In that obscure and superstitious time.
When Driopeius Heaven did provoke,
By daring to destroy th’ Æmonian Oak,
And with it its included Dryad too,
Avenging Ceres then her faith did show
To the wrong’d nymph.”
When threatened with the woodman’s axe, the tutelary genius of the doomed tree would intercede for its life, the very leaves would sigh and groan, the stalwart trunk tremble with horror. Ovid relates how Erisichthon, a Thessalian, who derided Ceres, and cut down the trees in her sacred groves, was, for his impiety, afflicted with perpetual hunger. Of one huge old Oak the poet says—
“In the cool dusk its unpierc’d verdure spread
The Dryads oft their hallow’d dances led.”
But the vindictive Erisichthon bade his hesitating servants fell the venerable tree, and, dissatisfied with their speed, seized an axe, and approached it, declaring that nothing should save the Oak:—