Dryas

“ Loxias, Son of Leto, Archer God, Paian, son of Zeus—all are affectionate, worshipful names of Apollo.
To the end she sang it. Not with Dryas’s sensitive handling but with a dramatic power, possessive, from within, making it inalienably her own.
Then she seemed to waken. She looked around. Her father stood with bowed head and hidden face. Melantho was weeping. Lycophron motioned a slave to shut the door lest someone come upon them, and Dryas sat gazing at the ground with an expression of [9] misery and defeat which scattered the last vestige of Theria’s creative joy. ”

“ Still Dryas maintained his Athenian Treasury.
[22]
“Shu! You’ve never been there,” he said, “an’ I’ve been there lots o’ times.”
“I go every day,” announced the little girl.
At this evident whopper Dryas’s rosy mouth fell open in dismay. ”

“ They passed Daulis, and hurried on under the setting moon. Dryas was silent now, only urging his horse so fast that Eëtíon had to check him for fear of accident. In the dark they met a party of men hurrying toward Athens as if mad. Eëtíon knew what they were and Dryas guessed, and he hid his face in his cloak as they rushed by. They were Nikander’s kinsmen riding to intercept those who would withhold the good oracle from Athens. ”

“ Should this, for any reason, fail, self-fertilisation will almost certainly be effected by means of the pollen from the innermost stamens. If a large number of plants of the White Dryas be carefully examined some will be found with flowers containing both stamens and carpels, as above described, while others, less numerous, have flowers with stamens only. These will of course produce no seeds. Some plants, again, will be seen to bear both kind of flowers. The White Dryas is found in the mountainous districts of Europe and in the Arctic regions of the new and old worlds. ”

“ Lamon having no children of his own, resolves to bring up the foundling, and bestows on him the pastoral name of Daphnis.
"About two years after this occurrence, Dryas, a neighbouring shepherd, finds in the cave of the Nymphs, a female infant, nursed by one of his ewes. The child is brought to the cottage of Dryas, receives the name of Chloe, and is cherished by the old man as if she had been his daughter. ”

“ The god will care for his own!”
“So when Tuchè came running out to tell him, Akeretos brought Aristonikè forth to the tripod.”
Dryas paused, taking a long breath.
“And now all the Delphians say there is no need to stay to defend our Delphi. We may all flee to the mountains while the god alone fights for us. We of the household also must make haste to go.” ”

“ Go to then, let us agree, to put off the Wedding till the next Autumne. Those that use to Come from the City to us, tell us that he will then be here. Then they shall be man and Wife, and in the mean time let them love like Sister and Brother. Yet know this Dryas: The young man thou art in such haste and earnest about, is far better than us. And Lamo having thus spoke, embraced Dryas, and kist him, and made him sit and drink with him, when now it was hot at high noon, and going along with him part of his way, treated him altogether kindly. ”

“ The combat was to take place in chariots, but the princess, being in love with Clitus, bribed his rival’s charioteer to put no pins in the wheels of his chariot; so Dryas came to the ground, and Clitus slew him and married the king’s daughter. [1005] The tale agrees closely with that of Pelops and Hippodamia. ”

“ He thought himself the richest man, not only amongst the husbandmen in the neighbourhood, but of all men living, hastened to Chloe, told her of the dream, showed her the purse, told her to mind the flocks till he returned, and then ran with all speed to Dryas, whom he found with Nape, beating some wheat on a threshing-floor. ”

“ He ventures, however, to approach its vicinity, under pretext of laying snares for birds. Engaged in this employment, he waits a long time without any person appearing from the house. At length, when about to depart, Dryas himself comes out in pursuit of a dog, who had run off with the family dinner. He perceives Daphnis with his game, and accordingly, as a profitable speculation, invites him into the cottage. The birds he had caught are prepared for supper, a second cup is filled, a new fire is kindled, and Daphnis is asked to remain next day to attend a sacrifice to be performed to Bacchus. ”

