65656epic and Bucolic

Epic and Bucolic: (Theocritus, Id. VII; Virgil, Ecl.
I)
Author(s): John Van Sickle
Source: Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, No. 19 (1975), pp. 45-72
Published by: Fabrizio Serra Editore
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Epic and Bucolic
(Theocritus, Id. VII; Virgil, Eel. I)*
by John Van Sickle
The appearance of bucolic poetry at the start of a poetic career

which culminates in heroic epic has always required some account
ing. Ancient critics make a point of the difference between the
* This paper was first given as a shop talk at the American Academy in Rome,
April 17, 1973. I am grateful to my host, Professor Frank E. Brown, and to others
for helpful criticism. The following works are referred to in brief form in the notes:
Clausen, W. ' Callimachus and Latin Poetry ', Gr. Rom. Byz. Stud. (1964) 181-196.
Damon, P. ' Modes of Analogy in Ancient and Medieval Verse ', Univ. Calif. Publ.
Class. Philol. 15 (Berkeley 1961) 261-334.
Gow, A. S. F. Theocritus (Cambridge 19522).
Koster, S. Antike Epostheorien (Wiesbaden 1970).
Lawall, G. Theocritus' Coan Pastorals: A Poetry Book (Washington 1967).
Leach, 4 Eclogue 6 ': E. W. Leach, * The Unity of Eclogue 6 ', Latomus 27 (1968)
13-32.
Lesky, A. A History of Greek Literature (London 1966).
Luiselli, B. Studi sulla poes?a buc?lica (Cagliari 1967).
Mariotti, Ennio: S. Mariotti, Lezioni su Ennio (Pesaro 1951).
Mynors, R. A. B. P. Vergili Maronis Opera (Oxford 1969).
Otis, B. Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford 1964).
Pfeiffer, R. Callimachus (Oxford 1949, 1965).
-History. History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968).
Powell: J. U. Powell, Collectanea Alexandrina (Oxford 1925).
Putnam, M. C. J. Virgil's Pastoral Art: Studies in the Eclogues (Princeton 1970).
Rossi, L. E. 'I generi letterari e le loro leggi scritte e non scritte nelle letterature
classiche ', Bull. Inst. Class. Stud. 18 (1971) 69-94.
Schmidt, E. A. Poetische Reflexion: Vergils Bukolik (M?nchen 1972).
Segal, ' /?/.IV ' : C. P. Segal, ' Theocritean Criticism and the Interpretation of the
Fourth Idyll ', Ramus 1 (1972) 1-25.
Serrao, G. Problemi di Poesia Alessandrina: I. Studi su Teocrito (Roma 1971).
Servius: G. Thilo and H. Hagen, Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii Carmina
Commentarii (Leipzig 1887); auct. = Servius auctus.
46 J. Van Sickle
two: for example Servius, who writes that nothing lofty is to be

sought in bucolic persons, that they are rustics delighting in simpli
city, so that in them nothing urbane, nothing declamatory is found,
but all their affairs, comparisons, and anything else come from
rustic matters1; or Pro bus, who writes that certain sublime matters
are proper to heroic song, while humble matters are proper to
bucolic, which Virgil fittingly observed 2.
Yet the critics also recognized a kind of unity in the career,
though they expressed it in external and schematic terms: for
example Donatus, whom Servius often cites, thought that Virgil
could have been moved by literary ambition to write the Bucolics;
for given the fact that there were three modes of eloquence ? the
" thin " or " slender ", the " middle " or " measured ", and the
"full " or "strong "?it seemed plausible that Virgil, in order
to excel in all three modes, had wished to contribute the Bucolics
to the thin style, the Georgics to the middle style, and the Aeneid
to the strong style3. The three works also struck Donatus as
following a "natural succession ", since first men lived a pastoral
life in the mountains ? the subject of the Bucolics, then came
the love for agriculture ? the subject of the Georgics, and finally
there was the passion for war ? the subject of the Aeneid4. Al
ready in the first century A. D., the satirist Persius had alluded to
the three poems as a graduated poetic curriculum, when he scoffed
at the rash poets among his contemporaries who launched directly
into heroic verse without the preparatory discipline of bucolic
VS 'Catullus ': J. Van Sickle, 'About Form and Feeling in Catullus 65 ', Trans.
Am. Philol. Assoc. 99 (1968) 487-508.
-' Methodology ' : ' Studies of Dialectical Methodology in Virgil ', Modern
Language Notes 85 (1970) 884-928.
-'Po?tica': 'Po?tica Teocritea ', Quad. Urb. 9 (1970) 82-97.
-? Unity ' : ' The Unity of the Eclogues: Arcadian Forest, Theocritean Trees ',
Trans. Am. Philol. Assoc. 98 (1967) 491-508.
Wendel, C. Scholia in Theocritum Vetera (Leipzig 1914).
-?berlief.: ?berlieferung und Entstehung der Theokrit Scholien (Berlin 1920 =
Abhandl. d. Gott. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. 17,2).
West, M. Hesiod Theogony (Oxford 1966).
1 Servius 2,3-5.
2 Wendel 15,23-24.
3 Wendel 18,19-27.
4 Quoted by Servius 3,28-4,1.
Epic and Bucolic 47
and georgic art5. The ascending hierarchy of three easily became

a formula and literary commonplace: pascua, rura, duces, " pas
tures, country, captains " 6; auena...arua...arma, "oat flute...plow
lands...war " 7.
Such conceptions of unity still presuppose the sharp delimita
tion of the three works: by subjects, if not by stylistic modes or
separate genres ? "the bucolic", "the didactic", and "the
epic ". It is only when interpretation frees itself from the influence
of ancient rhetorical and generic schemes that the Bucolics appear
less isolated. For example, one recent and influential Virgilian
study formulates unity of theme and style among all three poems,
in general conceiving of the career as a progress toward the Aeneid,
and at one point even employing a biological metaphor: "The
great interest of the Eclogues for our present purpose is that they
show in embryo, so to speak, the two main features of the subjec
tive style of the Aeneid... " 8. The interpretation articulates ways
in which the bucolic poems anticipate the heroic epic9:
Virgil has in the Eclogues assimilated both the empathetic and the sym
pathetic components of his narrative to something of the high style and
diction of epic. The result is a unity ? a finished harmony ? of style...
considerable restriction of tone and topic: comedy, objective realism,
the light, chatty, familiar and ironic moods of the Alexandrines, are all
very much in abeyance. But the Virgilian sadness or melancholy repre
sented a new note in poetry: it was also an excellent preparative for epic.
A complementary discussion speaks of the Romanizing of pastoral,

of the bringing of history into the bucolic world; and concludes
that " Virgil had developed during the years 41-38 from a neoteric
and Theocritean to at least a potentially Augustan poet " 10. Earlier
5 Persius, Sat. I 68-75, indicates the three epic subjects: poner? lucum (bucolic)/
rus saturum laudare (georgic)Iheroas sensus adferre (heroic).
6 From the apocryphal epitaph of Virgil:
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc
Parthenope, cecini pascua rura duces.
7 From the apocryphal lines of transition between the first two works and the
Aeneid: see Mynors (XII).
8 Otis 97.
9 Otis 128.
10 Otis 143.
48 /. Van Sickle
the book has spoken of finding "in both the Eclogues and the
Georgics the essential Augustan themes " u; and it treats the Geor
gics as an intermediate stage in Virgil's development from the
Bucolics toward the Aeneid1*. All this tends to overcome the
division of the poems into exclusive generic compartments, and to
bridge the traditional gap between bucolic and heroic song.
On the other hand, the book's own account of the generic
nature of the Bucolics not only resembles the traditional critics
but if anything widens the conceptual gap between bucolic and
heroic13:
Virgil had originally, it seems, thought of writing a Roman epic (res

