THE PYTHONESS. Old Earth, primeval prophetess, I first With these my prayers invoke; and Themis[n1] next, Who doth her mother's throne and temple both Inherit, as the legend runs; and third In lot's due course, another Earth-born maid The unforced homage of the land received, Titanian Phœbe;[f5] she in natal gift With her own name her hoary right bequeathed To Phœbus: he from rocky Delos' lake[n2] To Attica's ship-cruised bays was wafted, whence He in Parnassus fixed his sure abode. Hither with pious escort they attend him: The Sons of Vulcan pioneer his path,[n3] Smoothing the rugged desert where he comes: The thronging people own him, and king Delphos, The land's high helmsman, flings his portals wide. Jove with divinest skill his heart inspires, And now the fourth on this dread seat enthroned Sits Loxias,[f6] prophet of his father Jove.[n4] These be the gods, whom chiefly I invoke: But thee, likewise, who 'fore this temple dwellest,[n5] Pallas, I pray, and you, ye Nymphs that love The hollow Corycian rock,[n6] the frequent haunt Of pleasant birds, the home of awful gods. Thee, Bromius, too, I worship,[n7] not unweeting How, led by thee, the furious Thyads rushed To seize the godless Pentheus,[n8] ev'n as a hare Is dogged to death. And you, the fountains pure Of Pleistus,[f7] and Poseidon's[f8] mighty power[n9] I pray, and Jove most high, that crowns all things With consummation. These the gods that lead me To the prophetic seat, and may they grant me Best-omened entrance; may consulting Greeks, If any be, by custom'd lot approach; {142} For as the gods my bosom stir, I pour The fateful answer. [_She goes into the Temple, but suddenly returns._ O horrid tale to tell! O sight to see Most horrible! that drives me from the halls Of Loxias, so that I nor stand nor run, But, like a beast fourfooted stumble on, Losing the gait and station of my kind, A gray-haired woman, weaker than a child![n10] Up to the garlanded recess I walked, And on the navel-stone[f9] behold! a man With crime polluted to the altar clinging, And in his bloody hand he held a sword Dripping with recent murder, and a branch Of breezy olive, with flocks of fleecy wool All nicely tipt. Even thus I saw the man; And stretched before him an unearthly host Of strangest women, on the sacred seats Sleeping--not women, but a Gorgon brood, And worse than Gorgons, or the ravenous crew That filched the feast of Phineus[n11] (such I've seen In painted terror); but these are wingless, black, Incarnate horrors, and with breathings dire Snort unapproachable, and from their eyes Pestiferous beads of poison they distil. Such uncouth sisterhood, apparel'd so,[n12] From all affinity of gods or men Divorced, from me and from the gods be far, And from all human homes! Nor can the land, That lends these unblest hags a home, remain Uncursed by fearful scourges. But the god, Thrice-potent Loxias himself will ward