Crœsus makes answer to Phanie.
The fall of pride
‘My daughter, neither courtesy
Nor sense you show herein,’ quoth he;
‘Much better versed am I than you
In what the Gods propose to do;
You do but treat me to a lie,
Interpreting most shamefully
This riddle hid within my dream:
Your gloss approacheth the extreme
Of witlessness: my dream will be
Fulfilled, I doubt not, literally:
Sure ne’er before did prophet dare
To shadow forth for dream so fair
Such vile fulfilment.
Yet will come
The Gods from out their sky-built home,
To work the end that they in sleep
Foretold to me, and I shall reap,
Dear child, from them such high reward
As they to those they love accord,6990
For well have I deserved of them.’”
Reason.
“Alas! the boastful apophthegm!
Fortune laid hand on him and gave
His body wastefully to wave
In wind and storm on gibbet hung,
And last be o’er the desert flung.
Doth this not plainly demonstrate
No man can cause her wheel to wait
