Cypris

“ Bethink thee of my love, and whence it came, my Lady Moon!
p. 18‘And now to Cypris first, methinks, my thanks are due, and after Cypris it is thou that hast caught me, lady, from the burning, in that thou badst me come to this thy house, half consumed as I am! Yea, Love, ’tis plain, lights oft a fiercer blaze than Hephaestus the God of Lipara. ”

“ And I will tell out truly all our evil plight, that ye yourselves too may know it well. When my father Thoas reigned over the citizens, then our folk starting from their homes used to plunder from their ships the dwellings of the Thracians who live opposite, and they brought back hither measureless booty and maidens too. But the counsel of the baneful goddess Cypris was working out its accomplishment, who brought upon them soul destroying infatuation. ”

“ Art. An awful deed was thine, but still even for this thou mayest obtain pardon; for it was Cypris that would have it so, sating the fury of her soul. For this is law amongst us gods; none of us will thwart his neighbour's will, but ever we stand aloof. For be well assured, did I not fear Zeus, never would I have incurred the bitter shame of handing over to death a man of all his kind to me most dear. As for thy sin, first thy ignorance absolves thee from its villainy, next thy wife, who is dead, was lavish in her use of convincing arguments to influence thy mind. ”

“ Seek not to impute folly to the goddesses, in the attempt to gloze o'er thy own sin; never wilt thou persuade the wise. Next thou hast said,—what well may make men jeer,—that Cypris came with my son to the house of Menelaus. Could she not have stayed quietly in heaven and brought thee and Amyclæ to boot to Ilium? ”

“ To thee I call, general and brother, Hector! Sleep'st thou? shouldst not thou awake? Some foeman draws anigh our host, or thieves maybe, or spies.
Ath. Courage! lo! Cypris watches o'er thee in gracious mood. Thy warfare is my care, for I do not forget the honour thou once didst me, and I thank thee for thy good service. And now, when the host of Troy is triumphant, am I come bringing to thee a powerful friend, the Thracian child of the Muse, the heavenly songstress, whose father's name is Strymon. ”

“ The genus to which I refer is a well-known fossil in some parts of the Coal-measure series, and has been named Cypris. The shells of cyprides are very minute, considerably less than the heads of small pins (Fig. 20-1) . They can be seen quite well, however, without the use of a magnifying power. In shape they resemble beans, and when seen scattered over a slab of shale, look much liker seeds than the relics of animal life. Yet, under this simple exterior, they concealed a somewhat complex organization. ”

“ Artemis.
Scene.—Before the palace of Pittheus at Trœzen.
HIPPOLYTUS.
Aph. Wide o'er man my realm extends, and proud the name that I, the goddess Cypris, bear, both in heaven's courts and 'mongst all those who dwell within the limits of the sea [1] and the bounds of Atlas, beholding the sun-god's light; those that respect my power I advance to honour, but bring to ruin all who vaunt themselves at me. For even in the race of gods this feeling finds a home, even pleasure at the honour men pay them. ”

“ She spake, and Hera again addressed her with prudence: "It is not in need of might or of strength that we have come. But just quietly bid thy boy charm Aeetes' daughter with love for Jason. For if she will aid him with her kindly counsel, easily do I think he will win the fleece of gold and return to Iolcus, for she is full of wiles."
Thus she spake, and Cypris addressed them both: "Hera and Athena, he will obey you rather than me. For unabashed though he is, there will be some slight shame in his eyes before you: but he has no respect for me, but ever slights me in contentious mood. ”

“ The animal is hatched as a nauplius. This undergoes a series of moults during which increase in size and slight changes in form occur (fig. 4, A, B) . At the last of them several organs characteristic of the second or Cypris stage are discernible [fig. 5 (5) , (6) ] beneath the cuticle. When this is moulted the free-swimming cypris larva is liberated with its six pairs of biramous thoracic legs, its bivalve shell, and its paired compound eyes (fig. 6) . This is the first metamorphosis. ”

