No longer shalt thou be an evil destruction to living mortals, who, eating the fruit of the much-nurturing earth, bring hither perfect hecatombs. Nor shall Typho, nor Chimæra, of ill-omened name, avert death from thee, but here shall the black earth and rouser[1] Hyperion rot thee."
Thus he spoke, vaunting, but darkness veiled her eyes, and the sacred might of the sun caused her [carcass] to putrefy there, from whence he is now called Pytho, but they call him the Pythian king with reason, because there the might of the piercing sun rotted[2] the monster. And then indeed Phœbus Apollo perceived in his mind that the fair-flowing fountain had deceived him. And enraged he went to Delphusa, and quickly reached her, and stood very near her, and addressed her in words:
"Delphusa, thou wast not destined to deceive my mind, possessing a pleasant country to send forth[3] [thy] fair-flowing water. Here then shall my renown also be, not thine only." He spoke, and the far-darting king, Apollo, pushed the summit into †the water-streaming rocks,†[4] and hid the streams, and made a temple in the foliaged wood, very near the fair-flowing fountain. But here all pay vows to the king, Delphusian by surname, because he defiled the streams of sacred Delphusa. And then indeed Phœbus Apollo bethought him in mind, what men he should lead in as ministers of his rites, who do him service in rocky Pytho. Deliberating on these things,[5] he perceived on the dark sea a swift ship, and in it were men both many and good, Cretans[6] from Minoian Cnossus, who indeed both perform sacred rites to the king, and proclaim the laws of Phœbus Apollo of the golden sword, whatsoever he may say, uttering in oracle from
- ↑ Compare the epithet ἠλεκτρίς given to the moon in the pseud-Orphic hymns, ix. 6, ed. Herm. Cf. Il. xix. 398, with Heracl. Pontic. Alleg. Hom. p. 469, ed. Gale, and Alberti on Hesych. t. i. p. 1621, sq.
- ↑ Ruhnken is by no means favourable to the retention of this passage, but Ernesti and Hermann with reason defend it, despite its absurdity.
- ↑ I read προχέειν, with Barnes.
- ↑ "Locum petræ, ubi profunderetur aqua e rupe prosiliente," is Ernesti's interpretation, who compares the imitation of the passage in Callim. in Del. 133, ἀλλά οἱ Ἀρης Παγγαίου προθέλυμνα καρήατα μέλλεν, ἀείρας Ἐμβαλέειν δίνησιν, ἀποκρύψειν δὲ ῥέεθρα.
- ↑ This passage is terribly misplaced. Hermann rightly places vs. 394 after 390, and vs. 391 after 396, marking a lacuna after ἄνακτι.
- ↑ Cf. Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 65.
