Theocritus, Idyllia 3.40–47: the race of Atalanta and Hippomenes/Melanion

Theocritus, Idyllia 3.40–47: the race of Atalanta and Hippomenes/Melanion

4th/3rd century BCE

Literary source

When Schoenus’ bride-race was begun, apples fell from one that run;
She looks, she’s lost, and lost doth leap, into love so dark and deep.
When the seer in’s brother’s name with those kin to Pylus came,
Bias to the joy-bed hies whence sprang Alphesibee the wise.
When Adonis o’er the sheep in the hills his watch did keep,
The Love-Dame proved so wild a wooers, e’en in death she clips him to her.
O would I were Endymion that sleeps the unchanging slumber on,
Or, Lady, knew thy Jasion’s glee which prófane eyes may never see! . . .

John M. Edmonds, The Greek Bucolic Poets (= Loeb Classical Library; 28), Cambridge, MA 1912.

῾Ιππομένης ὅκα δὴ τὰν παρθένον ἤθελε γᾶμαι,
μᾶλ᾽ ἐν χερσὶν ἑλὼν δρόμον ἄνυεν: ἁ δ᾽ ᾿Αταλάντα
ὡς ἴδεν, ὡς ἐμάνη, ὡς ἐς βαθὺν ἅλατ᾽ ἔρωτα.
τὰν ἀγέλαν χὡ μάντις ἀπ᾽ ῎Οθρυος ἆγε Μελάμπους
ἐς Πύλον: ἁ δὲ Βίαντος ἐν ἀγκοίναισιν ἐκλίνθη,
μάτηρ ἁ χαρίεσσα περίφρονος ᾿Αλφεσιβοίης.
τὰν δὲ καλὰν Κυθέρειαν ἐν ὤρεσι μᾶλα νομεύων
οὐχ οὑτῶς ὥδωνις ἐπὶ πλέον ἄγαγε λύσσας,
ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ φθίμενόν νιν ἄτερ μαζοῖο τίθητι;

Roger J. Cholmeley (ed.), Idylls. Theocritus, London 1901.