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METAMORPHOSES BOOK VIII thistree drvads held their festival dances; often with hand linked to hand in line they ould encircle the great tree whose mighty girth was full fifteen ells. It towered as high above other trees as they were higher than the grass that grew beneath. Yet not for this did Triopas' son1 withhold his axe, as he bade his slaves cut down the sacred oak. But when he saw that they shrank back, the wretch snatched an axe from one of them and said: ‘Though this be not only the tree that the goddess loves, but even the goddess hcrself, now shall its leafy top touch the ground. He spoke; and while he poised his axe for the slanting stroke, the oak of Deo2 trembled and gave forth a groan; at the same time its leaves and its acorns grew pale, its long branches took on a pallid hue. But when that impious stroke cut into the trunk, blood came streaming forth from the severed bark, even as when a huge sacrificial bull has fallen at the altar, and from his smitten neck the blood pours forth. All were astonied, and one, bolder than the rest, tried to stop his wicked deed and stay his cruel axe. But the Thessalian looked at him and said : ‘Take that to pay you for your pious thought!' and, turning the axe from the tree against the man, lopped off his head. Then, as he struck the oak blow after blow, from within the tree a voice was heard: 'I, a nymph most dear to Ceres, dweli within this wood, and I prophesy with my dying breath, and find my death's solace in it, that punish- ment is at hand for what you do.' But he accomplished his crime; and at length the tree, weakened by countless blows and drawn down by ropes, fell and with its weight laid low a wide stretch of woods around. 1 Erysichthon. t.C. Ceres.