O dark-browed lady of Argos, {93} in wedlock with Tydeus didst thou bear slaying Diomede, a hero of Calydon, and, again, deep-bosomed Thetis to Peleus, son of Aeacus, bare the spearman Achilles. But thee, O warrior Ptolemy, to Ptolemy the warrior bare the glorious Berenice! And Cos did foster thee, when thou wert still a child new-born, and received thee at thy mother’s hand, when thou saw’st thy first dawning. For there she called aloud on Eilithyia, loosener of the girdle; she called, the daughter of Antigone, when heavy on her came the pangs of childbirth. And Eilithyia was present to help her, and so poured over all her limbs release from pain. Then the beloved child was born, his father’s very counterpart. And Cos brake forth into a cry, when she beheld it, and touching the child with kind hands, she said: ‘Blessed, O child, mayst thou be, and me mayst thou honour even as Phoebus Apollo honours Delos of the azure crown, yea, stablish in the same renown the Triopean hill, and allot such glory to the Dorians dwelling nigh, as that wherewithal Prince Apollo favours Rhenaea.’ Lo, thus spake the Isle, but far aloft under the clouds a great eagle screamed thrice aloud, the ominous bird of Zeus. This sign, methinks, was of Zeus; Zeus, the son of Cronos, in his care hath awful kings, but he is above all, whom Zeus loved from the first, even from his birth. Great fortune goes with him, and much land he rules, and wide sea. Countless are the lands, and tribes of men innumerable win increase of the soil that waxeth under the rain of Zeus, but no land brings forth so much as low-lying Egypt, when Nile wells up and breaks the sodden soil. Nor is there any land that hath so many towns of men skilled in handiwork; therein are three centuries of cities builded, and thousands three, and to these three myriads, and cities twice three, and beside these, three times nine, and over them all high-hearted Ptolemy is king.