Brewer's: Myron

A Greek statuary and sculptor, born in Boeotia, B.C. 480. A fellow-disciple of Polycletus, and a younger contemporary of Phidias. His great works are in bronze. By far the most celebrated of his statues were his Discobolus and his Cow. The cow is represented lowing. (Discobolus is a quoit or discus player.) It is said that the cow was so true to nature that a bull mistook it for a living animal.

There are several similar legends. Thus it is said `that Apelles painted Alexander's horse so realistically that a living horse mistook it and began to neigh Velasquez painted a Spanish admiral so true to life, that Felipe IV, mistook the painting for the man and reproved it severely for not being with the fleet. Zeuxis painted some grapes so well that birds flew at them to peck them. Quentin Matsys painted a fly on a man's leg so inimitably that Mandyn, the artist, tried to brush it off with his handkerchief. Parrhasios, of Ephesus painted a curtain so well that Zeuxis was deceived by it, and told him to draw it aside that he might see the picture behind it.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894

Myrra

Myrmidons of the Law