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presents itself. Theocritus is alluding here to one of the most impressive and most solemn passages of the Iliad and the contrast between the original context and the new one could not be greater. Homer's Achilles speaks of the inevitable moment of death: Patroclus has died, he himself will die, so why not Lycaon? Theocritus describes the daily life of two inseparable lovers. Does he intend this contrast merely to underline the distance between the Iliad and his own poetry? Or does he, by evoking the thought of death, also suggest what will become of Heracles' love? Even inseparable lovers are parted by death, and although Hylas does not die in the normal sense of the word, he does depart from normal life and is lost to Heracles. The allusion may have been meant in this way, but I am not altogether sure. |
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Next, the morning is described:  ('nor when Dawn with her white horses rushed upwards to Zeus' palace'; 11), but following this highly poetic description ( is also found in the 'grande lyrique'; Bacchylides fr. 20 c 22) we are transported to a totally different world. In describing the evening, Theocritus uses the image of a mother hen who flaps her wings as a sign that it is time for her chicks to take to the roost for the night (1213).14 Gow comments: "The homely picture of the hen settling for the night and the chickens about to follow her to roost has charm, but it consorts somewhat oddly both with its heroic setting and with the chariot of Dawn in the preceding line." He seems to think this is somewhat awkward of the poet, while it is precisely this kind of contrast which Theocritus is striving for. In this poem he brings together worlds that are incompatible with one another, and so he does in this passage. His description negates the sublimity of the preceding line, while at the same time he adopts a slightly mocking view of the superhero Heracles. There is, after all, a certain parallel to be drawn between Heracles' unceasing paternal exertions and those of the mother hen keeping a vigilant eye on her chicks.15 Moreover, as we shall see later on in the poem, it is towards the fall of night that Heracles loses his beloved Hylas. |
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In a single extended sentence (vv. 1624) the poet describes the gathering of the Argonauts, and underlines the wonderful qualities of the Argo by sketching its successful voyage to Colchis. In these verses a number of words and word combinations are reminiscent of the language of the epic. Thus we find  (18) in Il. 13.689, in the same almost unique meaning. In  (18) there is a variation of  (2.131; 9.544, likewise at the beginning of the verse), while  ,the 'great gulf', appears seven times in the Odyssey. |
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14 In this description  ('on the smoke-stained perch') may be, as Gutzwiller (1981: 21) says, a humorous variation on Hesiod's  (Th. 72, 504, 707, 854). |
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15 Cf. Gutzwiller (1981) 21: "Heracles is not in truth behaving as a father-hero, but as a mother-hen." |
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