ABSTRACT
Date and publication. Printed in 1684 in M P (S R 4 February; advertised in The Observator 2 February); reprinted 1692.
Context. Contemporary interest in Theocritus was slight compared with the enthusiasm for other classical poets, but an edition of the Greek text was published by John Fell in Oxford in 1676, and a selection with a parallel Greek and Latin text by George Sylvanus in 1683. Thomas Creech’s complete translation of The Idylliums of Theocritus, prefaced by an abridged translation o f René Rapin’s D e Carmine Pastorali, was published in 1684 (Dedication dated 12 July), with Idyll xvi dedicated ‘To his very good Friend John D ry den Esquire’. M P includes one translation from Theocritus by Richard Duke, and one by William Bowles; Sylvae has eight more, three of them by D., two by William Bowles, the others anonymous. See also Gillespie 65.
