And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion. After a time - Probably about one year; as this was the time that generally elapsed between espousing and wedding.
A swarm of bees and honey in the carcass - By length of time the flesh had been entirely consumed off the bones, and a swarm of bees had formed their combs within the region of the thorax, nor was it an improper place; nor was the thing unfrequent, if we may credit ancient writers; the carcasses of slain beasts becoming a receptacle for wild bees. The beautiful espisode in the 4th Georgic of Virgil, beginning at ver. 317, proves that the ancients believed that bees might be engendered in the body of a dead ox: -
Pastor Aristaeus fugiens Peneia Tempe -
Quatuor eximios praestanti corpore tauros
Ducit, et intacta totidem cervice juvencas.
Post, ubi nona suos Aurora induxerat ortus.
Inferias Orphei mittit, lucumque revisit.
Hic ver o subitum, ac dietu mirabile monstrum
Adspiciunt, liquefacta bourn per viscera toto
Stridere apes utero, et ruptis effervere costis;
Immensasque trahi nubes, jamque arbore summa
Confluere, et lentis uvam demittere ramis.
Virg. Geor. lib. iv., ver. 550.
"Sad Aristaeus from fair Tempe fled,
His bees with famine or diseases dead -
Four altars raises, from his herd he culls
For slaughter four the fairest of his bulls;
Four heifers from his female store he took,
All fair, and all unknowing of the yoke.
Nine mornings thence, with sacrifice and prayers,
The powers atoned, he to the grove repairs.
Behold a prodigy! for, from within
The broken bowels, and the bloated skin,
A buzzing noise of bees his ears alarms,
Straight issuing through the sides assembling swarms!
Dark as a cloud, they make a wheeling flight,
Then on a neighboring tree descending light,
Like a large cluster of black grapes they show,
And make a large dependance from the bough.
Dryden.