SOURCE: “Poetic Succession and the Genesis of Alexandrian Bucolic,” in The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton, The University of Michigan Press, 1998, pp. 19-44.

[In the following excerpt, Hubbard focuses on the stylistic qualities that made Theocritus so influential on his successors.]

The quest for a pre-Theocritean form of bucolic poetry has proven unproductive for scholars, whether they have sought it in country songs, religious ritual, archaic lyric, or even Near Eastern traditions.¹ The most that can be found in some of these traditions are occasional strands of pastoral imagery, as was likely also true of Theocritus' influential predecessor Philetas.² It is by now a commonplace of scholarship to declare Theocritus the sole inventor of the bucolic genre. But it may be theoretically misleading to do so, since a genre by definition must be a set of formal expectations that transcend any one author.³ Theocritus' achievement was rather to develop a bucolic style within his idylls—brief mimes set in the country, centering on themes of song and love. This mannerism could develop into a real genre only with the first bucolic poet after Theocritus; strangely enough, the real distinction of inventing the bucolic genre thus belongs to the nameless successor who authored the spurious Idylls “8” and “9” of the Theocritean corpus.⁴

I do not intend to minimize the importance of Theocritus' role. Rather, I suggest that scholars have sometimes addressed themselves to the wrong questions in confronting Theocritean bucolic. Theocritus did not necessarily have the foresight to see himself as founding a genre; it may therefore be otiose for scholars today to debate what kind of genre he founded (“pastoral” or “bucolic”?) or how that genre compares with later European pastoral lyric. What should be of considerably more interest is the identification of those elements within his bucolic idylls that motivated later poets to develop his bucolic mannerism into a true genre. What are the chief fault lines of Theocritean influence? Why did poets wish to be seen as Theocritean successors? How was Theocritus read and even creatively misread? Why did later poets focus on Theocritus' bucolic poems as sources, rather than on his mythological or encomiastic pieces?

Notable in Theocritus' bucolics as distinguished from his nonbucolic idylls is their primary emphasis on song and its powers. Every bucolic idyll, without exception, frames a song or songs and, through that framing arrangement, encourages reflection on the nature and function of song. In “Idyll 11,” Polyphemus cures himself of love through song; a similar curative effect seems intended with the songs of both Lycidas and Simichidas in “Idyll 7.” The goatherd's serenade in “Idyll 3” rather uses song for amatory persuasion. Songs lighten the toil of the laborers in “Idyll 10” (lines 22-23). The songs of Idylls “5” and “6” establish the respective claims of their singers in competition with others, even as Thyrsis' song in “Idyll 1” was originally his entry in a contest with Chromis of Libya (line 24). “Idyll 4” is concerned with Corydon's establishment of his poetic credentials as a successor to Aegon (lines 26-37). Moreover, these poems not only thematize the act of poetry but in various ways assert the concept of poetic tradition as the primary force behind each poetic act. While Theocritus' polymorphous and varied poetic output encompassed allusion to a wide range of previous poets, styles, and genres,⁵ it is the bucolics that are as a group the most programmatic of Theocritus' idylls and are so invested in the idea of poetic inheritance as to invite literary heirs in later generations. The bucolic, more than any other poetic type, is about poetic influence and succession: bucolic poetry by its very nature can exist only as part of an interconnected tradition of poets influencing other poets.

The two poems that have most often been interpreted as statements concerning Theocritus' sense of his relation to earlier poetic tradition are of course Idylls “1” and “7.” The … “ivy cup” (Theocr. 1.27-60), has long been recognized as an ecphrastic emblem of Theocritus' poetry in its epic context. The rare word comes out of the Odyssey, where it refers to cups used by Polyphemus and Eumaeus: the word's connotations are thus epic but at the same time humble and rustic.⁶ The three scenes enchased on the cup also bear allusive resonance. First, the woman with her two contending lovers recalls the elders judging the two litigants on the Shield of Achilles.⁷ Second, the sinewy old fisherman casting his net recalls a similar figure on the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield of Heracles.⁸ The first two elements of Theocritus' ecphrasis thus neatly enfold allusions to the major ecphrastic descriptions of the two principal epic traditions that vied for authority in Greek consciousness, particularly of the Alexandrian period, when Hesiod's epic came to be taken seriously as a generic model challenging Homeric poetry.⁹ Third, the picturesque scene of the boy on the wall absentmindedly weaving a cricket cage while foxes raid the vineyard he is supposed to be guarding evokes a complex mélange of programmatic references: weaving as poetic composition, the cicada as a paradigm of sweet song, the child as a symbol of Alexandrian playfulness and rejection of grandeur, the boy's neglect of the vineyard as a suggestion of indifference to practical utility.¹⁰ The progression of scenes on the cup thus moves allusively from the Homeric (most archaic) to the Hesiodic (also archaic, but favored by Alexandrian aesthetics) to the purely Alexandrian vignette of the sort that Theocritus' eidyllia (little pictures) aimes to capture. Bought from the Calydnean ferryman (Theocr. 1.57-58) for a goat and round of cheese, the goatherd's cup is an import from abroad, ferried into bucolic Cos and Theocritus' bucolic aesthetic from the world of epic. Handed over to Thyrsis as a reward for his splendid song of the dying Daphnis, the cup becomes a precious heirloom, representing the sum of poetic traditions and styles that pass from the hands of one poet into those of another.

The significance of the “Harvest Festival” (“Idyll 7”) as a programmatic statement of poetic doctrine has long been recognized.¹¹ Lycidas' gift of his staff to Simichidas clearly evokes the poetic investiture of the shepherd Hesiod by the Muses on Mt. Helicon (Hes. Th. 22-35),¹² and Lycidas' condemnation of those would-be Homeric rivals who aim to build their house as high as Mt. Oromedon (Theocr. 7.45-48) parallels the familiar Callimachean aesthetic of rejecting grandiose epic modalities in favor of the slender and refined.¹³ It is generally accepted that Simichidas, the townsman on a country holiday, is a mask for Theocritus himself,¹⁴ and his self-deprecatory declaration that he is “not yet” up to the level of the epigrammatist Asclepiades (“the good Sicelidas from Samos”) or the elegist Philetas (Theocr. 7.39-41) identifies the poem's context as one of his learning the poet's craft from such models.

The primary controversy surrounding “Idyll 7” centers on the identity of the mysterious Lycidas—the unkempt goatherd who meets Simichidas and his friends on the road. The parallel with Hesiod's Muses as agents of investiture has led many scholars to see the goatherd as a disguised god, although there is little agreement on which god, with Hermes, Poseidon, Apollo, and Pan being variously proposed, usually on the basis of slight or tenuous evidence.¹⁵ Nothing in the text explicitly identifies him as a god. The only suggestion that he is anything more than a poetic goatherd is the rather ambiguous statement introducing him: “he was a goatherd, nor would anyone seeing him have failed to recognize him, since he was very much like a goatherd” (Theocr. 7.13-14). Both E.L. Bowie and Gordon Williams have recently challenged the interpretation of Lycidas as a god, the former proposing that he is a character in the work of Philetas, the latter that he is Callimachus; others have proposed that he is Hesiod, the source of the investiture motif.¹⁶ While the positive evidence in favor of these identifications is as meager as that in favor of any divine identification, I believe that Bowie and Williams are on the right track in seeing Lycidas as a figure of contemporary poetry.

