 170, 173–​74, 176–​77 Archilochus
linguistic characteristics of, 171–​72 Cologne Epode, 145
scarcity of food and drink in, 171–​73 poetic investiture of, 30–​31
26

226 Subject Index

Arsinoe, 36, 38, 72–​73 and Ptolemaic self-​legitimation, 196

athletics within Ptolemaic palace, 39–​40, 196
Aigon’s pretensions to (Id. 4), 158, readers’ responses to, 197–​201
168–​69 sensibility, 53
and gluttony, 163–​64 bucolic sensibility, xiii–​xiv, 53, 154–​55,
vs. herding, 155, 158 193, 196
as subject of epinician, 163–​64 bucolic song
Augeias, farm of, 7–​9, 10, 16, 49–​50, 80 as attempt to restore lost presence, 102,
aulos, 9, 18 107, 112–​13
Austin, Norman, 74–​75 as attempt to recover Daphnis’s
singing, 101–​2
Bacchylides, 73–​74, 78n.84 of Boukaios (Id. 10), 170
Barigazzi, Adelmo, 168n.41 vs. epinician, 163–​65
bees, 125–​26, 129–​30 vs. urbane songs, 162–​63
Belloni, Luigi, 188n.83 waning of (Id. 4), 159, 165–​66
Berenike, 72–​73, 88–​89 vs. work song, 172–​73, 177–​80
Berger, Harry, 113n.54, 197 bucolic world
Bernsdorff, Hans, 131–​32 and cities, 10–​12, 36–​37, 168, 196
Borgogno, Alberto, 29–​30 defined by margins, 7, 154–​55, 182–​83,
boundaries 189, 190, 193–​94
between bucolic and agricultural disintegration of (Id. 4), 155–​69, 191
space, 7–​8, 11–​12 extremes encompassed by, 21–​24
between bucolic and untamed space, 12 foundational values of, 169
between human and divine, 50–​51, and interethnic relations, 60–​61
67–​68 lost wholeness of, 98–​99
between inside and outside, 6–​7, sacrifice elided in, 164–​65
42–​43, 65, 67 stylization of, xiii, 5–​7, 194–​95
between land and sea, 7, 133–​34, work exceptional in, 166–​67
182–​83, 189 See also absence; agricultural world;
of earth, 79 eros; leisure; mountain
fluidity of, xiv, 31–​33, 39–​40, 89–​90, Buller, J. L., 108–​9
91–​92, 132, 154–​55, 193–​94 Burton, Joan, 32–​33, 39, 42–​43n.116
reassertion of, 67–​68
territorial, 67–​68 Callimachus, xvi–​xvii, 1, 38–​39n.103,
See also houses; margins; space 44n.1, 74–​75, 113–​14n.55, 192–​93
bucolic de Certeau, Michel, 33–​34
definitions of, xviii Chaniotis, Angelos, 14–​15
grotesque accommodated by, 59, 196–​97 cicadas, 114
ideology of, 84–​85 class
in Id. 16, 80–​71 in Id. 2, 142n.124
in Id. 22, 56–​61 and readers’ responses, 199–​200
27

Subject Index 227

Clayman, Dee, 74–​75 Epyllion, 44–​45

colonization, 53, 60–​61 eros, 93–​101
comedy, 57 for bucolic world, 125
competition as constituted by absence, 99, 131, 136,
poetic, 17–​18, 129–​30, 160–​61, 179 141–​42, 149, 169
masculine, 19, 21–​24, 53, 60, 61–​62, as constituting bucolic world and
196–​97 song, 100, 123–​24, 198
crete, 14–​15 dangers of, 174
Culler, Jonathan, 107–​8, 111, 127–​28 debasement of (Id. 4), 167
cup (Id. 1), 9–​10, 97n.11, 120, 183–​84 and fiction-​making, 97, 98
Cusset, Christophe, 7n.17, 133n.98, 135 fulfillment of, 100–​1, 146–​47, 150–​51
and heroism, 147, 152–​53
Danae, 66, 70, 73n.71 and leisure, 176–​77
Daphnis of Lykidas, 122–​23
as archetypal bucolic singer Plato’s view of, 98–​99
death of, 26–​27 and possession, 101
death of, as founding bucolic, 101–​2 power of, 48–​49, 147, 151–​53, 197
Rescue of, by Herakles, 179 of readers, xiii, 120–​21, 125–​26, 128,
story of, 103, 117, 125, 131–​32 195–​96, 198–​99
Davies, Malcolm, 34n.90 reality reshaped by, 137–​38, 177–​78
deictics, 19, 25, 194–​95 at symposium, 123–​24
Demeter, xv–​xvi, 71–​72, 172–​73 See also absence
desire. See eros eros (god), 99, 176
Dover, K. J., 90, 141–​42 ethnic identity
Duncan, Anne, 142–​43n.125 fluidity of, 31–​32, 89–​90
euphonist theory, 115–​16, 119
Edquist, Harriet, 7–​8n.21
Elliger, Einfried, 49 fantasy, 2, 97, 100–​1, 115, 121, 125, 127–​28,
Empson, William, 84–​85, 197–​98 128–​29n.87, 178, 190, 191, 198
enclosures Fantuzzi, Marco, 105n.28
in Id. 7, 29–​30, 125, 128 fictionality, 30–​32, 112–​13, 125–​26,
in Id. 16, 75–​76, 79, 83 132, 133, 138–​39, 177–​78, 181, 191,
in Id. 24, 65–​67, 70 194–​96
See also frames and apostrophe, 107–​8
encomium See also eros; fantasy; imagination
Idyll 16 and, 73–​75 fishermen
epic poetry in bucolic Idylls, 182–​84
Theocritus’s relation to, xviii–​, 39, 44–​ in Greek poetry, 182–​83
45, 49, 51–​53, 57–​60, 62–​64, 147, hard labor of, 183–​84, 186–​87, 191
150, 151n.144, 152–​53, 196–​97 in Hellenistic poetry outside
epinician, 163–​65 Theocritus, 184–​87
28

