So spake he, and raising in both hands the tortoise, went back within the
dwelling, bearing the glad treasure. Then he choked the creature, and
with a gouge of grey iron he scooped out the marrow of the hill tortoise.
And as a swift thought wings through the breast of one that crowding
cares are haunting, or as bright glances fleet from the eyes, so swiftly
devised renowned Hermes both deed and word. He cut to measure stalks of
reed, and fixed them in through holes bored in the stony shell of the
tortoise, and cunningly stretched round it the hide of an ox, and put in
the horns of the lyre, and to both he fitted the bridge, and stretched
seven harmonious chords of sheep-gut. {136}

Then took he his treasure, when he had fashioned it, and touched the
strings in turn with the _plectrum_, and wondrously it sounded under his
hand, and fair sang the God to the notes, improvising his chant as he
played, like lads exchanging taunts at festivals. Of Zeus Cronides and
fair-sandalled Maia he sang how they had lived in loving dalliance, and
he told out the tale of his begetting, and sang the handmaids and the
goodly halls of the Nymph, and the tripods in the house, and the store of
cauldrons. So then he sang, but dreamed of other deeds; then bore he the
hollow lyre and laid it in the sacred cradle, then, in longing for flesh
of kine he sped from the fragrant hall to a place of outlook, with such a
design in his heart as reiving men pursue in the dark of night.

The sun had sunk down beneath earth into ocean, with horses and chariot,
when Hermes came running to the shadowy hills of Pieria, where the
deathless kine of the blessed Gods had ever their haunt; there fed they
on the fair unshorn meadows. From their number did the keen-sighted
Argeiphontes, son of Maia, cut off fifty loud-lowing kine, and drove them
hither and thither over the sandy land, reversing their tracks, and,
mindful of his cunning, confused the hoof-marks, the front behind, the