THE CYPRESS TREE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 303, 14 March 1928, Page 6

THE CYPRESS TREE

This is the ; legend of the cypress, the beautiful tree which we plant in our church yards :,to watch over the quiet sleepers. In warmer lands the cypress grows in the forests, and to a very great height. In ancient Greece there lived a boy called Cyparissus*. and he was very dearly loved by -iYpollo, the sun god, who liked to see Viim roaming in the forest, playing wfthi all the little wild cr€;atures. Now in this forea t lived a magnificent stag that belonged to Apollo and was tended by the v* ood nymphs. He was very tame and h* wore a wonderful necklace of jewels; but no man hunted him for everyone knew he belonged to the sun god,. His greatest friend was Cyparissus. Cyparissus and the g were always Sometimes th ey raced one another in the woods, bu\t the stag always won; sometimes tho stag would carry Cyparissus on his back and gallop with him to a lov\3ly stream, where the boy would make a necklace of waterlilies and hang it round his friend’s neck. One day when these two frSonds were together, Cyparissus took his bow and arrow and shot at a shadow in the bushes. Alas! the arrow turned aside, and entered the stag’s heart. The beautiful creature looked at Cyp* rissus With great sorrowful eyes, and d*ad. The boy’s grief was so great thltt he would not be comforted. “I have killed my friend,” he wept. “I grieve for ever.” Even the great Apollo could not oovnfort him, and, as Cyparissus was piining away, he changed him into a cypress tree. “Now you can live for ever in thV* forests you love so well,’’ said Apollo to the beautiful tree, “but you shall also be the symbol of grief, and mourn for those who have passed on to the Islands of the Blessed.”