ong? Shall I sing of you as wooer and in the fields
of love, how you went wooing the daughter of Azan along with god-like
Ischys the son of well-horsed Elatius, or with Phorbas sprung
from Triops, or with Ereutheus, or with Leucippus and the wife of
Leucippus.... ((LACUNA)) ....you on foot, he with his chariot, yet he
fell not short of Triops. Or shall I sing how at the first you went
about the earth seeking a place of oracle for men, O far-shooting
Apollo? To Pieria first you went down from Olympus and passed by sandy
Lectus and Enienae and through the land of the Perrhaebi. Soon you came
to Iolcus and set foot on Cenaeum in Euboea, famed for ships: you stood
in the Lelantine plain, but it pleased not your heart to make a
temple there and wooded groves. From there you crossed the Euripus,
far-shooting Apollo, and went up the green, holy hills, going on to
Mycalessus and grassy-bedded Teumessus, and so came to the wood-clad
abode of Thebe; for as yet no man lived in holy Thebe, nor were there
tracks or ways about Thebe's wheat-bearing plain as yet.

(ll. 229-238) And further still you went, O far-shooting Apollo, and
came to Onchestus, Poseidon's bright grove: there the new-broken colt
distressed with drawing the trim chariot gets spirit again, and the
skilled driver springs from his car and goes on his way. Then the horses
for a while rattle the empty car, being rid of guidance; and if they
break the chariot in the woody grove, men look after the horses, but
tilt the chariot and leave it there; for this was the rite from the very
first. And the drivers pray to the lord of the shrine; but the chariot
falls to the lot of the god.

(ll. 239-243) Further yet you went, O far-shooting Apollo, and reached
next Cephissus' sweet stream which pours forth its sweet-flowing water
from Lilaea, and crossing over it, O worker from afar, you passed
many-towered Ocalea and reached grassy Haliartus.

(ll. 244-253) Then you went towards Telphusa: and there the pleasant
place seemed fit for making a temple and wooded grove. You came very
near and spoke to her: 'Telphusa, here I am minded to make a glorious
temple, an oracle for men, and hither they will always bring perfect
hecatombs, both those who live in rich Peloponnesus and those of Europe
and all the wave-washed isles, coming to seek oracles. And I will
deliver to them all counsel that cannot fail, giving answer in my rich
temple.'

(ll. 254-276) So said Phoebus Apollo, and laid