I would add one more admittedly speculative conjecture to the list. Whereas Bowie opted, without real evidence, for Lycidas as a character of Philetas, it might make better sense to see him as a caricature of Philetas. Philetas is the one prominent poet of the period known to have been from Cos, and he even mentions the spring Bourina (foregrounded in Theocr. 7.6-7) in fragment 24 (Powell). Perhaps Cydonia, identified as Lycidas' home (Theocr. 7.12), was the village in which Philetas was born;¹⁷ if so, the identity would have been clear to the poet's contemporaries. Simichidas explicitly announces that Philetas is one of his principal models (Theocr. 7.39-41), along with Asclepiades. Since Simichidas' song has been shown to be full of motifs from Asclepiades' epigrams¹⁸ but not from Philetas, it might stand to reason that the elegiac motifs of Lycidas' song are Philetan.

One poem by Philetas may be particularly relevant to the situation of “Idyll 7.” …

[No empty-headed, mattock-wielding rustic from the mountains
                    Will pick me up, the alder wood,
But a much-toiling man who knows the ornaments of poetic verse
                              And understands the way of stories of every kind.]

(Philetas, fr. 10 [Powell])

The alder staff¹⁹ is here defined specifically by contrast with rustics, as is, by implication, the much-toiling, learned poet for whom it is destined. Far from being the founder of bucolic poetry in the Theocritean sense, Philetas may have been significant precisely for his antibucolicism, using the bucolic world as a background or foil to his own poetics of learning, as seems to be suggested also by fragment 17 (Powell), describing a dirty, ill-clad rustic wearing a belt of rushes (the model for Lycidas?). Ridiculed in comedy for his thinness and asceticism, like many intellectuals, he seems a most unbucolic character.²⁰ His incongruity with the country may be the very point of Theocritus dressing him up in a foul-smelling goatskin and having him hand over to a much-toiling, learned poet (Simichidas) the staff (here olive wood) that should not properly belong to a rustic. The effect is not unlike that of dressing the urbane Callimachus in country garb under the guise of “Idyll 4”'s Battus. In typical Alexandrian style, the model is acknowledged and at the same time inverted or even mocked. If this ironic identification of Lycidas with Philetas is right, it would explain Philetas' presence as teacher of love and poetic initiator in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe, not on the basis of having written bucolic poetry himself, for which all evidence is lacking, but on the basis of having been the teacher and initiator of the poet who was perceived by tradition as the first bucolic poet; that is, Longus knew Philetas only as filtered through the work of Theocritus, which presented him as Theocritus' teacher and initiator and ironically clothed him as a rustic.

Lycidas sings his song first, providing a literary model for Simichidas and producing a range of allusive references to earlier poets and traditions, whether in Mitylene (Sappho and Alcaeus), with the master singer Daphnis (whose story was told by Stesichorus),²¹ or with the legendary Comatas fed by honeybees (perhaps evoking the story of Pindar's Heliconian investiture, itself modeled on Hesiod's).²² If Lycidas himself is a mask for a contemporary poet, whether Philetas or someone else, this substitution of a poet-initiator for Hesiod's Muse-initiators is itself significant, self-consciously accenting the idea that Hellenistic poetry is derived not from divine inspiration, as in the archaic models, but from the influence of poets and poetic traditions.

It is significant that Simichidas presents himself as a worthy competitor to his poet-initiator model, even vying to outdo him by posing as a neatherd (Theocr. 7.92 …) compared to Lycidas' lower goatherd status and by singing a “great surpassing song” … (Theocr. 7.94) to rival Lycidas, “the great surpassing piper” … (Theocr. 7.28).²³ Although beginning his dialogue with Lycidas in a tone of ironic self-deprecation, “not yet” able to outdo Asclepiades or Philetas (Theocr. 7.39-41),²⁴ the novice Simichidas evolves as a budding talent within the poem, to the point that his fame reaches the throne of Zeus (= Ptolemy) in Theocr. 7.93 (perhaps a self-reference to the encomiastic “Idyll 17”). To Lycidas' nonchalant propemptikon dismissing the beloved Ageanax to Lesbos,²⁵ Simichidas replies with a song characterized by an even greater sense of Epicurean detachment from passion: after blithely alluding to his own beloved Myrto and then leaving her with a mere two lines, Simichidas presents a song for his friend Aratus (most likely the poet of the Phaenomena),²⁶ first wishing that the boy Philinus submit to Aratus' embrace and then advising Aratus to relinquish his passion once the boy has been smitten. As in Lycidas' song, the desired pederastic consummation is followed by carefree dismissal and relief. However, where Lycidas spoke of first-person experience throughout, Simichidas sets himself up as a praeceptor amoris and advisor to his friend; the novice poet himself becomes a teacher of love. It has been noted that the models of Lycidas' song are all archaic (= past tradition), whereas the poetic context of Simichidas' song is more contemporary, in both its sources (Asclepiades, Apollonius, Nicaenetus) and its dramatic setting (Aratus and Philinus, Aristis). The poetic present builds on and transcends previous generations and their authority.²⁷

Nothing necessitates our seeing Simichidas' investiture specifically as an investiture into pastoral poetry, any more than the investiture of Hesiod in shepherd's guise limited him to pastoral poetry. Rather, in light of the Hesiodic metaphor of poet as shepherd, we should take the pastoral context and imagery here as programmatic for poetry in general. Indeed, this Hesiodic metaphor may be the controlling inspiration behind Theocritus' adoption of the pastoral mode in all of his bucolic idylls. Accordingly, it may be legitimate to see all the bucolic poems as in some sense programmatic.

Even “Idyll 4,” a poem often seen as a simple paradigm of country life,²⁸ gives center stage to the idea of poetic succession. Aegon has left his herd to the younger Corydon for care,²⁹ while he is off to Olympia contending for athletic honor and glory. He has left to the younger man not only his cattle and pastoral vocation but also his pipe and pastoral music, as we are told at the midpoint of the idyll. …

[Ba. Alas, alas, wretched Aegon, even your cattle will go
To Hades, since you too have loved a base victory.
And the syrinx that you once joined together now is dotted with mold.
Co. No indeed, not by the Nymphs! For setting off to Pisa
He left it to me as a gift. I am something of a player myself:
Well can I strike up the songs of Glauce or the songs of Pyrrhus.
I praise both Croton—“A fair city is Zacynthus …”—
And the dawn-facing Lacinian shrine, where Aegon the boxer
By himself ate up eighty bread loaves.
There also did he lead the bull down from the mountain, laying hold
Of its hoof, and gave it as a love gift to Amaryllis; the women
Shrieked out aloud and the neatherd laughed.]

(Theocr. 4.26-37)

Corydon opens in a self-deprecatory vein, styling himself as merely “something of a player” …, a poetic neophyte (cf. Theocr. 5.6-7) able to imitate the female musician Glauce or Pyrrhus, the writer of obscene doggerel. But the song he goes on to compose is something quite different from the trivial work of Glauce and Pyrrhus—a high-flown Pindaric epinician praising the athletic feats of his mentor Aegon. In the manner of Pindar, Corydon's praise of the victor Aegon begins with praise of his native city, Croton, here styled in the form of a priamel comparing it to other cities, such as Zacynthus; also reminiscent of Pindar is the reference to local cults of the city, such as the Lacinian shrine.³⁰ Corydon's song thus reveals a poetic progression from the lowest to the most sublime literary forms, concomitant with a related movement from derivative reliance on models to the discovery of an authentic and independent poetic voice, albeit one that recognizes and honors the precursor Aegon.

