24 LOCirSTS AND WILD HONEY 



Theocritus furnishing the best yield. Sicily has al- 

 ways been rich in bees. Swinburne (the traveler of 

 a hundred years ago) says the woods on this island 

 abounded in wild honey, and that the people also had 

 many hives near their houses. The idyls of Theo- 

 critus are native to the island in this respect, and 

 abound in bees — "flat-nosed bees," as he calls them 

 in the Seventh Idyl — and comparisons in which 

 comb-honey is the standard of the most delectable of 

 this world's goods. His goatherds can think of no 

 greater bliss than that the mouth be filled with honey- 

 combs, or to be inclosed in a chest like Daphnis and 

 fed on the combs of bees ; and among the delectables 

 with which Arsinoe cherishes Adonis are "honey- 

 cakes," and other tidbits made of "sweet honey." 

 In the country of Theocritus this custom is said still 

 to prevail : when a couple are married, the attendants 

 place honey in their mouths, by which they would 

 symbolize the hope that their love may be as sweet to 

 their souls as honey to the palate. 



It was fabled that Homer was suckled by a priest- 

 ess whose breasts distilled honey ; and that once, when 

 Pindar lay asleep, the bees dropped honey upon his 

 lips. In the Old Testament the food of the promised 

 Immanuel was to be butter and honey (there is much 

 doubt about the butter in the original), that he might 

 know good from evU; and Jonathan's eyes were en- 

 lightened by partaking of some wood or wild honey : 

 " See, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlight- 

 ened, because I tasted a little of this honey." So 

 far as this part of his diet was concerned, therefore. 



