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Here too is Telephus, the son of Heracles, represented as a baby being suckled by a deer. By his side is an ox, and an image of Priapus worth seeing. This god is worshipped where goats and sheep pasture or there are swarms of bees; but by the people of
On Helicon tripods have been dedicated, of which the oldest is the one which it is said Hesiod received for winning the prize for song at
The Boeotians dwelling around Helicon hold the tradition that Hesiod wrote nothing but the Works
, and even of this they reject the prelude to the Muses, saying that the poem begins with the account of the Strifes. note They showed me also a tablet of lead where the spring is, mostly defaced by time, on which is engraved the Works
.
There is another tradition, very different from the first, that Hesiod wrote a great number of poems; the one on women, the one called the Great Eoeae
, the Theogony
, the poem on the seer Melampus, the one on the descent to Hades of Theseus and Perithous, the Precepts of Chiron
, professing to be for the instruction of Achilles, and other poems besides the Works and Days
. These same Boeotians say that Hesiod learnt seercraft from the Acarnanians, and there are extant a poem called Mantica
(Seercraft), which I myself have read, and interpretations of portents.
Opposite stories are also told of Hesiod's death. All agree that Ctimenus and Antiphus, the sons of Ganyctor, fled from
So widely different are the traditions of Hesiod himself and his poems.
9.31.7On the summit of Helicon is a small river called the Lamus. note In the territory of the Thespians is a place called Donacon (Reed-bed). Here is the spring of Narcissus. They say that Narcissus looked into this water, and not understanding that he saw his own reflection, unconsciously fell in love with himself, and died of love at the spring. But it is utter stupidity to imagine that a man old enough to fall in love was incapable of distinguishing a man from a man's reflection.
9.31.8There is another story about Narcissus, less popular indeed than the other, but not without some support. It is said that Narcissus had a twin sister; they were exactly alike in appearance, their hair was the same, they wore similar clothes, and went hunting together. The story goes on that Narcissus fell in love with his sister, and when the girl died, would go to the spring, knowing that it was his reflection that he saw, but in spite of this knowledge finding some relief for his love in imagining that he saw, not his own reflection, but the likeness of his sister.
9.31.9The flower narcissus grew, in my opinion, before this, if we are to judge by the verses of Pamphos. This poet was born many years before Narcissus the Thespian, and he says that the Maid, the daughter of Demeter, was carried off when she was playing and gathering flowers, and that the flowers by which she was deceived into being carried off were not violets, but the narcissus.
ch. 32
9.32.1
Creusis, the harbor of
Sailing from Creusis, not out to sea, but along Nothing would prevent the plain between the mountains becoming a lake owing to the volume of the water, had they not made a strong dyke right through it. So every other year they divert the water to the farther side of the dyke, and farm the other side.
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