228 Subject Index

fishermen (cont.) Herakles

in Hellenistic sculpture, 183–​84, alleged ancestor of Ptolemies, 63–​64,
201n.13 73n.71, 88, 192–​93
Poverty of, 187–​90 apotheosis of, 67–​68, 70, 73n.71, 192–​93
tools of, 188 Daphnis rescued by, 179
See also labor; poverty education of, 68, 73n.71, 150, 192–​93
Foucault, Michel, xiv–​xv gluttony of, 150–​51, 163
frames, 21–​24, 27–​28, 48, 111–​12, 121, gullet of, 113–​14
125–​26, 128, 129, 130–​31, 132, 133, heroic and comic potential of, 64
194–​95, 197–​98 importance of, in Theocritus, 63–​64
See also enclosures Olympic games founded by, 163–​64
paternity of, 65–​66, 69–​70
gender and pederasty, 21, 149–​50
in Id. 2, 41–​43, 140, 142–​43, 145–​46 subject to eros
in Id. 14, 89n.112, 90–​91 heroism. See epic poetry
in Id. 15, 33–​34 Hesiod
in Id. 24, 68–​73 poetic investiture of, 30–​31, 106–​7
and paleness vs. tan, 180 presence of, in Id. 10, 170, 174–​75,
roles of, inverted, 50–​51, 144, 145–​47, 176–​78, 179
149 and work, 181
spatial expression of, 38, 41–​43, 68 heterotopia, xiv–​xv, 3–​4n.8, 31–​32, 87–​88,
See also houses; space; wool and textile 193–​94
production Hieron II of Syracuse, 73, 81, 83n.95,
genre, xviii–​xix, 51–​53, 57–​58, 64 85–​86
Gershenson, Daniel, 111n.50 Hinge, George, 38–​39n.103
Giangrande, Giuseppe, 182, 189n.85 Hipponax, 74–​75
Gibbs-​Wichrowska, Laura, 142–​43n.125 honey, 113–​15, 125–​26, 127–​28
Glauke, 162–​63 hospitality, 54, 60–​62, 76–​78, 196–​97
González, José, 74–​75 houses
Gow, A. S. F., 37, 65, 78–​79, 141–​42, and gender, 42–​43, 68, 142–​43
181–​82, 189 in Id. 2, 41
Graces (Χάριτες), 75–​76, 78–​79 in Id. 16, 75–​78
Grethlein, Jonas, 180 as setting for Id. 24, 63–​66, 67–​68
Griffiths, Frederick, 34n.90, 61–​62, See also gender; space
73–​74, 75 Hunt, Jeffrey, 169–​70n.45
Gutzwiller, Kathryn, xviii, 25–​26, 44n.1, Hunter, Richard, 96–​97, 123–​24, 147,
73–​74, 84–​85, 97–​98, 149n.141, 149, 159
156–​57, 160–​61 Hutchinson, G. O., 152–​53