“ Not unlike the water flea as it swims about in the water of our collecting jar is the curious, transparent little creature known as Cypris. Although so transparent its body is contained in a pair of shells, very similar to those of the mussel; a fact which formerly led to its being classed with the shell-fish. We may well examine this little fellow under the microscope for much of his structure may be made out through his shell. His very conspicuous eye is sure to attract our attention; he possesses but a single eye and seems to make up for the lack of a second by having a very large one. ”

“ Fossil Cyprides. Wealden. Sussex and Isle of Wight.
Cypris. Lign. 174.—The animals of this genus belong to those Crustaceans in which the covering of the body is not divided into transverse segments, but consists of a large dorsal shield, having the form of a bivalve shell. They are often very minute, and numerous kinds swarm in our lakes and pools. « 528 » The species of an allied genus, named Cythere, the shells of which cannot always with certainty be distinguished in a fossil state from those of Cypris, inhabit salt or brackish waters. ”

“ Seeking the way no place is far removed;
Nor is there any obstacle so strong,
Nor bar so fix’d that it can hinder them:
And how to reach heaven’s gate by stratagem
Vex’d not the venturous heart of Psyche long. 31
To face her enemy might well avail:
Wherefore to Cypris’ shrine her steps she bent,
Hoping the goddess in her hate might hale
Her body to the skies for punishment,
Whate’er to be ”

“ Compare the well-known proverb—'sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus'; Terence, Eun. 2. 3. 4.
277. Read Cipryde, not Cupide; for in l. 279 we have hir twice, once in the sense of 'their,' but secondly in the sense of 'her.' Boccaccio also here speaks of Venus, and refers to the apple which she won from Paris. Cipride is regularly formed from the accus. of Cypris (gen. Cypridis) , an epithet of Venus due to her worship in Cyprus. Chaucer found the genitive Cypridis in Alanus de Planctu Naturæ (ed. Wright, p. 438) ; see note to l. 298. Cf. 'He curseth Ceres, Bacus, and Cipryde'; Troilus, v. ”

“ It was accompanied by a species of Perna. Below the Cinder-bed fresh-water strata are again seen, filled in many places with species of Cypris (Fig. 302, a, b, c) , and with Valvata, Paludina, Planorbis, Limnæa, Physa (Fig. 303) , and Cyclas, all different from any occurring higher in the series. It will be seen that Cypris fasciculata (Fig. 302, b) has tubercles at the end only of each valve, a character by which it can be immediately recognised. ”

“ They are thinly foliated,—a character which frequently arises from the innumerable thin shells, or carapace-valves, of that small animal called Cypris; a genus which comprises several species, of which some are recent, and may be seen swimming swiftly through the waters of our stagnant pools and ditches. The antennæ, at the end of which are fine pencils of hair, are the principal organs of motion, and are seen to vibrate with great rapidity. ”

“ The recent genera, Cypris, Cythere, and Cypridina, [460] are types of the three families of « 527 » this group, and are the existing representatives of numerous closely related forms that occur in a fossil state.
[460] The student should consult Dr. Baird’s elegant and elaborate work on the Natural History of the British Entomostraca (published by the Ray Society) , for information on the characters and habits of these interesting little crustaceans and their numerous allies
Lign. ”

“ And so the wonder tale revealeth that the proud Young Cypress, who gazeth with such shining eyes into those of his mother, is the noble shoot of a mighty tree whose shadow extendeth over the earth, and whose fame shall be sung by the Children of Ormuzd as long as the world lasts. ”

“ On this southward-looking slope the cypresses attain a symmetry, a slenderness, a height, a thickness of texture and richness of colour unmatched in Stamboul. They grow in squares, many of them, or in magic circles. The stones under them are older than the others, and more like things of nature in the flowered grass. On certain happy afternoons, when the sun brings a fairy depth and softness of green out of the cypresses, when their shadows fall lance-like across bare or mossy aisles, and the note of a solitary bird echoes between them, it is hard not to imagine oneself in an enchanted wood. ”

“ When we arrived, the sleepy soldiers, who were lounging before the gates, threw them open to let the carriage enter, and we drew up in from of the great cypress, known by the name of "Montezuma's Cypress," a most stupendous tree, dark, solemn and stately, its branches unmoved as the light wind played amongst them, of most majestic height, and forty-one feet in circumference. ”

