Every day Dryope carried the child along the banks of a little lake close by the palace, where bloomed a profusion of gay-colored flowers.
“A lake there was, with shelving banks around,
Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crown’d.
Those shades, unknowing of the Fates, she sought,
And to the Naiads flowery garlands brought;
Her smiling babe (a pleasing charge) she press’d
Between her arms.”
Ovid (Pope’s tr.).
One day, while wandering there as usual, accompanied by her sister, she saw a lotus blossom, and pointed it out to her little son. He no sooner saw the brilliant flower, than he stretched out his little hands. To please him, the fond mother plucked it and gave it to him.
She had scarcely done so, when she noticed drops of blood trickling from the broken stem; and while she stood there, speechless with wonder, a voice was heard accusing her of having slain Lotis, a nymph, who, to escape the pursuit of Priapus, god of the shade, had assumed the guise of a flower.
“Lotis the nymph (if rural tales be true),
As from Priapus’ lawless love she flew,
Forsook her form; and fixing here became
A flowery plant, which still preserves her name.”
Ovid (Pope’s tr.).
Recovering from her first speechless terror, Dryope turned to flee, with a pitiful cry of compassion on her pale lips, but, to her astonishment, she could not leave the spot: her feet seemed rooted to the ground. She cast a rapid glance downward to ascertain what could so impede her progress, and noticed the rough bark of a tree growing with fearful rapidity all around her.
Higher and higher it rose, from her knees to her waist, and still it crept upward, in spite of her frantic attempts to tear it away from her shapely limbs. In despair she raised her trembling hands and arms to heaven to implore aid; but, ere the words were spoken, her arms were transformed into twisted branches, and her hands were filled with leaves.
Nothing human now remained of poor Dryope except her sweet, tear-stained face; but this too would soon vanish under the all-involving bark. She therefore took hasty leave of her father, sister, husband, and son, who, attracted by her first cry, had rushed to give her all the assistance in their power. The last words were quickly spoken, but none too soon, for the bark closed over the soft lips and hid the lovely features from view.
“She ceased at once to speak, and ceased to be,
And all the nymph was lost within the tree:
Yet latent life through her new branches reign’d,
And long the plant a human heat retain’d.”
Ovid (Pope’s tr.).
One of Dryope’s last requests had been that her child might often play beneath her shady branches; and when the passing winds rustled through her leaves, the ancients said it was “Dryope’s lone lulling of her child.”