Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v5.djvu/402

360

Why be a virgin long? is permitted to obtain

The greatest marriage. For Zeus with love's dart

Has been warmed by thee, and wishes to unite

In love; but do thou, O child, spurn not the couch

Of Zeus, but go out to Lerna's deep

Morass, and stables of thy father's herds,

That the divine eye may cease from desire."

With such dreams every night

Was I unfortunate distressed, till I dared tell

My father of the night-wandering visions.

And he to Pytho and Dodona frequent

Prophets sent, that he might learn what it was necessary

He should say or do, to do agreeably to the gods.

And they came bringing ambiguous

Oracles, darkly and indistinctly uttered.

But finally a plain report came to Inachus,

Clearly enjoining him and telling

Out of my home and country to expel me,

Discharged to wander to the earth's last bounds;

And if he was not willing, from Zeus would come

A fiery thunderbolt, which would annihilate all his race.

Induced by such predictions of the Loxian,

Against his will he drove me out,

And shut me from the houses; but Zeus' rein

Compelled him by force to do these things.

Immediately my form and mind were

Changed, and horned, as you behold, stung

By a sharp-mouthed fly, with frantic leaping

Rushed I to Cenchrea's palatable stream,

And Lerna's source; but a herdsman born-of-earth

Of violent temper, Argus, accompanied, with numerous