times severely punished, as in the cases of Erysichthon and Dryope.

Erysichthon,' a despiser of the gods, presumed to violate with the axe a grove sacred to Ceres. A venerable oak, whereon votive tablets had often been hung inscribed with the gratitude of mortals to the nymph of the tree,- an oak, round which the Dryads hand in hand had often danced, he ordered his servants to fell. When he saw them hesitate, he snatched an axe from one, and boasting that he cared not whether it were a tree beloved of the goddess or not, addressed himself to the task. The oak seemed to shudder and utter a groan. When the first blow fell upon the trunk, blood flowed from the wound. Warned by a bystander to desist, Erysichthon slew him; warned by a voice from the nymph of the tree, he redoubled his blows, and brought down the oak. The Dryads invoked punishment upon Erysichthon. The goddess Ceres, whom they had supplicated, nodded her assent. She despatched an Oread to ice-clad Scythia, where Cold abides, and Fear, and Shuddering, and Famine. At Mount Caucasus, the Oread stayed the dragons of Ceres that drew her chariot; for, afar off she beheld Famine, forespent with hunger, pulling up with teeth and claws the scanty herbage from a stony field. To her the nymph delivered the commands of Ceres; then returned in haste to Thessaly, for she herself began to be an hungered.

The orders of Ceres were executed by Famine, who, speeding through the air, entered the dwelling of Erysichthon, and as he slept, enfolded him with her wings, and breathed herself into him. In his dreams, the caitiff craved food; and when he awoke, his hunger raged. The more he ate, the more he craved; till, in default of money, he sold his daughter into slavery for edibles. Neptune, however, rescued the girl by changing her into a fisherman; and in that form she assured the slave-owner that she had seen no woman or other person, except herself, thereabouts. Then, resuming her own appearance, she was again and again

1 Ovid, Metam. 8:738-884.

sold by her father; while by Neptune's favor she became on each occasion a different animal, and so regained her home. Finally, increasing demands of hunger compelled the father to devour his own limbs; and in due time he finished himself off.

§ 122. Dryope, the wife of Andræmon, purposing, with her sister Iole, to gather flowers for the altars of the nymphs, plucked the purple blossoms of a lotus-plant that grew near the water, and offered them to her child. Iole, about to do the same thing, perceived that the stem of the plant was bleeding. Indeed, the plant was none other than a nymph, Lotis, who, escaping from a base pursuer, had been thus transformed.

Dryope would have hastened from the spot, but the displeasure of the nymph had fallen upon her. While protesting her innocence, she began to put forth branches and leaves. Praying her husband to see that no violence was done to her, to remind their child that every flower or bush might be a goddess in disguise, to bring him often to be nursed under her branches, and to teach him to say "My mother lies hid under this bark," the luckless woman assumed the shape of a lotus.

$123. Rhocus.1

Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece,
As full of freedom, youth, and beauty still,
As the immortal freshness of that grace
Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze.2

The Hamadryads could appreciate services as well as punish injuries. Rhocus, happening to see an oak just ready to fall, propped it up. The nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the tree, expressed her gratitude to him, and bade him ask what reward he would. Rhocus boldly asked her love, and the nymph yielded to his desire. At the same time charging him to be mindful and constant, she promised to expect him an

1 See note (Scholium) on the Argonautics of Apollonius, B 477. Keil's edition, p. 415, 1. 32.

2 J. R. Lowell, Rhocus. The student should read not merely the fragments given here, but the whole exquisite poem.

hour before sunset, and, meanwhile, to communicate with him

Now, in those days of simpleness and faith,

Men did not think that happy things were dreams
Because they overstepped the narrow bourn

Of likelihood, but reverently deemed
Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful

To be the guerdon of a daring heart.

So Rhocus made no doubt that he was blest,
And all along unto the city's gate

Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked,
The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont,
And he could scarce believe he had not wings,

Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins
Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange.