Romanae) but gave up the attempt and turned instead to the Bucolics,
imitations of the Alexandrine Theocritus. These are obviously the poems
of a man thoroughly imbued with Callimachean and neoteric ideals...
poetry in a light vein (carmen deductum) not epic... * tender and grace
ful ' (molle atque facetum) song ? obviously nothing epic.
Here the refrain ? "not epic...nothing epic"?recalls Servius'

and Probus' simple bucolic genre rather than the considered judg
ment that in Virgil bucolic was ** an excellent preparative for
epic"14; the citation of Callimachean poetics only increases the
appearance of inconsistency in Virgil's career, since Callimachus'
refusal of heroic epic is well known15. In all, we are left without
a unifying conception of poetics which would correspond to the
book's own account of a single development in theme and style
from Bucolics through Aeneid16.
11 Otis 39.
12 Otis 97, etc. Cf. Putnam 17, who also traces thematic continuity and develop
ment from the pastorals through the Georgics to the Aeneid.
13 Otis 33-34.
14 Cf. note 9.
15 See note 107 below.
16 A Callimachean reading of the Bucolics also raises a query about the Aeneid
in Clausen 195. Both he and Otis 33-34, cited in note 13 above, take E.Vl 1-8 as
the leading statement of poetics for the entire book. Instead, however, it should be
read as Virgil's modification of the more ambitious poetics of E.l-V; cf. Leach,
4 Eclogue 6 ' 26, note 3 ; and the discussion of the poetics of E. I below.
Epic and Bucolic 49
At this point we must conclude that either Virgil never had

such a unifying conception of his own poetics or that, if he did,
it comprised something other than the neoteric vogue for Calli
machus and generic notions like those of late antiquity. In fact,
literary genres are human inventions which have concrete histories
rather than an ideal absolute existence. They develop first in
practice and only gradually are theorized; their definitions change
and evolve according to the interests, tastes, and needs of succes
sive poets, audiences, and critics17. Thus it was wrong to take
for granted that late antiquity had an accurate conception of Virgil's
work. Also, it was arbitrary to assume that, for Virgil, Theocritus
merely represented Callimachean ideals18; though as long as ancient
critical judgments of Theocritus prevailed, it was easy and natural
to take him as just another example of slight style. The ancient
critics thought that Theocritus, unlike Virgil, did conform to the
rules and expectations of the simple bucolic genre: for example
Servius' remark that Virgil has only seven purely rustic eclogues
while Theocritus has ten; or that Theocritus is "everywhere sim
ple " though Virgil is not19. However, recent studies of Theo
critus have shown that he too is more complex than the generic
critics allowed 20. His work does raise the expectation of simple
country things which the generic rules prescribe, but only to under
cut simplicity by hints of a refined literary consciousness that in
forms his practice and makes what he does as well as what he says
an index of his poetics 21. Only when we take the new interpreta
17 Cf. Rossi 70; Schmidt 11-13: for an example of change in generic theory, see
note 25 below. Genres have unwritten before they acquire written rules, and the
writing down may also be a misreading of the poets' practice.
18 Yet interpreters assume almost automatically that it was Callimachus who set
the literary trend: the seventh Idyll becomes a declaration of Callimachean "alle
giance " (Otis 13, cf. 402; and Serrao 55); but Gow I,XXIII, note 3, observes that
" The views which Callimachus was prominent in defending need not have originated
with him. He and Theocritus may have derived them independently from (for inst
ance) Philitas; cf. 7.47 n. ". Cf. also note 61 below for a suggestion of Philitas'
influence on the poetics of Id.YU 51, and further on Philitas, note 77.
19 Servius 3,20-24; 2,14-22.
20 For example, G. Fabiano, ' Fluctuation in Theocritus' Style ', Gr. Rom. Byz.
Stud. 12 (1971) 517-537; Lawall; Segal, 'Id.IV9; Serrao.
21 Cf. remarks by Pfeiffer, History 125, on the self-conscious and reflective charac
4
50 /. Van Sickle
tions of Theocritus into account can we begin to understand why

Virgil began with him and not with Callimachus.
If we put aside, then, the generic expectation of country things
(and with it any temptation to confuse Theocritus' poetry with
actual rustic song)22, the most important literary antecedents of
the bucolic poems are mime and epic. The bucolic poems have a
generic identity with mime in the sense that both represent lower
class persons in commonplace situations and both use the Doric
dialect. But bucolic differs from mime specifically in using rural
rather than urban material23; and it shifts from prose to the me
trical form of Hesiod and Homer ? the dactylic hexameter, epos 24.
For the contemporaries of Theocritus and Virgil, this choice
of meter constituted in itself a declaration of generic identity;
since one conception of genre current in their time, though subor
dinated or neglected in later antique theory 25, took meter as the
criterion of genre. By this criterion, all poetry written in dactylic
hexameter belonged to the one genre which was that of Hesiod
and Homer: not "epic" with the modern connotations of the
term, but " epic " because of the verse form, epos26. This metrical
conception of genre served for classifying the library at Alexan
dria 27; it led Horace to classify Virgil's new bucolic poems as a
ter of the poetry of Callimachus; self-interpretation in early epic, Idem 1-4; and in
Virgil, note 98 below.
22 For discussion and bibliography, see L. E. Rossi, ' Vittoria e sconfitta nel
l'agone buc?lico letterario ', Giorn. it. filol. n.s. II (1971) 13.
23 On the self-conscious transplant of an urban form, the paraclausithyron, to
the country in Id.lll see VS, * Po?tica ' 79 and also Rossi 93, note 85.
24 Lesky 722: " Theocritus dressed it (sc. mime) in the more distinguished garb
of the hexameter ".
25 For example, Quintilian following an Alexandrian list lumps all kinds of hexa
meter writers together (save only Latin satire) with no distinction of bucolic or di
dactic epic: Inst. 10,1,85-92. But in the fourth century Diomedes distinguishes
three genera (dramatic, narrative, mixed), and three species of narrative, including
didascalice, which comprises the didactic poets, who no longer are associated with
epic; while the species of the mixed genre include heroica, lyrica, elegeia, iambus,
epodos, s?tira, buc?lica...: 483 Keil.
26 See Koster 22-24; P. Steinmetz, ' Gattungen und Epochen der griechischen
Literatur ', Hermes 92 (1964) 454-466.
27 Pfeiffer, History 128-129.
Epic and Bucolic 51
kind of epic 28; and Quintilian, still following Alexandrian practice

more than a century later, added Theocritus' bucolic hexameters
as well as the work of Apollonius and Aratus to the Greek epic
canon 29. In other words, for these critics, bucolic poetry was a
kind of epic 30. It remains to be seen if anything in Theocritus
and Virgil beyond their choice of meter shows consciousness of
a -generic relation to epic. Clearly Virgil's career would appear
more coherent if he conceived of it as an exercise in the tradition
of Homer and Hesiod from the start.
The epic genre as Theocritus would have found it already
had a long, complex history of reflective practice. The earliest
lists of epic poets name Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, and Homer
in that order: evidence for the beliefs of a general poetic culture 31.
By contrast, the lists produced by fourth century critics and con
tinued by Alexandrian scholars (influencing thus also Horace and
Quintilian) put Homer first, followed by Hesiod without the my
thical founders32. In the interim, Homer and Hesiod had been
singled out as representative of contrasting ? even competing ?
*8 Horace, Serm. I 10,43-48, after discussing contemporary comedy and tragedy