Critics have often viewed “Idyll 4” as a study in opposed character types—a waggish and sophisticated Battus versus a naive Corydon, a sentimental Battus versus a crude and earthy Corydon, or a townsman Battus versus a rustic Corydon.³¹ But the interaction of the characters is more dynamic: we see in the poem a progressive diminution of Battus' status and a corresponding elevation of Corydon. Battus' initial pose of superior condescension and mockery is replaced by a moment of genuine human sentiment, when he is reminded of the dead Amaryllis by Corydon's song. However, the straying cattle guide his attention back to the present bucolic reality; instead of wistfully recalling Amaryllis, he gapes at a heifer and steps on a thorn. The reduction of Battus to the grossly physical dimension is completed with his expression of curiosity about the old man's lechery at the end of the poem. The intellectual and sentimental sides of love are replaced by a descent into physical pain and perversion; Man becomes like the beasts over whom he nominally has dominion.³² In Corydon, however, we see an opposite development: from his defensive responsiveness toward Battus' hostile questions, he progresses toward a more self-confident posture with his outburst of song in praise of Aegon at the poem's midpoint. By the poem's last third, Corydon moves into a position of magisterial dominance, extracting the thorn from Battus' foot and lecturing him on the dangers of going barefoot in the countryside.³³ Corydon's self-emergence is balanced against the explosion of Battus' pretensions to sophistication.

The nineteenth-century scholar Richard Reitzenstein made “Idyll 4” the exemplary paradigm for his theory of the “bucolic masquerade.”³⁴ In his view, Battus was a mask for Theocritus' fellow Alexandrian Callimachus: Battus was putatively the name of Callimachus' father as well as the royal founder of his native Cyrene, and Callimachus calls himself Battiades (Ep. 35.1 Pf.).³⁵ Battus' last two lines, deriding “satyrs and scrag-shanked … Pans,” are seen as an allusion to Callimachus fragment 486 (Pf.), directed against the tragic poet Alexander of Aetolia, whose father was named Satyrus. On this basis and in view of Alexander's authorship of some doggerel verses like those of Pyrrhus,³⁶ Reitzenstein regards Corydon as a mask for Alexander. Alexander was known to have some interest in pastoral themes and to have related that Daphnis was the teacher of the satyr Marsyas. However, even if we accept that Battus' remarks in Theocr. 4.62-63 are, in light of Callimachus fragment 486 (Pf.), a derogatory allusion to Alexander of Aetolia, we need not conclude that Corydon is a mask for Alexander. Indeed, after having the thorn extracted, Battus is friendlier to Corydon than at the idyll's beginning. It is rather the lecherous old man who is explicitly compared to the “satyrs and scrag-shanked Pans” and thus to Alexander. While the identification of Corydon with Alexander is less convincing than the identification of Battus with Callimachus, Reitzenstein was right to see Corydon as a likely mask for some contemporary poet, possibly one with epinician or encomiastic ambitions. “Idyll 4,” like most of Theocritus' bucolics, is programmatically concerned with the practice of learned, allusive poetry under the cover of rusticated primitivism. While few scholars today would accept the full-fledged Reitzenstein theory of an entire community of poets on Cos in shepherd guise, the allegorical approach does possess a basic validity, inasmuch as it seeks to identify bucolic disputants with contemporary poets; such allegory has clear parallels in the work of Callimachus and Corinna.³⁷

The themes of poetic tutelage and competition also form the nucleus of “Idyll 5,” which presents an amoebaean contest between the legendary goatherd Comatas³⁸ and his erstwhile student Lacon. That the rivalry between these two is cast in poetic terms is made clear from the opening exchange of insults, in which Comatas is accused of having stolen Lacon's syrinx and responds that Lacon never owned such an instrument but at most piped on reeds along with the neophyte Corydon (Theocr. 5.3-7). The nature of the former relationship between the two herdsmen is revealed a bit later. …

[Co. I'm in no rush. But I am greatly annoyed if you dare
To look at me with a straight gaze—you whom I once
Taught when you were still a boy. Look at what gratitude comes to:
Nurture dogs, nurture even wolfcubs, so that they may eat you alive.
La. And when can I remember learning or even hearing anything good
From you, you envious and unseemly little runt?
Co. When I buggered you and you felt pain. …]

(Theocr. 5.35-41)

Comatas presumes to be Lacon's teacher and in some sense therefore his literary father—a relationship Lacon vehemently denies, like any emergent poet struggling to assert his independence and originality. Comatas reasserts his dominance in terms of sexual penetration of his younger counterpart,³⁹ an event Lacon is here unable to deny, although he later presumes to have forgotten it.⁴⁰ Lacon's attempt to repress the memory of his sexual trauma and Comatas' paideutic/pederastic influence eventually takes the form of his presuming to be a dominant lover of boys himself (see Theocr. 5.86-87, 90-91, 98-99).⁴¹

Indeed, his boastfulness in this domain leads to his ultimate defeat in the contest: in claiming for himself not only the boy Cratidas but also a second, Eumedes, he declares that he has given the boy his syrinx in return for a kiss (Theocr. 5.134-35). While presuming to show his superiority to Comatas, whose couplet complained of not receiving a kiss from Alcippe in return for his gift of a dove (Theocr. 5.132-33), Lacon actually undercuts his claim at the beginning of the poem about Comatas' theft of his syrinx.⁴² It is significant that the possession of his musical instrument should form the beginning and end of Lacon's contribution to this idyll and the crux around which revolve both his relationship to his former teacher (and older lover) and his bond to a younger student (and beloved). Another poetic masquerade like that of “Idyll 4” may well be at work here, although it is impossible in our present state of knowledge to know who is a mask for whom.⁴³

The same technique of masquerade is also prominent as the organizing principle of our first post-Theocritean bucolic poem, “Idyll 8.” This poem consists of a friendly contest between the shepherds Daphnis and Menalcas, who are described as equally fair and youthful (“Idyll 8.”3). Daphnis is of course a legendary figure of the pastoral realm, featured especially in Theocritus' “Idyll 1,” as the dying shepherd mourned by the entire world, and also in “Idylls 6” and “7.” Menalcas was also a familiar figure, although not from Theocritus; the scholia tell us that his death and loves were narrated in an elegy of Hermesianax, and later references make it clear that he too, like Daphnis, was a shepherd-hero with a tragic story of legendary dimensions.⁴⁴

One of the features of “Idyll 8” that commentators have found most curious is the division of the contest into two parts, the first an amoebaean exchange of elegiac couplets formed into quatrains (“Idyll 8.”33-60), the second consisting of short hexameter songs presented by each shepherd (“Idyll 8.”63-80).⁴⁵ The use of the elegiac meter is quite unique in the bucolic tradition and must be motivated by the influence of Hermesianax as a source for this poem;⁴⁶ the presentation of two matched songs, however, is quite conventional, parallelled by the competing songs of Daphnis and Damoetas in “Idyll 6” and those of Bucaeus and Milon in “Idyll 10” (where they are, as here, of equal length). We thus have the competition between the two shepherds of “Idyll 8” being presented in a form that is itself a competition of genres—elegy and bucolic. Considering Menalcas' background as a figure of Hermesianax' elegies and Daphnis' background as a figure best known from Theocritean bucolic, it may be legitimate to see the two shepherds embodying those respective generic backgrounds and perhaps even representing the poets Hermesianax and Theocritus themselves.⁴⁷ The intimate knowledge of love and erotic experience displayed in the songs of these two innocent striplings calls attention to the status of their work as the imitative literary artifice of poetic tradition, rather than the product of personal experience.⁴⁸ That the nameless goatherd finally judges in favor of Daphnis and asks him for lessons (“Idyll 8.”81-87) represents the judgment of the nameless poet of “Idyll 8” that Theocritus' bucolic is the literary model of his preference.

