nd
you will raise your hands in grateful prayer to the rescuing divinity.
As to us women, we need not be drawn out of a cave to recognise it.
A mother who reared three stalwart sons--I will say nothing of the
daughters--can not live without them. Why are they so necessary to her?
Because we love our children twice as much as ourselves, and the danger
which threatens them alarms the poor mother's heart thrice as much as
her own. Then it needs the helping powers. Even though they often refuse
their aid, we may still be grateful for the expectation of relief. I
have poured forth many prayers for the three, I assure you, and after
doing so with my whole soul, then, my son, no matter how wildly the
storm had raged within my breast, calmness returned, and Hope again
took her place at the helm. In the school of the denier of the gods, you
forgot the immortals above and depended on yourself alone. Now you need
a guide, or even two or three of them, in order to find the way. If your
mother were still alive, you would run back to her to hide your face in
her lap. But she is dead, and if I were as proud as you, before clasping
the sustaining hand of another mortal I would first try whether one
would not be voluntarily extended from among the Olympians. If I were
you, I would begin with Demeter, whom you honoured by so marvellous a
work."

Hermon waved his hand as if brushing away a troublesome fly, exclaiming
impatiently: "The gods, always the gods! I know by my own mother,
Thyone, what you women are, though I was only seven years old when I was
bereft of her by the same powers that you call good and wise, and who
have also robbed me of my eyesight, my friend, and all else that was
dear. I thank you for your kind intention, and you, too, Daphne, for
recalling the beautiful allegory. How often we have argued over its
meaning! If we continued the discussion, perhaps it might pleasantly
shorten the next few hours, which I dread as I do my whole future
existence, but I should be obliged in the outset to yield the victory to
you. The great Herophilus is right when he transfers the seat of thought
from the heart to the head. What a wild tumult is raging here behind my
brow, and how one voice drowns another! The medley baffles description.
I could more easily count with my blind eyes the cells in a honeycomb
than refute with my bewildered brain even one shrewd objection. It seems
to me that we need our eyes to understand things. We certa