Lycidas (for his undergraduate friend Edward King), Arnold's Thyrsis (for the poet Clough), and the Adonais, or lament for Keats, which
was the triumph of Shelley. His friend, Leigh Hunt, had introduced him to Hellenistic pastoral in autumn, 1816: 'like the odour of the
tuberose,' he later wrote, 'it overcomes and sickens the spirit with excess of sweetness.'
The birth of pastoral has been misunderstood against the rise of the Hellenistic city. There is a pleasant story that Ptolemy II, when
suffering from gout, once looked out of his palace window and envied the lives of simple Egyptians, seen picnicking on the banks of the
Nile. That feeling was not the origin of pastoral. It took no interest in the foreign inhabitants of the new cities' territories. Theocritus'
pastoral poems are not demonstrably linked to Alexandria, and in all but this huge city men walked easily into the fields near by, like the
characters on Cos in his seventh Idyll. Town and country ran into each other everywhere, and nobody suffered from urban suffocation.
The division, rather, was cultural. Pastoral transposed extreme urban wit and refinement on to those who owed least to urban values.
Pastoral has always flourished in periods of an exquisite, urban culture, Spenser's England or Watteau's France. In Greece it arose from
the same values of polish and technique and the reflective study of a classic tradition. These tastes had been bred by civic culture of the
later fourth century B.C., not by early Hellenistic 'urbanism' or by royalty.
Like the literary mimes and the epigrams, the pastoral combined learned language and metre with urbanity. Urbanity won, helped by the
example of earlier lyric. In Alexandria the same values were pursued in bolder forms by the two top scholars in residence, the royal tutor
and the royal librarian.
The librarian, Apollonius, was the younger, and his one known poem was audacious. He attempted an epic on the much studied
adventures of the Argonauts, in an age when the social context and oral culture of the great epics had long since vanished. The ancients
alleged that Apollonius wrote the poem as a young man, retired to Rhodes after a poor first reception, and then returned with a revised
version. This 'second edition' seems correct, but the range of reading behind it suggests that the lure of the royal library came into the
story, whether before or after Apollonius' appointment. The ancient commentators were stretched to the limit by his learning. Behind his
language we can suspect the arguments of contemporary Alexandrian scholars on the precise meaning of particular words. Behind his
content, prose-works on local antiquities kept company with subtle Homeric word-play and allusions to more recent poets. Among the
full range of his references, the obvious allusions and debt to Callimachus have been greatly exaggerated. There is no reason, either, why
the librarian and the tutor could not have read similar books on this familiar subject independently.
The poem's weaknesses are obvious. It has no balance, and it ends with a bump. One moment we are meeting Circe in the west, beset by
her dreams of foreboding. 200 lines later we are sweltering on the sands of Libya while Medea's maids sing their swan-song, fearing
death. From our point of view some of his learned passages have rather the air of versified footnotes, and the treasures of the royal
library were a constant temptation to the poet. The story itself is intrinsically episodic - a long journey to Colchis (Books 1-2), events at
Colchis (Book 3), a long return home (Book 4). Apollonius has not overcome this unsatisfactory structure, and in some ways his four
books are less an epic than an intermittent display of gifts common in the best Hellenistic poets. In spirit, if not in form, he is often
Theocritean.
At his best Apollonius can be excellent. His most famous scene is the epic's third book, which develops the love of the young Medea for
Jason. Aphrodite inspires this passion by the arts of her mischievous child, Cupid, but we see it through Medea's own thoughts and
emotions: how could she prefer a stranger to her parents? why should her parents come first? She longs to see him; when she does, she
blushes and can hardly speak. They face each other like oaks or pines, silent till the breeze stirs them. This book is the Greeks' most
brilliant portrayal of a girl falling passionately in love. Throughout the poem Apollonius placed Homeric similes, seventy-six in all,
which developed odd perceptions or scenes from daily life. For Medea, his comparisons hit the mark. Her heart melts like 'the dew round
roses warmed by the morning light'; her mind wavers like sunlight reflected on the wall of a house from a freshly-poured pail of water.
Virgil, a careful reader of Apollonius, was quick to see the charm of this episode and take it as his starting-point for his deeper and more
mature meeting of Aeneas and Dido.
The episode of Jason and Medea had already been foreshadowed by the excellent encounter of Jason with Queen Hypsipyle in Book 1, a
scene worth reading for the same qualities. It was not lost on Virgil, either, as he brought his Trojans to the Queen of Carthage. Yet
Apollonius retains a certain detachment from the adventures he relates. He is witty and ironic. He has the light touch and pictorial gift of
a Sebastiano Ricci, and when he tells how the sea-nymphs tossed the good ship Argo to and fro for a whole day, like girls playing ball on
the beach with their skirts tucked up, we can see him smiling at his own rococo imagination. Over the sands of Libya the good ship Argo
is led by the prow like a trusting horse in a head-collar. Apollonius loves the witty reversal: at heart he is an early Hellenistic master, as
we begin to see the type.