Idyll XIX, also titled Κηριοκλέπτης ('The Honey-Stealer'), is a poem doubtfully ascribed to the third-century BC Greek poet Theocritus.[1] Eros complains of the painful stings inflicted by the small bees, and Aphrodite laughingly compares them to the bittersweet darts of love shot by Eros himself.
Analysis
[edit]According to J. M. Edmonds, this little poem probably belongs to a later date than the Bucolic writers, and was brought into the collection merely owing to its resemblance to the Runaway Love of Moschus.[1] The motif is that of a well-known Anacreontic Ode.[2] The idyll has been translated into French by Ronsard.[2]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]Sources
[edit]Attribution: This article incorporates text from these sources, which are in the public domain.
- Edmonds, J. M., ed. (1919). The Greek Bucolic Poets (3rd ed.). William Heinemann. pp. 233–5.
- Lang, Andrew, ed. (1880). Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. London: Macmillan and Co. p. 95.
Further reading
[edit]- Cholmeley, R. J., ed. (1919). The Idylls of Theocritus (2nd ed.). London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. pp. 321–6.
- Hopkinson, Neil, ed. (2015). Theocritus. Moschus. Bion. LCL 28. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 269–71.
External links
[edit]Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Κηριοκλέπτης
Media related to Category: Idyll XIX at Wikimedia Commons
- "Theocritus, Idylls, Κηριοκλέπτης". Perseus Digital Library.