The most singular effect of their gayety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude of which they had so lately been the victims.

TITHONUS, in the Greek mythology son of Laomedon, who was wedded to Eos, who begged Zeus to confer on him immortality but forgot to beg for youth, so that his decrepitude in old age became a burden to him; he was changed into a cicada.