He fell to the ground a bleeding corpse. Apollo bade the scarlet
hyacinth spring from the blood and impressed upon its leaves the words
_Ai Ai_, (_alas! alas!_) the Greek funeral lamentation. Milton alludes
to the flower in _Lycidas_,
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
Drummond had before spoken of
That sweet flower that bears
In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes
Hurdis speaks of:
The melancholy Hyacinth, that weeps
All night, and never lifts an eye all day.
Ovid, after giving the old fable of Hyacinthus, tells us that "the time
shall come when a most valiant hero shall add his name to this flower."
"He alludes," says Mr. Riley, "to Ajax, from whose blood when he slew
himself, a similar flower[072] was said to have arisen with the letters
_Ai Ai_ on its leaves, expressive either of grief or denoting the first
two letters of his name [Greek: Aias]."
As poets feigned from Ajax's streaming blood
Arose, with grief inscribed, a mournful flower.
_Young_.
Keats has the following allusion to the old story of Hyacinthus,
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
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