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Legend tells how Myia (the fly’s ancient name) was once a maiden, exceeding fair, but over-given to talk and chatter and song, Selene’s rival for the love of Endymion. When the young man slept, she was for ever waking him with her gossip and tunes and merriment, till he lost patience, and Selene in wrath turned her to what she now is. And therefore it is that she still, in memory of Endymion, grudges all sleepers their rest, and most of all the young and tender. Her very bite and bloodthirst tell not of savagery, but of love and human kindness; she is but enjoying mankind as she may, and sipping beauty.
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In ancient times there was a woman of her name, a poetess wise and beautiful, and another a famous Attic courtesan, of whom the comic poet wrote: As deep as to his heart fair Myia bit him.
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The comic Muse, we see, disdained not the name, nor refused it the hospitality of the boards; and parents took no shame to give it to their daughters. Tragedy goes further and speaks of the fly in high terms of praise, as witness the following: Foul shame the little fly, with might courageous, Should leap upon men’s limbs, athirst for blood, But men-at-arms shrink from the foeman’s steel! I might add many details about Pythagoras’s daughter Myia, were not her story too well known.
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There are also flies of very large size, called generally soldierflies, or dog-flies; these have a hoarse buzz, a very rapid flight, and quite long lives; they last the winter through without food, mostly in sheltered nooks below the roof; the most remarkable ’ fact about these is that they are hermaphrodites.
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But I must break off; not that my subject is exhausted; only that to exhaust such a subject is too like breaking a butterfly on the wheel.
