§ 22. One farther circumstance must be noted, in order to complete our understanding of the picture,--the gloom extending, not to the dragon only, but also to the fountain and the tree of golden fruit. The reason of this gloom may be found in two other passages of the authors from which Turner had taken his conception of Eris--Virgil and Spenser. For though the Hesperides in their own character, as the nymphs of domestic joy, are entirely bright (and the garden always bright around them), yet seen or remembered in sorrow, or in the presence of discord, they deepen distress. Their entirely happy character is given by Euripides:--"The fruit-planted shore of the Hesperides,--songstresses,--where the ruler of the purple lake allows not any more to the sailor his way, assigning the boundary of Heaven, which Atlas holds; where the ambrosial fountains flow, and the fruitful and divine land increases the happiness of the gods." But to the thoughts of Dido, in her despair, they recur under another aspect; she remembers their priestess as a great enchantress; who _feeds the dragon_ and preserves the boughs of the tree; sprinkling moist honey and drowsy poppy; who also has power over ghosts; "and the earth shakes and the forests stoop from the hills at her bidding." § 23. This passage Turner must have known well, from his continual interest in Carthage: but his diminution of the splendor of the old Greek garden was certainly caused chiefly by Spenser's describing the Hesperides fruit as growing first in the garden of Mammon:-- "There mournfull cypresse grew in greatest store; And trees of bitter gall; and heben sad; Dead sleeping poppy; and black hellebore; Cold coloquintida; and tetra mad Mortal samnitis; and cicuta bad, With which th' uniust Atheniens made to dy Wise Socrates, who, thereof quaffing glad, Pourd out his life and last philosophy. * * * * * "The gardin of Prosèrpina this hight: And in the midst thereof a silver seat, With a thick arber goodly over dight, In which she often usd from open heat Herselfe to shroud, and pleasures to entreat: Next thereunto did grow a goodly tree, With braunches broad dispredd and body great, Clothed with leaves, that none the wood mote see, And loaden all with fruit as thick as it might bee. "Their fruit were golden apples glistring bright, That goodly was their glory to behold; On earth like never grew, ne living wight Like ever saw, but they from hence were sold; For those, which Hercules with conquest bold Got from great Atlas daughters, hence began. * * * * * "Here eke that famous golden apple grew, The which emongst the gods false Até threw."