It is not certain whether “Idyll 9” is a work of the same poet as that of “Idyll 8,” although linguistic arguments favor identifying the two poems as by the same hand.⁴⁹ Although usually dismissed as an inferior composition, “Idyll 9” in many ways achieves the same result as “Idyll 8.” Daphnis and Menalcas each sing a short bucolic song, but this time no explicit judgment is made; the first-person narrator instead gives a gift to each, a staff to Daphnis (reminiscent of the staff of investiture given to Simichidas [= Theocritus] in “Idyll 7”) and a conch-shell horn to Menalcas (reminiscent of something in Hermesianax?).⁵⁰ The narrator then proceeds to sing a piece of his own, addressed to the “Bucolic Muses.” …

[Grasshopper is dear to grasshopper, ant to ant,
Hawks to hawks; even so the Muse and song are dear to me.
Of this may my entire house be full. Neither sleep
Nor the sudden advent of spring are sweeter, nor flowers to honeybees.
So much are the Muses dear to me. Whom they regard
With joy, Circe never harms with her potion.]

(“Idyll 9.”31-36)

Delivered in the first person by the poet himself, under no allegorical mask, these lines constitute a clear programmatic statement of his dedication to the Muses. Their favor makes a man impervious even to the potions of Circe; as so often in Theocritus, the Odyssean allusion evokes the world of epic only to drain it of its terror and sublimity, to render it as humorous and harmless as the pathetic Polyphemus.⁵¹ It is significant, however, that the poet sings this programmatic envoi only “in the presence of these shepherds” … (“Idyll 9.”29), under their inspiration. His self-dedication to the Muse is by the very structure of the poem revealed as a product of poetic influence by his precursors, the legendary Daphnis and Menalcas, representing, respectively, the poets Theocritus and Hermesianax. Critics have often labeled “Idyll 9” an inferior snippet because of the brevity and apparent triviality of its songs,⁵² but when we view their chief significance as their order and interrelation (Daphnis [= Theocritus] first, Menalcas [= Hermesianax] second, this poem's author third), the text takes on a new meaning not unlike that of “Idyll 8.” Here as much as anywhere, we see the pastoral metaphor deployed as a programmatic expression of the poet's relation both to his specific precursors and to poetic tradition generally.

There was in antiquity a canon of three Greek bucolic poets—Theocritus, Moschus, and Bion.⁵³ One of the great mysteries of literary history has been why Moschus and Bion were classified as bucolic poets, when very little in their extant work can genuinely be considered “bucolic” in the manner of Theocritus Idylls “1” or “3-11.” The answer is certainly not that the term bucolic refers to all short nonepic hexameter poetry,⁵⁴ since many other poets would then also be “bucolic.” Rather, there was a strong sense among the Alexandrian scholars responsible for forming such canons⁵⁵ that bucolic poetry had to exist as a tradition, with a founder and predecessor in the person of Theocritus, followed by various successors; “bucolic” was a phenomenon that as a matter of generic definition could only make sense in light of such an intertextual and interpersonal system. Bucolic was seen as a poetry in its very essence concerned with poetic inheritance and succession.

But why were Moschus and Bion included in the canon? Absolutely nothing in the few extant and authentic fragments of Moschus would make us regard him as bucolic, although this does not preclude the possibility that he had written some lost works of a bucolic nature. However, we have a somewhat larger number of fragments from Bion, and while none are truly equivalent to Theocritus' bucolic idylls, they nevertheless afford some insight into his multifaceted engagement with the work of Theocritus and his resultant identification with bucolic poetry. We see in Bion the occasional use of pastoral frames and imagery but little deployment of the formal bucolic conventions of contest and erotic appeal. Fragment 2 (Gow) is presented as a dialogue between the shepherds Myrson and Cleodamas: Cleodamas asks which of the four seasons is best, and Myrson replies with praise of springtime. Interesting in this fragment is precisely the avoidance of an agonistic element, such as we often find in pastoral references to the seasons where one shepherd praises one season and his interlocutor praises another.⁵⁶

The Epithalamium of Achilles and Deidameia also features Myrson, here engaged in a bucolic dialogue with Lycidas, whom he asks to sing a song for him. The opening bristles with Theocritean allusions. …

[Do you wish, Lycidas, to sing aloud for me some sweet Sicilian song,
A sweet-hearted love song of longing, such as the Cyclops
Polyphemus once sang on the shore for Galatea?]

(Epith. Ach. 1-3)

The concept of Sicilian song,⁵⁷ the citation of Polyphemus' appeal to Galatea as an exemplary model, and of course the name of Lycidas (= the great symbol of poetic initiation) all point to Theocritus' bucolics as the starting point for this poem.⁵⁸ But the song Lycidas is asked to sing is quite unlike any appearing in Theocritus' bucolics: it is a mythological narrative concerning the story of Achilles on Scyros. Such mythological developments are foreign to the songs of bucolic poetry per se but are very much in the spirit of Theocritus' epyllia, such as Idylls “13” or “24,” relating some of the more curious episodes of Heracles' career. Bion thus skillfully interweaves a Theocritean bucolic frame with a Theocritean epic inset and, in so doing, contaminates the two most prominent sides of Theocritus' poetic oeuvre.

Perhaps the most programmatic statement of Bion's relation to the pastoral tradition is fragment 10 (Gow). …

[Great Cypris stood beside me, still slumbering,
And led with her fair hand the childish Love,
Nodding to the ground with his head. Such a speech did she make to me:
“Dear neatherd, take Love and teach him to sing for me.”
So she spoke and she went away. Childish fool that I was,
I taught Love as much as I knew of bucolic song, as if he wanted to learn it:
How Pan invented the cross-flute, Athena the flute,
Hermes the tortoise-shell lyre, sweet Apollo the cithara.
All these things I taught him. He paid no attention to my stories
But himself sang to me love songs and taught me
About the passions of both mortals and immortals and all the deeds of his mother.
And I forgot the things I taught Love,
But in all the love songs that Love taught me, I was thoroughly instructed.]

