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In Greece and Italy: Hippolytus

Euripides also gives us the following beautiful description of a meadow in his tragedy "Hippolytus." Hippolytus enters with his huntsmen, unconscious of the frightful fate Venus has decreed for him because he scorns the joys of love. He is singing in honor of the virgin goddess Artemis, whom alone he worships, - "For thee this woven garland from a mead Unsullied have I twined, O Queen, and bring.

There never shepherd dares to feed his flock, Nor steel of sickle came: only the bee Roveth the springtide mead undesecrate:

And Reverence watereth it with river-dews.

They which have heritage of self-control In all things, - not taught, but the pure in heart, - These, these may gather flowers, but none impure."

Later in the same tragedy the Love Queen appeared, and dire indeed was her coming to the hapless Phædra, who had fallen in love with Hippolytus In Greece and Italy "for dooming Of death had she blent with the bride-chant's singing. For the Dread One breathed on all life, winging Softly her flight as a bee low humming."

Virgil, as we know, wrote a "Georgic" upon the bees, and although his treatment of them is less brilliant than that of the Hindu singers, yet he pays them a poet's homage, not only in the "Georgics" and "Bucolics," but also in the " Æneid," where he makes numerous references to them. Horace too, like his contemporary Virgil, values the bee, and in his "Ode to Septimus" sings the praise of honey and olives. His friend Septimus has gone out to see the world, even as far as Spain, but Horace declares that for himself he hopes always to live by Tiber, but if that may not be he chooses next Galesus, of which he sings, "No spot so joyous smiles to me Of this wide globe's extended shores; Where nor the labors of the bee Yield to Hymettus' golden stores, Nor the green berry of Venafran soil Swells with a riper flood of fragrant oil."

Again, Horace, singing of the impossibility of rivalling Pindar, compares the flight of Pindar's muse to that of his own: "Strong is the gale that wafts the swan of Dirce, whene'er, Antoninus, he spreads his wings into the high spaces of the clouds. I in the mood and manner of a matine bee which culls the pleasant thyme with ceaseless toil about the wood and slopes of dewy Tibur, a tiny minstrel, mould my studied verse."

Horace prefers a quiet country life to the turmoil of a city, as he frequently tells us : - "A stream of clear water, and a wood of a few acres, and the unfailing promise of my cornfield, in blessedness of lot surpass (though he knows it not) him who is splendid in the sway of fruitful Africa. Although for me neither Calabrian bees bring honey, nor wine is mellowing in Læstrygonian jar, nor goodly fleeces grow on Gallic pastures, yet vexing penury is far away, and if I wished for more, you would not refuse to give it to me."

Martial agrees with Horace in preferring the country, and in his epigram to Fronto we read the following: - "Does any one haunt the porticos of cold variegated Spartan marble, and run to offer, like a fool, his morning greetings, when he might, rich with the spoils of grove and field, unfold before his fire his well-filled nets, and lift the leaping fish with the quivering line, and draw forth the yellow honey from the red cask, while a plump housekeeper loads his unevenly propped table, and his own eggs are cooked by an unbought fire?"

Martial in another of his epigrams describes the young girl Erotien, "whose breath was redolent with odors which rivalled the rose-beds of Pæstum, or the new honey of Attic combs, or amber just rubbed in the hand."

In another of the epigrams occurs the well-known description of the bee enclosed in amber: - "The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaeton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has attained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the bee itself would have desired such a death."

While again we read, "The bee that throngs Thesean Hymettus has sent you this noble nectar from the forest of Minerva;" and again, "If quinces well saturated with Attic honey were placed before you, you would say these honey-apples are delicious."

The honey of Hybla is almost as celebrated as the Attic honey of Hymettus.

In Greece and Italy Hybla is a name that was given to several cities flourishing at different periods in Sicily, and the thyme-covered hills about these cities yielded the famous honey.

Sicily was finally settled by Greek colonists after having been looked upon in terror for a long time on account of the pirates that were believed to infest it, as Strabo relates. Concerning its final settlement Strabo tells us : - "Theocles the Athenian, however, having been driven to Sicily by storms, observed both the weakness of the inhabitants and excellence of the soil. On his return home, he was unable to persuade the Athenians to make any attempt, but he collected a numerous band of Chalcidians in Eubœa, with some Ionians and Dorians, whereof the most part were Megarenses, and sailed. The Chalcidians founded Naxos, and the Dorians Megara, which was at first called Hybla. These cities no longer exist, but the name of Hybla survives on account of the Hyblæan honey." Virgil in one of his "Bucolics" sings : - "Galatea, daughter of Nereus, sweeter to me than Hybla's thyme, whiter than swans, fairer than white ivy; soon as the well-fed steers shall return to their stalls, come, if thou hast any regard for Corydon."