Idyll V

Idyll V, sometimes called Αιπολικόν και Ποιμενικόν ('The Goatherd and the Shepherd'), is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus.

[2] The scene of this shepherd-poem is laid in the wooded pastures near the mouth of the river Crathis in the district of Sybaris and Thurii in Southern Italy.

[1] The foreground is the shore of a lagoon near which stand effigies of the Nymphs who preside over it, and there is close by a rustic statue of Pan of the seaside.

[1] Having seated themselves some little distance apart, they proceed to converse in no very friendly spirit, and the talk gradually leads to a contest of song with a woodcutter named Morson for the judge and a lamb and a goat for the stakes.

"[1] According to Andrew Lang, "No other idyl of Theocritus is so frankly true to the rough side of rustic manners.

View of the river Crathis seen from the hill Terranova da Sibari
Greek colonies of Italy and Sicily
'Clearista, too, pelts the goatherd with apples as he drives past his she-goats, and a sweet word she murmurs'