comes to epos:
... forte epos acer
ut nemo Varius ducit, molle atque facetum
Vergilio adnuerunt gaudentes rure Camenae.
hoc erat experto frustra Varrone Atacino
atque auibusdam aliis melius quod scribere
possem inuentore minor...
Varius brave as no one else commands the strong epic; to Virgil the Camenae
who delight in the country have granted the delicate yet witty epic; this epic,
tried in vain by Varro of Atax and some others, was what I could write best,
though less than its founder...
The judgment of Virgil is usually taken out of context (e.g. the citation referred to
in note 12 above). E. Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford 1957) 130, reads Horace's period
correctly and notes that Horace is reviewing " different kinds of epos ".
29 Quintilian, Inst. 10,1,55.
80 Rossi 92, note 67; Schmidt 38; and Koster 132, 137. Cf. also T. Rosen
meyer, The Green Cabinet. Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley
1969) 14. Rosenmeyer has called attention to the problem of genre, even though
expressly not treating the history (diachronic change) of generic definitions: discussed
by A. K?hnken, Gnomon AA (1972) 750-757, and J. Van Sickle, Am. Journ. Philol.
93 (1972) 348-354.
31 West 47 and Pfeiffer, History 50, 164.
82 West 40, 47.
52 J. Van Sickle
poetic tendencies 33; and the general literary culture had acquired
the concepts of slight and great in style 34.
Two brief examples will have to suffice here to illustrate the
interplay of generic identity with specific difference from which
a poetics of genre can be inferred. The Iliad begins with an initial
thematic word, an invocation to a divinity of the art, and a relative
clause which expands on the initial theme. This combination
can be identified as a generic pattern because the Odyssey returns
to vary it with specific differences: initial "man" instead of
" wrath ", " Muse " instead of " goddess ", and topics of travel,
return home instead of foreign strife 35.
Hesiod's epos also, in the Theogony, follows this generic pat
tern to the extent that the first word provides a theme which is
interpreted by an ensuing relative clause; but the poet, instead of
making an impersonal invocation, speaks in his own person taking
the Muses as his subject. This direct praise of divinity suggests
the convention of hymnic rather than narrative epic, though the
verb is that of the Iliad-?d8zw, " to sing "36. Hesiod goes on
to tell of his poetic initiation in a story which uses generic elements
that also are found in near-eastern literature 37; but the introduc
tion of his own name is a striking specific difference 38. He tells
how the Muses taught him singing while he was shepherding lambs
below Helicon. But first they put him on guard about themselves
with the rude utterance that they know how to say false things
resembling actual ones, but when they wish they can also tell the
truth. Only after this do they present Hesiod with a laurel staff,
33 The business of comparing and contrasting Hesiod and Homer may go back
to the sixth century: see Pfeiffer, History 11, 43, 50 (notes 4,5); Lesky 93; and West
40, 47.
34 Pfeiffer 137-138.
35 Cf. Pfeiffer, History 4; West on Theog. 1-2; and Virgil, Al 1: Arma uirumque
cano Troiae qui... More generally, on poetic allusion and emulation, see G. B. Conte,
' Memoria dei poeti e arte allusiva ', Strumenti Critici 16 (1971) 325-33, and espe
cially the note on oppositio in imitando (pp. 330-2), a concept stressed by G. Gian
grande, ' The Utilisation of Homeric Variants by Apollonius Rhodius ', Quad. Urb.
15 (1973) 75-76.
36Koster 8; West, ad loc.
37 West on Theog. 22-34.
38 Cf. West 14: Hesiod the first to put th?ogonie epic in writing.
Epic and Bucolic 53
breath divine voice into him, and command him to sing of the im
mortal gods, and first and last of themselves. The whole story
bespeaks an acute consciousness of poetics, and the oracular utter
ance of the Muses clearly divides poetry into different kinds. This
has often been thought to articulate the distinction between Homeric
and Hesiodic epic, denigrating Homeric epic as deceptive fiction
by contrast with Hesiodic truth39. This could be the case even
if Hesiod wrote before the Homeric epics took their present form;
he might differentiate his own personal and th?ogonie epic from
the impersonal narrative species, out of which Homer came 40.
In any case, the story certainly played a part in later differentia
tion of epic into Hesiodic and Homeric species, and more generally
in affirming the value of slight over great style.
It is unnecessary to recount here the intervening developments
of epic down to Theocritus' time 41. Theocritus' own express
statements of poetics and above all his practice, with its pervasive
echoes and reinterpretations of Homer 42, show that he shared the
fourth century and Alexandrian view of the epic genre in which
Homer stands first and foremost43, and that he conceived of his
own works in hexameter as limited enterprises within this large
generic field. He takes Homer's long poems as the negative stan
dard? what his work is not; and he draws on various elements
and conventions of shorter epic in attempting to give generic defi
nition to what are substantially new poetic kinds. For example,
he uses the ancient convention of the hymn, which had also served
in the Theogony, to provide generic status for his very modern
correction and improvement of a scene from Apollonius of Rho
des 44; and he also alludes to the hymnic convention in characteriz
ing his approaches to contemporary patrons 45. Other poems mix
39 E.g. by Koster 9, but not by West on Theog. 25.

40 On the dating of Hesiod before the Homeric poems as we have them, West
43-46.
41 See for example Otis 5-10; and Pfeiffer, History 93-95, on Antimachus.
42 See Serrao 91-108, and Fabiano (note 20 above) passim, for examples. Also
VS, ' Is Theocritus a Version of Pastoral? ', Modern Language Notes 84 (1969)
945-946, note 13. For Philitas as an influence on interest in Homer, note 61 below.
43 See note 32 above.
44 Rossi 84-85 with note 88, p. 94, on Id.XXll.
"Idd.XVl, XVII.
54 /. Van Sickle
in the forms of the epithalamium, or mime, or epistle 46. Alto

gether, the epic genre as Theocritus conceives it is bi-polar ? divided
into the long Homericizing and the short non-Homeric, with the
latter variously definable, somewhat amorphous, certainly not yet
further sub-divided into anything like the later graduated levels
of middle and low style. Instead the simple division into Homeric
and non-Homeric suggests the already familiar polarity of high
and low in style 47. The tripartite hierarchy of low-middle-high
has not yet been imported into poetics : for Theocritus, both pasto
ral and georgic material belong to low style 48.
Within this general picture, the bucolic poems form a special
case. Readers since the beginning have seen them as a distinct
sub-group in Theocritus' work and as his most characteristic pro
duct. They stood first in ancient collections, they caught Virgil's
fancy, they, rather than Theocritus' hymnic epics, entered Quin
tilian's epic canon; and they gave rise to the ancient bucolic and
European pastoral traditions 49. How Theocritus himself inter
preted them can only be inferred from the text; but internal evid
ence suggests that be did conceive of them as a single experiment
which, like his other ventures in hexameter, was a kind of non
Homeric epic.
The first Idyll begins with an exchange of compliments: " Sweet
the whisper of pine and sweet your piping, goatherd... " / " Sweeter
your song, shepherd, than water splashing down rocks... " (Id. I
1-2/7). The shepherd seeks to persuade the goatherd to pipe again;
but he, refusing, coaxes the shepherd to repeat a familiar and fa
mous song in exchange for the goatherd's marvellous new cup.
The song tells of the cowherd Daphnis dying in Sicily after defeat
by Love; and it recounts his bitter farewells. The entire poem is
46 Epithalamium, Id.XVWi; mime, Idd.ll, XIV, XV; epistle, Idd.Xlll, XI. See
the discussion by Rossi cited in note 44 on Theocritus' "scandalous" mixing of con
ventions.
47 See note 34.
48 For introduction of three styles to poetics, see notes 111, 112. Theocritus
mingles georgic and pastoral material in the Idylls, which are slight style; and the
Hellenistic poems on georgic subjects are also considered slight in style, not middle.
49 All mss. and papyri put the bucolic Idylls together first: cf. lists with con
tents, Gow I,XXXVII-LI, with discussion LXVIII: also Lawall 108-109, 133-136,
and Gow I,XXVII. Quintilian, cited note 29 above.
Epic and Bucolic 55
in Doric dialect, unmistakably signaled by the broad " a " of the

first syllable.
The meter is epic though stylized 50; both the dramatic form
and the dialect recall conventions of mime. The opening exchange
makes artistic values and interpretation an issue. "Sweet" re
calls a commonplace of poetic interpretation, as in Hesiod's praise
of the Muses' speech or in the Homeric praise of Nestor's elo
quence 51. To the idea that one art equals nature, the reply comes
that another art excels it. The figures are rustic - impersonal
fictions, though Hesiod too in the Theogony spoke of his shepherd
ing; but because the figures are nonentities, the poet is more free
to bring matters of art to the foreground without concern for the
high religious duty which colors Hesiodic poetics, and without
such exemplary themes as heroic endurance or wrath. The em
50 To take only the example of word-end coincident with the end of the fourth
foot-bucolic diaeresis, the alternatives are four: (I) diaeresis marked by colon
or period; (2) diaeresis; (5) word end with preceding conjunction, preposition, etc.,
or following postpostive; (4) no word end. The following is a sample with frequen
cies expressed by percent:
12 3 4
II. 18,1-100: 13 36 13 3
" 501-600: 14 32 16 38
Theog. 1-100: 7 40 13 40
Call. H.l: 21 36,5 14 28,5
" H.Ill 1-100: 18 38 8 36
Id. I: 34,8 46 4 15,2
" II: 11,5 59 10 18,8
" III: 20 63 0 17
" IV: 24 54 6 16
" V: 27 60 3 9
" VI: 29 49 4 18
" VII: 18 55 4 23
" VIII: 22 40 6 32
" IX: 28 17 11 44
" X: 13,7 41,8 10 35
"XI: 5 37 24,7 33,3
The frequency of marked bucolic diaeresis in Id. I suggests deliberate technical

mannerism: cf. remarks on the artifice ill-concealed of Id. I by Gow I, XXVII.
Idd. I-VII constitute a group distinguished by low incidence of (4). For discussion
of the late antique theories of bucolic metrics, see Schmidt 40-45.
51 Theog. 40, cf. 97; //. 1, 249.
56 J. Van Sickle
phasis on sweetness ? pleasure without regard for use ? may itself

