3
Also upon the mountain Pangaeus grows an herb, which is called the harp upon this occasion. The women that tore Orpheus in pieces cast his limbs into the river Hebrus; and his head being changed, the whole body was turned into the shape of a dragon. But as for his harp, such was the will of Apollo, it remained in the same form. And from the streaming blood grew up the herb which was called the harp; which, during the solemnity of the sacrifices to Bacchus, sends forth a sound like that of an harp when played upon. At which time the natives, being covered with the skins of young hinds and waving their thyrsuses in their hands, sing a hymn, of which these are part of the words, When wisdom all in vain must be, Then be not wise at all;—
3
as Clitonymus reports, in his Third Book of Thracian Relations.
IV. GANGES.
4
GANGES is a river in India, so called for this reason. A certain Calaurian nymph had by Indus a son called Ganges, conspicuous for his beauty. Who growing up to manhood, being once desperately overcome with wine, in the heat of his intoxication lay with his mother. The next day he was informed by the nurse of what he had done; and such was the excess of his sorrow, that he threw himself into a river called Chliarus, afterwards called Ganges from his own name.
4
In this river grows an herb resembling bugloss, which the natives bruise, and keep the juice very charily. With this juice in the dead of the night they go and besprinkle the tigers’ dens; the virtue of which is such, that the tigers, not being able to stir forth by reason of the strong scent of the juice, are starved to death;—as Callisthenes reports in his Third Book of Hunting.