As so often in Theocritus, the themes of shepherding, song, love, and teaching are connected together. In shepherd guise (i.e., as a Theocritean bucolic poet), Bion attempts to teach song to Love. But Love instead teaches song to Bion. Like the Epithalamium, this poem starts out in the Theocritean bucolic tradition, but it develops in a different direction, with Bion declaring himself to be a love poet rather than a Theocritean pastoralist. Whereas Theocritean bucolic adopted a stance of Epicurean detachment toward erotic passion,⁵⁹ Bion willingly subjugates himself to Love's childish caprices. This poem thus functions as a polemical gesture on the part of Bion toward his precursor and an assertion of his own independence and innovation as a poet.⁶⁰ Here we see the shepherd role not as a dramatic mask but in its extended aspect as an Alexandrian metaphor for poetic tradition, much as we also see it in Herodas Mime 8 and Callimachus Epigram 22 (Pf.). Bion's identity as a “bucolic” poet was based more on being a self-conscious imitator of Theocritus than on any serious commitment to the bucolic metaphor within his work.

The problematics of Bion's revisionary relationship to Theocritus are also highlighted in his most famous poem, the Lament for Adonis. This is not an explicitly pastoral text, having no relation to shepherds or herds and exhibiting no element of pathetic fallacy. Nevertheless, it does bear an interesting relationship to Thyrsis' lament for Daphnis in Theocritus' “Idyll 1:” in both poems, punctuated by refrains, we see a beautiful youth dying in the midst of the woods and hills, visited by various commiserating divinities.⁶¹ Last in the series of those to visit Daphnis is the one responsible for his suffering, Cypris the love goddess. He reproaches her with her own mortal lovers Anchises and Adonis, to whom he tells her to go (Theocr. 1.105-10). Bion's Lament for Adonis thus serves as an extension and realization of Daphnis' taunt: but here we see Cypris (same form of the goddess' name as in “Idyll 1”) as the first in a series of divinities visiting the dead hero, herself afflicted with grief for a tormented youth parallel to the Daphnis she had condemned to die in “Idyll 1.” Cypris is no longer a figure of cruelty but one of pathos, even as Bion's innovation on Theocritus generally is to valorize and exalt the primacy of the erotic, in opposition to Theocritus' paradigm of poetry as a form of Epicurean detachment from passion. In many ways, Bion's positive valuation of the erotic element proved to be more in keeping with later developments in the pastoral tradition; this development led to Friedrich von Schlegel's curious pronouncement that Bion, not Theocritus, was the greatest of the Greek idyllic poets.⁶²

The ultimate development in Greek bucolic intertextuality and the final statement in its myth of poetic succession is a poem that draws equally on both the Lament for Adonis and Theocritus' “Idyll 1”—the anonymous Lament for Bion.⁶³ This text is often dismissed as an agglomeration of trite commonplaces and rampant pathetic fallacy, but it gains resonance if viewed as a culminating expression of and meditation on the Greek bucolic tradition. Here, as in Bion, fragment 10.4-5 (Gow), Bion is himself depicted as a neatherd (Epit. Bion. 11); the lament for his death is thus a properly pastoral lament. The formal structure of the poem as a lament draws on both Theocritus and Bion:⁶⁴ the dual debt is evident from the first few lines, as the lament “The fair musician is dead” … (Epit. Bion. 7) echoes Bion's own cry that “the fair Adonis is dead” … (Epit. Adon. 1), and the regular refrain “Begin the sad song, Sicilian Muses, begin it” … (Epit. Bion. 8) clearly echoes Thyrsis' refrain for Daphnis in Theocritus, “Begin the bucolic song, dear Muses, begin it” … (Theocr. 1.64). After the text implicitly announces its emulation of these two models, it proceeds to try outdoing them. In a curious tribute to Bion's own text, this poet declares that Cypris and the Loves lament Bion even more than they did Adonis when he died “the other day” … (Epit. Bion. 69); the reference to the recent nature of Adonis' decease has often been taken as an allusion to the annual Adonis festivals,⁶⁵ but it may also be a recognition of the recent composition of Bion's poem as the latest lament in the bucolic tradition. Theocritus' “Idyll 1” is also richly evoked and outdone. Theocritus' few lines of lamenting jackals, wolves, lions, and cattle (Theocr. “1.”71-75) are here matched with over thirty lines of lamenting woods, orchards, flowers, nightingales, swans, and cattle (Epit. Bion. 1-24, 31-35, 46-49). While the nymphs were conspicuously absent for Daphnis (Theocr. 1.66-69), every nymph laments Bion (Epit. Bion. 28-29); he is visited not merely by Priapus, like Daphnis (Theocr. “1.”81-91), but by Priapi in the plural, along with Pans and satyrs (Epit. Bion. 27-28). Whereas Daphnis called on Pan to come and collect his pipe after his death (Theocr. 1.123-30), the poet of this lament expresses the fear that even Pan would hesitate to touch his lips on the pipe of so great a musician as Bion (Epit. Bion. 55-56). Bion is mourned even by the Galatea who so pitilessly rejected the song of the Cyclops; for Bion she even abandons the waves of the sea and comes ashore to be a herdsmaid (Epit. Bion. 58-63). That Galatea will do for Bion what she would not do for Theocritus' Polyphemus (and perhaps Bion's—see fragment 16 Gow) constitutes yet another polemical gesture of one-upmanship in this text.

The poem's implicit self-comparison with previous texts of lamentation in the first half matches its explicit comparison of Bion with other poets in its second half. This section begins by exhorting the river Meles, in the vicinity of Smyrna, to mourn Bion on a par with Smyrna's other famous literary son, Homer (Epit. Bion. 70-84); the extended comparison matches Homer's heroic themes with Bion's pastoral and erotic concerns in such a way as to evoke the conventional Callimachean great-versus-small dialectic. This assertion of equally paired poetic stature is followed by a priamel of other poets—Hesiod, Pindar, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Archilochus, Sappho (Epit. Bion. 86-92). The home city of each is said to have mourned them less than it now laments Bion, with the implication that their poetic talents were of a lower level. Capping this comparative series is the statement “You are a Theocritus to Syracuse” (Epit. Bion. 93). Comparison is replaced with another assertion of equality or even identity; Homer and Theocritus are Bion's only true peers, the one his fellow countryman, the other his fellow bucolicist.

Interestingly, the nameless composer of this poem brings himself into the spotlight at precisely this point, singing “the song of Ausonia's lament.” …

                    [However, I sing for you
A song of Ausonian lamentation, no stranger to
Bucolic song, but your pupil and the inheritor of the Dorian Muse
That you taught. Honoring me with this Muse,
You left to others your wealth but to me your song.]

(Epit. Bion. 93-97)

Even as Bion was the successor of Theocritus, this poet claims to be next in line after Bion, his pupil and heir. However, the boldness of this claim has already been undercut by much of the poem's rhetoric up to this point. Although identifying himself here as the heir of the Dorian Muse and song, the poet had earlier declared that Dorian song was dead along with the Dorian Orpheus (Epit. Bion. 12, 18); no successor would dare play the syrinx that had once belonged to Bion, not even Pan himself (Epit. Bion. 51-56); all the gifts of the Muses died with Bion (Epit. Bion. 65). One can only conclude from this accumulation of conceits that there is not much left for the present poet to inherit once he comes around to naming himself as Bion's successor. Indeed, the poet so much as admits his inadequacy at the poem's end, when he wishes that he could descend to the underworld like Orpheus and conjure up the soul of the dead Bion but admits that he cannot, leaving it to Bion himself to charm Persephone with his Dorian song (Epit. Bion. 114-26). Bion alone is truly like Orpheus (Epit. Bion. 123-25; cf. 14-18). By twice repeating the contrafactual “if I were able …” … (Epit. Bion. 115, 125-26) and ending the poem with it, the poet puts rhetorical stress on his sense of inferiority and incapacity.

