To these words of hers the goddess replied with an encouraging speech :
“Be of good cheer, fear not, mother of the Loves! For I have oracles of history on seven tablets, and the tablets bear the names of the seven planets. The first has the name of revolving Selene ; the second is called of Hermes, a shining tablet of gold, upon which are wrought all the secrets of law ; the third has your name, a rosy tablet, for it has the shape of your star in the East ; the fourth is of Helios, central navel of the seven travelling planets ; the fifth is called Ares, red and fiery ; the sixth is called Phaethon, the planet of Cronides ; the seventh shows the name of highmoving Cronos. Upon these, ancient Ophion has engraved in red letters all the divers oracles of fate for the universe. But since you ask me about the directing laws, this prerogative I keep for the eldest of cities. Whether then Arcadia is first or Hera’s city, whether Sardis be the oldest, or even Tarsos celebrated in song be the first city, or some other, I have not been told. The tablet of Cronos will teach you all this, which first arose, which was coeval with Dawn.”
She spoke ; and led the way to the glorious oracles of the wall, until she saw the place where Ophion’s art had engraved in ruddy vermilion on the tablet of Cronos the oracle to be fulfilled in time about Beroe’s country. Beroe came the first, coeval with the universe her agemate, bearing the name of the nymph later born, which the colonizing sons of the Ausonians, the consular Lights of Rome, shall call Berytos, since here fell a neighbour to Lebanon.
Such was the word of prophecy that she learnt. But when the deity had scanned the prophetic beginning of the seventh tablet, she looked at the second, where on the neighbouring wall many strange signs were engraved with varied art in oracular speech : how first shepherd Pan will invent the syrinx, Heliconian Hermes the harp, tender Hyagnis the music of the double pipes with their clever holes, Orpheus the streams of mystic song with divine voice, Apollo’s Linos eloquent speech ; how Areas the traveller will find out the measures of the twelve months, and the sun’s circuit which is the mother of the years brought forth by his fourhorse team ; how wise Endymion with changing bends of his fingers will calculate the three varying phases of Selene ; how Cadmos will combine consonant with vowel and teach the secrets of correct speech ; how Solon will invent inviolable laws, and Cecrops the union of two yoked together under the sacred yoke of marriage made lawful with the Attic torch.
Now the Paphian, after all these manifold wonders of the Muse, scanned the various deeds of the scattered cities ; and on the written tablet which lay in the midst on the circuit of the universe, she found these words of wisdom inscribed in many lines of Grecian verse :
When Augustus shall hold the sceptre of the world, Ausonian Zeus will give to divine Rome the lordship, and to Beroe he will grant the reins of law, when armed in her fleet of shielded ships she shall pacify the strife of battlestirring Cleopatra. For before that, citysacking violence will never cease to shake citysaving peace, until Berytos the nurse of quiet life does justice on land and sea, fortifying the cities with the unshakable wall of law, one city for all cities of the world.”
Then the goddess, having learnt all the oracles of Ophion, returned to her own house. She placed her own goldwrought throne beside the place where her son sat, and throwing an arm round his waist, with quiet countenance opened her glad arms to receive the boy and held the dear burden on her knees ; she kissed both his lips and eyes, touched his mindbewitching bow and fingered the quiver, and spoke in feigned anger these cunning words :
“You hope of all life ! You cajoler of the Foamborn ! Cronion is a cruel tyrant to my children alone ! After nine full months of hard travail I brought forth Harmonia, suffering the bitter pangs of painful childbirth ; and now she suffers all sorts of grief and tribulation. But Leto has borne Artemis Eileithyia, the Lady of Travail, the ally of womankind. You Amymone’s brother, son of the same mother, need not to be told how I got my blood from brine and ether ; but I would perform a worthy deed, and being born of heaven, I will plant heaven on earth beside the sea my mother. Come then — for your sister’s beauty draw your bow and bewitch the gods, or say, shoot one shaft and hit with the same shot Poseidon and vinegod Lyaios, Blessed Ones both. I will give you a gift for your long shot which will be a proper wage worthy of your feat — I will give you the marriage harp of gold, which Phoibos gave to Harmonia at the door of the bridal chamber ; I will place it in your hands in memory of a city to be, that you may be not only an archer, but a harpist, just like Apollo.”
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