What, do you speak, you hobgoblin? You ought at this time of life to have done with these guilty practices. Just as the seasons of the year, so different lines of conduct befit different ages; but if this is proper, that old fellows should be wenching in their old age, where in the world is our common welfare?

DEMIPHO.

Alas! wretch that I am! I’m undone.

EUTYCHUS.

The young men are more in the habit of giving their attention to following those pursuits.

DEMIPHO.

Troth, now, prithee, do take her to yourselves, with pigs and with basket.

EUTYCHUS.

Restore her to your son; let him have her, now, as he wishes.

DEMIPHO.

So far as I’m concerned, he may have her.

EUTYCHUS.

High time, i’ faith, since you haven’t the power of doing otherwise.

DEMIPHO.

For this injury let him take what satisfaction he likes; only do you make peace, I beg of you, that he mayn’t be angry with me. I’ faith, if I had known it, or if, indeed, he had told me in the slightest way of joke that he was in love with her, I should never have proceeded to take her away from him so in love. Eutychus, you are his companion, preserve and rescue me, I beg of you. Make this old fellow your client. You shall say that I’m mindful of a kindness.

And all’s well that ends well.

EUROPA AND THE BULL

‘Idyll II’

Moschus

Translated by Andrew Lang, 1892

In this pastoral Idyll by Moschus, a bucolic poet born in Syracuse, in Sicily, in the mid-second century BC, a young virgin named Europa is sent a curious dream by Aphrodite (‘Cypris’). Her fate is sealed. There are echoes here of the tale of young Persephone (see Story 11), among others. The story of Europa and the bull was particularly popular among artists of the Renaissance.

To Europa, once on a time, a sweet dream was sent by Cypris, when the third watch of the night sets in, and near is the dawning; when sleep more sweet than honey rests on the eyelids, limb-loosening sleep, that binds the eyes with his soft bond, when the flock of truthful dreams fares wandering.

At that hour she was sleeping, beneath the roof-tree of her home, Europa, the daughter of Phoenix, being still a maid unwed. Then she beheld two Continents at strife for her sake, Asia, and the farther shore, both in the shape of women. Of these one had the guise of a stranger, the other of a lady of that land, and closer still she clung about her maiden, and kept saying how ‘she was her mother, and herself had nursed Europa.’ But that other with mighty hands, and forcefully, kept haling the maiden, nothing loth; declaring that, by the will of Aegis-bearing Zeus, Europa was destined to be her prize.