imply a position in poetics 52.
The object of this intricate drama is the evocation of a per
formance ? if not the goatherd's piping then the shepherd's song,
which is characterized as well known and highly prized (Id. I
19-24): the shepherd used to "sing" about Daphnis' troubles
and was expert in ?ouxoXixac... [lo?gol?, which in the context means
' traditional song about the ?ouxoXoc, i.e. the cowherd, Daphnis '.
The verb ' sing ', ?s?Seiv, was also that of the Iliad (1,1) and Theo
gony (1); while the story of Daphnis occurred in Sicilian tradi
tion 53, though the adjective ?ouxoXixac is apparently new, coined
in reflection on the tradition. As a countervalue to this tradi
tional song, designed to draw it out and thus in effect recover tradi
tion, the goatherd's cup is characterized as new and unused, a
marvel of craft (Id. I 28, 56, 59-60). In describing it, Theocritus
alludes obliquely to famous descriptions of artifacts in earlier epic
? the Homeric shield of Achilles and the pseudo-Hesiodic shield
of Hercules, inviting comparison between slight and greater art54.
He thus defines implicitly the character and limits of his own work
in relation to traditional epic. At the same time, in the poetic
drama, this discreet new version of epic is shown as the means of
bringing back an old Sicilian tradition. The interplay of contrast
ing literary elements and values behind the rustic fa?ade provides
the reflective reader with an index of Theocritean poetics.
Every known ancient authority supports the modern printing
of the first Idyll first55. The scholiasts say that Artemidorus, who
made a collection of bucolic poetry in the first century B.C., placed
it first because it is more charming and skillful than the others,
though they object that since it shows Daphnis' death it should
have come after poems that show him alive 56. But well before
52 For the two conceptions of poetic purpose ? to benefit/to please, see Koster
143-151. On "sweet" in Theocritean poetics, note 58; in later bucolic, notes 83
and 87. Yet " truth " enters Theocritean poetics ? Idd. V 76, VII 44: VS, * Unity '
496, Serrao 39-55; and " truth " is a watchword for Callimachus: Pfeiifer, History 125.
53 See Gow II, 1-2.
54 See Gow II on Id. I 32, 34, 36, 39-44, 46, 47, 48, which by no means exhaust
the Homeric reminiscences in the passage.
55 See note 49 above for the ancient sources.
56 Wendel 23,5-10.
Epic and Bucolic 57
Artemidorus the first Idyll had acquired a unique importance

(regardless of any questions of placement) not only in the eyes of
Theocritus' immediate successors but in the poet's own reflec
tion on his work. Only the first Idyll contains a full song about
the cowherd Daphnis; and it is punctuated by the refrain
ap^STS ?ouxoXixac, Mo?aai cp?Xai, ap^sr' ?oiS??
Begin, dear Muses, begin the singing about the cowherd (Id.l 64 etc.)
Here as in the earlier invitation to song (Id. I 20) the adjective

?ouxoXixac has the concrete sense which arises from the subject
of the song, i.e. "about the ?ouxoXoc - cowherd Daphnis".
This concrete meaning is impossible, however, when the same
phrase ? ?ouxoXixac ... ?oiS?? ? occurs in the seventh Idyll, since
there the ' singing ' is about city folk and goatherds 57. Hence
the adjective must mean " bucolic " in a generic sense which pre
supposes the kind of singing shown in Theocritus' own work.
The seventh Idyll also has a verb, ?ouxoXiaaSeiv, which is again
apparently Theocritus' own term, and which must mean in the
context ' to sing in bucolic exchange ' (Id. VII 36). The same
verb occurs in the fifth Idyll, along with a noun of agent derived
from it ? ?ouxoXiocaTac, * singer in bucolic exchange ' (Id. V 60, 68).
None of these words can have the simple concrete sense, " of a
cowherd ", since no cowherd is sung about or singing, and there
is no evidence that real cowherds, let alone shepherds, swineherds,
goatherds and the like, ever referred to their entertainments as
" cowherdizing " or to themselves as " cowherdizers ". Thus it
seems likely that these abstract terms are the product of Theo
critus' own reflection on the characteristic activity of the country
as he imagined it. We may perhaps infer that in the first Idyll he
transformed the traditional cowherd-?ouxoXoc Daphnis into the
central figure of his new poetic enterprise with its generic relations
to epic. In other work, then, reflecting on this accomplishment,
he took ?ouxoXoc as the basic element in a new generic terminology
57 Id. VII 49. Lycidas' song includes the beloved, Ageanax, shepherds, singer
Tityrus with his potential subjects Daphnis and a goatherd (with his cruel master).
Simichidas' song includes Myrto, Aratus, Aristis, Pan, Philinos, the Loves, and
" Molon ".
58 7. Van Sickle
which arises from the new imaginative effort itself. The thematic
word of the first Idyll, " sweet " (Id. I 1), also is an important
element in the poetics of the seventh and other Idylls 58; and the
myth of Daphnis is mentioned fleetingly in the seventh Idyll as
a poetic subject in a sketch of potential song (Id. VII 71-77).
In the outline of Theocritean poetics which this account sug
gests, the first Idyll appears to initiate and others, especially the
seventh, to draw express generic conclusions: a view which is
reinforced by other recent opinions of the seventh poem 59. On
the surface, the seventh Idyll is a narrative of a drama. The nar
rator, identified as " Simichidas ", tells that once upon a time he
journeyed out from the city to the country for a harvest festival.
As he went, he met a remarkable goatherd called " Lycidas "
? grinning and reeking with rennet ? whom he provoked into
praising his poetic principles and promising to give him a herds
man's stick. The two exchanged songs as they walked together:
Lycidas one just worked up on the hill; Simichidas the best of
many the Nymphs had taught him as he herded cattle on the hills.
Then Lycidas gave the gift and went his way, but Simichidas came
to the feast. The wine was better than that legendary wine which
made the shepherd Polyphemus dance on the banks of Sicilian
Anapus. At this point the narrative concludes with a wish to
celebrate such a festival again. Clearly the narrator is no longer
imagined as being in the heart of the country nor in the harvest
season 60. Perhaps he must be thought of as having returned to
the city, from which his trip took its start.
Not only present performance, as in the first Idyll, is the object
of this drama, but also approval of the principles of past perform
ance; the whole is recollected with nostalgia, deliberately recounted.
Theocritus shows Simichidas as an experienced poet, well instructed,
58 See Idd.l 7, 65, 145, 148; (II 141); V 31; VI 9; VII 80-85, 88; VIII 82-83;
IX 7-8; 33-35; (parody of the bucolic ideal from a Hesiodic view-point, X 20); XI 3;
Epigr. V 2. Cf. notes 52, 83, 87.
59 E.g. Gow I, XXVII-XXVIII tentatively; and Serrao 13-68; of course also
Lawall 74.
60 Gow I, XVII, " ...looks back apparently after some change in circumstan
ces... "; II, 131 on Id. VII 1, " ... the epoch referred to is closed, or the state of af
fairs no longer existing... ".
Epic and Bucolic 59
not above provoking a favorable judgment of his poetics, while

Lycidas judges with assurance and works up poetry on his own 61.
The self-conscious and retrospective quality of the scene lends
support to the view that the seventh Idyll is somehow rehearsing
and summarizing Theocritus' experience in bucolic. Not only
does the seventh Idyll reuse the refrain of the first in a more abs
tract, generic manner; but the seventh also abounds in language
shared with the other bucolic poems (if not actually garnered from
them)62; while in its projection of an ideal, imagined song it inclu
des not only the myth of defeated Daphnis but also a triumphant,
almost mythologized version of a goatherd piping " sweetly " and
81 See the detailed analysis by Serrao 16-39. Gow II, 145 comments that ??e
?r?vada (Id. VII 51) may suggest high poetic finish, " demanded by Callimachus and
his party"; and he compares Philitas' praise of poetic skill, toil, and knowledge
(fr. 10,3-4 Powell). Philitas' entire epigram may be relevant to Simichidas' en
counter as the note by Powell, ad loc. implies, for it appears to be concerned with
a gift that will be granted only to one endowed with certain poetic virtues:
Ou (x? tl? ?? ?p?cov ?rcocpcoXioc ?ypoLcoTYjc 1

