But he was paying the sad penalty of his father's sin.

For he when alone on the mountains, felling trees, once slighted the prayers of a Hamadryad, who wept and sought to soften him with plaintive words, not to cut down the stump of an oak tree coeval with herself, wherein for a long time she had lived continually; but he in the arrogance of youth recklessly cut it down.

So to him the nymph thereafter made her death a curse, to him and to his children.

I indeed knew of the sin when he came; and I bid him build an altar to the Thynian nymph, and offer on it an atoning sacrifice, with prayer to escape his father's fate.

Here, ever since he escaped the god-sent doom, never has he forgotten or neglected me; but sorely and against his will do I send him from my doors, so eager is he to remain with me in my affliction." (ll.