The Argonautica

Such, the tale says, the sons of Aloeus once blurted

against the blessed gods; yet you cannot nearly match

their manhood; nevertheless swift arrows struck down

both by Leto's son, though mighty in all their strength.

Thus he spoke; Aphareus' son Idas laughed without measure,

and eyeing him askance, replied with taunts that cut deep:

Come now, tell me this by means of your own prophecies:

whether for me too the gods shall fulfill such destruction,

such as your father once bestowed on the sons of Aloeus.

And see how safely you will escape alive from my hands,

if I catch you proclaiming a fate as vain as the idle wind.

He raged in his taunts; and the quarrel would have flared still further,

had not their comrades shouted both loud wranglers silent,

while Aeson's son himself restrained them; then Orpheus lifted

the lyre in his left hand, then made his trial of song.

He sang how earth and heaven and sea, in time's beginning,

once fitted one upon another, were joined in a single form,

then each was severed asunder, each by ruinous strife;

and how forever heavenly bodies hold appointed stations,

the stars and moon, with every course of the journeying sun;

how mountains rose, and how the loud-resounding rivers came forth

with their own nymphs, and every creature that crawls, were born.

He sang how first Ophion and Eurynome, Ocean's child,

held sovereign power together on snow-covered Olympus;