Zeus admonished the contestants to be friends, but with a significant nod, the suit was decided in Apollo’s favor, and the brothers sent in quest of the missing kine. The miscreant led the way, and when the cattle were brought out of the cave, Apollo missed two, and was surprised to find their hides stretched on a rock to dry—more so, that when attempting to drive the others away their feet were found fastened in the earth. Again he seized the offender for punishment, but he in the emergency, thought of his lyre, and touching its chords, called forth music so sweet and soothing that Apollo, forgetting his anger, coveted the instrument and besought the musician to teach him his wondrous art. “Take it,” said he, “since you are wise, and will know how to use it well, but if touched by those unskilled in the divine art, it will utter strange nonsense, making uncertain, discordant moanings.” Delighted with his acquisition, Apollo gave his brother a magic wand, by which he could confer happiness on whom he would; and, henceforth, they dwelt together in great harmony and love, the honored sons of a common father. Interpreting this myth one says, “while Apollo represents the genial sunshine, Hermes, as a power of nature, is the rain—rain and sunshine being both from the great God of heaven, or, in the language of mythologists, his sons. They are both beneficent and have many things so similar as to indicate a common origin.” In the process of time their conceptions of the younger brother seem to have undergone some change, or possibly the different shades of opinion may indicate the places rather than the times in which they prevailed. To those who regarded him as sending the fertilizing rain, and thus the dispenser of manifold gifts, he also, and naturally, represented the wind that “bloweth where it listeth,” and carries the clouds about on their mission. This idea of personification may account for some things in their legends that otherwise seem inexplicable. Helpless infancy, in a very few hours leaving the cradle and performing exploits the most astonishing, has its parallel in the wind, which, at first only gentle zephyrs whispering softly, soon may freshen to a gale, and in an hour sweep over the earth with a force that defies resistance; and when people make inquest for the mischief done they hear but the mocking laugh as it hastens on, and the calm after a squall is like the quiet return of the adventurous god to the cave and cradle that were left for the exploits of that eventful day. Then the clouds of various shape and color that are seen grouped above the horizon, or scattered over the vast field of the sky, were, to a vivid imagination, the herd of Phœbus, who watches over them. When the rising wind, represented by Hermes’ leaving the cave, carries them away, a stupendous theft has been committed.