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and even lifted her in their soft arms;
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without an answer Byblis fell from them,
and clutched the green herbs with her fingers, while
her tears continued to fall on the grass.
They say the weeping Naiads gave to her
a vein of tears which always flows there from
her sorrows—nothing better could be done.
Immediately, as drops of pitch drip forth
from the gashed pine, or sticky bitumen
distils out from the rich and heavy earth,
or as the frozen water at the approach
of a soft-breathing wind melts in the sun;
so Byblis, sad descendant of the Sun,
dissolving in her own tears, was there changed
into a fountain; which to this late day,
in all those valleys has no name but hers,
and issues underneath a dark oak-tree.
The tale of this unholy passion would
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perhaps, have filled Crete's hundred cities then,
if Crete had not a wonder of its own
to talk of, in the change of Iphis. Once,
there lived at Phaestus, not far from the town
of Gnossus, a man Ligdus, not well known;
in fact obscure, of humble parentage,
whose income was no greater than his birth;
but he was held trustworthy and his life
had been quite blameless. When the time drew near
his wife should give birth to a child, he warned
her and instructed her, with words we quote:—
“There are two things which I would ask of Heaven:
that you may be delivered with small pain,
and that your child may surely be a boy.
Girls are such trouble, fair strength is denied
to them.—Therefore (may Heaven refuse the thought)
if chance should cause your child to be a girl,
(gods pardon me for having said the word!)
we must agree to have her put to death.”
And all the time he spoke such dreaded words,
their faces were completely bathed in tears;
not only hers but also his while he
