Idyll XIX

Idyll XIX, also titled Κηριοκλέπτης, is a poem doubtfully ascribed to the third-century BC Greek poet Theocritus. Eros complains of the painful stings inflicted by the small bees, and Aphrodite laughingly compares them to the bittersweet darts of love shot by Eros himself.

Analysis

According to J. M. Edmonds, this little poem probably belongs to a later date than the Bucolic writers, and was brought into the collection merely owing to its resemblance to the Runaway Love of Moschus. The motif is that of a well-known Anacreontic Ode. The idyll has been translated into French by Ronsard.