But the day was past its noon. Joining some comrades over the dice, Rhocus forgot all else. A bee buzzed about his ear. Impatiently he brushed it aside:

Then through the window flew the wounded bee,

And Rhocus, tracking him with angry eyes,

Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly

Against the red disk of the setting sun,

And instantly the blood sank from his heart.

... Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree, And, listening fearfully, he heard once more

The low voice murmur, "Rhocus!" close at hand:

Whereat he looked around him, but could see
Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak.
Then sighed the voice, "O Rhocus! nevermore
Shalt thou behold me or by day or night,

Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet

Filled up with nectar any mortal heart:

But thou didst scorn my humble messenger

And sent'st him back to me with bruisèd wings.

We spirits only show to gentle eyes,

We ever ask an undivided love,

And he who scorns the least of Nature's works

Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all.
Farewell! for thou canst never see me more."

Then Rhoecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud,
And cried, Be pitiful! forgive me yet

66

This once, and I shall never need it more!"
"Alas!" the voice returned, "'tis thou art blind,
Not I unmerciful; I can forgive,

But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes;
Only the soul hath power o'er itself."

With that again there murmured, "Nevermore!"
And Rhocus after heard no other sound,
Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves,

Like the long surf upon a distant shore,
Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down.

The night had gathered round him: o'er the plain
The city sparkled with its thousand lights,

And sounds of revel fell upon his ear

Harshly and like a curse; above, the sky,

With all its bright sublimity of stars,

Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze:
Beauty was all around him and delight,

But from that eve he was alone on earth.

According to the older tradition, the nymph deprived Rhocus of his physical sight; but the superior insight of Lowell's interpretation is evident.

§ 124. Pomona and Vertumnus.1. Pomona was a Hamadryad, guardian especially of the apple-orchards, but presiding also over other fruits. "Bear me, Pomona," sings one of our poets:

"Bear me, Pomona, to thy citron groves,

To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange, glowing through the green,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined
Beneath the spreading tamarind that shakes,
Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit."2

1 Ovid, Metam. 14:623-771.

2 Thomson's Seasons.

This nymph had scorned the offers of love made her by Pan, Sylvanus, and innumerable Fauns and Satyrs. Vertumnus, too, she had time and again refused. But he, the deity of gardens and of the changing seasons, unwearied, wooed her in as many guises as his seasons themselves could assume. Now as a reaper, now as haymaker, now as ploughman, now as vine-dresser, now as apple-picker, now as fisherman, now as soldier,—all to no avail. Finally, as an old woman, he came to her, admired her fruit, admired especially the luxuriance of her grapes, descanted on the dependence of the luxuriant vine, close by, upon the elm to which it was clinging; advised Pomona, likewise, to choose some youth -say, for instance, the young Vertumnus about whom to twine her arms. Then he told how the worthy Iphis, spurned by Anaxarete, had hanged himself to her gate-post; and how the gods had turned the hard-hearted virgin to stone even as she gazed on her lover's funeral. "Consider these things, dearest child," said the seeming old woman, "lay aside thy scorn and thy delays, and accept a lover. So may neither the vernal frosts blight thy young fruits, nor furious winds scatter thy blossoms!"

When Vertumnus had thus spoken, he dropped

his disguise, and stood before Pomona in his

proper person, a comely youth. Such wooing, of course, could. not but win its just reward.

§ 125. The Cranes of Ibycus.1- The Furies, called also Diræ (the terrible ones), Erinyes (the persecutors, or the angered ones), and finally, by way of euphemism, Eumenides (the well-meaning), visited earth to punish filial disobedience, irreverence to old age, perjury, murder, treachery to guests, even unkindness toward beggars. They avenged the ghosts of such as, dying violent deaths, possessed on earth no representatives either by law or by kindred to avenge them. Therefore, as we shall see, they persecuted

1 Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4:33, 71; and Statius, Silvæ 5:3, 152.