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? Cephalus at length consented to tell the story, tears starting to his eyes at the sorrow revived in his heart by the memories it recalled. "Long as I live," he exclaimed with a sigh, "this weapon will cause me to weep, for it proved the ruin of myself and my dear wife Procris. Fairer and sweeter was she than even her sister Orithyia, whom Boreas carried off. Her father Erechtheus bestowed her upon me, and for love she chose me for her own. I was considered a lucky man in possessing her, and so I was. In all Greece you could not have found a happier pair of lovers, and the gods themselves were jealous of our bliss--too great for mortals. Before the second month was ended after our marriage feast, Aurora, the goddess of the Dawn, beheld me in the early morn as I was planting nets to trap the deer from the heights of Hymettus, and I followed her against my will. She cast her spell on me, and held me by the witchery of her great eyes and rosy fingers. Fair she is, with a beauty not of earth, but she seemed to me less fair than Procris. Procris was ever in my thoughts, and in my dreams I breathed the name of Procris. Then the goddess cried angrily, 'You may keep your Procris. The day will come when you will wish you had never possessed her!' "Diana had bestowed on Procris, who loved the hunt, Lælaps, the hound whom no wild beast can outrun, and this javelin which nothing can escape, as a token of our reconciliation. These she gave to me.