lads exchanging taunts at festivals. Of Zeus Cronides and
fair-sandalled Maia he sang how they had lived in loving dalliance, and
he told out the tale of his begetting, and sang the handmaids and the
goodly halls of the Nymph, and the tripods in the house, and the store of
cauldrons. So then he sang, but dreamed of other deeds; then bore he the
hollow lyre and laid it in the sacred cradle, then, in longing for flesh
of kine he sped from the fragrant hall to a place of outlook, with such a
design in his heart as reiving men pursue in the dark of night.

The sun had sunk down beneath earth into ocean, with horses and chariot,
when Hermes came running to the shadowy hills of Pieria, where the
deathless kine of the blessed Gods had ever their haunt; there fed they
on the fair unshorn meadows. From their number did the keen-sighted
Argeiphontes, son of Maia, cut off fifty loud-lowing kine, and drove them
hither and thither over the sandy land, reversing their tracks, and,
mindful of his cunning, confused the hoof-marks, the front behind, the
hind in front, and himself fared down again. Straightway he wove sandals
on the sea-sand (things undreamed he wrought, works wonderful,
unspeakable) mingling myrtle twigs and tamarisk, then binding together a
bundle of the fresh young wood, he shrewdly fastened it for light sandals
beneath his feet, leaves and all, {138}--brushwood that the renowned
slayer of Argos had plucked on his way from Pieria [being, as he was, in
haste, down the long way].

Then an old man that was labouring a fruitful vineyard, marked the God
faring down to the plain through grassy Onchestus, and to him spoke first
the son of renowned Maia:

"Old man that bowest thy shoulders over thy hoeing, verily thou shalt
have wine enough when all these vines are bearing. . . . See thou, and
see not; hear thou, and hear not; be silent, so long as naught of thine
is harmed."

Therewith he drave on together the sturdy heads of cattle. And over many
a shadowy hill, and through echoing corries and flowering plains drave
renowned Hermes. Then stayed for the more part his darkling ally, the
sacred Night, and swiftly came morning when men can work, and sacred
Selene, daughter of Pallas, mighty prince, clomb to a new place of
outlook, and then the strong son of Zeus drave the broad-browed kine of
Phoebus Apollo to the river Alpheius. Unwearied they came to the high-
roofed stall and the watering-places in front of the fa