In Phrygia there grows an oak and a lime tree very close together beside a wall, and not far off is a wide marsh inhabited by birds. The story is this. The land was once peopled with an impious race who refused Jupiter and Mercury refuge when they came in disguise. The only couple that took the gods in was Baucis and Philemon, an elderly pair in very modest circumstances. Despite their poverty they treated Jupiter and Mercury with great hospitality, setting before them the best food they had. The wine cups mysteriously were refilled, and Baucis and Philemon knew they were in the presence of divinity then. The couple scrambled to kill their single goose for the gods, but the bird flew to the gods. Then Jupiter told the aged pair they must hurry up a nearby mountain because a flood was about to destroy their evil neighbors. Baucis and Philemon did so, accompanied by Jupiter and Mercury, and soon a flood swamped the countryside. Their own hut, however, was transformed before their eyes into a marble temple. The two gods offered to grant the couple anything they wished. They both requested to serve in the temple and to die at the same time, which the gods bestowed on them. After serving until it was time to die, Philemon suddenly found himself turning into an oak while Baucis was changed into a lime tree.