a?pTjoei xX^&pTjv, aip?u-evoc (xax?Xiqv, 2
aXX' sTc?cov ei8o?>c x?au,ov xai TcoXX? (jLoyr)Ga? 3
[x?&cdv 7ravTo?o)v o?u.ov ?m(JTa(jt.evo?. 4
Not from me will some empty headed rustic take alder, though he raise his
mattock, but one understanding the arrangment of words and having toiled
much, knowing the way of stories of every sort.
Perhaps the poem accompanied the gift of a staff (Maas); the situation may be
meant to recall the Muses' gift to Hesiod (Theog. 30); Powell compares Theocr.
Id. VII 43, Verg. E. V 88. Whether or not Philitas was thus first among the Alex
andrians to allude to the Theog. in formulating a statement of poetic principles and
thus inaugurated a fashion, his use of Homeric language reflects his own Homeric
studies (cf. Pfeiffer, History 88-92) and shows the kind of practical example he
gave such ' pupils ' as Theocritus and Hermesianax (cf. notes 20 above and 77
below): ?7co<pc?>Xioc (1) is rare apart from Odyssey; ?ypotc?>T7)c (1) and xX^&pTjv (2)
are both Homeric forms. Also, the suggestion of polymathia as a poetic virtue (4)
may anticipate an ideal of Callimachus' poetics (cf. Pfeiffer, History 138). On tcovo?
as an attribute of slight style, see A. Ronconi, Interpretazioni letterarie nei classici
(Firenze 1972) 49, note 1, 55-56, who adduces Catullus 62 (meditari, labor, cura)
and Horace, Serm. I 4,12 (scribendi labor). Cf. also Virgil, E. I 2 (meditari, with
tenui); VI 8 (meditari, tenui), 82 (meditari)', X 1 (labor). For the quality of ' slight
ness ' itself, notes 79, 108 below.
62 Lawall 136-138 gives a list of words and phrases which Id. VII shares with
other, presumably earlier, Idylls, in same metrical position.
60 /. Van Sickle
called " Komatas ", which was the name of a victorious goatherd
in the fifth Idyll63.
This apparent recollection and synthesis also serve to work
out the relation of the entire bucolic experiment to the epic tradi
tion. This time in defining generic status Theocritus draws not
on the hymnic form in general but on the Theogony itself. Recent
studies have demonstrated that the narrator's meeting with the
goatherd in the seventh Idyll is a detailed adaptation of Hesiod's
encounter with the Muses 64; and it was already clear that Simi
chidas' reference to learning song on the hills owed something to
Hesiod's initiation 65. In retrospect, the experience in bucolic is
thus characterized as more Hesiodic than Homeric, though Hesiod
is not named; but as if to emphasize that the practice of the poem
does have theoretical force and does define a position within the
epic genre, Theocritus makes the goatherd justify approval of
Simichidas' poetic restraint by expressing hate for those who emu
late Homer with long poems 66. This recognizes Homer's predo
minance in the genus, yet declares for a non-Homeric epic species
which implicitly is defined as Hesiodic; and it sets this Hesiodic
epic off against other unspecified but Homericizing contemporary
epic strains 67.
Even as Theocritus takes pains to define his non-Homeric
status by means of the allusion to the Theogony, he also with deli
berate, elaborately self-conscious art differentiates his epic from
Hesiod as well. To mention perhaps the most obvious difference,
Simichidas meets not the Muses but their colorful emissary and
adept68. Lycidas, far from being one of the lovely, lithe, well
scrubbed and dancing maids, whom Hesiod pictures on Helicon
63 Tityrus' potential song thus would have similar yet differentiated subjects:
cowherd dying, mourned by nature/goatherd threatened, saved by nature. For
" sweet " as a key term in poetics, see notes 52 and 58.
64 Serrao 16-39, continuing and modifying arguments made by Mario Puelma.
65 E.g. the somewhat perplexed note of Gow on Id. VII 92; La wall 84.
66 Gow I,XXII says the lines are " not very relevantly placed in the mouth of
Lycidas ", apparently because he does not interpret the scene for its generic im
plications.
67 Otis 402-403 sees allusion to Theocritus' critique and correction of Apollo
nius; cf. note 44 above.
68 Id. VII 12, 129: Serrao 37, following Puelma.
Epic and Bucolic 61
in virginal severity, is shown as a palpable, stinking goatherd drawn

with concrete relish, grinning, with sexually charged ironical laughter
about his lips. His gift to Simichidas is not the scepter of rulers,
prophets, bards, and speakers in Homeric council which the Muses
gave Hesiod but the crooked work-a-day stick. Also, Lycidas
does not speak at the start of Simichidas' poetic career (as the
Muses did to Hesiod); rather he confirms the principles of an al
ready accomplished poet : one of the hints of retrospective poetics
in the Idyll. In turn, Simichidas' account of his poetic past also
defines bucolic epic in relation to the Theogony; he was " cowherd
ing " instead of " shepherding " when he learned song, " on the
hills"?typical setting in Theocritus' bucolic ? rather than on
Helicon69: and when Simichidas avers that his songs may have
reached Zeus' ear, instead of Hesiod's vivid poetico-religious belief
that the Muses' song sounds and echoes on Olympus delighting
Zeus (e.g. Theog. 36-43), we have an oblique, allegorical allusion
to Ptolemy 70. Taken together, the differences between the en
counters of the seventh Idyll and the Theogony are the best index
to the unique and peculiar poetics of the new bucolic art. Theo
critus classifies bucolic epic as a sub-species, if we may extend the
taxonomic metaphor, of the non-Homeric (in this case defined
as Hesiodic) species of the epic genus 71.
In the tenth Idyll, too, Theocritus appears to employ Hesiod
in a process of reflecting on bucolic poetry. He constructs a mime
of reapers not herdsmen in which a figure of exaggerated agri
cultural practicality, that seems to recall and caricature the ethos
of the Works and Days, scoffs at the romanticism of one Bucaeus,
whose name and feckless love sound like an ironical allusion to
the bucolic ethos 72 : the Works and Days also underlies the poem
on the constellations written by Aratus, Theocritus' near contem
69 The hill as setting: III 2; IV 56; cf. Lawall 85, and the ironic contrast with
Philitas (note 61).
70 Gow on Id. VII 93.
71 Cf. Rossi 92, note 67.
72 Gow II, 193 notes the sharp contrast between characters and Bucaeus' resem
blance to " the lovesick and poetical goatherd in Id. 3: Milon is the most realisti
cally drawn of all T.'s rustic characters... ". The first word of the poem gives the
keynote-'EpyocT?va ; and the phrase, aSiov ... Ipyoc^f), sounds like a parody of bucolic
poetics (e.g. Id. I 145, V 31); cf. notes 48 and 58 above.
62 J. Van Sickle
porary 73, as well as a number of poems on practical subjects in

agriculture and natural history 74. Callimachus, perhaps slightly
younger than Theocritus, praised Aratus for his selective use of
Hesiod 75; and himself also made a very selective use of the Theo
gony. In his most famous poem, the Aitia, 'Origins', he imagines
himself in a dream transported to Helicon and questioning the
Muses. But where Hesiod, at the end of the proem as a means
of transition to his narrative, commanded the Muses to tell him
about the origins of earth and gods (Theog. 108, 115), Callimachus
asks about the origins of divers customs and curiosities; and the
Muses' answers form the separate pieces of the first two books 76:
a discontinuous, highly crafted, learned poem and written in elegiac
not epic meter.
The evidence is too tenuous to permit reconstruction of the
beginnings of this vogue for Hesiod as the model for slight style.
Often for example it is assumed that Theocritus in the seventh
Idyll was declaring Callimachean principles; but such chronolo
78 For the career and chronology of Aratus, Pfeiffer, History 120-122.

74 E.g. by Aratus' teacher, Menecrates of Ephesus, mentioned by Pfeiffer, History
120-121; see also Lesky 750-755.
75 Epigr. XXIX:
'Hat?Sou t? t' <5ceiau.a xai ? Tp?7uoc * ou t?v ?otSov 1
laxaTov, ?XX' ?xv?co \ir? to (xeXt/pOTaTOv 2
luv ?7r?o)V ? SoXeu? ?7uejx?$aTO * xa^PSTe XercTOci 3
p-yjaie?, 'Ap^Tou auu.?oXov ?ypu7rv?/}<;. 4
Both the form of the singing and the manner are Hesiod's: not the singer to
the very bottom, but I fear that the poet of Soli has raked off for himself
the sweetest of the verses. Hail well-threshed speeches, proof of Aratus' alert
ness.
First Hesiod, his ?ceiau.a, " the product of singing ", conceived in terms of its len
and consistency as in fr. 1,3 Pf.; then the cavil, not the whole "singer "; at
the conclusion, with the key word-XenTat, which has the material sense, " well hus
peeled, polished " as applied to grain, along with the well established metaphor
sense in Callimachean poetics, ' refined, delicate ' (cf. Xs7TTaX?yjv, fr. 1,24 cite
note 108 below). For the topos of Aratus' sleeplessness, see Lucretius, I 142, a
Cinna, fr. 11 Morel, discussed by VS ' Catullus 65 ' 498, note 24. Callimachus
praised Aratus as a polymath (Pfeiffer, History 138), a value perhaps derived f
Philitas (cf. note 61 above).
76 Pfeiffer, History 125; Lesky 712. Callimachus mentioned origin from Ch
(fr. 2,3 Pf.) an apparent allusion to Theog. 116, where the narrative begins a
Hesiod has invoked the Muses to tell of first things.
Epic and Bucolic 63
gical indications as there are make it equally probable that Calli

machus was coeval or later 77; while Theocritus' use of both the
Theogony and Works and Days is linked organically with his other
bucolic poems; it justifies itself without reference to Callimachus.
But precisely because it was so embedded, assimilated to its con
text, it went by and large unrecognized; while Callimachus' more
facile and explicit use was famous and influential in identifying
Hesiod as an exemplary figure of slight style 78.
Theocritus' successors in Greek bucolic lose sight of his rela
tion to Hesiod. Theocritus himself becomes their source and
authority for slight style and for what can be called the bucolic
manner, which potentially is a genus in its own right, as its epic
77 For the assumption of Callimachus' priority, see note 18 above. In chro

