Idyll IX, also titled Βουκολιασταί γʹ ('The Third Country Singing-Match'), is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus.
[1] Daphnis and Menalcas, at the bidding of the poet, sing the joys of the neatherds and of the shepherds life.
[2] Both receive the thanks of the poet, and rustic prizes—a staff and a horn, made of a spiral shell.
[1] At the request of the writer that they shall compete in song before him, each of the herdsmen sings seven lines, Daphnis setting the theme; and then the writer, leaving it to be implied that he judged them equal, tells us how he gave them each a gift and what it was.
[1] J. M. Edmonds thinks this poem "would seem to be merely a poor imitation of the last" (Idyll VIII).