The celebrated scholar and literatus Maximos Planoudes (ca. 1255–ca. 1305) was a leading exponent of the study of ancient literature in the late Byzantine world. While best known for this engagement – embodied in his collection of epigrams, the Planoudean Anthology, in his critical editions of, and scholia for, classical texts and in his translations of Latin literature – he also composed an undeservedly little-known poem in the tradition of the ancient Greek idyll. A humorous piece, drawing on numerous ancient sources, particularly on bucolic poetry in the tradition of Theocritus and on Lucian’s satires, it exhibits a refreshing jocularity not usually evident in his other literary activities. This chapter offers a close reading of the Idyll, highlighting its themes of love and homoeroticism, the alterity of otherworlds, and magic and the marvellous. It investigates its connections to other literary traditions and to Planoudes’ scholarship as a whole, and considers the reception of the poem in Byzantium. In composing an idyll – unprecedented in Byzantine poetry – Planoudes creates a parody of ancient texts and authors that is both entertaining and instructive, while being unique in its setting and context.