“ So I turned aside among the cypresses. They will calm me, I thought. Their whisperings are so grave. They flaunt not their joy at the sun’s kisses, like the shameless trees along the roadside. They keep their hearts unmoved in sun and in storm; they are the true stoics of Nature. And their calm is sympathetic; it comes not of a soul immovable; it comes of strength in trial.
And the cypresses wrapped me round in their scent—the grave, penetrating odour in which the battered spirit folds its wings to rest, and [181] the heart-beats grow quieter, and the brow smooths itself out in peace. ”

“ No other tree darkens in evening silhouette so impressively as the two queen trees of the Dismal Swamp, the juniper and cypress. With the low sun behind them, the clear-cut delicacy of their foliage reminds one of the exquisite fineness of dried sea mosses on a tinted page. But when the sun has gone down, and the sky is still flushed with its glory, the cypress takes on a mystery of dark and refined beauty that is all its own. It rises still blacker than the dark underwood, the tallest among the trees, lonely, like a plume. ”

“ FABLE III. Cyparissus is about to kill himself for having slain, by accident, a favourite deer; but, before he is able to execute his design, Apollo transforms him into a Cypress.
Amid this throng was present the cypress, resembling the cone,18 now a tree, but once a youth, beloved by that God who fits the lyre with the strings, and the bow with strings. For there was a large stag, sacred to the Nymphs who inhabit the Carthæan fields; and, with his horns extending afar, he himself afforded an ample shade to his own head. ”

“ The ancients consecrated the Cypress to the Fates, the Furies and Pluto. They placed it near tombs. The people of the East retain the same custom in the decoration of their cemeteries. The Turks plant the Cypress at the head and at the foot of the graves. According to Ovid, the Cypress derived its name from Cyparissos, an especial friend of Apollo’s, who, in grief at having inadvertently killed a favourite stag of his, prayed the gods that his mourning might be made perpetual, and was changed into a Cypress tree, the branches of which were thenceforward used at funerals. ”

“ In the dark, mindful silence and inflection of the cypress trees, lost races, lost language, lost human ways of feeling and of knowing. Men have known as we can no more know, have felt as we can no more feel. Great life-realities gone into the darkness. But the cypresses commemorate. In the afternoon, Aaron felt the cypresses rising dark about him, like so many high visitants from an old, lost, lost subtle world, where men had the wonder of demons about them, the aura of demons, such as still clings to the cypresses, in Tuscany. ”

“ One evening, by the light of a splendid moon, which was reflected from the sea of Marmora, and the violet summits of Mount Olympus, I sat alone under the cypresses of the 'Ladders of the Dead;' those cypresses which overshadow innumerable tombs of Mussulmans, and descend from the heights of Pera to the shores of the sea. No one ever passes at that hour: you would suppose yourself an hundred miles from the capital, if a confused hum, wafted by the wind, was not occasionally heard, which speedily died away among the branches of the cypress. ”

“ I do not wonder that the ancients, even aside from their superstitions, selected the cypress as an emblem of death and mourning—for no one can behold that tree in its native solitude and state without thinking of all the friends he had lost, and would be likely to lose for the next hundred years.—Picture to yourself, gentle reader, the bed of a sluggish stream, enriched by the accumulations of vegetable mould for unknown ages, until the water forced itself through a deep, narrow channel, winding hither and thither ”

“ AWAY, away, Cypros! I can remain no more; my heart beats so.' 'Sweet lady,' replied Cypros, 'it is surprise that agitates you.' 'Is it surprise, Cypros? I did not know it was surprise. Then I never was surprised before.'
'I think they were surprised, sweet lady,' said Cypros, smiling. ”

“ And it sang as it flitted from bough to bough, until it reached the quiet churchyard where the grass grows green upon the graves, where the roses bloom living on the breast of death, and the cypress points to the immortal skies. There on the cypress' topmost twig it perched and sang a song so rich and rare, so far-reaching, that it touched the heart of Death sitting on the chest of the emperor,—for, after all, Death has a tender heart. Filled with a longing for his own garden, melted by the Nightingale's song, he vanished in a cold, grey mist,—out at the window. ”