Idyll XX. Town and Country

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  Once I would kiss Eunice. "Back," quoth she,
  And screamed and stormed; "a sorry clown kiss me?
  Your country compliments, I like not such;
  No lips but gentles' would I deign to touch.
  Ne'er dream of kissing me: alike I shun
  Your face, your language, and your tigerish fun.
  How winning are your tones, how fine your air!
  Your beard how silken and how sweet your hair!
  Pah! you've a sick man's lips, a blackamoor's hand:
  Your breath's defilement. Leave me, I command."

  Thrice spat she on her robe, and, muttering low,
  Scanned me, with half-shut eyes, from top to toe:
  Brought all her woman's witcheries into play,
  Still smiling in a set sarcastic way,
  Till my blood boiled, my visage crimson grew
  With indignation, as a rose with dew:
  And so she left me, inly to repine
  That such as she could flout such charms as mine.

  O shepherds, tell me true! Am I not fair?
  Am I transformed? For lately I did wear
  Grace as a garment; and my cheeks, o'er them
  Ran the rich growth like ivy round the stem.
  Like fern my tresses o'er my temples streamed;
  O'er my dark eyebrows, white my forehead gleamed:
  My eyes were of Athene's radiant blue,
  My mouth was milk, its accents honeydew.
  Then I could sing--my tones were soft indeed!--
  To pipe or flute or flageolet or reed:
  And me did every maid that roams the fell
  Kiss and call fair: not so this city belle.
  She scorns the herdsman; knows not how divine
  Bacchus ranged once the valleys with his kine;
  How Cypris, maddened for a herdsman's sake,
  Deigned upon Phrygia's mountains to partake
  His cares: and wooed, and wept, Adonis in the brake.
  What was Endymion, sweet Selene's love?
  A herdsman's lad. Yet came she from above,
  Down to green Latmos, by his side to sleep.
  And did not Rhea for a herdsman weep?
  Didst not thou, Zeus, become a wandering bird,
  To win the love of one who drove a herd?
  Selene, Cybele, Cypris, all loved swains:
  Eunice, loftier-bred, their kiss disdains.
  Henceforth, by hill or hall, thy love disown,
  Cypris, and sleep the livelong night alone.

© Theocritus