Heracles the Lion Slayer
To whom thus spake the herdsman of the herd,
Pausing a moment from his handiwork:
'Friend, I will solve thy questions, for I fear
The angry looks of Hermes of the roads.
No dweller in the skies is wroth as he,
With him who saith the asking traveller nay.
'The flocks Augeas owns, our gracious lord,
One pasture pastures not, nor one fence bounds.
They wander, look you, some by Elissus' banks
Or god-beloved Alpheus' sacred stream,
Some by Buprasion, where the grape abounds,
Some here: their folds stand separate. But before
His herds, though they be myriad, yonder glades
That belt the broad lake round lie fresh and fair
For ever: for the low-lying meadows take
The dew, and teem with herbage honeysweet,
To lend new vigour to the horned kine.
Here on thy right their stalls thou canst descry
By the flowing river, for all eyes to see:
Here, where the platans blossom all the year,
And glimmers green the olive that enshrines
Rural Apollo, most august of gods.
Hard by, fair mansions have been reared for us
His herdsmen; us who guard with might and main
His riches that are more than tongue may tell:
Casting our seed o'er fallows thrice upturn'd
Or four times by the share; the bounds whereof
Well do the delvers know, whose busy feet
Troop to his wine-vats in fair summer-time.
Yea, all these acres wise Augeas owns,
These corn-clad uplands and these orchards green,
Far as yon ledges whence the cataracts leap.
Here do we haunt, here toil, as is the wont
Of labourers in the fields, the livelong day.
But prythee tell me thou-so shalt thou best
Serve thine own interests-wherefore art thou here?
Seeking Augeas, or mayhap some slave
That serves him? I can tell thee and I will
All thou would'st know: for of no churlish blood
Thou earnest, nor wert nurtured as a churl:
That read I in thy stateliness of form;
The sons of heaven move thus among mankind.'
Then answered him the warrior son of Zeus.
'Yea, veteran, I would see the Epean King
Augeas; surely for this end I came.
If he bides there amongst his citizens,
Ruling the folk, determining the laws,
Look, father; bid some serf to be my guide,
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poem by Theocritus
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