Idyll VIII, also called Βουκολιασταί βʹ ('The Second Country Singing-Match'), is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus.
[1] The characters of this dialogue are the mythical personages Daphnis a cowherd and Menalcas a shepherd, and an unnamed goatherd who plays umpire in their contest of song.
[1] After four lines by way of stage-direction, the conversation opens with mutual banter between the two young countrymen, and leads to a singing-match with pipes for the stakes.
[1] The scene is among the high mountain pastures of Sicily: On the sward, at the cliff topLie strewn the white flocks;and far below lies the Sicilian sea.
[2] Their songs, in elegiac measure, are variations on the themes of love and friendship (for Menalcas sings of Milon, Daphnis of Nais), and of nature.