"For a while Daphnis watched his herd, and envied their amorous play.

When the first hairhad sprouted on his lip a divine nymph fell in love with him, and

had him for her mate. But as the price of her favors, she made him

swear that he would never love another woman. He tried hard to keep

his vow, and succeeded till a king"s daughter became enamored of his

youth and gave herself to him in the fields. Aphrodite saw it, and

revenged her fellow goddess by making Daphnis waste away with

unrequited love. As he died he bequeathed his pipe to Pan in a song to

which the narrator adds a haunting refrain:

"Master, approach; take to thee this fair pipe

Bedded in wax that breathes of honey still,

Bound at the lips with twine. For Love has come

To hale me off unto the house of Death."

Muses, forego, forego the pastoral song.

"Now let the briar and the thistle flower

With violets, and the fair narcissus bloom

On junipers; let all things go awry,

And pines grow pears, since Daphnis is for death.

Let stags pursue the hounds, and from the hills

The screeching owls outsing the nightingales."

Muses, forego, forego the pastoral song.

So said he then- no more. And Aphrodite

Was fain to raise him; but the Destinies

Had spun his thread right out. So Daphnis went

Down-stream; the whirlpool closed above his head,

The head of him whom all the Muses loved,

Of him from whom the Nymphs were not estranged.

Muses, forego, forego the pastoral song."

Ancient Greece Hellenistic Kingdoms Poetry