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Rh he scarcely ever discards. As he relates the myth of Apollo and Cyrenè, it strikes him as absurd to suppose that the god who sees and knows all things should have to apply for information and advice to the Centaur Chiron:—

Hast thou yon maiden's race inquired,

O King? that knowest the final destinies

And paths of each created thing.

What leaves from earth outburst in days of spring,

What sands are tost in sea or rill,

By waves or eddying winds, and what must needs befall,

And whence,—thou knowest all!"

And yet to ascribe hypocrisy to Apollo, the god of Truth, would be as impious as to accuse him of ignorance. And so—unwilling to deny the legend of the god's appeal to Chiron, yet feeling himself compelled either to deny or to justify it—he represents the question as asked in jest:—

Sure—for from thee all falsehood flies—

Some sportive mood thy speech inspires!"

In the same spirit of an apologist, rather than an opponent of tradition, he moralises over the disobedience of the early Rhodian settlers. Apollo bade them kindle a hallowed fire in their city's temple; they disobeyed the order, and yet the favour of Heaven attended them,—