His property rapidly diminished under the unceasing demands of his appetite, but his hunger continued unabated.  At length he had spent all and had only his daughter left, a daughter worthy of a better parent.  Her too he sold.  She scorned to be the slave of a purchaser and as she stood by the seaside raised her hands in prayer to Neptune.  He heard her prayer, and though her new master was not far off and had his eye upon her a moment before, Neptune changed her form and made her assume that of a fisherman busy at his occupation.  Her master, looking for her and seeing her in her altered form, addressed her and said, “Good fisherman, whither went the maiden whom I saw just now, with hair dishevelled and in humble garb, standing about where you stand?  Tell me truly; so may your luck be good and not a fish nibble at your hook and get away.”  She perceived that her prayer was answered and rejoiced inwardly at hearing herself inquired of about herself.  She replied, “Pardon me, stranger, but I have been so intent upon my line that I have seen nothing else; but I wish I may never catch another fish if I believe any woman or other person except myself to have been hereabouts for some time.”  He was deceived and went his way, thinking his slave had escaped.  Then she resumed her own form.  Her father was well pleased to find her still with him, and the money too that he got by the sale of her; so he sold her again.  But she was changed by the favor of Neptune as often as she was sold, now into a horse, now a bird, now an ox, and now a stag,—­got away from her purchasers and came home.  By this base method the starving father procured food; but not enough for his wants, and at last hunger compelled him to devour his limbs, and he strove to nourish his body by eating his body, till death relieved him from the vengeance of Ceres.

RHOECUS

The Hamadryads could appreciate services as well as punish injuries.  The story of Rhoecus proves this.  Rhoecus, happening to see an oak just ready to fall, ordered his servants to prop it up.  The nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the tree, came and expressed her gratitude to him for having saved her life and bade him ask what reward he would.  Rhoecus boldly asked her love and the nymph yielded to his desire.  She at the same time charged him to be constant and told him that a bee should be her messenger and let him know when she would admit his society.  One time the bee came to Rhoecus when he was playing at draughts and he carelessly brushed it away.  This so incensed the nymph that she deprived him of sight.

Our countryman, J. R. Lowell, has taken this story for the subject of one of his shorter poems.  He introduces it thus: 

    “Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece,
     As full of freedom, youth and beauty still,
     As the immortal freshness of that grace
     Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze.”