“Travellers I have known, who have gone to Caril by ascending the Méandre far beyond the range of the shepherds, have seen the River God asleep in the shade on the river-bank. He had a long green beard, and his face was wrinkled like the river’s grey and rocky banks from which trailed dripping plants. His old eyelids seemed dead as they overhung the eyes which were for ever blind. It is likely that if any one went to find him now, he would not be discovered alive.
“Now this was the father of Byblis by his marriage with the nymph Cyanée; I will tell you the story of the unhappy Byblis.”
CHAPTER I
In the grotto from which the river emerged in a mysterious way the nymph Cyanée gave birth to twins; one was a son who was named Caunos, and the other a girl to whom the name of Byblis was given.
They both grew up upon the banks of the Méandre, and sometimes Cyanée showed them beneath its transparent surface the divine appearance of their father, whose soul disturbed its flowing stream.
The only world the children knew was the forest in which they were born. They had never seen the sun except through the network of its branches. Byblis never left her brother, and walked with her arm around his neck.
She wore a little tunic which her mother had woven for her in the depths of the river, which tunic was blue-grey like the first light of dawn. Caunos wore around his waist nothing but a garland of roses from which hung a yellow waist-cloth.
As soon as it was light enough for them to walk in the woods, they wandered far away, playing with the fruits which had fallen to the ground, or searching for the largest and most sweetly-scented flowers. They always shared their finds and never quarrelled, so that their mother spoke proudly of them to the other nymphs her friends.