The fragrant hyacinths of Azza's hair,
That wanton with the laughing summer air.
A similar allusion may also be found in prose.
"It was the exquisitely fair queen Helen, whose jacinth[070] hair,
curled by nature, intercurled by art, like a brook through golden sands,
had a rope of fair pearl, which, now hidden by the hair, did, as it were
play at fast and loose each with the other, mutually giving and
receiving richness."--_Sir Philip Sidney_
"The ringlets so elegantly disposed round the fair countenances of these
fair Chiotes [071] are such as Milton describes by 'hyacinthine locks'
crisped and curled like the blossoms of that flower"
_Dallaway_
The old fable about Hyacinthus is soon told. Apollo loved the youth and
not only instructed him in literature and the arts, but shared in his
pastimes. The divine teacher was one day playing with his pupil at
quoits. Some say that Zephyr (Ovid says it was Boreas) jealous of the
god's influence over young Hyacinthus, wafted the ponderous iron ring
from its right course and caused it to pitch upon the poor boy's head.
He fell to the ground a bleeding corpse. Apollo bade the scarlet
hyacinth spring from the blood and impressed upon its leaves the words
_Ai Ai_, (_alas! alas!_) the Greek funeral lamentation. Milton alludes
to the flower in _Lycidas_,
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.