80 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



Soon the rosy flush has left his cheek, and all his goodly 

 strength is gone, and the very form that Echo once had 

 loved. He lays his weary head on the green grass, and 

 darkness covers his longing eyes. And now he has entered 

 the halls of the dead, and in the Stygian wave still gazes on 

 his own image. The Naiads, his sisters, with tresses torn, 

 weep for their brother, the Dryads wail aloud, while Echo 

 wails again. And now they make ready the pyre and the 

 funeral torches and the bier. But in vain they seek the 

 dead ; they find but a flower of golden (croceum) hue, its 

 heart enringed by (set round with) white leaves. 1 



It is interesting to quote, in comparison with 

 this, the rendering that the poet Gay gives of the 

 old tale of the transformation : 



His spreading fingers shoot in verdant leaves : 

 Through his pale veins green sap now gently flows ; 

 And in a short-lived flower his beauty blows. 

 Let vain Narcissus warn each female breast 

 That beauty's but a transient gift at best ; 

 Like flowers it withers with th' advancing year, 

 And age, like winter, robs the blooming fair. 



Slightly suggestive of the boy in Struwwelpeter 

 who took root and grew sprouts because he would 

 not move when he was told, but eminently moral. 



But whether or no the flower of " vain 

 Narcissus " fame was a polyanthus or a Poeticus, 

 this is certain, varieties of both kinds grow in 

 Greece, and apparently have grown there as far 



1 I am indebted to Miss Camilla Jebb for this translation. 



