Iris and the Dying

One of the duties of Iris was to cut off a lock of hair (claimed by Proser pine) from those devoted to death, and till this was done, Death refused to accept the victim. Thus, when Dido mounted the funeral pile, she lingered in suffering till Iris was sent by Juno to cut off a lock of her hair as an offering to the black queen, but immediately this was done her spirit left the body. Than´atos did the same office to Alcestis when she gave her life for that of her husband. In all sacrifices, a forelock was first cut from the head of the victim an an offering to Proser pine.—See Euripi des, Alcestis ; Virgil, Æneid , iv. Iris. Daughter of an old Latin tutor. Of her mother it is said—“Seated with her companion at the che -board of matrimony, she had but just pushed forward her one little white pawn upon an empty square, when the Black Knight, who cares nothing for castles, or kings or queens, swooped down upon her and swept her from the larger board of life.” The child’s father lingered but a little while longer, and the little Iris lived with a village spinster and went to a village school. All the same, the artistic principle grew and prevailed with her, and she became painter and poet.—Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Profe or at the Breakfast-Table (1853).