March, 1922 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



grown into quite a young man there came 

 a year when all Iiis bees died. Other trou- 

 bles, too, came upon him. So one day he 

 stood by the side of the river, "all tears — 

 making hard complaint and bitter cry" to 

 his sea-nymph mother. One wishes the 

 nymphs had taught him to be more manly! 

 (Yet after all, making hard complaint and 

 bitter cry, and asking to be helped out of 

 trouble is still a common human custom.) 



Well, in this story, the nymphs were down 

 in their chambers below the waves, sitting 

 in a circle on their crystal thrones, spinning 

 rare fleeces on their looms and listening to 

 one of their number tell beautiful astonish- 

 ing tales of the love and adventures of the 

 gods. They heard the cry of the discour- 

 aged youth above, and one of them rose 

 swiftly to the surface of the water to lis- 

 ten. "Sister," she called down, in effect, 

 "Do help your boy, somehow." Gyrene 

 then gave orders that he be admitted to 

 this abode of the nymphs and that "the 

 opening river floods should yield free path 

 to the young shepherd's feet. And lo! the 

 waves rose like a hilltop round him ' ' and 

 he passed down into his goddess mother's 

 realm within the river's deeps. There he 

 was in the midst of great wonders, at the 

 very place where the rivers rise that sweep 

 "thru rich farms to meet the purple sea." 

 Nymphs brought water and napkins for his 

 liand-washiug, "piled the board with feast- 

 ing and with wine-cups oft refilled — the 

 sacred altars blazed with fragrant fires. ' ' 

 And at last his mother told him to go for 

 advice to Proteus, the old sea-deity, whose 

 prophetic soul "has vision clear of all that 

 is and was and soon will be. ' ' She warned 

 him, tho, he must use violence, and not be 

 dismayed by the changing shapes of Proteus. 

 "No precept will he give save on compul- 

 sion," she told him. 



In a cavern by the sea Aristaeus found 

 him, the hoary old sea-god who shepherded 

 the seals. He "rushed in upon him with a 

 mighty cry and bound him as he lay." The 

 struggling god ' ' changed himself into all 

 wondrous things; to flames of fire,to fright- 

 ful monsters and swift-passing streams. ' ' 

 But Aristaeus would not let him go. (Re- 

 member "T will not let thee go until thou 

 bless me"?) Finally Proteus yielded; and he 

 told the shepherd that it was Orpheus who 

 had sent these troubles upon him, to avenge 

 the death of his wife. Which leads us 

 straight into still another story, 



Orpheus, son of Apollo and the muse Cal- 

 liope, was a poet and philosopher, and even 

 more a musician. From Apollo he had re- 

 ceived a lyre of seven strings, to which he 

 had added two more strings, thus increas- 

 ing forever the music of the earth. Or- 

 pheus had wed Eurydice, one of the forest 

 nymphs. But one fatal day, our young bee- 

 keeping shepherd Aristaeus, attracted by 

 the surpassing beauty of Eurydice, had pur- 

 sued her, and as she fled him in terror, she 



was bitten by a serpent, and died. "The 

 forest nymphs, her lovely peers, to the liigh 

 hilltops sent their wailing cry." And poor 

 desolate Orplieus took his lyre and went 

 right down into the lower regions after her. 

 There with the charm of his music he cap- 

 tivated everybody and everything. Instru- 

 ments of torture stopped their turning, the 

 guards were softened and even the rulers of 

 the place became "loving and pitiful." 

 Permission was granted for Eurydice 's re- 

 turn — but on this condition. Orpheus must 

 go ahead and must not once, until they were 

 wholly back in the sunlit places, look back 

 at Eurydice, who was to follow at a dis- 

 tance. Back the long perilous way he went 

 in safety, but just as the first ray of light 

 touched them, "ere he knew, a sudden mad- 

 ness seized the lover's mind — a fault to be 

 forgiven, could hell forgive," and in his 

 great anxiety to know if she were really 

 coming, he sent one swift glance back at 

 the beloved. Instantly loud thunder sound- 

 ed three times, and Eurydice was snatched 

 back — irrevocably — to the regions of dark- 

 ness and desolation. "Farewell," she cried, 

 "no longer thine, alas! but lifting thee my 

 helpless hands." And up and down the 

 land went Orpheus, "beneath the windy 

 crags and by the shores, ' ' lamenting his 

 loss in music "that made tigers tame and 

 lured the rugged oaks to follow." 



Because in these sad-singing wanderings 

 he was ever true to Eurydice, "his faithful 

 arief angered those Thracian maids whose 

 kiss he scorned," and in a drunken orgy 

 they killed him. But his voice with its last 

 disembodied breath still cried "Eurydice!" 



It was this broken-hearted Orpheus, then, 

 aided by the bereaved sister-nymphs, Avho 

 had brought the avenging troubles upon the 

 sliepherd Aristaeus. So his mother, when 

 "Proteus' tale had end and with a leap he 

 plunged him in the sea," advised her son to 

 make sacrifice to appease all those offended 

 ones; to take "four noble bulls surpassing 

 large and strong, and with them take as 

 many heifers fair"; to build "four altars 

 at the wood nymphs' favored shrine"; to 

 slaughter the victims; "but leave behind 

 their bodies in the leafy grove"; in nine 

 days to come back. He did all that his 

 mother said, built four altars and on them 

 sacrificed the four noble bulls and the four 

 unyoked heifers. Afterward, "when the 

 ninth morn had risen, ' ' he retraced 



'His footsteps to the grove. There suddenly 

 Men saw a wonder passing strange: the sides 

 Of the slain cattle, now turned soft, buzzed loud 

 With swarming bees; the belly and the ribs 

 Were teeming; and the bees in formless clouds 

 Streamed upward to a tree-top, and hung down 

 In pointed cluster from the swinging bough." 



Thus was the "memorable art derived 

 from an Arcadian king," showing how "if 

 thy whole swarm at a stroke should fail, 

 with no stock left for breeding," "the 

 blood of slaughtered bulls out of corruption 

 generates the bee." 