In contrast to Bion's own creative transformation and reformulation of his predecessor, this poet's final gesture is one of fundamental self-doubt and weakness. With this poet the pastoral anxiety of influence manifests itself with full and devastating impact, perhaps for the first time, but definitely not for the last. Herewith appears the perennial question of literary succession, for which the pastoral genre becomes in later generations the paradigmatic vehicle: “how can I as a poet say anything new when those who have preceded me are so great and have said so much?”

Notes

1. The theory that actual herdsmen's songs were the source of pastoral poetry goes back at least as far as Scaliger (1561, 6-9); see also Della Valle 1927, 38-72; Merkelbach 1956, 97-110, which surveys ethnographic parallels for bucolic contest song; and most recently Green 1990, 234-35. For ritual songs, particularly as part of a Dionysiac thiasos, see Reitzenstein 1893, 226; Hathorn 1961; Wojaczek 1969, 22-55. For the possible formal influence of archaic lyric on amoebaean song, see Rosenmeyer 1966, 325-27; for the thematic influence of Stesichorus, see Della Valle 1927, 9-37. On Near Eastern traditions, see the useful surveys of Halperin 1983a, 85-117; Halperin 1983b; and Griffin 1992 (the latter seeing the pastoral imagery of the Iliad as the crucial intermediary).

2. For the theory that Philetas was in some sense the precursor of the pastoral tradition, see Legrand 1898, 155-56; Bignone 1934, 27-29; Puelma 1960, 150; Cairns 1979, 25-27; Du Quesnay 1981, 39-40; Bowie 1985, 72-76. There is little in his extant fragments that seems pastoral or bucolic.

3. For the concept of genre as a progressively determined structure of audience expectations that condition a work's meaning, see Van Tieghem 1938; Kohler 1940; Hirsch 1967, 68-126. The implications are well elaborated with reference to the concept of “bucolic” in Nauta 1990, 119-20, drawing on the generic theory of H.R. Jauss. See also Thomas 1996, 227-29, criticizing Gutzwiller 1991, 11.

4. It seems best to assume that Idylls “8” and “9” are by the same hand, since the same linguistic features distinguish them both from Theocritus … ; see Gow 1952, 2:185. That they both involve a contest of the same pair of shepherds need not indicate that they are by different authors; they may represent two different permutations of the situation by the same author, even as Idylls “6” and “11” present the Polyphemus theme from different perspectives. While their date is unknowable with certainty, the late third century b.c. appears most probable; see Arland 1937, 64, and Rossi 1971b, 25. The theory that they form an appendage to an earlier but post-Theocritean collection of Idylls “1-7” (or “1” and “3-7”) was first formulated by Ahrens (1874, 393-94) and is now generally accepted.

5. For a recent study of Theocritus' wide appropriation of diverse archaic and contemporary sources, see Hunter 1996.

6. See Od. 9.346, 14.78, 16.52. Callimachus fr. 178.11-12 Pf. refers to a kissybion as a small and humble vessel, positively valued over the “Thracian draught.” Zetzel (1981) and Cameron (1995, 133-37) have argued that this fragment is from the prologue to Aet. 2 and that the antithesis is therefore programmatic. For the word's literary provenance, see Mastrelli 1948, 101-5; Dale 1952; Nicosia 1968, 19-22; Halperin 1983a, 167-73. Mastrelli and Halperin emphasize that Theocritus is the first to elaborate the word's etymological implications as an “ivy cup” by giving it a carved design with a prominent ivy border; Theocritus thus adds an element of complexity to the cup's traditional simplicity.

7. See Il. 18.497-508. Miles (1977, 147) and Zimmermann (1994, 79-80) argue less persuasively that the woman is Pandora and thus a Hesiodic allusion.

8. See Scut. 213-15. The Hesiodic Shield was itself a detailed literary response to the Homeric Shield; for analysis of the intertextual dynamics, see Gärtner 1976, 56-60.

9. The counterheroic valuation of Hesiod is asserted programmatically by the dream of the Muses in the prologue to Callimachus' Aet. 1, fr. 2 Pf., clearly reminiscent of Hesiod's encounter with the Muses on Mt. Helicon in the Theogony prologue (lines 22-35); see Reitzenstein 1931, 41-63, and Kambylis 1965, 93-104. For the importance of Hesiod to Callimachus and the Alexandrians generally, see Reinsch-Werner 1976; it is downplayed by Cameron (1995, 367-72). The tradition of a “contest” between the two epic poets seems to go back at least as far as the Museum of the Sophist Alcidamas (see Nietzsche 1870, 536-40; 1873, 211-22) and possibly much earlier (see Busse 1909; Hess 1960, 56-66; Schwartz 1960, 500-505; O'Sullivan 1992, 85), although the Certamen that we currently possess is clearly Hadrianic in date.

10. For weaving as a common poetic metaphor in early Greek literature, see Svenbro 1976, 191-92, and Svenbro and Scheid 1996, 111-30. For crickets or grasshoppers in association with song, see Theocr. 7.41 and AP 7.189-90, 192-95, 197-98; the image probably derives from Callimachus Aet. 1, fr. 1.29-30 Pf. See Cairns 1984, 95. The playful child is another figure of Callimachean poetics (Aet. 1, fr. 1.5-6 Pf.). For good discussions of the poetic references in these scenes generally, see Ott 1969, 99-109; Halperin 1983a, 176-81; Goldhill 1987, 2-3.

11. See Kühn 1958; Puelma 1960; Lohse 1966; Luck 1966, 186-89; Lawall 1967, 74-117; Giangrande 1968; Williams 1971; Serrao 1971, 13-68; Segal 1981, 110-66; Bowie 1985; Williams 1987; Effe 1988.

12. Cameron (1995, 415-16) has rather unconvincingly argued that there is nothing Hesiodic here, making much of the fact that we have a shepherd's hooked staff rather than a poet's straight staff, as in Hesiod. But this variation is employed merely to emphasize the bucolic metaphor that was so central for Theocritus. As Krevans (1983, 209-10) notes, the name Burina (= “Cow Spring”) is a bucolic variant of Hesiod's Hippocrene (= “Horse Spring”); both springs have a similar aetiology, as Theocritus himself emphasizes with the allusion to Chalcon's foot (Theocr. 7.6-7). See also Hunter 1996, 23-24.

13. Cameron (1995, 417-18) denies that the hubris of those trying to rival Homer has anything to do with writing epic, claiming that Lycidas' comment is merely a derisive remark about Simichidas' poetic ambition generally. But the emphasis on Homeric epic as a model seems quite sustained. As Krevans (1983, 208-9) notes, the otherwise unknown Mt. Oromedon is probably meant to recall the giant Eurymedon in Od. 7.58, thus citing (and in Giangrandesque fashion varying) the very poet for whom the mountain stood as a symbol. Hunter (1996, 23) observes that the whole scenario of a roadside encounter with a stranger (possibly a god) is Odyssean. Cameron (1995, 412-15) notes that the formula … (Theocr. 7.42), of Lycidas' “sweet laughter” at Simichidas, is Homeric (and not so sweet in its connotations). The phrase used of those “toiling in vain” (Theocr. 7.48 …) to rival Homer seems to cite the two suitors on the kissybion who also “toil in vain” (Theocr. 1.38; see Zimmermann 1994, 80, and Stanzel 1996, 212) and thus alludes to a scene that is itself a Homeric allusion, as we have seen.

