In Greece and Italy 291 



" for dooming 



Of death had she blent with the biide-chant's singing. 

 For the Dread One breathed on all life, winging 

 Softly her flight as a bee low humming." 



Virgil, as we know, wrote a " Georgic " upon the bees, and 

 although his treatment of them is less brilliant than that of 

 the Hindu singers, yet he pays them a poet's homage, not 

 only in the " Georgics " and " Bucohcs," but also in the 

 " ^neid," where he makes numerous references to them. 



Horace too, like his contemporary Virgil, values the bee, 

 and in his " Ode to Septimus " sings the praise of honey and 

 ohves. His friend Septimus has gone out to see the world, 

 even as far as Spain, but Horace declares that for himself 

 he hopes always to live by Tiber, but if that may not be he 

 chooses next Galesus, of which he sings, — 



" No spot so joyous smiles to me 

 Of this wide globe's extended shores ; 

 Where nor the labors of the bee 

 Yield to Hymettus' golden stores, 

 Nor the green berry of Venafran soil 

 Swells with a riper flood of fragrant oil." 



Again, Horace, singing of the impossibility of rivalling 

 Pindar, compares the flight of Pindar's muse to that of his 

 own: — 



" Strong is the gale that wafts the swan of Dirce, when- 

 e'er, Antoninus, he spreads his wings into the high spaces 

 of the clouds. I in the mood and manner of a matine bee 

 which culls the pleasant thyme with ceaseless toil about the 

 wood and slopes of dewy Tibur, a tiny minstrel, mould my 

 studied verse." 



Horace prefers a quiet country life to the turmoil of a 

 city, as he frequently tells us : — 



" A stream of clear water, and a wood of a few acres, and 

 the unfaihng promise of my cornfield, in blessedness of 



