Poetical allusions — Ovid, Lucan 157 



Ovid selects this tree to mark the descent to 

 Tartarus : ' Dismal yew shades the declining way 

 that, through labyrinths of shade and horror, leads 

 to Tartarus ; languid Styx exhaling continual 

 clouds.'^ 



Du Hamel du Monceau, in the eighteenth century, 

 in reference probably to this passage, says : " — 



' Les rives du Styx et de I'Acheron en etaient 

 ombragees. Stace, dans sa Thebaide, envoie une 

 Furie, portant a la main d'if enflamme, a la rencontre 

 des ames qui descendent au sejour des ombres pour 

 leur en eclaire la route tenebreuse et les y intro- 

 duire a sa lugubre lueur.' 



That peculiar luminosity displayed occasionally 

 by decaying wood, and which is due to the presence 

 of the mycelium of a minute fungus, is mentioned 

 by Lucan ; thus, 



' Fallen yew-trees often of themselves would rise ; 

 With seeming fire oft gleam'd the unburn'd trees.''' 



This condition is rare, and I have never observed 

 it in the yew, but many years ago I saw, in 

 a wood near Taymouth, a willow tree which ap- 

 peared in the gloom of evening as a column of 

 pale phosphorescent light by which I and my 

 friend, the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, who accom- 

 panied me, could see to read distinctly. It is not 



^ Grindon, Trees of Old England, p. 68. 

 - Traite des Arhres, vol. i. p. 62, 1800. 

 ^ Fharsalia, Bk. iii. (May's translation). 



