Idylls of Theokritos

These thirty Idylls, written by the Sicilian Theokritos in the third century B.C., present the charms of rustic life in learned, polished verse aimed at a sophisticated audience. A bucolic paradise is seen "through the eyes of city men going to the harvest festival for a holiday, to rest their bodies and minds for awhile in nature's beauty and bounty-not unprovided with well-aged wine." In this handsome volume, which won the Best Poetry Award at the 1963 Indiana Author's Day, Professor Mills translates them into modern English verse that preserves the pastoral quality of the original but emphasizes those qualities of Theokritos that speak most directly to the modern reader.