This volume offers a wide selection of Theocritus "Idylls" and a number of the "Epigrams" assisgned to him in Greek Anthology. It includes most of the poems usually considered authentically Theocritean. Basing himself firmly on the definitive and extensive commentary of A.S.F. Gow, the author seeks to assist readers in coping with the difficulties they are likely to encounter on first aquaintance with the poet -- his dialect, his large (especially botanical and zoological) vocabulary, his typically Hellenistic wealth of allusion to earlier Greek literature, and the difficulties of interpreting what Dover refders to as his 'emotional temperature'. The aim of the Introduction and Commentary is to enable readers to read Theocritus for the first time; to help them understand what the Greek means not only in terms of translation from one language into another but also in terms of literary, mythological, ethical and sensory associations. This is 'sine qua non' for reading Theocritus.
