Herodotus' HISTORY BOOK 1 (CLIO) Complete

Translated by G. Macaulay.

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107 pages - You are on Page 20

47. And to the Lydians whom he sent to make trial of the Oracles he gave charge as follows,—that from the day on which they set out from Sardis they should reckon up the number of the days following and on the hundredth day they should consult the Oracles, asking what Croesus the son of Alyattes king of the Lydians chanced then to be doing: and whatever the Oracles severally should prophesy, this they should cause to be written down [39] and bear it back to him. Now what the other Oracles prophesied is not by any reported, but at Delphi, so soon as the Lydians entered the sanctuary of the temple [40] to consult the god and asked that which they were commanded to ask, the Pythian prophetess spoke thus in hexameter measure:

"But the number of sand I know, [41] and the measure of drops in the ocean; The dumb man I understand, and I hear the speech of the speechless: And there hath come to my soul the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise Boiling in caldron of bronze, and the flesh of a lamb mingled with it; Under it bronze is laid, it hath bronze as a clothing upon it."

[39] {suggrapsamenous}, i.e. have it written down by the {propsetes} (see vii. 111 and viii. 37), who interpreted and put into regular verse the inspired utterances of the prophetess {promantis}.

[40] {es to megaron}.

[41] {oida d' ego}: oracles often have a word of connection such as {de} or {alla} at the beginning (cp. ch. 55, 174, etc.), which may indicate that they are part of a larger connected utterance.

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