chant replying,
sing of the imperishable gifts of the Gods, and the sufferings of men,
all that they endure from the hands of the undying Gods, lives witless
and helpless, men unavailing to find remede for death or buckler against
old age. Then the fair-tressed Graces and boon Hours, and Harmonia, and
Hebe, and Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, dance, holding each by the wrist
the other's hand, while among them sings one neither unlovely, nor of
body contemptible, but divinely tall and fair, Artemis the Archer,
nurtured with Apollo. Among them sport Ares, and the keen-eyed Bane of
Argos, while Phoebus Apollo steps high and disposedly, playing the lyre,
and the light issues round him from twinkling feet and fair-woven
raiment. But all they are glad, seeing him so high of heart, Leto of the
golden tresses, and Zeus the Counsellor, beholding their dear son as he
takes his pastime among the deathless Gods.

How shall I hymn thee aright, howbeit thou art, in sooth, not hard to
hymn? Shall I sing of thee in love and dalliance; how thou wentest forth
to woo the maiden Azanian, with Ischys, peer of Gods, and Elation's son
of the goodly steeds, or with Phorbas, son of Triopes, or Amarynthus, or
how with Leucippus and Leucippus' wife, thyself on foot, he in the
chariot . . .? {115} Or how first, seeking a place of oracle for men,
thou camest down to earth, far-darting Apollo?

On Pieria first didst thou descend from Olympus, and pass by Lacmus, and
Emathia, and Enienae, and through Perrhaebia, and speedily camest to
Iolcus, and alight on Cenaeum in Euboea, renowned for galleys. On the
Lelantian plain thou stoodest, but it pleased thee not there to stablish
a temple and a grove. Thence thou didst cross Euripus, far-darting
Apollo, and fare up the green hill divine, and thence camest speedily to
Mycalessus and Teumesos of the bedded meadow grass, and thence to the
place of woodclad Thebe, for as yet no mortals dwelt in Holy Thebe, nor
yet were paths nor ways along Thebe's wheat-bearing plain, but all was
wild wood.

Thence forward journeying, Apollo, thou camest to Onchestus, the bright
grove of Poseidon. There the new-broken colt takes breath again, weary
though he be with dragging the goodly chariot; and to earth, skilled
though he be, leaps down the charioteer, and fares on foot, while the
horses for a while rattle along the empty car, with the reins on their
necks, and if the car be broken in the grove of trees, their mas