Cephalus's wife. Love is credulous. Procris, at the sudden shock,
fainted away. Presently recovering, she said, "It cannot be true;
I will not believe it unless I myself am a witness to it." So she
waited, with anxious heart, till the next morning, when Cephalus
went to hunt as usual. Then she stole out after him, and concealed
herself in the place where the informer directed her. Cephalus
came as he was wont when tired with sport, and stretched himself
on the green bank, saying, "Come, sweet breeze, come and fan me;
you know how I love you! you make the groves and my solitary
rambles delightful." He was running on in this way when he heard,
or thought he heard, a sound as of a sob in the bushes. Supposing
it some wild animal, he threw his javelin at the spot. A cry from
his beloved Procris told him that the weapon had too surely met
its mark. He rushed to the place, and found her bleeding, and with
sinking strength endeavoring to draw forth from the wound the
javelin, her own gift. Cephalus raised her from the earth, strove
to stanch the blood, and called her to revive and not to leave him
miserable, to reproach himself with her death. She opened her
feeble eyes, and forced herself to utter these few words: "I
implore you, if you have ever loved me, if I have ever deserved
kindness at your hands, my husband, grant me this last request; do
not marry that odious Breeze!" This disclosed the whole mystery:
but alas! what advantage to disclose it now! She died; but her
face wore a calm expression, and she looked pityingly and
forgivingly on her husband when he made her understand the truth.

Moore, in his "Legendary Ballads," has one on Cephalus and
Procris, beginning thus:

"A hunter once in a grove reclined,