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

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

• Diocles of Megara