and had in that time suffered no decay. According to Thucydides, the
Athenians buried the bodies of their heroes in coffins of Cypress, as
being not subject to decay. A similar durability has also been ascribed
to Cedar. Thus Horace,

_----speramus carmina fingi
Posse linenda cedre, & lavi servanda cupresso._

[_Osyris_. l. 75. Two houses. The males and females are on different
plants. There are many instances on record, where female plants have been
impregnated at very great distance from their male; the dust discharged
from the anthers is very light, small, and copious, so that it may spread
very wide in the atmosphere, and be carried to the distant pistils,
without the supposition of any particular attraction; these plants
resemble some insects, as the ants, and cochineal insect, of which the
males have wings, but not the female.]


With strange deformity PLANTAGO treads,
A Monster-birth! and lifts his hundred heads;
Yet with soft love a gentle belle he charms,
80 And clasps the beauty in his hundred arms.
So hapless DESDEMONA, fair and young,
Won by OTHELLO'S captivating tongue,
Sigh'd o'er each strange and piteous tale, distress'd,
And sunk enamour'd on his sooty breast.

85 _Two_ gentle shepherds and their sister-wives
With thee, ANTHOXA! lead ambrosial lives;