and this the ancients, for the love they bare to Isis, called her hair. Of it, as our poet fancies—
"the Naiads and the blue Nereids make
Them taudrics for their necks."
Now return we to the Selenite which is so ruled by Cynthia.
Cynthia herself—all one with Selene the moon—in conversing with Endymion,[1] refers to the sympathy that gems have with her phases, and makes special mention of this her namesake, now called adularia by mineralogists, from Adula, a mountain-peak near St. Gotthard, where it is to be found. It is a kind of feldspar; and it reflects and refracts light with much the same effect as an opal. The lady furthermore asserts that the palm and olive shoot forth new branches with her increase and declare her power; and claims that she, like her brother Apollo, has a flower (Selenotropium) whose opening and closing correspond with her rising and setting. "A Louer," writes Lyly,[2] "is like ye hearb Heliotropium, which alwaies enclyneth to that place where the Sunne shineth, and being deprived of the Sunne dieth; for as Lunaris hearbe as long as the Moone waxeth bringeth forth leaues and in the waning shaketh them off: so a Louer, whilst he is in the company of his Lady, wher al joyes encrease, vttereth manye pleasaunt conceites, but, banyshed from the sight of his Mistris, wher all mirth decreaseth, eyther lyueth in Melancholic or dieth with desperation." As examples of her influence on the animal kingdom Cynthia declares:
"The cruel panther on his shoulder bears
A spot that daily changeth as I do."
Whilst,
"The nimble babion,[3] mourning all the time,
Nor eats between my waning and my prime.
The spotted cat, whose sharp and subtil sight,
Pierceth the vapour of the blackest night,
My want and fulness in her eye doth find,
So great am I and powerful in that kind.
