¹ I think it would be wrong to alter the ms. reading: ‘Theocritus’ evidently wanted to reproduce the spelling ῥάγος which is in fact attested in papyri (cf. e.g. LSJ, s.v. ῥάγος).

² On μίτρα cf. Bühler, , Eur. p. 117 ffGoogle Scholar. (add Schrader-Schaefer, Mus. p. 244 ff.) and p. 200.

³ Cf. h. Ven. 164 Nonn. D. xii 387 f. μίτρης…ϵἵματα.

⁴ The opposition between ἀμπέχονον in line 59 and ἀμπϵχόνη in line 60 is the obverse of ‘pointless,’ as Gow (ad xxvii 59) strangely says. Since the ἀμπέχονον appears to have been worn by ‘vilioribus personis’ (Thes., s.v. ἀμπέχονον, 160 B), it follows that it must have been a cheaper version of the ἀμπϵχόνη. If this is so, the neatherd's words are very much pointed: he shrewdly (cf. xxvii 61) promises the girl ἀμπϵχόνην μϵίζονα (60), i.e. a garment bigger (μϵίζονα) and better (as opposed to the cheaper ἀμπέχονον which he has just torn). My explanation shows that the notion ‘better,’ which Cobet, Naber and Platt wanted to introduce into the text (cf. Gow ad loc.), is in fact already contained in the text. The ‘solecism’ τὸ ἀμπέχονον ἐμόν is not only paralleled by xxvii 38 and 72 (as Gow notes ad xxvii 59), but also by other examples in Theocritus (listed by Ameis, , De art. usu apud poet. graec. bucol. [Prgr. Mühlhausen 1846] 41)Google Scholar.

⁵ The notion ‘cut away from’ is inappropriate to the context, because a μίτρα is untied, loosened, not cut; the verb ἀποσχίζω, when not expressing the notion ‘cut away from’, entails the idea of ‘tearing off’ (material in Thes., s.v.), which is equally inappropriate to the context: the maiden herself specifies that the neatherd has loosened (ἔλυσας), not ‘torn off’, her μίτρα.

⁶ On this motif cf. Call. fr. 75.45 ἥψαο μίτρης. In the Idyll, the hand's progress starts with ἅψαο μαζῶν (49). Cf. Nonn. D. xii 387 ῶψατο μίτρης and xvi 268 ff. δϵσμὸν λύσατο μίτρης…παλάμῃ.

⁷ Cf. e.g. Thes., s.v. a, 7A7 f., quoting Schaefer.

⁸ In the same way, the pause between dzὴ̓πιβάλῃς τὴν χϵῑρα and καὶ ϵἰσέτι; in line 19 denotes the interval between two attempts made by the neatherd's hand.

⁹ Μίμνϵ means literally ‘mane ubi es’ (Rumpel, Lex. Theocr., s.v. μίμνω: cf. e.g. Ap. Rh. i 304, 833), i.e. in the context, ‘stay where you have arrived with your hand’ and do not proceed to remove the ἀμπέχονον.