Matheson Collection > Togail na Tebe

THE THEBAID
aside at Tydeus, and said : " I am ashamed, indeed," said he,
" to declare my original kin amid the lovely holy consecrated
places; and yet," said he, "I am of the brave race of Cadmus,
son of Agenor; and my own proper distinguished warlike stormy
state is Thebes, and my mother is Jocasta." And what made
him not mention his father's name was on account of the great-
ness of the shame he felt at that sin. Then, however, Adrastus
said: "Wherefore shouldest thou hide that from us?" said he,
"since no one exists throughout the four quarters of the globe
but has heard of the sin and the valour of the envious Theban
race. And, indeed, we have no territory or tribe without sin,
but do thou do right thyself," said he, " and do not imitate the
evils of the race of which thou art." And after that conversa-
tion with Polynices, Adrastus said : " Let the fires be extin-
guished, for it is the end of the night and the beginning of the
day, and let praises be offered by us in honour of Apollo,"
said he.
That is the time, hour and period that Jove, Saturn's happy
rich son, held meeting and counsel with the vast concourses of
gods as to what vengeance he should inflict on the Thebans
and on the Greeks for the evils they had done. And indeed ill
did Juno brook that counsel to take vengeance on the Greeks,
and she was hindering it. This is the counsel that Jove then
took, to send his dear and much-loved son, Mercury, the
messenger of the infernal gods, to hell to raise and to awake
Laius, father of Oedipus, to make and enflame strife and anger,
mutual jealousy and contention between his grandsons, Eteocles
and Polynices. And when that counsel was fixed upon by Jove,
son of Saturn, and by all the gods, Mercury, son of Maia,
daughter of Atlas, arose and put round him his bare volatile
full-beautiful bird-gear in order to hover and to fly above the
earth. And he put his ornamented much-variegated helm upon
his head, and took in his hand his beautiful-headed wand of
power, caduceus was the name of that wand. And such was
that wand that one end of it would wake the world's dead, the
other would kill the world's men. And Mercury went forward
after that unto assemblies of hell's depths, a place wherein
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