When the third time rain from Zeus flooded the solid earth and covered the hills, and even the unwetted slopes of Sithonia with Mount Athos itself, then Dardanos, cutting through the stream of the a uplifted flood, landed on the ancient mountain of Ida his neighbour.
It was his brother Emathion, ruler of the snowy Sithonian land, who left the noisy market-place, and stood amazed at the hero’s looks ; for the youthful grace inborn in him mingled manliness and beauty - with a form to match. The prince was amazed at such noble looks ; for the eyes of prudent kings are instinctive heralds, although the car cannot hear them. He received the guest with a welcome; then, while Electra toiled to help him, he provided a rich table of fine fare, flattering his guest with friendly in address that left nothing to be desired: for it was a bounteous feast, But Cadmos bent his neck towards the ground, and hid looks of disquiet from the attendants, and hardly touched the banquet. He sat opposite the hospitable lady, but scarce stealing a glance at her served himself with a modest and timid hand.
As they feasted, the breathing reeds of Corybantic Ida resounded one after another in succession the players’ hands skipt along the riddled run of the tootling pipe, and the fingers beat out their tune in cadence, dancing and pressing the sound ; the clanging cymbals in brazen pairs struck ringing blows running in cadence with the sets of reeds; the harp itself with its seven strings twangled aloud under the quill.
But after the banquet, when Cadmos had had enough of the Bistonian pipe, he drew his seat nearer to the queen, who questioned him with great curiosity. He left aside the fever of his sorrowful sea-wanderings, and spoke of his illustrious lineage : I the words poured in ceaseless flow like a fountain from his open lips. by Beloved lady, why do you ask me thus of my blood and breeding liken the swift-passing rations of mortal man to the leaves, Some leaves the wild winds scatter over the earth when autumn season comes ; others the woodland trees grow on their bushy heads in spring-time. Such are the generations of men, short-lived : one rides life’s course, until death brings it low; one still flourishes, only to give place to another : for time moves ever back upon itself, changing form as it, flows from hoary age to youth.
But I will tell you my lineage with its noble sons. There is a city Argos, famous for horses, and Hera’s habitation, the midnipple of the island of Tantalides. There a man begat a daughter, and a) beautiful daughter, Inachos, famed burgher of the land Inachian. A templeman he was, and brooded over the awful rites that spoke the voice of the divine cityholder, he chief and eldest in practice of her mysteries : aye, he refused to wed his daughter to Zeus lord of the gods, leader of the stars, all for reverence of Hera at the time when changed her face and became a cattle-shaped heifer; when she I was driven to pasture along with the herd of kine; when Hera made sleepless Argos herdsman to that calf—spotted Argos, covered with unwavering eyes. He was to watch the horned bride of Zeus, Zeus whom eye may not see. To pasture went the girl, trembling at the eyes of her busy-peeping drover: then pierced by the limb-gnawing gadfly, she scored the gulf of the Ionian sea with travelling hoof. She came as far as Algyptos, my own river, which my - people have called Neilos by name, because year by year that watery consort covers Earth with new slime by its muddy flood—she came as far as Aigyptos, where after her cow’s form, after putting off the horned image ordained by heaven, she became a goddess of fruitful crops ; when the fruit starts up, My the fruit of Egyptian Demeter my stronghorned, scented vapour is carried around by the fragrant breezes. There she brought forth Epaphos the ? Toucher to Zeus, so called because the divine bedfellow with love-mad hands touched the inviolate breasts of the heifer child of Inachos. Epaphos the god-begotten was father of Libya; to Libya’s bower came Poseidaon on his travels, migrating as far as Memphis in search of Epaphos’s maiden daughter. There the girl received the denizen of the deep, now a traveller by land, and brought forth Belos the Libyan Zeus, the husbandman of my family. And now the new voice of Zeus Asbystes which the thirsty sands give forth in soothsaying is equal to the Chaonian dove. Belos was father of a numerous family of children, as many as five Phineus, and Phoinix who went alwoad ; with them grew up Agenor, who flitted from city to city and belonged to each in turn, a man of unstable life, my father he travelled to Thebes after Memphis, to Assyria after Thebes. Then there was the wise Algyptos, who lived on Egyptian soil, ill-fated father of many children, who begat all those flocks of short-lived sons ; and Danaos who went abroad, who armed his daughters against that family of men, and drew a weddingaword, when the marriage-chambers were reddened with blood of the murdered bridegrooms, and with secret swords on armed beds, Fayo the female bedded Ares the male naked and helpless,
“Nay, but Hypermnestra was displeased with this bridal crime, She thrust away her father’s mands that bad goodfather she let the winds carry his words away, and kept her hand clean from blood and steel those two consummated a proper wedlock, ! But our sister in her youthful bloom was ravished away by a bold vagabond bull, if bull he really was but do not know how to believe it if bulls desire marriage with a woman, And Agenor sent me also it with my brothers to track our sister and the girl’s wild robber, that bull the bastard voyager over a waveless sea. That is why my random journeying brings me here.”
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