Whosoever met the Dragoness, on him would she bring the day of destiny,
before the Prince, far-darting Apollo, loosed at her the destroying
shaft; then writhing in strong anguish, and mightily panting she lay,
rolling about the land. Dread and dire was the din, as she writhed
hither and thither through the wood, and gave up the ghost, and Phoebus
spoke his malison:

"There do thou rot upon the fruitful earth; no longer shalt thou, at
least, live to be the evil bane of mortals that eat the fruit of the
fertile soil, and hither shall bring perfect hecatombs. Surely from thee
neither shall Typhoeus, nay, nor Chimaera of the evil name, shield death
that layeth low, but here shall black earth and bright Hyperion make thee
waste away."

So he spake in malison, and darkness veiled her eyes, and there the
sacred strength of the sun did waste her quite away. Whence now the
place is named Pytho, and men call the Prince "Pythian" for that deed,
for even there the might of the swift sun made corrupt the monster. {124}

Then Phoebus Apollo was ware in his heart that the fair-flowing spring,
Telphusa, had beguiled him, and in wrath he went to her, and swiftly
came, and standing close by her, spoke his word:

"Telphusa, thou wert not destined to beguile my mind, nor keep the
winsome lands and pour forth thy fair waters. Nay, here shall my honour
also dwell, not thine alone." So he spoke, and overset a rock, with a
shower of stones, and hid her streams, the Prince, far-darting Apollo.
And he made an altar in a grove of trees, hard by the fair-flowing
stream, where all men name him in prayer, "the Prince Telphusian," for