The twin sister of Apollo, Artemis, is first of all the Goddess of the Moon. Its slender arc is her bow; its beams are her arrows, with which she sends upon womenkind a painless death. She determined herself never to fall in love or marry, and so she imposed upon the nymphs she gathered about her vows of perpetual maidenhood, and if any of them broke these vows she punished them severely and swiftly. Graceful in form and free of movement, equipped for the chase, and surrounded by a bevy of fair companions, the swift-rushing goddess was wont to scour hill, valley, forest, and plain. She was, however, not only huntress, but guardian of wild beasts, mistress of horses and kine and other domestic brutes. She ruled marsh and mountain; her gleaming arrows smote sea as well as land. Springs and woodland brooks she favored, for in them she and her attendants were accustomed to bathe. She blessed with verdure the meadows and arable lands, and from them obtained a meed of thanks. When weary of the chase, she turned to music and dancing, for the lyre and flute and song were dear to her. Muses, graces, nymphs, and the fair goddesses themselves thronged the rites of the chorus-leading queen. But ordinarily a woodland chapel or a rustic altar sufficed for her worship. There the hunter laid his offering—antlers, skin, or edible portions of the deer that Artemis of the golden arrows had herself vouchsafed him. She was mistress of the brute creation, protectress of youth, patron of temperance in all things, guardian of civil right. The cypress tree was sacred to her; and her favorites were the bear, the boar, the dog, the goat, and especially the hind. A pretty picture is given of Artemis in a hymn by Callimachus which describes how, when sitting yet a blooming child on the knees of her sire, she thus addressed him: “‘Grant me, kind father, to preserve eternal maidenhood, and many names, that so Phœbus may not vie with me. And give me arrows and bow. Grant it, sire! I ask not a quiver of thee, nor a large bow: the cyclopes will forthwith forge me arrows, and fashion a flexible bow. And I ask to be girt as far as the knee with a tunic of colored border, that I may slay wild beasts. And give me sixty ocean nymphs to form my chorus, all young and of the same age. Give me likewise as attendants twenty Amnisian nymphs, who may duly take care of my buskins, and, when I no longer am shooting lynxes and stags, may tend my fleet dogs. Give me all mountains, and assign to me any city, whichsoever thou choosest. For ’twill be rare, when Artemis shall go down into a city. On mountains will I dwell.’