can, drained their supporters to death.

As the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament was performed at the
request, and under the patronage, of Ptolemy Philadelphus, it were not
to be wondered if Theocritus, who was entertained at that prince's
court, had borrowed some part of his pastoral imagery from the poetical
passages of those books. I think it can hardly be doubted that the
Sicilian poet had in his eye certain expressions of the prophet Isaiah,
when he wrote the following lines:

~Nyn ia men phoreoite batoi, phoreoite d' akanthai.
Ha de kala Narkissos ep' arkeuthoisi komasai;
Panta d' enalla genoito, kai ha pitus ochnas eneikai
----kai tos kynas holaphos helkoi.~

Let vexing brambles the blue violet bear,
On the rude thorn Narcissus dress his hair,
All, all reversed--The pine with pears be crown'd,
And the bold deer shall drag the trembling hound.

The cause, indeed, of these phenomena is very different in the Greek
from what it is in the Hebrew poet; the former employing them on the
death, the latter on the birth, of an important person: but the marks of
imitation are nevertheless obvious.

It might, however, be expected, that if Theocritus had borrowed at all
from the sacred writers, the celebrated pastoral epithalamium of
Solomon, so much within his own walk of poetry, would not certainly
have escaped his notice. His epithalamium on the marriage of Helena,
moreover, gave him an open field for imitation; therefore, if he has any
obligations to the royal bard, we may expect to find them there. The
very opening of the poem is in the spirit of the Hebrew song:

~Houto de proiza katedrathes, o phile gambre;~

The colour of imitation is still stronger in the following passage:

~Aos antelloisa kalon diephaine prosopon,
Potnia nyx hate, leukon ear cheimonos anentos?
Hode kai ha chrysea Helena diephainet' en amin,
Pieira megala hat' anedrame kosmos aroura.
He kapo kyparissos, e harmati Thessalos hippos.~

This description of Helen is infinitely above the style and figure of
the Sicilian pastoral: "She is like the rising of the golden morning,
when the night departeth, and when the winter is over and gone. She
resembleth the cypress in the garden, the horse in the chariots of
Thessaly." These figures plainly declare their origin; and others,
equally imitative, might be pointed out in the same idyllium.

This beautiful and luxuriant marriage pastoral of Solomon is the only