s burnt to ashes in his presence. Bacchus, with whom
she is pregnant, is preserved; and Tiresias decided the dispute
between Jupiter and Juno, concerning the sexes.

And yet, as much as possible, he tries to mitigate his powers. Nor is he
now armed with those flames with which he had overthrown the
hundred-handed Typhoeus; in those, {there is} too much fury. There is
another thunder, less baneful, to which the right hand of the Cyclops
gave less ferocity and flames, {and} less anger. The Gods above call
this second-rate thunder; it he assumes, and he enters the house of
Agenor. Her mortal body could not endure[64] the aethereal shock, and she
was burned amid her nuptial presents. The infant, as yet unformed, is
taken out of the womb of his mother, and prematurely (if we can believe
it) is inserted in the thigh of the father, and completes the time that
he should have spent in the womb. His aunt, Ino, nurses him privately in
his early cradle. After that, the Nyseian Nymphs[65] conceal him,
entrusted {to them}, in their caves, and give him the nourishment of
milk.

And while these things are transacted on earth by the law of destiny,
and the cradle of Bacchus, twice born,[66] is secured; they tell that
Jupiter, by chance, well drenched with nectar, laid aside {all} weighty
cares, and engaged in some free jokes with Juno, in her idle moments,
and said: "Decidedly the pleasure of you, {females}, is greater than
that which falls to the lot of {us} males." She denied it. It was agreed
{between them}, to ask what was the opinion of the experienced Tiresias.
To him both pleasures were well known. For he had separated with a blow
of his staff two bodies of large serpents, as they were coupling in a
green wood; and (passing strange) become a woman from a man, he had
spent seven autumns. In the eighth, he again saw the same {serpents},
and said, "If the power of a stroke given you is so great as to change
the condition of the giver into the opposite one, I will now strike you
again." Having struck the same snakes, his former sex returned, and his
original shape came {again}. He, therefore, being chosen as umpire in
this sportive contest, confirmed the words of Jove. The daughter of
Saturn is said to have grieved more than was fit, and not in proportion
to the subject; and she condemned the eyes of the umpire to eternal
darkness.

But the omnipotent father (for it is not allowed any God to cancel the
acts of {another} Deity)