THE ANCIENTS AND THE HONEY-BEE 5 
when drinking, may have bridges to stand on, and 
spread their wings to the summer sun.” 
Virgil’s method of hiving a swarm is almost 
identical with that followed by old-fashioned bee- 
men to this day. The hive is to be scoured with 
crushed balm and honeywort, and then you are to 
“make a tinkling round about, and clash the 
cymbals of the Mother ”—that is, of the goddess 
Cybele. The bees will forthwith descend, he tells 
us, and occupy the prepared nest.. When the 
honey-harvest is taken, you are first to sprinkle 
your garments and cleanse your breath with pure 
water, and then to approach the hives “ holding 
forth pursuing smoke in your hand.” And the 
old-time bee-man of to-day takes his mug of small- 
beer as a necessary rite, and washes himself before 
handling his hives. 
But perhaps the great charm of the fourth 
Georgic consists, not in its nearness to truth about 
bee-life, but in the continual reference to the 
beautiful myths, and hardly less attractive errors, 
of immemorial times, copied so faithfully by 
medizeval writers, but not apt to be heard of by the 
learner of to-day unless he reads the old books. 
Virgil begins his poem by speaking of “ heaven- 
born honey, the gift of air,” in allusion to the belief 
that the nectar in flowers was not a secretion of 
the plant itself, but fell like manna from the skies. 
He seriously warns his readers of the disastrous 
effect of echoes on the denizens of a hive, and of 
