III. THE LEAF. 



65 



no trace whatever of this first idea left in the fable 

 of Arcadia and Thessaly. 



27. The central Greek Daphne is the daughter 

 of one of the great river gods of Arcadia ; her 

 mother is the Earth. Now Arcadia is the Ober- 

 land of Greece ; and the crests of Cyllene, Ery- 

 manthus, and Maenalus* surround it, like the Swiss 

 forest cantons, with walls of rock, and shadows of 

 pine. And it divides itself, like the Oberland, into 

 three regions : first, the region of rock and snow, 

 sacred to Mercury and Apollo, in which Mercury's 

 birth on Cyllene, his construction of the lyre, and 

 his stealing the oxen of Apollo, are all expressions 

 of the enchantments of cloud and sound, mingling 

 with the sunshine, on the cliffs of Cyllene. 



" While the mists 

 Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes 

 And phantoms from the crags and solid earth 

 As fast as a musician scatters sounds 

 Out of his instrument." 



Then came the pine region, sacred especially to Pan 

 and Maenalus, the son of Lycaon and brother of 

 Callisto ; and you had better remember this relation- 

 ship carefully, for the sake of the meaning of the 

 constellations of Ursa Major and the Mons Maenalius, 



• Roughly, Cyllene 7,700 feet high ; Erymanthus 7,000 ; Maenalus 

 6,000. 



