One of them works lazily and is jeered by the other in consequence.

The subject of the jeering acknowledges that he works badly because his mind is disturbed--he has fallen in love.

Then the other expresses sympathy for him, and tells him that the best thing he can do to cheer himself up will be to make a song about the girl, and to sing it as he works.

Then he makes a song, which has been the admiration of the world for twenty centuries and lifts been translated into almost every language possessing a literature.
"They all call thee a gipsy, gracious Bombyca, and lean, and sunburnt;--'tis only I that call thee honey-pale.
"Yea, and the violet is swart and swart the lettered hyacinth; but yet these flowers are chosen the first in garlands.
"The goat runs after cytisus, the wolf pursues the goat, the crane follows the plough,--but I am wild for love of thee.
"Would it were mine, all the wealth whereof Croesus was lord, as men tell! Then images of us, all in gold, should be dedicated to Aphrodite, thou with thy flute, and a rose, yea, or an apple, and I in fair attire and new shoon of Amyclae on both my feet.
"Ah, gracious Bombyca, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is drowsy sweet, and thy ways--I can not tell of them." Even through the disguise of an English prose translation, you will see how pretty and how simple this little song must have been in the Greek, and how very natural is the language of it.

Our young peasant has fallen in love with the girl who is employed to play the flute for the reapers, as the peasants like to work to the sound of music.