shoulders, like a witless babe,
playing with the wrapper about his knees. So lay he, guarding his dear
lyre at his left hand. But his Goddess mother the God did not deceive;
she spake, saying:

"Wherefore, thou cunning one, and whence comest thou in the night, thou
clad in shamelessness? Anon, methinks, thou wilt go forth at Apollo's
hands with bonds about thy sides that may not be broken, sooner than be a
robber in the glens. Go to, wretch, thy Father begat thee for a trouble
to deathless Gods and mortal men."

But Hermes answered her with words of guile: "Mother mine, why wouldst
thou scare me so, as though I were a redeless child, with little craft in
his heart, a trembling babe that dreads his mother's chidings? Nay, but
I will essay the wiliest craft to feed thee and me for ever. We twain
are not to endure to abide here, of all the deathless Gods alone
unapproached with sacrifice and prayer, as thou commandest. Better it is
eternally to be conversant with Immortals, richly, nobly, well seen in
wealth of grain, than to be homekeepers in a darkling cave. And for
honour, I too will have my dues of sacrifice, even as Apollo. Even if my
Father give it me not I will endeavour, for I am of avail, to be a
captain of reivers. And if the son of renowned Leto make inquest for me,
methinks some worse thing will befall him. For to Pytho I will go, to
break into his great house, whence I shall sack goodly tripods and
cauldrons enough, and gold, and gleaming iron, and much raiment. Thyself,
if thou hast a mind, shalt see it."

So held they converse one with another, the son of Zeus of the AEgis, and
Lady Maia. Then Morning the Daughter of Dawn was arising from the deep
stream of Oceanus, bearing light to mortals, what time Apollo came to
Onchestus in his journeying, the gracious grove, a holy place of the loud
Girdler of the Earth: there he found an old man grazing his ox, the stay
of his vineyard, on the roadside. {144} Him first bespoke the son of
renowned Leto.

"Old man, hedger of grassy Onchestus; hither am I come seeking cattle
from Pieria, all the crook-horned kine out of my herd: my black bull was
wont to graze apart from the rest, and my four bright-eyed hounds
followed, four of them, wise as men and all of one mind. These were
left, the hounds and the bull, a marvel; but the kine wandered away from
their soft meadow and sweet pasture, at the going down of the sun. Tell
me, thou old man of ancient day