My dear Miss Thomson,--Believe of me that it can only give me pleasure when you are affectionate enough to treat me as a friend; and for the rest, nobody need apologise for taking another into the vineyards--least Miss Bayley and yourself to _me_. At the first thought I felt sure that there must be a great deal about vines in these Greeks of ours, and am surprised, I confess, in turning from one to another, to find how few passages of length are quotable, and how the images drop down into a line or two. Do you know the passage in the seventh 'Odyssey' where there is a vineyard in different stages of ripeness?--of which Pope has made the most, so I tore up what I began to write, and leave you to him. It is in Alcinous' gardens, and between the first and second hundred lines of the book. The one from the 'Iliad,' open to Miss Bayley's objection, is yet too beautiful and appropriate, I fancy, for you to throw over. Curious it is that my first recollection went from that shield of Achilles to Hesiod's 'Shield of Hercules,' from which I send you a version--leaving out of it what dear Miss Bayley would object to on a like ground with the other: Some gathered grapes, with reap-hooks in their hands, While others bore off from the gathering hands Whole baskets-full of bunches, black and white, From those great ridges heaped up into fight, With vine-leaves and their curling tendrils. So They bore the baskets ... ... Yes! and all were saying Their jests, while each went staggering in a row Beneath his grape-load to the piper's playing. The grapes were purple-ripe. And here, in fine, Men trod them out, and there they drained the wine. In the 'Works and Days' Hesiod says again, what is not worth your listening to, perhaps: And when that Sinus and Orion come To middle heaven, and when Aurora--she O' the rosy fingers--looks inquiringly Full on Arcturus, straightway gather home The general vintage. And, I charge you, see All, in the sun and open air, outlaid Ten days and nights, and five days in the shade. The sixth day, pour in vases the fine juice-- The gift of Bacchus, who gives joys for use. Anacreon talks to the point so well that you must forgive him, I think, for being Anacreontic, and take from his hands what is not defiled. The translation you send me does not 'smell of Anacreon,' nor please me. Where did you get it? Would this be at all fresher? Grapes that wear a purple skin, Men and maidens carry in, Brimming baskets on their shoulders, Which they topple one by one Down the winepress. Men are holders Of the place there, and alone Tread the grapes out, crush them down, Letting loose the soul of wine-- Praising Bacchus as divine, With the loud songs called his own!