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CHAPTER VI. 
“ THE BEES” OF VIRGIL. 
All modem writers have triumphed over the 
ignorance displayed by the poet Virgil in his 
fable of Aristseus, who draws life out of the 
womb of death, and causes his bees to spring 
from the entrails of immolated bulls.* But, for 
* The passage to which Michelet refers is found in the 
fourth book of the Georgies , and is thus translated by Dry- 
den :— 
“ The secret in an easy method lies; 
Select four brawny bulls for sacrifice, 
Which on Lycseus graze, without a guide ; 
Add four fair heifers yet in yoke untried : 
I' 1 or these, four altars in their temple rear, 
And then adore the woodland powers with prayer. 
From the slain victims pour the streaming blood, 
And leave their bodies in the shady wood : 
Nine mornings thence, Lethean poppy bring, 
T’ appease the manes of the poet’s king : 