nology, the following are some relevant dates: Ptolemy II Philadelphus, born on
Cos in 308, co-regent in 285, sole ruler from 283 to 247, marries Arsinoe in the
270's (she dies, July 270).
Philitas of Cos, tutor of Ptolemy (from c. 300 to c. 290?) and ' teacher * of
Theocritus (see Pfeiffer, History 88-89, Lesky 700-702).
Theocritus, addresses Hieron II (Id. XVI: 275/4), praises Ptolemy II (Id. XVII:
post 274-pre 270), reflects Ptolemaic Alexandria (Id. XV: 278-273), praises Ptolemy's
mother (Berenice: 270's?).
Callimachus, epic on marriage of Ptolemy II and Arsino? (278-273), lyric on
Arsino?'s death (post 270), flatters Ptolemy III and Berenice of Cyrene, his wife:
Lock of Berenice (cf. Hymn II, post 246/5).
Thus the earliest certain dates for both Theocritus and Callimachus fall in the
270's; but certain testimony for Theocritus also ends then (Gow I, XXIX), while
Callimachus' career stretches on another 30 years. Pfeiffer, History 123, tentatively
suggests the presence of Callimachus in Alexandria before 283; and the seventh
Idyll, with its tenuous reference to Ptolemy II, may be earlier than Id. XVII, with
the rest of the bucolic poems earlier still. The scholiast gives Theocritus' floruit as
284-81 (but see Gow I,XXVI); Id. XXX speaks of white hairs and distance from
the loves of youth, which implies perhaps a life at least not exceptionally short.
Callimachus complains of the weight of old age (fr. 1,33 Pf.). The simplest reading
of this evidence might be that Theocritus died perhaps in the 260's, born in the
320's or 310's; that he left Syracuse early, but took renewed interest on hearing of
the rise of a new, possibly promising leader; that Callimachus died in 240 (traditional
date), was born in the 310's, thus was slightly younger and much more longlived
than Theocritus; that both independently fell under Philitas' influence: Theocritus
through Coan connections, Callimachus at Alexandria (cf. note 61). But as Gow
11,326 observes, " in human affairs the simplest explanation is not always true, and
it seems necessary to add that probability here falls some way short of certainty ".
78 Hesiod and slight style, Rossi 92, note 67.
64 J. Van Sickle
origins are forgotten 79. The process of simplifying Theocritus

begins with poets and only later passes into the hands of the generic
critics. Among the first poems in the new manner must have
been the eighth and ninth Idylls, which were considered authentic
in antiquity though now generally doubted 80. The opening of the
eighth Idyll will suffice to illustrate the manner: an anonymous
narrator presents two contesting singers in a way which conflates
and schematizes the situations of several Theocritean poems81:
A?cpviSi to) %apL?VTi auv?vTSTo ?ouxoXsovTt, 1
(jLYJXa v?[X6)v, ?>? 90CVT?, xoct5 (Spsa (xaxp? MsvaXxa? 2
a(X<pCO TC?>y' ^0~TY)V 7TUppOTp?^6), OL[L<p(? OCva?o), 3
ajx?co oup?aSsv 8s8aY)[iivo>, afjupco ?s?Ssv. 4
With Daphnis the handsome, as he was herding cows,
M?nalcas met while tending sheep (so they say) on the high hills
Both were red-headed; both in the prime of youth;
both knowing how to pipe, both how to sing.
Self-consciously the narrative voice absolves itself from direct

responsibility: " so they say ". The account passes from careful
differentiation of the types of work to elaborate identification of the
nature and art: " Both...both...both...both... ". Symmetry and
repetition give the scene a static quality, more rhetorical than pic
torial 82. The contrasts and differences lack a Theocritean reson
79 For the expression, " bucolic manner ", see L. E. Rossi, ' Mondo pastorale
e poesia buc?lica di maniera: Pidillio ottavo del corpus teocriteo ', Studi it. filol.
class. 43 (1971) 5-6, 10.
80 Gow 11,170, 185-186; Rossi (above note 79) 5.
81 Idd. V, especially VI, and VII.
82 In one respect, however, the poem is less artificial than Theocritus. He cate
gorically divides pastoral work into ccwherding, shepherding, goatherding and attri
butes only one of these occupations to any one of his rustics (so scholiasts and Rossi,
note 79 above, 6-7). The sharp distinction is a useful imaginative device, since each
category acquires certain values in opposition to the others (cf. VS, ' Po?tica ' 73
74); but it does not correspond to country reality, where shepherds very often drive
along a few goats (to mix the milk for cheese), and where cows' and sheep's milk
may be mixed for the same purpose. Thus Id. VIII and Virgil, E. I, III, which do
not strictly observe the Theocritean distinctions, are closer to rural reality. Rossi
(loc. cit.) is more inclined to accept Theocritus' schematization as realistic. For
numerical symmetry in the structure of Id. VIII, see my note in Mus. Crit. 8/9
(1973/1974) 160-61.
Epic and Bucolic 65
anee for larger issues in poetics; they seem calculated only to fill
out and perfect a preestablished bucolic pattern. This new con
sciousness of the typical nature of the contest finds expression
in a new generic term, " amoebean " (VIII 31, 61), applied with
"bucolic" to the exchange of song.
Both the eighth and the ninth Idylls implicitly acknowledge
the generic authority of the first Idyll by taking up the name Daphnis
and associating it with the theme of musical sweetness 83. The
eighth Idyll also refers to its " amoeboean " contest as " bucolic
singing ", boukolikan aoidan, in the generic sense of the term; and
the ninth poem begins with the injunction, " Bucolicize, Daphnis! ",
which brings together Theocritus ' generic verb with his leading
generic figure in a way that the genuine idylls never do 84. The
ninth Idyll closes with an appeal to " Bucolic Muses " which gives
bucolic poetry its own generic goddesses 85. The text of Theocritus
has become a generic source and point of reference; its own ori
ginal relation to epic seems largely lost. Part of the contest in
the eighth Idyll is written in elegiac meter.
These first poems in the bucolic manner may well date from
Theocritus' own century 86. In the next century, the tendency to
genericize his example takes a new form in the Lament for Bion,
which again (omitting Hesiod) takes Theocritus as the implicit
model for slight style, in direct contrast with Homer himself. The
Lament draws on the first Idyll for the generic example of song
about the death of a cowherd-poet with a refrain addressed to the
Muses; but it turns from Daphnis' imaginary farewells to make
an elaborate complaint for a real poet's death. It recalls the
refrain of the first Idyll ? " Begin dear Muses, begin the singing
about the cowherd "?but composes a new version which pre
supposes the Theocritean tradition; hence its Muses are called
" Sicilian ", and they are summoned to take up an old form of
83 Id. VIII 82-83, Id. IX 7,8: cf. note 58 above.

84 Id. VIII 32; Id. IX 1: see above the discussion of these terms in Idd.l, V,
and VII.
85 In Id. I 20, " Bucolic Muse " means concretely, ' of the cowherd '; the generic
sense appears in the epigram attributed to Artemidorus' collection: "Bucolic
Muses, once scattered, now all in one fold, in one flock ", Gow 1,254.
86 Rossi (note 79 above) 25.
5
66 J. Van Sickle
singing ? the lament (threnos) ? which thus becomes a species