14. However, Krevans (1983, 219), Bowie (1985, 67-68), and Goldhill (1991, 229-30) introduce some prudent qualifications: by eventually giving the poem's first person the name Simichidas, the poet both invites and distances an identification with himself.

15. For the various possibilities, see Luck 1966, 186-89; Williams 1971, 137-45; Brown 1981, 59-100. For strong arguments against a divine identification, see Giangrande 1968, 515-33. There is really little solid basis for thinking that Lycidas must be a god (a noontime appearance on the road, a knowing smile, a sudden departure); the chief reason for thinking him a god is his status as the agent of investiture, but as Giangrande argues, this role can be better seen as a parody of investiture: so also contends Arnott 1996, 64-66.

16. Bowie 1985, 68-80; Williams 1987, 108-16. In favor of Hesiod, see Schwinge 1974, 44-45; Kegel-Brinkgreve 1990, 36-37. This approach was also taken by some earlier scholars: Legrand (1898, 45), Cholmeley (1919, 18-21), and Van Groningen (1959, 49-53) thought Lycidas to be Leonidas of Tarentum. For a review of the various other possibilities for a poetic identification, see Gow 1952, 2:130; Cataudella 1956, 160.

17. Huxley (1982) notes that there is a modern village of this name on Cos, possibly echoing an ancient toponym. Such a locale seems more relevant to the context than the Lesbian Cydonia discussed by Bowie (1985, 90-91).

18. Krevans (1983, 215-16) discusses the close parallel of Theocr. 7.118-19 with AP 12.166, as well as Asclepiades' fondness for the paraclausithyron motif in evidence throughout Simichidas' song.

19. Such is surely the object of the riddle, as argued by Bowie (1985, 75) and Cameron (1995, 419). Bing (1986) is less convincing in seeing herein alder writing tablets.

20. See Cameron 1995, 488-93.

21. West (1970, 206) has denied this story to the archaic Stesichorus of Himera, instead supposing that Aelian VH 10.18 (= fr. 279 PMG) refers to a fourth-century poet of the same name. But as Krevans (1983, 207) points out, Theocr. 7.75 specifically situates Daphnis' death on the banks of the river Himera, a topographic allusion more likely to associate him with the better known archaic poet. For a defense of the authenticity of Stesichorus' Daphnis on other grounds, see Lehnus 1975.

22. Vita Pindari 2 (Drachmann). Theocr. 7.86-89 specifically presents this Comatas as a figure of the poetic past, no longer among the living.

23. On the dynamics of Simichidas' alternating modesty and self-assertion here, see the sensitive observations of Segal 1981, 135-48 and particularly 173-74.

24. See Segal 1981, 169-70.

25. On the status of Lycidas' song as a propemptikon (a farewell to a friend going on a journey), albeit an abnormal one, see Cairns 1972, 27-28, 163-64. Whereas Cairns analyzes the unusual feast of celebration as an included prosphonetikon topos, it might be better seen as a celebration of Lycidas' release from bondage to love for Ageanax. For this ironic interpretation of Lycidas' song, see Seeck 1975, 384; Furusawa 1980, 36-38. As they note, Lycidas cannot possibly be celebrating his feast because of any immediate knowledge of Ageanax' safe arrival.

26. Although [S] “Id. 6.”arg. a, e, 2a (Wendel) identifies the Aratus alluded to in Theocritus' works as Aratus of Soli, the poet, most modern commentators have rejected the identification, principally on the grounds that the Coan setting of “Idyll 7” suggests an identification with someone on the island of Cos. See Wilamowitz 1894, 182-99; Gow 1952, 2:118-19. Dover (1971, 141-42) is uncertain. But nothing in Simichidas' song indicates that Aratus is a Coan or even that Simichidas himself is; Simichidas is merely on the island of Cos when he encounters Lycidas on the way to a harvest festival. “Idyll 7” may have been written at Alexandria as a recollection of Theocritus' poetic beginnings on the island of Cos, perhaps under the tutelage of Philetas, but this need not limit its range of reference strictly to characters on Cos.

27. See Krevans 1983, 207-8, 214-20, followed by Stanzel 1995, 280. Of course, if we had more Philetas, our impression of the dominant models in Lycidas' song might be different.

28. Gow (1952, 2:76) sees this poem and “Idyll 5” as “poetically on a lower plane than T.'s other bucolic idylls,” approaching “more nearly to the possible speech of rustics than anything else in T.” Also see Legrand 1898, 411.

29. Corydon's relative youth is implied from the start, when he informs us that he is under the close scrutiny of an “old man” (Theocr. 4.4 …), and it is confirmed by Battus' repeated jibes suggesting Corydon's inexperience. Corydon is also referred to as a dilettante in Theocr. 5.6-7.

30. Among the many instances of Pindaric reference to local cults in the home city of an athletic victor, some of the most famous include O. 7.48-49, O. 9.112; P. 5.85-93; N. 7.86-94; I. 3/4.79-86. Gow (1952, 2:84) doubts that Croton and its shrines could occupy so prominent a place in a song about Aegon's exploits and thus seems to regard these as snippets from different songs. But an athlete's city and its institutions are in fact central objects of praise in epinician poetry. For the importance of the Pindaric epinician to Callimachus and other Alexandrian poets, see Fuhrer 1992.

31. For Battus' foreignness to the countryside, see Lattimore 1973, 322-23; Kegel-Brinkgreve 1990, 35. For Battus as a figure of superior wit, see Kynaston 1892, 135; Ott 1969, 47-48; Gutzwiller 1991, 149-50. For Battus' sentimentality versus Corydon's realism, see Lawall 1967, 47; Van Sickle 1969, 136; Segal 1981, 91. For a good discussion of the contrast between the two shepherds, see also Barigazzi 1974, 302-3.

32. See the discussion of Lawall 1967, 42-51. Just as Battus is reduced in stature as the poem develops, so is the old man who appears at the beginning as a figure of controlling authority over the young Corydon (Theocr. 4.4), but at the end is presented as an incontinent lecher and object of mockery.

33. Van Sickle (1969, 138-39, 147) has some good observations on this aspect of Corydon's development.

34. Reitzenstein 1893, 229-34.

35. For Callimachus' father, see Suda … (κ227 Adler). Allusion to Battus in later poetry becomes tantamount to an allusion to Callimacheanism. See Catullus 65.16 and 116.2. However, Cameron (1995, 8) may be right in holding that Battiades was merely a mock-epic formation claiming descent from Cyrenean royalty, not a literal patronymic; see also White 1995. Even so, Theocritus' Battus could still allude ironically to Callimachus' self-styled identity as a royal scion. On the general relationship between Callimachus and Theocritus, see Gercke 1887, 593-626; Legrand 1898, 69-73; Schlatter 1941. For a more negative view, see Hutchinson 1988, 197-203. …

36. See Athenaeus 14.620e. …

37. See Clayman 1993, who interprets the dispute of Helicon and Cithaeron in fr. 654 PMG as an allegory of Corinna's dispute with her precursor Pindar. Diegesis 7.1-18 interprets the dispute of the olive and the laurel in Callimachus' Iamb 4 in a similar way.

