_The shepherd Thyrsis meets a goatherd_, _in a shady place beside a spring_, _and at his invitation sings the Song of Daphnis_. _This ideal hero of Greek pastoral song had won for his bride the fairest of the Nymphs_. _Confident in the strength of his passion_, _he boasted that Love could never subdue him to a new question_. _Love avenged himself by making Daphnis desire a strange maiden_, _but to this temptation he never yielded_, _and so died a constant lover_. _The song tells how the cattle and the wild things of the wood bewailed him_, _how Hermes and Priapus gave him counsel in vain_, _and how with his last breath he retorted the taunts of the implacable Aphrodite_. _The scene is in Sicily_. * * * * * _Thyrsis_. Sweet, meseems, is the whispering sound of yonder pine tree, goatherd, that murmureth by the wells of water; and sweet are thy pipings. After Pan the second prize shalt thou bear away, and if he take the horned goat, the she-goat shalt thou win; but if he choose the she-goat for his meed, the kid falls to thee, and dainty is the flesh of kids e’er the age when thou milkest them. _The Goatherd_. Sweeter, O shepherd, is thy song than the music of yonder water that is poured from the high face of the rock! Yea, if the Muses take the young ewe for their gift, a stall-fed lamb shalt thou receive for thy meed; but if it please them to take the lamb, thou shalt lead away the ewe for the second prize. _Thyrsis_. Wilt thou, goatherd, in the nymphs’ name, wilt thou sit thee down here, among the tamarisks, on this sloping knoll, and pipe while in this place I watch thy flocks?