or sub-species of bucolic: " Begin Sicilian Muses, begin the griev
ing ". Also with strong generic consciousness, the Lament iden
tifies the dead Bion as a ?ouxoXoc, and says that with him Dorian
singing died (11-12), alluding to Theocritus' dialect. The Lament
then relates bucolic to epic in a passage which says that Homer's
native stream, Mele (the name suggests " songs ", mel?), mourned
for Homer but also for Bion, though he sang not of Helen, Mene
laus, Achilles, tearful wars, but of Pan and cowherds, and made
pipes, milked sweet cows, taught kissing and nurtured love. Here
Theocritean bucolic and Homeric heroic epic stand summarized
in generic terms as slight against great in style. The authority of
Hesiod as a type figure for the slight style is forgotten. Finally,
the climactic section of the lament also plays on generic conscious
ness: "...but go cry out something Sicilian to Persephone and
bucolicize something sweet, for she too is Sicilian and played by
Etna's springs. She gave Eurydice back to Orpheus, and she'll
return you to the hills " 87. Theocritus' text is more than ever
the point of reference, and the bucolic manner more conventio
nalized even though in the form of lament it acquires a new variant
and new expressive force, which will have their effect in Virgil and
hence as late as Milton's Lycidas.
Apart from the laments, the second century sees a number
of short poems ? mythological vignettes ? including the story of
the river Alpheus who pursued the fountain nymph Arethusa from
Arcadia to Syracuse (Daphnis bid farewell to her in Sicily in the
first Idyll)88; also the story of Pan's love for Echo 89. Echo figures,
too, in the Lament for Bion : she is said to be bereft without the
poet's voice (30). This feature of second century generic mytho
logy seems in turn to have struck Lucretius, who takes a moment
in his discussion of the physics of sound to debunk it. He argues
that country folk when they hear multiple echoes in the moun
tains pretend that nymphs, satyrs, Pan are there making ' wood
87 For generic elements, ' bucolicize ' and ' something sweet ', see notes 84,
83, 58 and 52: and on ' sweet ' as a motif in Latin pastoral, Schmidt 29-32.
88 Moschus VII; Theocr. Id. I 117.
89 Moschus VI; cf. the pseudo-Theocritean Syrinx, which would be Theocritus'
only allusion to this later bucolic myth, if it were his.
Epic and Bucolic 67
land music ', and so the country seems less desolate (IV 586-589).
From Lucretius, in the mid-first century, it was a short time but
a long conceptual and spiritual leap to Virgil's * woodland music '
and rehabilitation of bucolic echo (E. I 1-5).
Altogether, then, in the late third, second, and first centuries
B. C, the image of bucolic life and song does begin to acquire a
generic autonomy, which can also be seen in the other arts and
ultimately in the generic theory of simple mimetic pastoral, for
example the scholiast's statement: "This poetry, as much as pos
sible, makes a model of the character of country folk, and it takes
especial delight in reproducing the sullenness of rusticity in a life
like manner " 90. We do not know, of course, just when such
a dictum might have been pronounced, but the editor of the scholia,
who studied their formation and influence, believed that already
in the first century after Christ the commentators on Virgil were
borrowing from a commentary on Theocritus which was much
richer than the now extant scholia but that is preserved in their
fullest parts 91. The first known commentary on Theocritus is
that of Theon, who was the son of the collector of bucolic, Arte
midorus, and who lived at Alexandria in the time of Augustus.
Theon produced work on the Odyssey and Iliad, Pindar and Sopho
cles, but also on the Alexandrian poets Callimachus, Lycophron,
Apollonius of Rhodes, Nikander, and Theocritus 92, and it may be
that Theon's commentary was the source not only of certain ety
mological explications but of much material of other kinds in the
extant scholia 93. Thus the later critics' view of bucolic poetry
as a distinct genus, imitative of rural realities, may also begin with
Theon along with other fabrications of the critics. The poets at
least derive the bucolic manner from Theocritus, but the generic
critics will forget or fail to see what the texts show, and project
the origins of the genre back into the real life of the country, or
into ritual, or into mythology. For the scholiasts, Theocritus is
90 Wendel, Prol. D.ll-14, 1-6; cf. Anee. Est. 6.11-21. Other statements of
the mimetic view: Anee. Est. 111,1 (7,8-10); and 11,22-29.
91 Wendel, ?berlief. 48, 68.
92 RE. 2, V A (1934) 2054-2059, s.v. ' Theon ' ; for discussion and bibliography,
see also Pfeiffer II, XXVII-XXX, and commentary on Callimachus fr. 42 Pf.
93 Wendel, ?berlief 68; Pfeiffer II, XXX; cf. Luiselli 15.
68 J. Van Sickle
only the best of the writers in the genre 94. One actually calls
Daphnis the founder 95, while another says that Daphnis learned
his music from Pan 96.
Virgil prefers Theocritus to the whole bucolic manner. Ser
vius explains that " He imitates Theocritus as being better than
Moschus and the others who wrote bucolics " 97. But Virgil's
way of using Theocritus suggests a more concrete reason; for he
begins by returning to the seventh Idyll.
There can be no serious doubt that Virgil himself determined
the order of his bucolic poems. Thus their arrangement in the
book must be considered part of the poetic practice from which
to infer his poetics 98. In the book, the tenth and last poem draws
on the first Idyll for its structure, and replaces the Sicilian bucolic
myth, which was formulated by the first Idyll, with Virgil's new
Arcadian pastoral myth ". In turn, the first poem in Virgil's
book draws on the seventh Idyll in which Theocritus summarized
his own bucolic art and its relation to epic.
We recall that the seventh Idyll, in the story of its cowherd
narrator, included a journey from the city to the country, with
an implicit return to the city. During the journey occurred the
encounter with the goatherd (part divinity, part rustic) which de
fined Theocritus' poetics. If we look, now, at Virgil's first pastoral,
we find a comparable pattern in the story of one of its personae
? the cowherd-shepherd Tityrus, who tells of a journey between
city and country (with an implicit return to the start). In the course
of travel, Tityrus too encounters an ambiguously divine-human
figure which speaks to him in an authoritative manner. The
generic pattern is that of the seventh Idyll; and behind it stands
Hesiod's encounter with the Muses.
94 E.g. Wendel, Prol. A. a.11-13; 9.6-11; 17.14-16.

95 Wendel Id. I 141a: 74,10-11; Diomedes, 487 Keil.
96 Servius auct. on E. V 20.
97 Servius 2,14.
98 On the importance of order as a significant element for interpreting the Buco
lics, VS, ' Methodology ' 884-885; and on inferring poetics from the practice of
each poem, VS, 'Unity' 492 and Schmidt 116-119; also note 21 above for the
theoretical implications of Theocritus' and Callimachus' poetic practice.
99 Virgil's " Arcadian pastoral myth " and its gradual formation in the Bucolics:
VS, ' Unity ' 493, 501-504. On the questions raised in notes 98, 99 see my essay
4 The Bucolics of Virgil ', Aufstieg und Niedergang der r?mischen Welt II (Berlin 1975).
Epic and Bucolic 69
Here again generic identification comports specific differences,

which in this case provide an index to the poetics of Virgilian bucolic.
The direction of travel changes. Virgil's Tityrus moves from coun
try to city and back. The spirit of the encounter changes from
familiar, bantering equality to a slave's experience of something
like the epiphany of a god, who gives preremptory commands
(E. I 45):
pascite ut ante boues pueri summittite tauros

* Graze cattle as before, boys ! Bring up bulls ! '
This is not a friendly exchange among fellow poets, confirming

a poetic line with the promise of a significant gift. It uses terms
of actual country work, which seems to have been interrupted,
and urges a return to old practices ? "as before"?but with
emphasis on increased production ? "Let young bulls nurse.
Let bulls service ". Also, the god ? not a figure of bucolic or
poetic mythology ? is a thinly disguised allegory for a Roman
political and military leader100.
Other refinements of self-irony in Virgilian poetics may be
noted. In the seventh Idyll, Simichidas was shown as young,
free and well-connected with local aristocracy, self-confidently
articulating his poetics and eliciting approval. Virgil's Tityrus is
shown as old, a slave in search of freedom who instead of a change
of state gets abrupt commands to return to business and produce.
Where Theocritus' pattern of travel from city to country was
appropriate for a poetics summarizing the first venture into the
bucolic field101, Virgil's pattern of movement from country to
100 Virgil's image of the decisive force of a public figure for bucolic practice
may be compared with the distant and passive role assigned by Id. VII to Ptolemy:
cf. note 70 above.
101 Theocritus as conscious originator of the literary genre: Serrao 11, 48, se
conded by Rossi 93, note 81. When Virgil wants to give a full picture of Tityrus'
locus as a bucolic ideal (E. I 46-58), he uses and pointedly transforms elements
from the rich ideal locus where Simichidas arrived (Id. VII 128-157). See now
also the useful analysis by W. Berg, Early Virgil (London 1973: date on proofs),
Chapter V, section ' Thalysia Revisited '. Earlier in Chapter V, section ' The words
of the oracle (Eel. 1,45)', Berg writes: " Not a few scholars have recognized the
70 J. Van Sickle
city back to modified country defines a different generic moment,

