Idyll XII, sometimes called Ἀίτης ('The Beloved' or 'The Passionate Friend'), is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus.[1][2]
Analysis
editAndrew Lang thinks this is rather a lyric than an idyll, being an expression of that singular passion which existed between men in historical Greece.[2] The Greeks sometimes exalted friendship to a passion, and such a friendship may have inspired this poem.[1] The next idyll, like the Myrmidons of Aeschylus, attributes the same manners to mythical and heroic Greece, and the affection between Homeric warriors like Achilles and Patroclus.[2]
Theocritus acknowledges his indebtedness to the Ionian lyrists and elegists by using their dialect.[1] According to J. M. Edmonds, the passage rendered here in verse contains what at first sight looks like a mere display of learning, but has simply this intention: 'Our love will be famous among so remote a posterity that the very words for it will be matter for learned comment.'[1]
See also
editReferences
editSources
editAttribution: 
This article incorporates text from these sources, which are in the public domain.
- Edmonds, J. M., ed. (1919). The Greek Bucolic Poets (3rd ed.). William Heinemann. pp. 149–53.
- Lang, Andrew, ed. (1880). Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. London: Macmillan and Co. pp. 61–2.
Further reading
edit- Cholmeley, R. J., ed. (1919). The Idylls of Theocritus (2nd ed.). London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. pp. 264–72.
- Giangrande, G. (1971). "Theocritus' Twelfth and Fourth Idylls: A Study in Hellenistic Irony". Quaderni Urbinati Di Cultura Classica (12): 95–113.
- Gow, A. S. F., ed. (1950). Theocritus. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 92–5.
- Gow, A. S. F., ed. (1950). Theocritus. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 221–30.
- Payne, Mark (2003). "Narrative Technique in Theocritus's 'Idyll' 12". Arethusa. 36 (1): 37–48.
External links
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Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Ἀίτης- "Theocritus, Idylls, Ἀίτης". Perseus Digital Library.