“ It now became manifest that beauty is enhanced by adornment. Indeed Chloe, richly attired, with her hair braided and her face shining from the bath, looked far more beautiful than before, and Daphnis himself could barely recognise her. Any spectator, without even knowing her history, would have sworn that she could not be the daughter of Dryas. Nevertheless the latter was invited to the banquet at which he and Nape together with Lamon and Myrtale reclined upon the same couch. ”

“ They each thought that they beheld the Nymphs of the grotto, where the fountain played and where Dryas had found the little girl, presenting Daphnis and Chloe to a young boy of very sprightly gait and beautiful mien, who had wings on his shoulders, and who carried a little bow and some arrows in his hand. The urchin lightly touched the young people with one of his shafts, and commanded them to devote themselves to a pastoral life. To Daphnis he gave the charge of goats, whilst to Chloe he committed the care of sheep. ”

“ The White Dryas, or Silver-herb as the Swiss call it, is a characteristic Alpine plant which is found all over Switzerland between 3000 and 8000 feet, and even descends to the plains with some of the rivers. It is common in dry mountain pastures and rocky places, and seems to grow best on limestone soil. Often the bare surfaces of rocks and boulders are thickly covered with its matted growth, which persists from year to year as soil gradually accumulates around it. ”

“ The Edonians, the Bassarids, and the Young Men constituted a connected series of plays—a Lycurgeia, with Lycurgus for the satyric supplement. Remembering that Æschylus called his own tragedies morsels picked up from the great Homeric banquet-table, we may conclude that this tetralogy set forth the Dionysian fable told by Diomede to Glaucus in the Iliad (vi. 131) :
No, for not Dryas' son, Lycurgus strong,
Who the divine ones fought, on earth lived long. ”

“ The poor little gophers were forced out of their holes by the water, to be killed by the hail, and hundreds of them are lying around dead. I wondered and wondered why Dryas did not come to our assistance, but he told us afterward that when the storm first came he went to the stable to fasten the horses up snug, and was then afraid to come away, first because of the immense hailstones, and later because both horses were so terrified by the crashing in of their windows, and the awful cannonade of hail on the roof. ”

“ In vain shall Dryasdust strive: things mad, chaotic and without ascertainable purpose or result, cannot be fixed into human memories. Fix them there by never so many Documentary Histories, elaborate long-eared Pedantries, and cunning threads, the poor human memory has an alchemy against such ill usage;—it forgets them again; grows to know them as a mere torpor, a stupidity and horror, and instinctively flies from Dryasdust and them. ”

“ Over the theological effusions which the general of the Puritan army addresses, from his camp, to the Edinburgh clergy, Mr Carlyle thus expatiates:—"Dryasdust, carrying his learned eye over these, and the like letters, finds them, of course, full of 'hypocrisy,' &c. Unfortunate Dryasdust! they are corruscations terrible as lightning, and beautiful as lightning, from the innermost temple of the human soul; intimations, still credible, of what a human soul does mean when it believes in the Highest—a thing poor Dryasdust never did, nor will do. ”

“ Day after day, guarding the long, white road, the Dryad saw the phantom pass—always flying north; day after day in the dim forest, the hurrying, pale-winged, tireless creatures fled away, darting always along some fixed yet invisible aërial path. Nothing lured them, neither the perfumed clusters of the China-berry, nor the white forest flowers; nothing checked them, neither the woven curtain of creepers across the forest barrier, nor the jungle walled with palms.
To the net of the Dryad and of Jones had fallen half a thousand jewelled victims ”

“ Long, slender, swallow-tailed wings, tinted with pearl and primrose, crossed with ashy stripes and double-barred with glowing crimson—this is the shy, forest-haunting creature that the Dryad sought to snare, and sought in vain.
Sometimes, standing on the long, white shell roads, where myriads of glittering dragon-flies sailed, far away a pale flash would catch the sun for an instant; and "Ready! Look out!" would cry the Dryad. Vanity! Swifter than a swallow the Ajax passed, a pearly blurr against the glare of the white road ”

