Idyll XII

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[edit]

Andrew 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[edit]

• Diocles of Megara

References[edit]

Sources[edit]

Attribution: 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[edit]

•  Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Ἀίτης
• "Theocritus, Idylls, Ἀίτης". Perseus Digital Library.