Two rustic offerings

These poems too are from the sixth book of the Anthology, the book of gifts dedicated to the gods. Typically the real or imagined context is a temple or sacred precinct, but Pan is not a god to be penned in.

The 'droves' of 6.37 are an instance of translator's liberty. The Greek just says 'herds' (boukolia), but these are herdsmen who pasture their cattle in the high places (ouresin) practising transhumance. They drive their herds and flocks up in the spring and down again in autumn. Go up to those same mountain pastures at the right time of year and you will see their descendants doing the same today.

John Barbocallus is an author I very much like. My Worlds Classics translation includes versions of two epigrams by him on the city of Berytus in Libya: one a celebration of its deliverance in battle from the Sassanid Persians; the other, written not much later, lamenting its total destruction in an earthquake. Berytus rose again, and kept its ancient name; it is now Beirut. He was a Christian, of course, and the pagan idyll of this epigram is a nostalgic literary fiction reminiscent of Theocritus. 'The Paphian' is a common enough cult epithet of Aphrodite, and Peitho is the goddess of persuasion. Eurynomus has cause to thank them both, and by keeping them sweet, he keeps his future options open. I note that his bride does not get a name.

6.37 (on YouTube)

ANONYMOUS

It too is stooped with age: this beechwood bough

The herders of the mountain pasture cut,

Shaved off its bark, and set it up for Pan

Upon the road, a handsome ornament

For the protector of the yearling droves.

6.55  (on YouTube)

JOHN BARBOCALLUS

This cottage cheese and beehive honeycomb

Eurynomus the oxherd, freshly wed,

Offers to Peitho and the Paphian;

But count the cheese as offered for her sake,

And know the gift of honey is from me.