Haber, Judith, 103, 156, 163–​64 Idylls

Halperin, David xix, 52 categories of, xii–​xiii, xix
Harvey, David, 2, 25 defined, xi
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Subject Index 229

loose coherence of, xiv vs. mobility, 80

as poetic corpus, xv–​xvi See also bucolic world; eros
relations between, 39–​40 Li, Yukai, 199n.10
Spatial system constructed by, 3–​4, Lindsell, Alice, 5–​6, 194
36–​37, 59, 192–​93 Lityerses, 179
illusion, 132, 133, 135, 137, 138–​39, 177–​78, Looijenga, André, 87
200–​1 lyric poetry, 63–​64, 149, 150
imagination, 21–​24, 125–​26, 178, 180–​81, Lysias, 145–​46
191, 198
See also fantasy; fictionality magic, 41–​42, 140, 141–​43, 197
Isenberg, Charles, 200 margins
Iser, Wolfgang, 112–​13 and boundaries, 31–​32
bucolic world defined by, 7, 154–​91
Jones, Frederick, 7n.20 Massey, Doreen, 38
Mastronarde, Donald, 49
Kaloudis, Naomi, 117–​19 mercenaries, 90–​91
Kampakoglou, Alexandros, 164n.31 meter, 137–​38
Kirke, 39 Miles, Gary, 113n.54
Kirstein, Robert, 181–​82n.71 Milon (athlete), 168–​69
Klooster, Jacqueline, 3–​4n.8 Miletos, 36
Kômos, 42–​43, 93, 97, 144 mirror, 135, 136
space in, 94 mobility, 34–​35
Konstan, David, 96–​97, 103n.25, 200 and ethnic identity, 38, 89–​90
Krevans, Nita, 39–​40 idylls as response to, xiv, 31–​33, 193
Kroton, 11–​12, 85, 161, 163, 164–​65, 168–​69 within city, 33–​34
Kühn, Josef-​Hans, 113n.54 See also Alexandria; mercenaries;
Kwapisz, Jan, 91–​92 place; space
Kyriakou, Poulheria, 72n.70, 74–​75 mountain, the
bucolic world designated by, xiii, 13–​14,
labor 27–​28, 55–​56, 104, 173–​74, 180
agricultural, 169–​81, 191 Muses, 105, 117
of fishermen, 183–​88, 191
Lambert, Michael, 34n.90, 142–​43n.125 names
Laursen, Simon, 62n.46 of Amaryllis, 98
Lawall, Gilbert, 156 of Bombyka, 178n.61
Lefebvre, Henri, 1–​2 of Boukaios, 170–​71
leisure of Daphnis, 131–​32
bucolic, 5, 43, 58–​59 of Galateia, 133–​34, 135
and eros, xiv–​xv, 121, 176–​77 of Komatas, 24–​25
vs. labor, xiii, 7–​8, 9n.24, 29–​30, 32, of Lityerses, 179n.64
80n.90, 85, 166–​67, 169–​81, 183–​84, of Milon, 168–​69, 180
185, 191, 193–​94, 198 of Philinos, 143–​44
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230 Subject Index

names (cont.) Parry, Hugh, 142–​43n.125

of τηλέφιλον, 94 pastas, 64–​65
of Tityros, 7n.18, 124 pathetic fallacy, 108–​9
narcissism, 136 patronage, 75, 77–​78, 82, 85–​86, 91–​92,
narrative imagination, 199–​200 193n.2
nature Pausch, Dennis, 89n.111
bucolic vs. agricultural attitudes to, 181 Payne, Mark, 26–​27, 194, 197, 198–​201
human culture’s relation to, 25–​27, 31–​ pederasty, 18, 19–​20, 21, 129–​30, 143–​44,
32, 95–​96, 108–​9, 120, 148, 194–​95, 149–​50
197, 201 penestai, 81, 84
Nussbaum, Martha, 199–​200 performance, 118–​19
Nymphs Perseus, 66, 70, 73n.71
absence of, from Daphnis’s death, 105, Philoxenus, 58–​59, 132, 138–​39
111–​12 Pindar, 44–​45, 61, 63–​64, 65n.59, 67, 68,
in Id. 13, 48–​49, 50–​51, 149, 151–​52 69–​70, 73–​74, 76–​79, 83, 193n.1
as inspirers of bucolic song, 105 place
and placelessness, 28–​29, 30–​31, 90, 92,
Odysseus 193–​94
encounter of, with Melanthios, 57 places aligned by movement, 33–​34,
fame of, 78–​79 41, 43
gazes over sea, 137 relations between places, 50–​51, 55
house purified by, 68n.64 as spatial concept, 38
and Iros, 60n.38 See also houses; space
and Kirke, 39 Ploutos, 176
as manipulator of words, 144 poet
and Nausikaa, 148n.138 and autocratic rulers, 84, 87–​88
as paradigm of return, 78–​79 social role of, 75–​76, 82, 86
as πολυμήχανος, 67 poverty, 187–​88, 190, 191
and Polyphemos, 58–​59, 133 presence, 98–​99, 100, 101–​2, 103–​4, 125–​
Praise by, of Penelope, 81–​82 28, 129, 130–​31, 135, 157, 169, 194–​95
visit of, to the dead, 69 Ptolemaic empire
wanderings of, 55–​56 basis of wealth of, 36
Olympia Egypt within, 37
vs. bucolic world, 12–​13, 155 multiculturalism in, 192–​93
as Panhellenic center, 158 spatial configuration of, 88–​89, 192–​93
orality, 117–​19 See also Alexandria
Ptolemy I Soter, 73n.71, 88–​89
palaistra, 41, 142–​43, 142n.124 Ptolemy II Philadelphus
Pan as apex of empire, 36
in Id. 1, 25–​26, 105–​6, 193–​94 birth of, 88–​89
Papadopoulou, Maria, 36–​37 claims of, to legitimacy, 69–​70
paraclausithyron, 42–​43n.116 devotion of, to eros, 197
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Subject Index 231

