Does the pure wine cause thy bold heart to swell in thy breast to thy
ruin, and has it set thee on to dishonour the gods? Other words of
comfort there are with which a man might encourage his comrade; but thou
hast spoken with utter recklessness. Such taunts, the tale goes, did the
sons of Aloeus once blurt out against the blessed gods, and thou dost no
wise equal them in valour; nevertheless they were both slain by the
swift arrows of Leto's son, mighty though they were."

Thus he spake, and Aphareian Idas laughed out, loud and long, and eyeing
him askance replied with biting words:

"Come now, tell me this by thy prophetic art, whether for me too the
gods will bring to pass such doom as thy father promised for the sons of
Aloeus. And bethink thee how thou wilt escape from my hands alive, if
thou art caught making a prophecy vain as the idle wind."

Thus in wrath Idas reviled him, and the strife would have gone further
had not their comrades and Aeson's son himself with indignant cry
restrained the contending chiefs; and Orpheus lifted his lyre in his
left hand and made essay to sing.

He sang how the earth, the heaven and the sea, once mingled together in
one form, after deadly strife were separated each from other; and how
the stars and the moon and the paths of the sun ever keep their fixed
place in the sky; and how the mountains rose, and how the resounding
rivers with their nymphs came into being and all creeping things. And he
sang how first of all Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Ocean, held the
sway of snowy Olympus, and how through strength of arm one yielded his
prerogative to Cronos and the other to Rhea, and how they fell into the
waves of Ocean; but the other two meanwhile ruled over the blessed