140 THEOCRITUS— GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS 



Agathias gives us one of the very few, perhaps the only, 

 fisher epigram with a love motive. " A fisherman was em- 

 ployed in catching fish. Him did a damsel of property see, 

 and was affected in her heart with desire, and made him the 

 partner of her bed. But he, after a life of poverty, took on 

 himself the swell of all kinds of high bearing, and Fortune with 

 a smile was standing by, and said to Venus, — ' This is not your 

 contest, but mine.' " ^ 



Lastly it is of interest to note that one of the few Greek 

 poetesses concerned herself with a love-tale of the sea. Hedyle, 

 who came of a poetic stock (for she was daughter of Moschine 

 the iambist and mother of Hedylus the epigrammatist) , penned 

 a poem on Glaucus' love for Scylla. In it she told how the 

 love-sick swain would repair to the cavern of his mistress — 



" Bearing a gift of love, a mazy shell, 

 Fresh from the Erythrean rock, and with it too 

 The offspring, yet unfledged, of Alcyon, 

 To win the obdurate maid. He gave in vain. 

 Even the lone Siren on the neighbouring isle 

 Pitied the lover's tears." 2 



* Anth. Pal., IX. 442. Trs. from the Greek Anthology as selected for 

 Westminster, Eton, etc. 

 2 Athen., Vll.. 48. 



