202 TERPSICHORE.

or by any other wife, he went to Delphi to consult the
oracle on this subject. At the moment of his entering
the temple, he was thus addressed by the Pythian:—

Eetion, honour'd far below thy worth;
Know Labda shall produce a monserous birth,
A stone, which, rolling with enormous weight,
Shall crush usurpers and reform the state.

This prediction to Eetion came by accident to the
ears of the Bacchiadse. An oracle had before spoken
concerning Corinth, which, though dark and obscure,
was evidently of the same tendency with that de­
clared to Eetion: it was this:—

Amidst the rocks an eagle shall produce
An eagle, who shall many knees unloose,
Bloody and strong: guard then your measures well,
Ye who in Corinth and Pirene dwell!

When this oracle was first delivered to the Bacchiadse,
they had no conception of its meaning; but as soon as
they learned the particulars of that given to Eetion,
they understood the first from the last. The result
was, that they confined the secret to themselves, de­
termining to destroy the future child of Eetion. As
soon as the woman was delivered, they commissioned
ten of their number to go to the place where Eetion
lived, and make away with the infant. As soon as
they came to where the tribe of Petra resided, they
went to Eetion's house, and asked for the child:
Labda, ignorant of their intentions, and imputing this

her infant, and gave it into the arms of one of them.
It had been concerted, that whoever should first have
the child in his hands, was to dash it on the ground:
it happened, as if by divine interposition, that the in­
fant smiled in the face of the man to whom the mo­
ther had intrusted it. He was seized with an emotion
of pity, and found himself unable to destroy it; with
these feelings, he gave the child to the person next
him, who gave it to a third, till thus it passed through
the hands of all the ten: no one of them was able to
murder it, and it was returned to the mother. On
leaving the house, they stopped at the gate, and be­
gan to reproach and accuse each other, but particu-