effects of authority of, 38 bucolic, 4–​32, 43, 55–​56

generosity of, 86, 88–​89 confusion of (Id. 13), 50–​51
grand procession of, 178 elision of, 46–​47, 53, 54
as hoped-​for good king, 85–​86, 169, encomiastic, 73–​92
192–​93 in Fiction, xii, 1–​3
as protector of Egypt, 87–​88 and gender, 68, 69–​70, 143–​44, 145–​46
sister-​marriage of, 73n.71 hierarchies expressed by, 35–​36, 38
as “spearman,” 87 and human culture, 3, 20
Purchase, Philip, 110n.47, 131–​32 in masculine competition, 19, 20
Pyrrhos, 162–​63 mythological, 44–​73
Relational, 2, 25, 38
reciprocity Relative, 2–​3, 25, 26–​27, 35
in Id. 1, 17–​18 Representations of, 1–​2
in Id. 6, 129–​30 of representation, 2, 15
in Id. 16, 77–​78 as subsumed within Ptolemaic empire,
in Id. 17, 86 192–​93
Reed, Joseph, 129n.88 in urban mimes, 32–​43
road See also Bucolic world; houses; place;
encounters on, 28–​29, 32–​34, 40 space-​time
fluidity of identities on, 30–​31 space-​time, 75, 80, 88–​89
spear
sacrifice, animal, 163–​65 as imperial symbol, 87
Sappho, 177–​78, 179 springs, 5, 6–​7, 16–​18, 25, 45, 130–​31, 194
Samos, 36 in Id. 13, 49, 50–​51, 192–​93
Scholten, Helga, 169–​70n.45 in Id. 22, 53, 55–​56, 192–​93, 196–​97
Segal, Charles, 3n.7, 45, 113n.54, 156, 157, Stanzel, Karl-​Heinz, 105n.29
197 Stephens, Susan, 85–​86, 157, 168–​69,
Sens, Alexander, 52, 54n.24, 62n.46 192–​93, 197
sexuality Stern, Jacob, 67–​68
animal vs. human, 95–​96, 103–​4, 167 Sybaris, 11–​12, 16, 85, 168–​69
of Delphis (Id. 2), 143–​44 symposium, 21, 42–​43, 123–​24, 142n.124
Simonides, 44–​45, 66–​67, 70, 81 and Greek identity, 89–​90
Sistakou, Evina, 26–​27 in Id. 14, 90–​91
Skinner, Marilyn, 34n.90 syrinx, 9n.24, 18, 106, 161, 162–​63
slavery, 8–​9, 14–​15, 16, 21–​24, 41, 64–​65,
85, 145–​46, 171–​74 Theocritus
Sositheus, 179 in Alexandria (?), xvi–​
South Italy and contemporary culture, 83
as setting for Ids. 4 and 5, 155–​56, life, xvi–​xvii
168–​69 works, xi
space Thetis, 71–​72, 136–​37
and absence, xiii, 45 Thomas, Richard, 57–​58
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232 Subject Index

Thurii, 11–​12, 16, 168–​69 Van Sickle, John, 156,

time 157–​58n.9
agricultural, 80, 171 voice, 102, 113–​20, 121, 125–​26, 128
bucolic, 56, 80 See also voice
of day, 28–​29, 80n.89
linear, 33–​34 Walker, Steven, 162, 169–​70n.45
markers of, 53, 56, 80, 81, 123 Whitehorn, John, 33–​34, 170–​71,
mythic, 25 178
narrative, 129, 132–​33 wool and textile production, 33–​34,
and relative space, 35 36–​37
ritual, 33–​34 and gender, 33–​34, 36–​37
telescoping of (Id. 13), 48 See also gender
See also space-​time world-​building, 1–​2, 20–​21
transhumance, 14–​15 Worman, Nancy, 3–​4n.8, 28n.75
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