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Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens of tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night.
Then again Odysseus, the wise and crafty, he and his men cast their swift spears into the press of the wooers, and now once more Odysseus, waster of cities, smote Eurydamas, and Telemachus Amphimedon, and the swineherd slew Polybus, and last, the neatherd struck Ctesippus in the breast and boasted over him, saying: 'O son of Polytherses, thou lover of jeering, never give place at all to folly to speak so big, but leave thy case to the gods, since in truth they are far mightier than thou.
It was not enclosed, but a neatherd was there with his cattle half a mile away, sitting himself at the foot of a beech, while the cattle grazed below him. Down in the valley the stockade began; it was not wide but long. The enclosure extended on the left to the bank of the river, and two fields on the other side of it.
And Antinous still held to the task and godlike Eurymachus, chief men among the wooers, who were far the most excellent of all. But those other twain went forth both together from the house, the neatherd and the swineherd of godlike Odysseus; and Odysseus passed out after them.
No chance of that, for the old man puts the calves beneath their dams, and keeps watch on me. Battus. But the neatherd himself, to what land has he passed out of sight? Corydon. Hast thou not heard? Milon went and carried him off to the Alpheus. Battus. And when, pray, did HE ever set eyes on the wrestlers' oil? Corydon. They say he is a match for Heracles, in strength and hardihood. Battus.
And said: 'Unhappy Daphnis, wherefore dost thou languish, while for thee the maiden by all the fountains, through all the glades is fleeting, in search of thee? Ah! thou art too laggard a lover, and thou nothing availest! A neatherd wert thou named, and now thou art like the goatherd: Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!
Thereafter they cleansed the fair high seats and the tables with water and porous sponges. And Telemachus, and the neatherd, and the swineherd, scraped with spades the floor of the well-builded house, and, behold, the maidens carried all forth and laid it without the doors.
The authenticity of this idyl has been denied, partly because the Daphnis of the poem is not identical in character with the Daphnis of the first idyl. But the piece is certainly worthy of a place beside the work of Theocritus. The dialogue is here arranged as in the text of Fritzsche. The Maiden. Helen the wise did Paris, another neatherd, ravish! Daphnis.
There sate, half a yeoman, the Saxon thegn of Berkshire or Dorset, proud of his five hydes of land; there, half an ealderman, the Danish thegn of Norfolk or Ely, discontented with his forty; some were there in right of smaller offices under the crown; some traders, and sons of traders, for having crossed the high seas three times at their own risk; some could boast the blood of Offa and Egbert; and some traced but three generations back to neatherd and ploughman; and some were Saxons and some were Danes: and some from the western shires were by origin Britons, though little cognisant of their race.
But Telemachus, and the neatherd, and the swineherd stayed their feet from dancing, and made the women to cease, and themselves gat them to rest through the shadowy halls. Now when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they had delight in the tales, which they told one to the other.
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