there the balance of justice lay for both.) And music[1] possessed snowy Olympus, and the undying[2] immortals were assembled into the recesses of Olympus. But Mercury and silver-bowed Apollo stood before the knees of Jove. But high-thundering Jove questioned his glorious son, and addressed him in words:
"O Phœbus, whence drivest thou this gentle prey, a newborn boy, possessing the mien of a herald? This is an important subject which has come to the assembly of the gods."
But him the far-darting king Apollo in turn addressed:
"O sire, soon indeed shalt thou hear no trivial story, rebuking me [as thou art wont], as if I alone were a lover of plunder. I have caught this boy, an open thief, on the mountains of Cyllene,—having passed over much country,—an abusive fellow, such another as I have not seen among gods nor men, as many as are cheats upon earth. But having stolen my cows from the meadow, he at even-tide went away, driving them along the coast of the much-resounding sea, and driving straight to the ford, but there are mighty double footsteps, such as to cause astonishment, and the work of an illustrious deity. For the dark dust appeared to have the footprints of the cows turned towards the asphodel meadow [whence they came]. But this fellow alone, besides [them],[3] is incomprehensible, for he came through the sandy country neither on his feet nor his hands, but having some other stratagem, he passed on his way. Such marvels [were his footsteps], as though some one should walk in slender oak-toppings.[4] As long, then, as he passed through the sandy country, all his footsteps were easily extinguishable in the dust; but when he had passed over the great tract of sand, forthwith the track of the bulls, and of himself, became imperceptible, through the hardness of the soil, but a mortal man perceived him driving the race of wide-fronted cows on to Pylos. But after he had sacrificed them in quiet, and had
- ↑ I read εὐμελίη, "music," as in Diodor. iv. 84, or rather ἐμμελίη, from Pollux, iv. 57. Plato, legg, vii. 816. Herm.
- ↑ A somewhat useless pleonasm, which Groddeck and Hermann remove by reading ἀθρόοι, "together."
- ↑ I have my doubts about ἐκτὸς, which Ruhnken elegantly corrected to ἔξοχ' ἀμήχανος. But see Hermann's note.
- ↑ On account of the buskins which Mercury had platted for himself. Cf. vss. 80, sqq.