when it has become necessary to deal with the problem of change
in an already existing but dubious generic tradition. The desire
for change ? dramatized as a slave's yearning for freedom ?
which motivates Tityrus' journey to Rome is an index in poetics
of the unsatisfactory and restrictive state of the genre, reduced
to bucolic manner and criticized by Lucretius as being mere mysti
fication, echoic fiction102. The journey marks a break with the
generic past; the god's utterance, though conservative ? "as
before "?also urges new growth and productivity. Tityrus' re
turn to the country implies a new and potentially expansive bucolic
phase.
The probable nature of the expansion may be inferred from
the circumstances: journey to Rome, derivation of authority from
an historical figure disguised by an ideological myth which can
be the groundwork for regeneration of traditional mythology.
These are elements which in themselves already overreach the
limits of other bucolic and non-Homeric epic in Greek not to
mention the restrictions of Latin neoteric poetry and the private
philosophy of Lucretius 103. Rome and the new historical divinity
are points of contact with the larger field of epic that in Latin was
represented by " Father Ennius ", who combined mythology with
Roman history in the first long Latin hexameter poem, brought the
Muses from Helicon, and claimed to have seen Homer (not Hesiod)
in an anti-Callimachean dream of poetics104.
Virgil's choice of the seventh Idyll, his inversion of its poetic
journey at the start of his own Bucolics, is the work of a conscious
artist taking stock of Greek and Latin epic. Virgil begins not with
some Callimachean elegy or short epic or with bucolic manner
but with a myth of poetics that defines generic relations to exem
plary epic figures ? Hesiod and Homer. Virgil seems to have
symbolic import of this line. It is in fact a convention in Roman literature to

allude to the genre through its content ".
102 Damon 286 first underlined the importance of Lucretius' critique for Virgil's
evaluation of bucolic.
103 Hence one speaks of importing history into the bucolic world, etc.: cf. note
10 above.
104 Otis 21 ; cf. Mariotti, Ennio 57.
Epic and Bucolic 71
read the encounter in the seventh Idyll as the point in epic tradi
tion where a process of restricting ended and hence as potentially
the point from which a reversal of the restricting might begin,
in return and new expansion. Not content merely to refer in the
bucolic manner to Theocritus as his poetic source, he reinterprets
Theocritus' myth of poetics for himself, establishing his own direct
generic relations with Homer and Hesiod. He thereby can claim
for himself the roles not only of second founder of bucolic poetry,
but also of potential worker in the full epic field 105.
Virgil's practice has important implications for generic theory.
Alexandrian poetics recognized two styles ? slight and great. Calli
machus gave definitive articulation to the theory late in life after
the poetic golden age was over106. In the prologue to an enlarged
edition of the Aitia, he says that he has been criticized because he
never produced Iv asiajxa Sitjvsxs?, " one continuous product of
epic singing ", about heroes or kings with thousands of lines, but
like a child he rolls his epos just a little way107. He goes on to
compare the merits of long and short works in elegiac meter, and
then to make his famous justification of his own life-long commit
ment to slight style in all genres: that when he first put tablets
to his knees to write, Apollo said: "Singer, rear the victim as
fat as can be, but the Muse, good fellow, slenderling "108. This
105 That Virgil in E. I 44-45 has Hesiod in mind was suggested by R. Hanslik,
4 Nachlese zu Vergils Eclogen 1 und 9 ', Wien. Stud. 68 (1955) 16-17, who compares
the plural, pueri, for single Tityrus to the Muses' address of plurals to Hesiod and
also relates Virgil's primus to Tupc?Ttaxa, Theog. 24. A. La Penna, ' Esiodo nella
cultura e nella poesia di Virgilio ', H?siode et son Influence, EAC VII (Vandoeu
vres-Gen?ve 1960) 225, note 1, dismisses Hanslik's suggestion on grounds that the
analogy between the Theogony and E. I is too slight and not of a sort typical of
Virgil's allusive manner. But the picture changes if Theocritus is an intermediary.
Elsewhere Virgil implies that, in bucolic, Theocritus and he himself constitute a dis
tinct tradition when he speaks of direct inheritance of a valued instrument from
an old master to the present singer (E. II 37-38).
106 Gow I, XXIX: " The hey-day of Hellenistic poetry was the four decades
from 300 to 260 B. C. "; Lesky 718 speaks of the same period as the " golden age ".
Callimachus' new prologue assumes that the poet is weighed down by age, and
in any case must have been written when the Lock of Berenice was added to the Aitia
(post 247). On chronology, see also note 77 above.
107 Fr. 1,5 Pf.: ?titoc, 8' ?nl tut$?v ?X[Xiaac? | toxi? ?cte.
108 Fr. 1,23-24 Pf.: ?oiS?, ib (x?v &uo? ?tti rc?xtaTov 10-p?^ai, rr)]v Mouaav
72 /. Van Sickle
statement together with Callimachus' use of the Theogony in the

structure of the first two books must have contributed strongly
to fixing Hesiod as the typical authority for slight style against
Homer109: hence Ennius' programmatic dream of Homer to jus
tify long epic. Virgil evidently recognized the Hesiodic element
in the seventh Idyll, too, for he alludes not only to Theocritus but
to Hesiod in the first pastoral110. Yet Theocritean bucolic was
his immediate example for slight style; and since it was the self
defined sub-species of Hesiodic epic, Hesiod was left in the middle,
between Theocritus and Homer. In Alexandrian poetics ? the
dualism of slight and great ? the middle was nowhere, and with
out theoretical status. But theoreticians of rhetoric had taken
care to provide for what lies between the extremes by speaking of
middle style, hence the three modes of eloquence111; and Virgil's
older contemporary Varro had said that the theory of three styles
applied to poetry as to prose112. Virgil's full career looks like
the practical application of the theory: making Theocritus exem
plary for slight style, shifting Hesiod from slight to middle style,
and maintaining Homer. It remains to be seen whether or in
what ways this tripartite conception of the epic genre begins to
take form in the poetic practice of the Bucolics, as a design in poetics
anticipating the work of the Georgics and the Aeneid113.
The Center for Hellenic Studies - Washington, D. C.
8'coya&? Xe7nraX?y)v. On slight style in Callimachean poetics, see note 75 above;

cf. also the contrast of slight/great in Epigr. I and fr. 178,11 Pf.; and generally,
Pfeiffer, History 136.
109 Cf. Clausen 196.
110 See note 105 above.
111 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, following Hellenistic sources, shows how the
conception of middle style originated when he speaks of diction which is extraordi
nary and outstanding, and of that which is slight and humble, and of that which
is mingled and combined from these two (de Dem. 1,3), or again of the ' character '
which is thin, of that which is sublime, and of that which is between them (id. 5,13).
112 "Et in carmine et in soluta oratione genera dicendi probabilia sunt tria ",
quoted by Gellius VI 14. Wendel, ?berlief. 56, sees Varro as the source for the
Latin commentators on Virgil who speak of three styles; cf. also note 3 above.
113 Cf. note 12 above and VS, * Methodology ' 927-928.

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Epic and Bucolic: (Theocritus, Id. VII; Virgil, Ecl.

by John Van Sickle

The appearance of bucolic poetry at the start of a poetic career

two: for example Servius, who writes that nothing lofty is to be

and georgic art5. The ascending hierarchy of three easily became

A complementary discussion speaks of the Romanizing of pastoral,

Virgil had originally, it seems, thought of writing a Roman epic (res

Here the refrain ? "not epic...nothing epic"?recalls Servius'

At this point we must conclude that either Virgil never had

tions of Theocritus into account can we begin to understand why

kind of epic 28; and Quintilian, still following Alexandrian practice

*8 Horace, Serm. I 10,43-48, after discussing contemporary comedy and tragedy

39 E.g. by Koster 9, but not by West on Theog. 25.

in the forms of the epithalamium, or mime, or epistle 46. Alto

in Doric dialect, unmistakably signaled by the broad " a " of the

The frequency of marked bucolic diaeresis in Id. I suggests deliberate technical

phasis on sweetness ? pleasure without regard for use ? may itself

Artemidorus the first Idyll had acquired a unique importance

Here as in the earlier invitation to song (Id. I 20) the adjective

not above provoking a favorable judgment of his poetics, while

Ou (x? tl? ?? ?p?cov ?rcocpcoXioc ?ypoLcoTYjc 1

in virginal severity, is shown as a palpable, stinking goatherd drawn

porary 73, as well as a number of poems on practical subjects in

78 For the career and chronology of Aratus, Pfeiffer, History 120-122.

gical indications as there are make it equally probable that Calli

77 For the assumption of Callimachus' priority, see note 18 above. In chro

origins are forgotten 79. The process of simplifying Theocritus

Self-consciously the narrative voice absolves itself from direct

83 Id. VIII 82-83, Id. IX 7,8: cf. note 58 above.

singing ? the lament (threnos) ? which thus becomes a species

94 E.g. Wendel, Prol. A. a.11-13; 9.6-11; 17.14-16.

Here again generic identification comports specific differences,

pascite ut ante boues pueri summittite tauros

This is not a friendly exchange among fellow poets, confirming

city back to modified country defines a different generic moment,

symbolic import of this line. It is in fact a convention in Roman literature to

statement together with Callimachus' use of the Theogony in the

The Center for Hellenic Studies - Washington, D. C.

8'coya&? Xe7nraX?y)v. On slight style in Callimachean poetics, see note 75 above;

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