Now though Myrtilus appeared to be intending to say no more after this, he resumed his subject, and said:—But I was nearly forgetting, my friends, to tell you of the Lyda of Antimachus, and also of her namesake Lyda, who was also a courtesan and the mistress of Lamynthius the Milesian. For each of these poets, as Clearchus tells us in his Tales of Love, being inflamed with love for the barbarian Lyde, wrote poems, the one in elegiac, and the other in lyric verse, and they both entitled their poems "Lyde." I omitted also to mention the female flute-player Nanno, the mistress of Mimnermus, and Leontium, the mistress of Hermesianax of Colophon. For he inscribed with her name, as she was his mistress, three books of elegiac poetry, in the third of which he gives a catalogue of things relating to Love; speaking in the following manner:— 71. You know, too, how Œager's much-loved son, Skilfully playing on the Thracian harp, Brought back from hell his dear Agriope, And sail'd across th' inhospitable land Where Charon drags down in his common boat The souls of all the dead; and far resounds The marshy stream slow creeping through the reeds That line the death-like banks. But Orpheus dared With fearless soul to pass that lonely wave, Striking his harp with well-accustom'd hand. And with his lay he moved the pitiless gods, And various monsters of unfeeling hell. He raised a placid smile beneath the brows Of grim Cocytus; he subdued the glance So pitiless of the fierce, implacable dog, Who sharpen'd in the flames his fearful bark, Whose eye did glare with fire, and whose heads With triple brows struck fear on all who saw. He sang, and moved these mighty sovereigns; So that Agriope once again did breathe The breath of life. Nor did the son of Mene, Friend of the Graces, the sweet-voiced Musæus, Leave his Antiope without due honour, Who, amid the virgins sought by many suitors In holiest Eleusis' sacred soil, Sang the loud joyful song of secret oracles, Priestess of Rharian[50] Ceres, warning men. And her renown to Pluto's realms extends. Nor did these bards alone feel Cupid's sway; The ancient bard, leaving Bœotia's halls, Hesiod, the keeper of all kinds of learning, Came to fair Ascra's Heliconian village, Where long he sought Eoia's wayward love; Much he endured, and many books he wrote, The maid the inspiring subject of his song. And that great poet whom Jove's Fate protects, Sweetest of all the votaries of the muse, Immortal Homer, sought the rocky isle Of Ithaca, moved by love for all the virtue And beauty of the chaste Penelope. Much for her sake he suffer'd; then he sought A barren isle far from his native land,