Page:Odes of Pindar (Myers).djvu/94

64 Neither awaited she the marriage-tables nor the sound of many voices in hymeneal song, such as the bride's girl-mates are wont to sing at eventide with merry minstrelsy: but lo, she had longing for things otherwhere, even as many before and after. For a tribe there is most foolish among men, of such as scorn the things of home, and gaze on things that are afar off, and chase a cheating prey with hopes that shall never be fulfilled.

Of such sort was the frenzied strong desire fair-robed Koronis harboured in her heart, for she lay in the couch of a stranger that was come from Arcady.

But one that watched beheld her: for albeit he was at sheep-gathering Pytho, yet was the temple's king Loxias aware thereof, beside his unerring partner, for he gave heed to his own wisdom, his mind that knoweth all things; in lies it hath no part, neither in act or thought may god or man deceive him.

Therefore when he was aware of how she lay with the stranger Ischys son of Elatos, and of her guile unrighteous, he sent his sister fierce with terrible wrath to go to Lakereia—for by the steep shores of the Boibian lake was the home of her virginity—and thus a doom adverse blasted her life and smote her down: and of her neighbours many fared ill therefore and perished with her: so doth a fire that from one spark has leapt upon a mountain lay waste wide space of wood.

But when her kinsfolk had laid the damsel upon the pile of wood, and fierce brightness of Hephaistos ran around it, then said Apollo: 'Not any longer may I endure in my soul to slay mine own seed by a most cruel death in company with its mother's grievous fate.'

He said, and at the first stride he was there, and from the corpse caught up the child, and the blaze of the burning fiery pile was cloven before him asunder in the midst.

Then to the Kentaur of Magnes he bare the child, that he