Quos Hamadryades deae
Ludicrum sibi roscido
Nutriunt humore,—
or with a hyacinth growing in some rich man's garden. Like the eager lover of beauty among our own poets, he sees in other flowers—
Alba parthenice velut
Luteumve papaver—
the symbol of maidens—
'Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale.'
The grace of trees and the bloom of flowers were prized by him among the fairest things in Nature. The charm in woman which most moves his imagination is virgin innocence unfolding into love, or passion ennobled by truth and constancy of affection. So too, in the Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis, he compares Ariadne in her maidenhood to the myrtle trees growing on the banks of Eurotas, and to the bloom of vernal flowers:—
Quales Eurotae progignunt flumina myrtos