to have instituted the festival of the Panathenaea, at
Athens, whence, in process of time, it was adopted by the whole of
Greece.

Hyginus tells us, that after his death he was received into heaven as
the constellation 'Auriga,' or 'the Charioteer;' and he further
informs us, that the deformity of his legs gave occasion to the
saying, that he was half man and half a serpent. Apollodorus says that
he was born in Attica; that he was the son of Cranae, the daughter of
Attis; and that he dethroned Amphictyon, and became the fourth king of
Athens.

FABLE IX. [II.591-632]

Nyctimene having entertained a criminal passion for her father,
Nycteus, the Gods, to punish her incest, transform her into an owl.
Apollo pierces the breast of Coronis with an arrow, on the raven
informing him of the infidelity of his mistress.

"Has not the thing, which is very well known throughout the whole of
Lesbos,[72] been heard of by thee, that Nyctimene defiled the bed of her
father? She is a bird indeed; but being conscious of her crime, she
avoids {the human} gaze and the light, and conceals her shame in the
darkness; and by all {the birds} she is expelled entirely from the sky."

The raven says to him, saying such things, "May this, thy calling of me
back, prove a mischief to thee, I pray; I despise the worthless omen."
Nor does he drop his intended journey; and he tells his master, that he
has seen Coronis lying down with a youth of Haemonia. On hearing the
crime of his mistress, his laurel fell down; and at the same moment his
usual looks, his plectrum,[73] and his color, forsook the God. And as
his mind was {now} burning with swelling rage, he took up his wonted
arms, and levelled his bow bent from the extremities, and pierced, with
an unerring shaft, that bosom, that had been so oft pressed to his own
breast. Wounded, she uttered a groan, and, drawing the steel from out of
the wound, she bathed her white limbs with purple blood; and she said,
"I might {justly}, Phoebus, have been punished by thee, but {still I
might} have first brought forth; now we two shall die in one." Thus far
{she spoke}; and she poured forth her life, together with her blood.
A deadly coldness took possession of her body deprived of life.

The lover, too late, alas! repents of his cruel vengeance, and blames
himself that he listened {to the bird, and} that he was so infuriated.
He hates the bird, through which he was forced to know of