Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/95

 marvellous manner, with dazzling flashes that struck terror and awe into the onlookers. His flatterers straightway, from one quarter and another, raised cries, which even to him seemed ill-omened, calling him a god and adding, "O be gracious! If hitherto we have feared thee as a man, from henceforth we own thee as of more than mortal nature." The king neither rebuked them nor rejected their impious adulation; but not long after he looked up and saw the owl sitting on a rope above his head, and at once recognized the former bringer of good tidings as now the messenger of ill. Pangs pierced his heart; a spasm of pain with violent onset shot straight to his stomach. Leaping up he addressed his friends: "I, your god, even now receive orders to quit this life; destiny at the instant confutes those lying voices which this moment filled my ears; I, whom you called immortal, am already being led off to die. But I must accept such fate as it has pleased God to send me; for my life has been no ignoble one, but passed in blissful splendour."

As he spoke these words intense pain prostrated him. He was quickly carried into the palace, and a report ran through the assembly that his death was certainly imminent. At once the multitude, including women and children, according to their national custom sat in sackcloth and besought God for the king's life, and the).].]for [Greek: anathorôn]).]