A moment in Tom Stoppard's post-pastoral Arcadia suggests a way into the pre-pastoral scene of Theocritus' first Idyll. Stoppard's play generates two narratives that are divided by almost two hundred years, yet linked by identity of location. The estate of Sidley Park, soon to be ‘gothicised’, houses overlaid stories from past and present that separately inhabit the same room until they finally achieve simultaneous existence on stage. In this exchange from 1809, Lady Croom is looking over the plan to transform her gardens; Thomasina is her ‘pert’ daughter:
LADY CROOM: But Sidley Park is already a picture, and a most amiable picture too. The slopes are green and gentle. The trees are companionably grouped at intervals that show them to advantage. The rill is a serpentine ribbon unwound from the lake peaceably contained by meadows on which the right amount of sheep are tastefully arranged—in short, it is as God intended, and I can say with the painter, ‘Et in Arcadia ego!’
‘Here I am in Arcadia,’ Thomasina.
THOMASINA: Yes, mama, if you would have it so.
LADY CROOM: Is she correcting my taste or my translation?
THOMASINA: Neither are beyond correction, mama, but it was your geography caused the doubt.