Pythian Odes (3.30-3.61)

by neither god nor man, neither in deeds nor in thoughts.

Knowing even then of her sleeping with Ischys, son of Elatus, and of her lawless deceit, he sent his sister, raging with irresistible force, to Lacereia, since the girl lived by the banks of Lake Boebias.

A contrary fortune turned her to evil and overcame her. And many neighbors shared her fate and perished with her; fire leaps from a single spark on a mountain, and destroys a great forest.

But when her kinsmen had placed the girl in the wooden walls of the pyre, and

the ravening flame of Hephaestus ran around it, then Apollo spoke: “I can no longer endure in my soul to destroy my own child by a most pitiful death, together with his mother’s grievous suffering.” So he spoke. In one step he reached the child and snatched it from the corpse; the burning fire divided its blaze for him,

and he bore the child away and gave him to the Magnesian Centaur to teach him to heal many painful diseases for men.

And those who came to him afflicted with congenital sores, or with their limbs wounded by gray bronze or by a far-hurled stone,

or with their bodies wasting away from summer’s fire or winter’s cold, he released and delivered all of them from their different pains, tending some of them with gentle incantations, others with soothing potions, or by wrapping remedies all around their limbs, and others he set right with surgery.

But even skill is enthralled by the love of gain.

Gold shining in his hand turned even that man, for a handsome price, to bring back from death a man who was already caught. And so the son of Cronus hurled his shaft with his hands through both of them, and swiftly tore the breath out of their chests; the burning thunderbolt brought death crashing down on them. We must seek from the gods what is appropriate for mortal minds,

knowing what lies before our feet, and what kind of destiny we have.

Do not crave immortal life, my soul, but use to the full the resources of what is possible. But if wise Cheiron were still living in his cave, and if our honey-voiced odes