without harm[1] he bound the light sandals beneath his feet, leaves and all, which the renowned slayer of Argus had plucked, avoiding the way of a traveller[2] from Pieria, inasmuch as he was pressing on a long journey, roughly equipped.[3]But him an old man, who was tending a sun-basking vineyard, perceived seeking the field through grassy Onchestus. Him the son of glorious Maia first addressed:
"O old man, who with bent shoulders art grubbing these stumps, surely thou wilt have journeyed far, when all these things shall bear fruit.[4] But seeing, see not, and hearing, [be thou] mute, and keep silence, since nought of thine is hurt."[5]
Having spoken thus much, he smote the stout heads of the cows, and glorious Mercury drove them through many shadowy mountains, and resounding ravines, and flowering plains. But gloomy divine night, his ally, had well nigh passed away, and morn, arousing the people to work, chanced to be arising; but the divine moon, the daughter of king Pallas, son of Megamedes, had just gone into her watch-tower.[6] Then to the river Alpheus the valiant son of Jove drove the wide-fronted cows of Phœbus Apollo, and untired he came into the lofty stall, and to the troughs in front of the beautiful meadow.
- ↑ i. e. without the likelihood of being discovered. This is well expressed by Chapman:
"and then fear'd no eyes
That could affect his feet's discoveries." - ↑ "Mercurius cavisse dicitur, ne pedibus ut viator ingrederetur, et ita vestigia pedum relinqueret." Herm.
- ↑ "Ut in procinctu." Ernesti. Hermann would read ἀντιτορήσων.
- ↑ After vs. 91, Hermann puts a mark of lacuna, reading πολυοινήσεις, "thou wilt reap a rich vintage, when all these bear fruit."
- ↑ The sense seems to require, "lest aught of thine be injured." But Chapman has well rendered:
"But see not thou, whatever thou dost see;
Nor hear, though hear; but all, as touching me,
Conceal, since nought it can endamage thee."This old man was Battus. See Ovid, Met. ii. fab. 7, and Antoninus Liberalis, § 23.
- ↑ Chapman:
"and in her watch-tower shone
King Pallas-Megamede's seed (the moon)."The passage is not very satisfactory as regards mythology. See Barnes.
