# Lycidas — The Eclogues character guide

> Lycidas in The Eclogues by Virgil.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Pastoral IX Lycidas

**First appearance:** 0008-pastoral-ix-lycidas-and-moeris

## Snapshot

A shepherd-poet who meets Moeris on the road to town and trades verses with him while the old man carries two kids he is being forced to surrender.

## Who they are

Lycidas is a self-deprecating singer who calls himself a goose among swans yet cannot stop urging Moeris to remember Menalcas's songs. He presses for the poetry that once made the countryside bearable, even as Moeris insists that songs and rhymes prevail as much in these hard iron times as a flock of trembling fowl against a swooping eagle. His hunger for verse against his friend's grief sets the poem's central tension between the need to sing and the world that makes singing nearly impossible.

## Relationships

### [Daphnis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_eclogues_se/characters/daphnis)

_friendship_

Daphnis and Lycidas are fellow shepherds who exchange songs and laments, united by their shared pastoral life and love of music.

## In the story

### [Pastoral IX: Lycidas and Moeris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_eclogues_se/chapters/pastoral-ix-lycidas-and-moeris)

A shepherd and friend of Moeris, eager to hear songs and lament the hard times.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_eclogues_se/characters/lycidas
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_eclogues_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_eclogues_se/characters