Hymn 3 to Apollo (260-300)

bring hither perfect hecatombs for you; yet I will speak out, and do you lay up my words in your heart. The trampling of swift horses and the sound of mules watering at my sacred springs will always irk you, and men will like better to gaze at

the well-made chariots and stamping, swift-footed horses than at your great temple and the many treasures that are within. But if you will be moved by me —for you, lord, are stronger and mightier than I, and your strength is very great —build at Crisa below the glades of Parnassus:

there no bright chariot will clash, and there will be no noise of swift-footed horses near your well-built altar. But so the glorious tribes of men will bring gifts to you as Iepaeon (‘Hail-Healer’), and you will receive with delight rich sacrifices from the people dwelling round about.”

So said Telphusa, that she alone, and not the Far-Shooter, should have renown there; and she persuaded the Far-Shooter. Further yet you went, far-shooting Apollo, until you came to the town of the presumptuous Phlegyae who dwell on this earth

in a lovely glade near the Cephisian lake, caring not for Zeus. And thence you went speeding swiftly to the mountain ridge, and came to Crisa beneath snowy Parnassus, a foothill turned towards the west: a cliff hangs over it from above, and a hollow, rugged glade runs under.

There the lord Phoebus Apollo resolved to make his lovely temple, and thus he said: “In this place I am minded to build a glorious temple to be an oracle for men, and here they will always bring perfect hecatombs,

both they who dwell in rich Peloponnesus and the men of Europe and from all the wave-washed isles, coming to question me. And I will deliver to them all counsel that cannot fail, answering them in my rich temple.” When he had said this, Phoebus Apollo laid out all the foundations

throughout, wide and very long; and upon these the sons of Erginus, Trophonius and Agamedes, dear to the deathless gods, laid a footing of stone. And the countless tribes of men built the whole temple of wrought stones, to be sung of for ever.

But near by was a sweet flowing spring, and there with his strong bow the lord, the son of Zeus, killed the bloated, great she-dragon, a fierce monster wont to do great mischief to men upon earth, to men themselves and to their thin-shanked sheep; for she was a very bloody plague.