‘What, from thy food, repels profaning flies, Strutted, a gorgeous train, with Gemmy eyes.’ ‘Lambere quae turpes prohibet tua prandia muscas, Alitis eximiae cauda superba fuit.’ The same author, III. lxxii. 10-11, says of Zoilus that when overcome by the heat, a pleasant coolness is wafted about him with a leek-green flabellum. The Romans also adopted the tail of the yak, but this last, which appears to have been imported from India, was not so commonly used as the tabellæ, a species of fan of square or circular shape, formed of precious wood or very finely cut ivory, referred to by Ovid in the third book of his _Amores_. ‘Wouldst thou,’ he exclaims, ‘have an agreeable zephyr to refresh thy face? This tablet agitated by my hand will give you this pleasure.’ Those also were the fans the young Roman exquisites carried when accompanying their mistresses along the Via Sacra, fanning them gallantly, representations of which appear on vases in the Louvre.[26] Propertius, also, in the fourth book of his _Elegies_, represents Hercules as seated at the feet of Omphale, fan in hand. [Illustration: FROM AN ETRUSCAN VASE. (British Museum.)] [Illustration: An Eastern Potentate taking tea. finely painted in gouache on gold ground, French, c. 1780. stick modern. Mrs Hungerford Pollen] CHAPTER III FANS OF THE FAR EAST INDIA [Illustration] It is difficult for the Western mind to realise the degree of importance assumed by the fan, the fly-flap, and the umbrella, in the countries of the Far East, especially India; these objects being regarded with an affection almost, indeed actually, amounting to reverence. Its primal cause is to be found in the overpowering insistence of the sun’s rays, and the sense of grateful relief afforded by shade and disturbance of the air. To discover its origin we must look back, beyond the age of legendary lore, to actual mythology, when we find representations of the Puranic snake gods of India with the sacred umbrella over their heads, attended by Cherubim waving the fan and the fly-flap. Similarly we find the sacred five- or seven-headed cobra itself assuming the office of sunshade, uprearing its hood to form a canopy for Buddha or for the Hindoo gods. In the _Mahábhárata_, the ancient epic of Hindostan, we have a description of the death of the monarch Pândou, in which great crowds assemble at the bier to do homage to the dead, bringing offerings of fly-flaps and white umbrellas, the latter having each a hundred ribs of pure gold, the donors thereby ensuring for themselves a place in Paradise. In the same epic, the poet represents the sacred Karna, in the midst of the acclamations of victory, seated majestically upon his throne, beneath the emblems of the umbrella, the fan, and the fly-flap; these being regarded as the most solemn symbols of state throughout the East.