1 46 The Poets and Nature. 



Next, " glowing" Cancer: 



" As close in's shell he lies, affords his aid 

 To greedy merchants, and inclines to trade." 



But over births his influence is hardly more auspicious 

 than the fishes', though in omen it is happy 



1 ' The dream's good ; 

 The crab is in conjunction with the sun." 



And it is by the Gate of Cancer, Mercury standing at the 

 starry portals, that souls descend to take possession of the 

 bodies of men. Not that the reasons of the crustacean's 

 exaltation commend it to popularity, for when Hercules was 

 fighting with the Hydra, Juno meanly sent Cancer to bite 

 the hero's heel, but Hercules merely stopped for a moment 

 in his job, killed the crab, and then went on with the 

 Hydra. The goddess, however, translated the smashed 

 crustacean to the skies. 



In the story of the " Cruel Crane Outwitted," the bird, 

 finding the fish likely to die of drought in a fast shrinking 

 puddle, offers to carry them across to a large and pleasant 

 lake of which he knows. After much suspicious demurring, 

 the fishes go with the crane, one by one, and are, of course, 

 eaten up in succession. Left last of all, however, is an old 

 crab, and the bird proposes to take it over too, to join its 

 old comrades. "Very good," says the crafty crustacean, 

 " but as you cannot very well hold me in your beak as you 

 did the fishes, suppose I hold you with my pincers." The 

 crane agrees to this, and having arrived at the shambles, 

 announces to the crab that he is now about-,to be eaten. 

 " Not a bit of it," is the reply. " On the contrary, if you 

 do not take me to the lake at once, I shall nip your head 

 off your thin neck." So the crane in great alarm takes 

 Cancer straight to the lake, but before getting off the bird's 

 back, the crab bites its head off. 



