formerly had; and they are a thrifty race, patient of toil, tenacious of
what they get, and what they get they lay up. These, alike in years and
in courage, will attend thee to the war, as soon as the East wind, which
brought thee prosperously hither (for the East wind had brought him),
shall have changed to the South."

[Footnote 105: _From Dodona._--Ver. 623. Dodona was a town of
Chaonia, in Epirus, so called from Dodone, the daughter of Jupiter
and Europa. Near it was a temple and a wood sacred to Jupiter,
which was famous for the number and magnitude of its oaks. Doves
were said to give oracular responses there, probably from the
circumstance that the female soothsayers of Thessaly were called
+peleiadai+. Some writers, however, say that the oaks had the gift
of speech, combined with that of prophesying.]

[Footnote 106: _Myrmidons._--Ver. 654. From the Greek word
+murmex+, 'an ant;' according to this version of the story.]

EXPLANATION.

This fable, perhaps, has no other foundation than the retreat of the
subjects of AEacus into woods and caverns, whence they returned, when
the contagion had ceased with which their country had been afflicted,
and when he had nearly lost all hopes of seeing them again. It is
probable that the old men were carried off by the plague, while the
young, who had more strength, resisted its power, which circumstance
would fully account for the active habits of the remaining subjects of
AEacus. Some writers, however, suppose that the Myrmidons were a
barbarous, but industrious people of Thessaly, who usually dwelt in
caves, and who were brought thence by AEacus to people his island,
which had been made desolate by a pestilence. The similarity of their
name to the Greek word +murmex+, signifying 'an ant,' most probably
gave occasion to the report that Jupiter had changed ants into men.

FABLE VII. [VII.661-793]

Cephalus, having resisted the advances of Aurora, who has become
enamoured of him while hunting, returns in disguise to his wife,
Procris, to try if her affection for him is sincere. She, discovering
his suspicions, flies to the woods, and becomes a huntress, with the
determination not to see him again. Afterwards, on becoming reconciled
to him, she bestows on him a dog and a dart, which Diana had once
given her. The dog is turned into stone, while hunting a wild beast,
which Themis has sent