In the case of the studies of peasant life, there is also value of another kind.  Here we have not only studies of human nature, but studies of particular social conditions.  The quarrels of peasants, half good natured and nearly always happily ending; their account of their sorrows; their gossip about their work in the fields—­all this might happen almost anywhere and at almost any time.  But the song contest, the prize given for the best composition upon a chosen subject, this is particularly Greek, and has never perhaps existed outside of some place among the peasant folk.  It was the poetical side of this Greek life of the peasants, as recorded by Theocritus, which so much influenced the literatures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France and in England.  But neither in France nor in England has there ever really been, at any time, any life resembling that portrayed by Theocritus; to-day nothing appears to us more absurd than the eighteenth century habit of picturing the Greek shepherd life in English or French landscapes.  What really may have existed among the shepherds of the antique world could not possibly exist in modern times.  But how pretty it is!  I think that the tenth idyl of Theocritus is perhaps the prettiest example of the whole series, thirty in number, which have been preserved for us.  The plan is of the simplest.  Two young peasants, respectively named Battus and Milon, meeting together in the field, talk about their sweethearts.  One of them works lazily and is jeered by the other in consequence.  The subject of the jeering acknowledges that he works badly because his mind is disturbed—­he has fallen in love.  Then the other expresses sympathy for him, and tells him that the best thing he can do to cheer himself up will be to make a song about the girl, and to sing it as he works.  Then he makes a song, which has been the admiration of the world for twenty centuries and lifts been translated into almost every language possessing a literature.

“They all call thee a gipsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean, and sunburnt;—­’tis only I that call thee honey-pale.

“Yea, and the violet is swart and swart the lettered hyacinth; but yet these flowers are chosen the first in garlands.

“The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows the plough,—­but I am wild for love of thee.

“Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof Croesus was lord, as men tell!  Then images of us, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire and new shoon of Amyclae on both my feet.

“Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways—­I can not tell of them.”