TREES AND TREES. 99 



Yirgil tells us that Eneas was allowed to build his ships 

 of the pines from this forest, and that when the Latians 

 attempted to burn them before Italy, Yenus changed 

 them to nymphs, and they sailed away into the air. 



At the marriage of Jupiter and Juno the most noted 

 gift to the bride was a tree laden with golden fruit. 

 Many people have regarded the oak as sacred. The 

 Druids offered sacrifices in oak groves, and consulted 

 these trees in their worships ; hence, perhaps, the name 

 Quercus, from quero, to seek. 



If we may believe the poets who wrote of these 

 things, trees occupy no inconspicuous place in the land 

 of spirits. When Dante and Yirgil crossed the river 

 Styx, they found tangled and matted forests of brown 

 foliaged trees, each tree a living spirit undergoing pen- 

 ance for crimes committed against self, and although it 

 was the lightest form of punishment in all these " cir- 

 cles" of misery, yet lamentations were issuing from 

 them. Dante says : " We had put ourselves within a 

 wood that was not marked by any path whatever ; not 

 foliage green, but of a dusky color; not branches 

 smooth, but gnarled and intermingled. Therefore the 

 Master said : ' If thou break off some little spray from 

 any of these trees, the thought thou hast will wholly be 

 made vain.' Then stretched I forth my hand a httle 

 forward and plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn, 

 and the trunks cried: 'Why dost thou mangle me? 

 why dost thou rend me ? hast thou no pity whatsoever ? 

 Men once we were, now changed to trees.'" But as 

 they ascended up through Purgatorio to Paradiso they 



