Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/174

 of her kind to aid her in taking vengeance), and with the life of the tree her own life is bound up.

For a nymph is not immortal. Her span of life far exceeds that of man, but none the less it is measured. 'A crow lives twice as long as a man, a tortoise twice as long as a crow, and a Nereid twice as long as a tortoise.' Such is a popular saying which I heard from an unlettered peasant of Arcadia, to whom evidently had been transmitted orally through many centuries a version of Hesiod's lines, 'Verily nine times the age of men in their prime doth the croaking raven live; and a stag doth equal four ravens; and 'tis three lives of a stag ere the crow grows old; but the phoenix hath the life of nine crows; and ye, fair-tressed Nymphs, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, do live ten times the phoenix' age .' Commenting on this passage, Plutarch takes the word [Greek: genea] in the phrase [Greek: ennea geneas andrôn hêbôntôn], which I have rendered as 'nine times the age of men in their prime,' to be used as the equivalent of [Greek: eniautos], a year; and, making a sober computation on this basis, discovers that the limit of life for nymphs and daemones in general is 9720 years. But he then admits that the mass of men do not allow so long a duration, and quotes by way of illustration a phrase from Pindar, [Greek: nymphas isodendrou tekmôr aiônos lachousas], according to which the nymphs are allotted a term of life commensurate with that of a tree; hence, it is added, the compound name [Greek: Hamadryades], Dryads whose lives are severally bound up with those of the trees which they inhabit. Other ancient authorities concur. Sophocles markedly calls the nymphs of Mt Cithaeron 'long-lived' ([Greek: makraiônes]), not 'immortal' : Pliny certifies the finding of dead Nereids on the coasts of Gaul during the reign of Augustus : Tzetzes cites from the works of Charon of Lampsacus the story of an Hamadryad who was in danger of being swept away and drowned by a swollen mountain-torrent : and, to revert to yet earlier authority, in one of the Homeric Hymns Aphrodite rehearses to Anchises the whole matter. Speaking of the son whom she will bear to him, she says: 'So soon as he shall see the light of the sun, he shall be tended by