But the desire of the absent one was increased in him, and his amatory disposition was daily so far aggravated that he frequently came both by day and night to that spot, where he had been wont to be with the maiden, and when unable to meet with his inamorata, was afflicted with a terrible grief. After the girl returned, angry at being, as it were spurned, he coiled himself round her body, and softly and gently chastised her on the legs. BOOK VI. ch. 63. A dragon whelp, born in Arcadia, was brought up with an Arcadian child; and in process of time, when both were older, they entertained a mutual affection for one another. The friends of the boy, seeing how the dragon had increased in magnitude in so short a time, carried him, while sleeping with the boy in the same bed, to a remote spot, and, leaving him there, brought the boy back. The dragon thereon remained in the wood [feeding on growing plants and poisons], preferring a solitary life to one in towns and [human] habitations. Time having rolled on, and the boy having attained youth, and the dragon maturity, the former, while travelling upon one occasion through the wilds in the neighbourhood of his friend, fell among robbers, who attacked him with drawn swords, and being struck, either from pain, or in the hopes of assistance, cried out. The dragon being a beast of acute hearing and sharp vision, as soon as he heard the lad with whom he had been brought up, gave a hiss in expression of his anger, and so struck them with fear, that the trembling robbers dispersed in different directions, whom having caught, he destroyed by a terrible death. Afterwards, having cared for the wounds of his ancient friend, and escorted him through the places infested with serpents, he returned to the spot where he himself had been exposed--not showing any anger towards him on account of his having been expelled into solitude, nor because ill-feeling men had abandoned an old friend in danger. BOOK VIII. ch. 11. Hegemon, in his Dardanic verses, among other things mentions, concerning the Thessalian Alevus, that a dragon conceived an affection for him. Alevus possessed, as Hegemon states, golden hair, which I should call yellow, and pastured cattle upon Ossa near the Thessalian spring called Hæmonium [as Anchises formerly did on Ida]. A dragon of great size fell violently in love with him, and used to crawl up gently to him, kiss his hair, cleanse his face by licking it with his tongue, and bring him various spoils from the chase. BOOK X. ch. 25.