Cnemon, "for I myself was going to this town to wait for some friends of mine, whom I had appointed to meet there." Getting, therefore, into a boat, many of which were lying by the river's side, to transport passengers, they crossed over into the town, and arrived at the house where the stranger was lodged. The master of the house was not at home; but his daughter, a marriageable maiden, received them with great cheerfulness, and the servants waited upon the old man as if he had been their father, most probably by their master's orders. One washed his feet, and wiped off the dust from under his knees; another got ready his bed, and strewed it with soft coverings; a third brought an urn, and filled it with fire; a fourth prepared the table, and spread it with bread and various kinds of fruit. Cnemon, wondering at their alacrity, exclaimed, "We have certainly got into the house of Jove the Hospitable,[15] such is the attention and singular benevolence with which we are received."--"You have not got into the habitation of Jove," replied the other, "but into that of a man who exactly imitates his hospitable and charitable qualities: for his life[16] has been a mercantile and wandering one; he has seen many cities, and observed the manners of many nations; he is naturally therefore inclined to compassionate the stranger, and receive the wanderer, as he did me not many days ago."--"And how came you to be a wanderer, father?"--"Being deprived," said he, "of my children by robbers; knowing those who had injured me, but unable to contend with them; I roam about this spot, mourning and sorrowing; not unlike a bird whose nest a serpent[17] has made desolate, and is devouring her young before her eyes. She is afraid to approach, yet cannot bear to desert them; terror and affection struggle within her; she flies mournfully round the scene of her calamities, pouring in vain her maternal complaints into ears deaf to her waitings and strangers to mercy."--"Will you then relate," said Cnemon, "when and how you encountered this grievous war of woe?"--"By-and-bye," he replied; "but let us now attend to our craving stomach; which, because it considers itself of more consequence than any other organ, is called by Homer _destructive_.[18] And first, as is the custom of the Egyptian sages, let us make a libation to the gods. Nothing shall make me omit this; nor shall grief ever so entirely possess my mind, as to render me forgetful of what I owe to heaven." With this he poured pure water out of the vase, and said, "I make this libation to the gods of this country, and those of Greece; to the Pythian Apollo, and also to Theagenes and Chariclea, the good and beautiful, since I reckon them also among the gods:" and then he wept, as if he were making another libation to them with his tears. Cnemon, greatly struck at what he heard, viewed the old man from head to foot, and exclaimed, "What do you say? Are Theagenes and Chariclea really your children?"--"They are