XVII. Serapion wanted to put In some further remark on this, when the stranger said: ‘It is delightful to listen to such speeches as we have heard, but I feel myself obliged to claim fulfilment of the original promise, that we should hear the cause which has made the Pythia cease to prophesy in epic or other verse. So, if it be your pleasure, let us leave to another time the remainder of the sights, sit down where we are, and hear about that. For it is this more than anything else which militates against the credibility of the oracle; it must be one of two things, either the Pythia does not get near the spot where the Divinity is, or the current is altogether exhausted, and [Sidenote: C] the power has failed.’ Accordingly, we went round and seated ourselves on the southern plinth of the temple, in view of the temple of Earth and the fountain, which made Boethus at once observe that the very place where the problem was raised lent itself to the stranger’s case. For here was a temple of the Muses where the exhalation rises from the fountain; from which they drew the water used for the lustrations, as Simonides[102] has it: _Whence is drawn for holy washings Water of the Muses bright._ And again, in a rather more elaborate strain, the same poet [Sidenote: D] addressing Clio: _Holy patron of our washings, Goddess sought with many a vow, By no golden robe encumbered, hear thy servants drawing now Water, fragrant and delightful, from ambrosial depths below._ So Eudoxus was wrong in believing those who have made out that this was called ‘Water of Styx’. But they installed the Muses as assessors in prophecy and guardians of the place, by the fountain and the temple of Earth where the oracle used to be, because the responses were given in metre and in lyric strains. And some say further that the heroic metre was heard for the [Sidenote: E] first time here: _Bring in your feathers, ye birds, ye bees, bring wax at his bidding._ The God was in need, and dignity was waived![103]