While on soft hyacinths he, his snowy side Reposing, under some dark ilex now Chews the pale herbage, or some heifer tracks Amid the crowding herd. Now close, ye Nymphs, Ye Nymphs of Dicte, close the forest-glades, If haply there may chance upon mine eyes The white bull's wandering foot-prints: him belike Following the herd, or by green pasture lured, Some kine may guide to the Gortynian stalls. Then sings he of the maid so wonder-struck With the apples of the Hesperids, and then With moss-bound, bitter bark rings round the forms Of Phaethon's fair sisters, from the ground Up-towering into poplars. Next he sings Of Gallus wandering by Permessus' stream, And by a sister of the Muses led To the Aonian mountains, and how all The choir of Phoebus rose to greet him; how The shepherd Linus, singer of songs divine, Brow-bound with flowers and bitter parsley, spake: "These reeds the Muses give thee, take them thou, Erst to the aged bard of Ascra given, Wherewith in singing he was wont to draw Time-rooted ash-trees from the mountain heights. With these the birth of the Grynean grove Be voiced by thee, that of no grove beside Apollo more may boast him." Wherefore speak Of Scylla, child of Nisus, who, 'tis said, Her fair white loins with barking monsters girt Vexed the Dulichian ships, and, in the deep Swift-eddying whirlpool, with her sea-dogs tore The trembling mariners? or how he told Of the changed limbs of Tereus- what a feast, What gifts, to him by Philomel were given; How swift she sought the desert, with what wings Hovered in anguish o'er her ancient home? All that, of old, Eurotas, happy stream, Heard, as Apollo mused upon the lyre, And bade his laurels learn, Silenus sang; Till from Olympus, loth at his approach, Vesper, advancing, bade the shepherds tell Their tale of sheep, and pen them in the fold. ECLOGUE VII MELIBOEUS CORYDON THYRSIS