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Description
The beautiful fiction of the Hamadryads is frequently referred to by the Greek poets. The
Hamadryads were nymphs, each of whom was
'Doomed to a life coeval with her oak.'Callimachus, in the Hymn to Delos, represents Melia as "sighing deeply for her parent oak;"
and adds--
'Joy fills her breast when showers refresh the spray:
Sadly she grieves when autumn's leaves decay.'In Apollonius Rhodius, Book II., we find one of the Hamadryads imploring a woodman to
spare the oak to which her existence is attached:
"Loud through the air resounds the woodman's stroke,
When lo! a voice breaks from the groaning oak.
'Spare, spare my life! a trembling virgin spare!
Oh, listen to the Hamadryad's prayer!
No longer let that fearful axe resound;
Preserve the tree to which my life is bound!
See from the bark my blood in torrents flows,
I faint, I sink, I perish from your blows.'"-Cultus Arborum

Description
The beautiful fiction of the Hamadryads is frequently referred to by the Greek poets. The
Hamadryads were nymphs, each of whom was
'Doomed to a life coeval with her oak.'Callimachus, in the Hymn to Delos, represents Melia as "sighing deeply for her parent oak;"
and adds--
'Joy fills her breast when showers refresh the spray:
Sadly she grieves when autumn's leaves decay.'In Apollonius Rhodius, Book II., we find one of the Hamadryads imploring a woodman to
spare the oak to which her existence is attached:
"Loud through the air resounds the woodman's stroke,
When lo! a voice breaks from the groaning oak.
'Spare, spare my life! a trembling virgin spare!
Oh, listen to the Hamadryad's prayer!
No longer let that fearful axe resound;
Preserve the tree to which my life is bound!
See from the bark my blood in torrents flows,
I faint, I sink, I perish from your blows.'"-Cultus Arborum