“ When the grove was empty and still, all the other Dryads would step softly from their dwelling places in the cypress, the olive and the pine trees and join hands as they danced lightly about the oak tree, singing their praises of the great Ceres who fed with her bounty the whole of Greece. The country people, and even those from the cities, came to pay their homage to Ceres' oak, bringing garlands of roses and laurel that they hung on its boughs, and carving messages of thanks and love for the Dryad on its bark. ”

“ He courageously began, then, amidst a profound silence, which would have been formidable to any one but himself:—“Madame, by the king’s permission, I address myself, in the first place, to your royal highness, since you admit yourself to be the person present possessing the greatest curiosity. I have the honor, therefore, to inform your royal highness that the Dryad more particularly inhabits the hollows of oaks; and, as Dryads are mythological creatures of great beauty, they inhabit the most beautiful trees, in other words, the largest to be found.” ”

“ They too are Dryopes in origin, who took no part in the battle with Heracles, as they dwelt at some distance from the city. Yet the people of Styra disdain the name of Dryopes, just as the Delphians have refused to be called Phocians. But the men of Asine take the greatest pleasure in being called Dryopes, and clearly have made the most holy of their sanctuaries in memory of those which they once had, established on Parnassus. For they have both a temple of Apollo and again a temple and ancient statue of Dryops, whose mysteries they celebrate every year, saying that he is the son of Apollo. ”

“ The eyes of the Echo-dwarf glistened. Here was a man who might help him in his plans.
"Your idea is a good one," he said to Old Pipes, "and it does you honor. But you should know that a Dryad can make no person younger but one who lets her out of her tree. However, you can manage the affair very easily. All you need do is to find the Dryad, tell her what you want, and request her to step into her tree and be shut up for a short time. Then you will go and bring your mother to the tree; she will open it, and every thing will be as you wish. ”

“ It must be remembered that there is a peculiar property pertaining to the kiss of a dryad. Whenever a dryad kisses a human being, that person becomes ten years younger. So all good mothers are very careful to keep their children away from large oak trees. If a girl, of a dozen years, were to sit in the shade of one of these trees, she might attract the attention of an affectionate tree dweller; and then, if this dryad should kiss her, the little toddler of two years might go home—if perchance, she remembered where she lived—and astound her parents. ”

“ Before long they came to the great oak-tree in which the Dryad had lived, and, at a distance, they saw that beautiful creature herself coming toward them.
"How excellently well every thing happens!" said the dwarf. "Put me down, and I will go. Your business with the Dryad is more important than mine; and you need not say any thing about my having suggested your plan to you. I am willing that you should have all the credit of it yourself."
Old Pipes put the Echo-dwarf upon the ground, but the little rogue did not go away. ”

“ Ralston says that in Hahn’s opinion the above story is founded on the Hellenic belief in Dryads; but he himself thinks it belongs to an earlier mythological family than the Hellenic, though the Dryad and the Laurel-maiden are undoubtedly kinswomen. “Long before the Dryads and Oreads had received from the sculpturesque Greek mind their perfection of human form and face, trees were credited with woman-like inhabitants, capable of doing good and ill, and with power of their own, apart from those possessed by their supernatural tenants, of banning and blessing. ”

“ But at any rate it is clear that both in ancient and in modern times the nymphs have always been believed to be subject to ultimate death, and however the tenure of life may be determined in the case of the others, the Dryads have without doubt been generally reckoned coeval with the trees that are their homes.
An exception to this rule must however be made in the case of Nereid-haunted trees which do not die a natural death, but are felled untimely. A Nymph’s life is not to be cut short by a humanly-wielded axe. ”

“ The Dryad, receiving no reply, looked around and beheld Jones, net poised, advancing on tiptoe across the green.
"What is it—a snake?" inquired the Dryad in an unsteady voice.
"It is The White Devil!" whispered Jones.
The Dryad's skirts were short enough as it was, but she hastily picked them up. She had a right to. "Does it bite?" she whispered, looking carefully around in the grass. But all she could see was a strangely beautiful butterfly settled on a blue wild blossom which swayed gently in the wind on the edge of the jungle. So she dropped her skirts. She had a right to. ”