So they passed into the garden close, and there beneath the whispering trees, by the soft moonlight, those happy lovers told each other the story of their love. What were the words they said I cannot tell again. This happened long ago, when the world was young, and they spoke in a tongue that few if any now can understand. Yet a poet of our own age has understood and translated for us the last word that the Queen of Heavenly Love spoke to her servant Pygmalion:
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS
BY H. P. MASKELL
It was the banqueting-hall of the palace at Ægina. The young prince Phocus had invited his comrades to join him in a hunting party, and now, after dinner, they were gathered round the fire amusing themselves with stories of the chase. Meanwhile Cephalus, gray-headed and stricken in years, more weary than the others, sat silent and apart.
The prince, noticing his moody look, rose and made room for him to join the circle. "May I ask," he inquired, "from what tree the javelin thou art holding was cut? I have been a hunter all my life, yet its texture puzzles me. A wild oak would have been brown in color, a cornel-wood shaft would show the knots. Never yet have I seen so taper and shapely a javelin."
One of the youths interposed: "Ah! but as a weapon it is even more wonderful than for its beauty. Whatever it is aimed at it strikes. Chance does not guide its course when thrown; and it flies back of its own accord, stained with the blood of the quarry."
Then Phocus became more curious still to know its history. Who was the giver of so precious a present?