Through the wrath of AphroditĂȘ, Smyrna, the
daughter of Cinyras, fell in love with her father, and
revealed to her nurse the all-compelling force of her
love. The nurse led on her master by a trick ; for she
declared that a neighbouring maiden was in love with
him and was too modest to approach him openly ; and
Cinyras consorted with her. But on one occasion,
wishing to learn the identity of his mistress, he called
for a light ; but when he saw her, sword in hand he
pursued this most wanton woman. But by the foresight of AphroditĂȘ she was changed into the tree
that bears her name.1 So Theodorus in his Metamorphoses.
Through the wrath of Venus, Valeria Tusculanaria
[p. 291]
fell in love with her father Valerius, and imparted her
secret to her nurse. The nurse deceived her master
by a trick, saying that there was someone who was
too modest to consort with him openly, but that she
was a maiden of the neighbourhood. The father,
sodden with wine, kept calling for a light; but the
nurse was quick enough to wake the daughter,
who went to the country, since she was with child.
Once on a time she threw herself down from a cliff,
but the child still lived. Returning home, she found
her pregnancy inescapable, and in due time gave
birth to Aegipan, called in the Roman tongue Silvanus. But Valerius, in a fit of despair, hurled
himself down from the same cliff. So Aristeides the
Milesian in the third book of his Italian History.
1 Stobaeus, Florilegium, lxiv. 34 (iv. p. 472 Hense): cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, x. 298 ff.; Apollodorus, iii. 14. 3, with Frazer's note (L.C.L. vol. ii. p. 84).