26. So that you must not attach any great botanical importance to the characters of contrasted aspects in leaves, which I wish you to express by the words 'Apolline' and 'Arethusan'; but their mythic importance is very great, and your careful observance of it will help you completely to understand the beautiful Greek fable of Apollo and Daphne. There are indeed several Daphnes, and the first root of the name is far away in another field of thought altogether, connected with the Gods of Light. But etymology, the best of servants, is an unreasonable master; and Professor Max Mueller trusts his deep-reaching knowledge of the first ideas connected with the names of Athena {57} and Daphne, too implicitly, when he supposes this idea to be retained in central Greek theology. 'Athena' originally meant only the dawn, among nations who knew nothing of a Sacred Spirit. But the Athena who catches Achilles by the hair, and urges the spear of Diomed, has not, in the mind of Homer, the slightest remaining connection with the mere beauty of daybreak. Daphne chased by Apollo, may perhaps--though I doubt even this much of consistence in the earlier myth--have meant the Dawn pursued by the Sun. But there is no trace whatever of this first idea left in the fable of Arcadia and Thessaly. 27. The central Greek Daphne is the daughter of one of the great _river_ gods of Arcadia; her mother is the Earth. Now Arcadia is the Oberland of Greece; and the crests of Cyllene, Erymanthus, and Maenalus[21] surround it, like the Swiss forest cantons, with walls of rock, and shadows of pine. And it divides itself, like the Oberland, into three regions: first, the region of rock and snow, sacred to Mercury and Apollo, in which Mercury's birth on Cyllene, his construction of the lyre, and his stealing the oxen of Apollo, are all expressions of the enchantments of cloud and sound, mingling with the sunshine, on the cliffs of Cyllene. "While the mists Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes {58} And phantoms from the crags and solid earth As fast as a musician scatters sounds Out of his instrument." Then came the pine region, sacred especially to Pan and Maenalus, the son of Lycaon and brother of Callisto; and you had better remember this relationship carefully, for the sake of the meaning of the constellations of Ursa Major and the Mons Maenalius, and of their wolf and bear traditions; (compare also the strong impression on the Greek mind of the wild leafiness, nourished by snow, of the Boeotian Cithaeron,--"Oh, thou lake-hollow, full of divine leaves, and of wild creatures, nurse of the snow, darling of Diana," (Phoenissae, 801)). How wild the climate of this pine region is, you may judge from the pieces in the note below[22] out of Colonel Leake's diary in {59} crossing the Maenalian range in spring. And then, lastly, you have the laurel and vine region, full of sweetness and Elysian beauty.