2122 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



carried with him a lofty pine tree, by way of walkingstick ; that Ceres bore a 



flaming pine tree^ plucked from Mount Etna, in each hand, during her search 



for her daughter Proserpine ; and that Cybele, when her favourite Atys was 



about to destroy himself, changed him into a pine tree, and hence that tree 



was considered sacred to Cybele. He adds that a grove of sacred pines 



was among the trees moved by the music of Orpheus. Ovid also gives us 



the history of Sciron, or Cercyon, the pine-bender, a notorious robber, 



whose habit was, when he had taken a prisoner, to bend two pine trees, and 



to tie one of the prisoner's hands to each, and then to let the trees fly back, 



when the unfortunate traveller was torn asunder. This cruel monster was 



destroyed by Theseus. Virgil tells us that the ships of ^neas, which were 



afterwards changed into nymphs, were made of pine trees sacred to Cybele. 



He also alludes to the mournful sounds produced among the pine branches 



by the wind, and calls them the singing pines : 



" The pines of Maenalus were heard to mourn, 

 And sounds of woe along the groves were borne." 



The cones of the pine were sometimes sacrificed to Bacchus, because they 

 were put into wine to give it a flavour ; and sometimes to Esculapius, because 

 their odour, being balsamic, was thought excellent for asthmas. 



The pine tree is frequently mentioned by the elder British poets, prin- 

 cipally as affording an object of comparison for tall and stately beauty, or for 

 dark and gloomy grandeur. One of the finest allusions to the pine is by 

 Milton, in his splendid description of Satan, in the first book of the Paradise 

 Lost : — 



" His spear, to equal which the tallest pine. 

 Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 

 Of some great ammiral, were but a wand." 



Milton also says : — 



" His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow, 

 Breathe soft or loud ; and wave your to;)s, ye pines. 

 With every plant, in sign of worship wave. 



Among the more modern poets, perhaps the most beautiful lines relating 

 to the pine are those of Barry Cornwall. Speaking of Polyphemus, he 

 says, — 



"-iNIighty tears then fiU'd 

 His solitary eye, — and with such noise 

 • As the rough winds of autumn make when they 

 Pass o'er a forest, and bend down the pines. 

 The giant sigh 'd. " Death of Acis. 



• " Here dark trees 

 Funereal (cypress, yew, and shadowy pine 

 And spicy cedar) clustered ; and at night 

 Shook from their melancholy branches sounds 

 And sighs like death." Ibid. 



Leigh Hunt has also some beautiful lines on the pine tree : — 



" And then there fled by me a rush of air 

 That stirred up all the other foliage there, 

 Filling the solitude with panting tongues; 

 At which the pines woke up into their songs, 

 Shaking their choral locks. 



Hlnt's Foliage : Evergreens, p. -i. 



" And 'midst the flowers, turPd round beneath the shade 

 Of circling pines, a babbling fountain play'd ; 

 And °twixt the shafts you saw the water bright, 

 Vvhich through the darksome tops glimmer'd with showering light." 



Story of Rimini, canto iii. 



Shelly thus describes one of the conflagrations in the Norway forests : — 



" As the Norivay woodman quells. 

 In the depth of piny dells. 

 One light flame among the brakes. 

 While the boundless forest shakes. 

 And its mighty trunks are torn 

 By the fire thus lowly born ; 

 The spark beneath his feet is dead ; 

 He starts to see the flame it fed. 

 Howling through the darken'd sky 

 With myriad tongues, victoriously." 



