Bright is his fame in Lydian Pelops' colony[3], inhabited of a goodly
race, whose founder mighty earth-enfolding Poseidon loved, what time
from the vessel of purifying[4] Klotho took him with the bright ivory
furnishment of his shoulder.

Verily many things are wondrous, and haply tales decked out with
cunning fables beyond the truth make false men's speech concerning
them. For Charis[5], who maketh all sweet things for mortal men, by
lending honour unto such maketh oft the unbelievable thing to be
believed; but the days that follow after are the wisest witnesses.

Meet is it for a man that concerning gods he speak honourably; for the
reproach is less. Of thee, son of Tantalos, I will speak contrariwise
to them who have gone before me, and I will tell how when thy father
had bidden thee to that most seemly feast at his beloved Sipylos,
repaying to the gods their banquet, then did he of the Bright
Trident[6], his heart vanquished by love, snatch thee and bear thee
behind his golden steeds to the house of august Zeus in the highest,
whither again on a like errand came Ganymede in the after time.

But when thou hadst vanished, and the men who sought thee long brought
thee not to thy mother, some one of the envious neighbours said
secretly that over water heated to boiling they had hewn asunder with
a knife thy limbs, and at the tables had shared among them and eaten
sodden fragments of thy flesh. But to me it is impossible to call one
of the blessed gods cannibal; I keep aloof; in telling ill tales is
often little gain.

Now if any man ever had honour of the guardians of Olympus, Tantalos