Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

( ALPrUNUS SKILLSill sooth, the distant sound of my prayers at earth'sfurthest ends. But if perehance no sweeter melodyIattract your ear, if the songs of others fail to charmyou more than mine, will you let the pa^e I composeto-day be corrected by your critical file r For notonly have the gods given to you to tell husbandmenof coming rain-storms and of the kind of sunrise ai^olden sunset offers, but you are often the singer ofsweet poetr}'," and now the Muse rewards you withBacchic ivy-clusters, now fair Apollo shades yourbrow with laurel.^ But if you would show fjivourJto my nervous attempts, perhaps I might make trialof those reeds which skilful loUas ^ presented to meyesterday with the words, " This pipe wins oversavage bulls, and makes sweetest melody to our ownFaunus. It once was owned by Tityrus, who amongthese hills of yours was the first to sing his tunefullay on the Hyblaean pipe." ^I. You aim high, Corydon, if you strive to be Tityrus.He was a bard inspired, one who could on the reedpipeoutplay the lyre. Often, while he sang, beastsof the wild fawned in frolic near, and the oak cameclose and halted there : did he but sing, a Naiadwould adorn him with red acanthus and dress with acomb his tangled locks.'lolla-s, according to Wernsdorf, stands for a scholar or poetwho had prompted the writing of the Eclogues. Some havesuggested one of Calpurnius' teachers, or even Theocrituswhich conflicts with the idea that Tit^-rus is Virgil. Cesareowisely refuses to identify lollas. La Poesia di Calp. Sic, p. 174."^Ancient authority regarded the Tityrus of Virgil'sEclogues as representing the poet himself. The allusion inUyblaea is to the pastoral poetn,' of the Sicilian Theocritus,which Virgil imitated: Virg. Ed. X. 51, carmina pastoriaSiculi moiiuldbor a vena.249