678 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



" Then crowned with oaken chaplets marched the priest 

 Of Eleusinian Ceres, and with bougha 

 Of oak were overt^badowed in the feast 

 The teeming basket and the mystic vase." 



One of the most beautiful fictions in Greek mythology, is that of the 

 Hamadryads or wood nymphs, each " doomed to a life coeval with her 

 oak." The Greek poets frequently refer to them, and our much admired 

 ballad of " Woodman Spare that Tree," finds its counterpart in one of their 

 poems, where a Hamadryad is represented as imploring a woodman to spare 

 the oak, upon whose existence her life depended. 



" Loud through the air resounds the woodsman's stroke, 

 ♦ When lo! a voice breaks from the groaning oak: 



Spare, spare my life, a trembling virgin spare, 

 Oh, listen to the Hamadryads prayer; 

 No longer let that fearful axe resound. 

 Preserve the tree to which my life is bound. 

 See, from the bark my blood in torrents flows, 

 I faint, I sink, I perish from your blows." 



The oak was also sacred to hospitality which arose in this wise: Jupiter 

 and Mercury travelling through Phrygia, entered the cottage of a poor old 

 couple named Philemon and Baucis, and were by them treated with great 

 kindness and hospitality; in reward therefor, Jupiter turned their cottage 

 into a splendid temple, making the old couple priest and priestess, and 

 granting them the only request they had to make of them, viz: that they 

 might die together; accordingly when they had become so aged as to wish 

 to die, Jove transformed Philemon into an oak tree, and Baucis into a Lime 

 or Linden tree, the two trees entwining their branches together, and shad- 

 ing the portals of the temple. Living monuments of hospitality and con- 

 jugal affection. 



The Greeks were particularly fond of the Lime or Linden tree, and 

 planted it so as to foi'm wide spacious avenues, and when in bloom, clouds 

 of fragrance were wafted on every breeze that blew, and as swarms of 

 bees are allured by its flowers, the musical hum of the insects and the 

 fragrance together might well call up poetical emotions in the mind of the 

 Greek, and in fancy lead him to thymy pastures of his much loved Hymettus. 



The legend connected with it I have already given. 



The oriental Plane tree (or Eastern Button wood), was also a favorite 

 tree with the Greeks; they planted it profusely, particularly around Athens, 

 .in the neighborhood of the gymnasia and the public schools. The groves 

 of the Academus where Plato delivered his discourses, and the groves of 

 Epicurus where Aristotle taught, were planted with this tree, and so highly 

 was it esteemed that Socrates sometimes swore by it, as well as by the 

 oak, but some considered it impious to swear by a tree of such beauty. 



It is related of Xerxes, that when on his celebrated expedition, he found 

 in Lycia a Plane tree of such beauty, that he halted his army of 1,700,000 

 men for several days, not permitting the importance of his expedition, nor 

 the necessar}^ movements of such an army to interfere with his admiration 

 of it; and when finally obliged to leave it, he had a figure of it engraved 

 on a gold medal which he afterwards continually wore. 



Probably no tree has holier associations connected with it than the olive. 



