_. And first, from Bion's Elegy on
Adonis:--

'The flowers flush red for anguish.... This kiss will I treasure, even
as thyself, Adonis, since, ah ill-fated! thou art fleeing me,... while
wretched I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee.
Persephone, take thou my lover, my lord, for thyself art stronger than
I, and all lovely things drift down to thee.... For why ah overbold!
didst thou follow the chase, and, being so fair, why wert thou thus
over-hardy to fight with beasts?... A tear the Paphian sheds for each
blood-drop of Adonis, and tears and blood on the earth are turned to
flowers.... Ah even in death he is beautiful, beautiful in death, as one
that hath fallen on sleep.... All things have perished in his death, yea
all the flowers are faded.... He reclines, the delicate Adonis, in his
raiment of purple, and around him the Loves are weeping and groaning
aloud, clipping their locks for Adonis. And one upon his shafts, another
on his bow, is treading, and one hath loosed the sandal of Adonis, and
another hath broken his own feathered quiver, and one in a golden vessel
bears water, and another laves the wound, and another, from behind him,
with his wings is fanning Adonis.... Thou must again bewail him, again
must weep for him another year.... He does not heed them [the Muses];
not that he is doth to hear, but that the Maiden of Hades doth not let
him go.'

The next-ensuing passages come from the Elegy of Moschus for Bion:--

'Ye flowers, now in sad clusters breathe yourselves away. Now redden, ye
roses, in your sorrow, and now wax red, ye wind-flowers; now, thou
hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee graven, and add a deeper ai ai to
thy petals: he is dead, the beautiful singer.... Ye nightingales that
lament among the thick leaves of the trees, tell ye to the Sicilian
waters of Arethusa the tidings that Bion the herdsman is dead.... Thy
sudden doom, O Bion, Apollo himself lamented, and the Satyrs mourned
thee, and the Priapi in sable raiment, and the Panes sorrow for thy
song, and the Fountain-fairies in the wood made moan, and their tears
turned to rivers of waters. And Echo in the rocks laments that thou art
silent, and no more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the
trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded.... Nor ever
sang so sweet the nightingale on the cliffs,... nor so much, by the grey
sea-waves, did ever the sea-bird sing, nor so much in the dells of dawn
did t