"This heavenly malady warmed their blood with so noble an ardour that by the advice of the wisest men this band of lovers was enrolled for war in the same company. Since that time, on account of the noble deeds they performed, they have been called the Sacred Band.[72] Its exploits went far beyond anything Thebes had imagined; for in battle each of these brave men dared such incredible efforts to protect his lover or to deserve his love that Antiquity saw nothing like it; and as long as that company of lovers existed, the Thebans, who before that time were considered the worst soldiers of all Greece, fought and always overcame the most warlike peoples of the earth, from even the Lacedemonians downwards.
"But among an infinite number of praiseworthy actions produced by these apples they innocently caused some which were very shameful.
"Myrrha,[73] a young lady of quality, ate of them with Cinyrus, her father; unhappily one ate of Pylades and the other of Orestes. Love immediately swallowed up Nature and confused it to such an extent that Cinyrus could swear 'I am my son-in-law' and Myrrha 'I am my stepmother'. In short, I think it sufficient to tell you, in order that you should understand the whole crime, that at the end of nine months the father became the grandfather of those he begat and the daughter brought forth her brothers.
"But chance was not content with this crime alone; it willed that a bull, having entered the gardens of King Minos, unhappily found some apples under a tree of Orestes and devoured them; I say unhappily, because Queen Pasiphaë ate this fruit every day. They became madly in love with each other. I shall not explain their enormous pleasure; suffice it to say that Pasiphaë was plunged in a crime which hitherto had no example.
"The famous sculptor Pygmalion precisely at that time was carving a marble Venus in the palace. The Queen, who delighted in good workmen, presented him with a couple of these apples; he ate the finest; and because he chanced to lack water, which, as you know, is necessary to the cutting of marble, he moistened his statue with the juice. The marble penetrated at the same time by this juice, little by little grew soft; and the energetic virtue of the apple carrying on its labour according to the workman's plan followed within the image the features it had met with on the surface, for it dilated, warmed and coloured in natural proportions the parts it met with in its passage. Finally the marble became living and touched by the apple's passion embraced Pygmalion with all the strength of her heart; and Pygmalion, transported by reciprocal love, received her for his wife.
"In the same Province the youthful Iphis had eaten of this fruit with the beautiful Ianthë, her companion, in all the circumstances necessary to cause a reciprocal friendship. Their eating was followed by the customary effect; but because Iphis found the fruit to be of a very agreeable taste she ate so many that her friendship, increasing with the number of apples of which she was insatiable, usurped all the functions of love and this love by increasing little by little became more masculine and more vigorous; for her whole body, imbued with this fruit, burned to form the movements which coincided with the enthusiasms of its will and moved its matter so powerfully that it fashioned itself much stronger organs, able to carry out its thought and to content its love wholly to the most virile extent; that is to say, Iphis became what is needed to espouse a woman.
"I should call this adventure a miracle if I had any other name to describe the following event:
"A very accomplished young man called Narcissus had deserved by his love the affection of a very beautiful girl, whom the poets have celebrated under the name of Echo. But, as you know, even more than those of our sex, women are never so beloved as they desire; and she, having heard the virtues of these apples of Orestes greatly commended, went about to collect them from several places; and because she was fearful and her love apprehended the apples of one tree might have less strength than those of the other, she willed him to taste of both; but he had scarcely eaten them when Echo's image was effaced from his memory, all his love turned towards the person who had digested the fruit, he was the lover and the beloved; for the substance derived from the apple of Pylades embraced within him that from the apple of Orestes. This twin fruit, extending through the whole of his blood, excited all the parts of his body to caress themselves. His heart, into which flowed their double virtue, darted its flames within; all his limbs animated by his passion desired to penetrate each other. Even his image, which burned in the coldness of pools, attracted his body to join with it; in short, poor Narcissus became madly in love with himself. I shall not be so tedious as to relate to you his deplorable catastrophe; past ages have already sufficiently spoken of it and I have still two adventures to tell you, which will better fill up the time.
"You must know that the beautiful Salmacis frequented the shepherd Hermaphrodite, but with no familiarity beyond that authorised by the vicinity of their homes, when Fortune, who delights to trouble the most peaceful lives, permitted that Hermaphrodite should win the prize for running and Salmacis that for beauty in a meeting for games, where the prizes for beauty and running were two of these apples. They had been plucked together, but from different boughs, because these amorous fruits mingle with such cunning that one from Pylades is always met with beside one from Orestes; and their appearing to be twins was the cause that they were usually plucked in pairs. The beautiful Salmacis ate her apple and the gentle Hermaphrodite placed his in his shepherd's scrip. Salmacis, inspired by the enthusiasms of her apple, and of the shepherd's apple, which began to grow warm in his scrip, felt attracted towards him by the sympathetic ebb and flow of her apple with the other.
"The shepherd's parents, perceiving the nymph's desires, tried to preserve and to increase them, because of the advantages they perceived in this alliance; and therefore, having heard these twin apples vaunted as a fruit whose juice inclines the mind to love, they distilled some of them and found means to cause their son and his mistress to drink the purest quintessence. They had sublimated its energy to the highest degree it could attain and thereby lighted in these lovers' hearts so vehement a desire of joining together that at first sight Hermaphrodite was absorbed in Salmacis and Salmacis melted away in the arms of Hermaphrodite. They passed into each other and they composed from two persons of different sex a double 'something', which was neither man nor woman. When Hermaphrodite desired to enjoy Salmacis he found he was the nymph herself; and when Salmacis desired to be embraced by Hermaphrodite she felt she was the shepherd. Yet this double 'something' retained its unity; it begat and conceived without being either man or woman. In short, Nature here produced a marvel, which she has never since been able to prevent from being unique.