HYLAS
"Reapers, begin your toil when the tuft-lark soars from the meadow:
Cease when he sleeps: besides, in the heat of the day take your leisure.
"Give me a frog's life, boys! he needs, to pour out his tipple,
No cup-bearer, not he, for't is up to his mouth all around him.
"Better to boil the lentil, you'll find it, niggardly steward:
Ware lest you cut your hand in making two halves of a cummin."
(Speaks.)
Staves like these 't is fit that men at work in the sunshine
Troll; but, lad, 't were better to prate of your starveling passion
Unto your mother awake in her bed at break of the morning.
HYLAS
Not for ourselves alone the God, who fathered that stripling
Erôs, begat him, Nicias, as we have flattered us: neither
Unto ourselves the first have beauties seemed to be beauties,—
Not unto us, who are mortal and do not foresee the morrow;
But that heart of brass, Amphitryôn's son, who awaited5
Stoutly the ruthless lion, he too was fond of a youth once—
Graceful Hylas, the lad with the curling locks,—and he taught him
All fair things, as a father would teach the child of his bosom,
All which himself had learned, and great and renowned in song grown;
Nor was he ever at all apart from him, neither at mid-day,10
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