BAY. 61 



Spenser, indignant at the slight shown to his illustrious 

 father, speaks in a vindictive strain of the fair Daphne : 



" Proud Daphne, scorning Phoebus' lovely fire, 



On the Thessalian shore from him did flee ; 

 For which the gods, in their revengeful ire, 

 Did her transform into a laurel-tree." 



SPENSER'S SONNETS. 



Garcilasso tells the story rather in pity than in anger : 



" Strange icy throes the arms of Daphne bind, 



Which shoot and spread, and lengthen into boughs ; 



And into green leaves metamorphosed shows 



The head, whose locks wooed by' the summer wind, 



Made the fine gold seem dim ; the rigorous rind 



Clothes the soft members that still pant ; her feet, 



Snowy as swift, in earth fast rooted meet, 



By thousand tortuous fibres intertwined. 



The author of an injury so great 



With virtue of his tears this laurel fed, 



Which flourished thus ; perpetual greenness keeping ; 



Oh fatal growth ! oh miserable estate ! 



That from his weeping each fresh day should spread 



The very cause and reason of his weeping." 



WIFFEN'S GARCILASSO, p. 33. 



This noble tree has often been confounded with the 

 common laurel, which is of quite a different genus, bearing 

 the botanical name of prunus laurocerasus. The Bay was 

 formerly called Laurel, and the fruit only named Bayes ; 

 this has probably occasioned the mistake. The word Bay, 

 indeed, is probably derived from Bacca, the name of the 

 berry. 



Thomson, as if resolved to have the right laurel at any 

 rate, makes use of both : 



fc from her majestic brow 



She tore the laurel, and she tore the bay." 



THOMSON'S BRITANNIA. 



The Bay not only served to grace triumphant brows, 

 mortal and immortal, but was also placed over the houses 



