_________
Sore wept the centaur, and to Phoebus pray’d;
the Greek name for the same god of
the Sun among several other things
But how could Phoebus give the centaur aid?
Degraded of his pow’r by angry Jove,
In Elis then a herd of beeves he drove;
had [d]egraded Phoebus of his
pow’r by overruling him in having
to his position as Charioteer of
Elis, a region still of Greece
beeves, plural of beef, however
presently obsolete, but compare
leaf, leaves, or loaf, loaves, wife,
wives, shelf, shelves for similar
etymologies
And wielded in his hand a staff of oak,
And o’er his shoulders threw the shepherd’s cloak;
On sev’n compacted reeds he us’d to play,
And on his rural pipe to waste the day.
of Music
As once attentive to his pipe he play’d,
The crafty Hermes from the God convey’d
A drove, that sep’rate from their fellows stray’d.
the grammar is here incorrect, he
in the first verse should agree with
the subject of the principal clause,
[t]he crafty Hermes, of the second,
but it refers, rather, to Phoebus /
Apollo, who’d been attentive to the
same rural pipe he’d been playing,
wast[ing] the day, in the earlier
line
Hermes, the messenger god, was
leading, convey[ing], away from
its fellows, indeed stealing, some
beeves, his cattle
drove, a large group, singular of
droves
The theft an old insidious peasant view’d
(They call’d him Battus in the neighbourhood),
Hir’d by a vealthy Pylian prince to feed
His fav’rite mares, and watch the gen’rous breed.
Pylian, of Pylos, a town still in
Greece
vealthy, wealthy, surely a typo,
Battus, an old insidious peasant,
had seen, view’d, Hermes, god
as well of Thieves, incidentally,
The thievish God suspected him, and took
The hind aside, and thus in whispers spoke:
suspected, Hermes, [t]he thievish
God, supposed that Battus had
seen him stealing the cattle
“Discover not the theft, whoe’er thou be,
And take that milk-white heifer for thy fee.”
Discover not, don’t tell
the milk-white heifer, [t]he hind
“Go, stranger,” cries the clown, “securely on,
That stone shall sooner tell,” and show’d a stone.
that [t]hat stone, an inanimate, and
therefore mute, thing, is more likely
to tell about the theft than he, Battus,
would be
The God withdrew, but strait return’d again,
In speech and habit like a country swain;
The God this time is Hermes, who
has returned disguised as a country
swain, a bumpkin
And cries out, “Neighbour, hast thou seen a stray
Of bullocks and of heifers pass this way?
In the recov’ry of my cattle join,
A bullock and a heifer shall be thine.”
help me find my cattle, Hermes asks
of Battus, and I’ll reward you with
[a] bullock and a heifer
The peasant quick replies, “You’ll find ’em there
In yon dark vale”; and in the vale they were.
Battus has gone back on his word to
the first stranger who’d accosted him,
and reveals the whereabouts of the
stolen herd to the second
The double bribe had his false heart beguil’d:
double bribe, the first, the milk-white
heifer, the second, a bullock and
[another] heifer
The God, successful in the tryal, smil’d;
tryal, trial, it’s interesting to see
here the root of the word trial
“And dost thou thus betray my self to me?
Me to my self dost thou betray?” says he:
Battus has in either instance
unwittingly betrayed both Hermes,
the original stranger, then Hermes
again, the country swain
Then to a Touch stone turns the faithless spy;
And in his name records his infamy.
Touch stone, or touchstone, a stone
used for testing the purity of precious
metals, a criterion, a basis
in his name, Battus, records his infamy,
though unclear, this verse suggests to
me that the name Battus will always be
associated with being a faithless spy,
a betrayer
R ! chard
Latin equivalent of Hermes,
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