Today at Delphi, our Fulbright guide pointed out that Herodotus, one of the first people to record historical events systematically, chronicalled his travels through the Mediterranean world. This included his visit to Delphi where kings and commoners went to offer gifts to Apollo (the deity of prophecy) in hope of insight into the future (See Treasury of Athens at Delphi).
To King Croesus, the Pythia (i.e. prophetess) of Apollo at Delphi spoke the following lines in hexameter verse:*
I know the number of grains of sand and the extent of the sea;
I understand teh deaf-mute and hear the words of the dumb.
My senses detect the smell of tough-shelled tortoise
Cooked in bronze together with the flesh of lambs;
Beneath it lies bronze; and bronze covers it.
Prophecies were typically worded like this; resulting in multiple interpretations.
* a line of poetry consisting of six measures, the fifth being a dactyl and the sixth either a spondee or a trochee. The other four may be either dactyls or spondees. Homer’s two epic poems and Virgil’s Æneid are written in hexameters. The latter begins thus:
[Arms and the man] [sing, who] [driven from] [Troy by ill-] fortune
[First into] [ Italy] [came, as] [far as the] [shores of La-] vina.
Much was he harassed by land, much tossed on the pitiless ocean,
All by the force of the gods, and relentless anger of Juno.
Sources: http://www.afs.edu.gr/page/default.asp?la=2
To King Croesus, the Pythia (i.e. prophetess) of Apollo at Delphi spoke the following lines in hexameter verse:*
I know the number of grains of sand and the extent of the sea;
I understand teh deaf-mute and hear the words of the dumb.
My senses detect the smell of tough-shelled tortoise
Cooked in bronze together with the flesh of lambs;
Beneath it lies bronze; and bronze covers it.
Prophecies were typically worded like this; resulting in multiple interpretations.
* a line of poetry consisting of six measures, the fifth being a dactyl and the sixth either a spondee or a trochee. The other four may be either dactyls or spondees. Homer’s two epic poems and Virgil’s Æneid are written in hexameters. The latter begins thus:
[Arms and the man] [sing, who] [driven from] [Troy by ill-] fortune
[First into] [ Italy] [came, as] [far as the] [shores of La-] vina.
Much was he harassed by land, much tossed on the pitiless ocean,
All by the force of the gods, and relentless anger of Juno.
Sources: http://www.afs.edu.gr/page/default.asp?la=2
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