Hesperʹides (4 syl.)

Three sisters who guarded the golden apples which Heʹra (Juno) received as a marriage gift. They were assisted by the dragon Laʹdon. Many English poets call the place where these golden apples grew the “garden of the Hesperidēs.” Shakespeare (Love’s Labour’s Lost, iv. 3) speaks of climbing trees in the Hesperidēs.” (See Comus, lines 402–406.)

“Show thee the tree, leafed with refinëd gold,

Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat.

That watched the garden called Hesperidēs.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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