To take delight in that genius, so human, so kindly, so musical in
expression, requires, it may be said, no long preparation. The art
of Theocritus scarcely needs to be illustrated by any description of
the conditions among which it came to perfection. It is always
impossible to analyse into its component parts the genius of a poet.
But it is not impossible to detect some of the influences that worked
on Theocritus. We can study his early 'environment'; the country
scenes he knew, and the songs of the neatherds which he elevated into
art. We can ascertain the nature of the demand for poetry in the
chief cities and in the literary society of the time. As a result,
we can understand the broad twofold division of the poems of
Theocritus into rural and epic idyls, and with this we must rest
contented.

It is useless to attempt a regular biography of Theocritus. Facts
and dates are alike wanting, the ancient accounts (p. ix) are clearly
based on his works, but it is by no means impossible to construct a
'legend' or romance of his life, by aid of his own verses, and of
hints and fragments which reach us from the past and the present.
The genius of Theocritus was so steeped in the colours of human life,
he bore such true and full witness as to the scenes and men he knew,
that life (always essentially the same) becomes in turn a witness to
his veracity. He was born in the midst of nature that, through all
the changes of things, has never lost its sunny charm. The existence
he loved best to contemplate, that of southern shepherds, fishermen,
rural people, remains what it always has been in Sicily and in the
isles of Greece. The habits and the passions of his countryfolk have
not altered, the echoes of their old love-songs still sound among the
pines, or by the sea-banks, where Theocritus 'watched the visionary