38. Critics have tended to deny the identity of this goatherd with the legendary Comatas of Theocr. 7.78-89 (also identified as a goatherd)—see Kynaston 1892, 153; Reitzenstein 1893, 242 n. 1; Legrand 1898, 151; Dover 1971, 129. But there is really no reason to do so, any more than we should deny the identity of the young Daphnis in “Idyll 6” with the famous Daphnis of “Idyll 1” (even this identification is denied, however, by Arland [1937, 22]). On the connection of this Comatas with the figure of “Idyll 7,” see Schmidt 1974a, 208-10. The repetition of names within a bucolic corpus is an important form of autotextual allusion.

39. The general connection between pederasty and education in Greek thought is familiar, especially in view of such texts as Aristophanes Nub. 961-1023. See the discussion of Marrou 1956, 26-35.

40. As part of the actual contest (Theocr. 5.116-19), Comatas reminds Lacon of a specific act of anal penetration, of which Lacon presumes to have no memory, recalling only a case in which Comatas himself was tied up and whipped by his master.

41. For good discussions of the sexual dynamics of this poem and their connection to the paideia relationship, see Lawall 1967, 57-65; Prestagostini 1984, 137-41; Stanzel 1995, 90-96.

42. Schmidt (1974a, 239-41) is right in identifying this boast as the cause of Lacon's defeat. Giangrande (1976, 150) criticizes this conclusion on the grounds that the judge Morson had not heard Lacon's original charge; Köhnken (1980, 123-24) says that Morson should have stopped the contest immediately after Lacon's distich (Theocr. 5.134-35), if this were the reason for Lacon's defeat. But the polemical tone of Comatas' final distich (Theocr. 5.136-37) reflects his recognition of Lacon's self-contradiction and defeat at this point (even if Morson could not recognize it); Lacon cannot reply, because he knows Comatas has caught him in a self-contradiction, and as a result Morson awards the victory to Comatas. Crane (1988, 116-17) dismisses the whole question of verisimilitude here on the grounds that the shepherds make extravagant and unrealistic claims throughout the contest; but this is the only case of blatant self-contradiction.

43. Reitzenstein (1893, 242) believed a masquerade to exist here but was uncertain who was concerned; cf. Sanchez-Wildberger 1955, 49-50, and Gutzwiller 1991, 145-47. Gallavotti (1936, 38-39) believed Comatas to be Theocritus himself, Lacon a younger rival.

44. [S] “Id. 8.”56d, “Id. 9.”arg. (Wendel). Reitzenstein (1893, 257-59) believes that Sositheus' involvement with the story (fr. 821 Nauck) was later, perhaps under the influence of “Idyll 8” itself. The Menalcas legend was also a matter of interest to Clearchus; see his fr. 32 (Wehrli).

45. Legrand (1898, 14-17) went so far as to propose that these two sections of “Idyll 8” had to be the work of different authors.

46. Reitzenstein (1893, 189-90) and Bignone (1934, 81, 87) saw the formative influence behind the distichs as that of Hellenistic epigram, not elegy.

47. For a similar conclusion, see Van Sickle 1976, 25-26.

48. See White 1981, 189-90, for such imitation of elders by children as a favored topos of the Hellenistic imagination.

49. See n. 4 in this chapter.

50. White (1980, 48-50) contends that Daphnis is at least implicitly judged the superior singer in “bucolic poetry,” inasmuch as he is given the shepherd's crook. However, in her view “Idyll 9” “corrects” “Idyll 8” by giving Menalcas a “consolation prize,” since Daphnis (one of Menalcas' legendary beloveds according to [S] “Id.8.”56d) would not want to see Menalcas as aggrieved as he was by his loss at the end of “Idyll 8.”

51. In addition to Polyphemus in Idylls “6” and “11,” see Theocr. 7.148-57. For Theocritus' various techniques of epic deformation, both content oriented and stylistic, see Halperin 1983a, 217-48.

52. Gow (1952, 2:185) says, “the case against the poem however reposes rather on its inherent badness … this poem is hackwork, and one cannot imagine T. committing its absurdities at any period of his career.” Cf. Edmonds 1912, 123. Legrand (1898, 14-17) regarded the poem as so disunified that he posited three separate authors.

53. … Moschus is attested as Theocritus' bucolic successor in Servius Praef. Verg. Ecl. (= vol. 3, p. 2, l. 15 Thilo-Hagen). Bion's works are cited as Bucolica by Stobaeus (e.g., Flor. 29.52, 64.21 Meineke). That this tradition goes back to the poets' own time is indicated by the Lament for Bion (on which, see the discussion later in this chapter).

54. For this contention, see Halperin 1983a, 126-37, 145.

55. On Alexandrian principles of genre classification and canon formation, emphasizing the necessity of assigning each poet to a single genre, see Pfeiffer 1968, 203-8; Rossi 1971a, 80-86; Zetzel 1983, 97-100. It is important to note that the same Alexandrians who undertook such classifications consciously mixed and violated genre boundaries in their own work.

56. The prime example in the Theocritean collection is Theocr. 9.7-21; cf. Verg. 7.45-52.

57. Syracuse was the place of Theocritus' birth …, and Sicily is the setting of “Idyll 1.” Sicilian song certainly became synonymous with Theocritean verse for Vergil; cf. Verg. 4.1, 6.1, 10.51, and the discussion of Thill 1979, 46-49.

58. Lycidas is also appropriated as the name of Bion's beloved and object of song in fr. 9.10 (Gow), and Polyphemus seems to be the speaker in fr. 16 (Gow).

59. Excessive erotic attachment is shown to be destructive (e.g., for Daphnis in “Idyll 1,” Simaetha in “Idyll 2”); love is something that can best be dismissed with an easy conscience (e.g., see Lycidas' and Simichidas' songs in “Idyll 7”) or cured through song (as for Polyphemus in “Idyll 11”). On the Epicurean nature of Theocritus' attitude toward love, see the excellent discussion of Rosenmeyer 1969, 79-85.

60. For an analysis of Bion fr. 9 (Gow) as a similar polemical gesture, directed toward both Callimachus and Theocritus, see Fantuzzi 1980, 183-86.

61. On the close parallel between Theocritus' Daphnis and Bion's Adonis and on their mutual relation to the Dumuzi/Tammuz paradigm in Mesopotamian mythology, see Trencsényi-Waldapfel 1966, 27-31. On the general importance of Theocritus as a model for the lament, see Porro 1988, 211-21.

62. Schlegel 1822, 4:62.

63. The Lament for Bion is traditionally ascribed to Moschus but is unlikely to be his: its poet claims to be a native of Italy (Epit. Bion. 93-94), whereas Moschus was, like Theocritus, a native of Syracuse …

64. For the relation of this poem to “Idyll 1” and Epit. Adon., particularly in terms of extended pathetic fallacy, see Arland 1937, 43-45.

65. See Edmonds 1912, 451. Of course, Bion's poem may have been imagined as a piece for ritual performance at the Adonis festivals. See Wilamowitz 1900, 10; Alexiou 1974, 56; Fantuzzi 1985, 159-60.

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