Book XV, 25: The Altar

The black cloud of victims does not, like purple, dye me with its reddening stream, and the knives sharpened on the Naxian stone spare the flocks of Pan; the sweet-scented juice of the Arabian trees does not blacken me with its curling smoke. Thou seest in me an altar not composed of golden bricks or the clods of Alybe, nor let that altar be like to me which the two gods born in Cynthus built, taking the horns of the goats that feed about the smooth ridges of Cynthus. For together with the children of Heaven did the earth-born Nine rear me, the Muses to whose art the King of the gods granted immortality. And mayest thou, who drinkest of the spring that the Gorgon’s son opened with a blow of his hoof, sacrifice and pour on me libations in abundance sweeter than the honey of Hymettus’ bees. Come to meet me with a confident heart, for I am pure of the venomous monsters which lay hid on that altar in Neae of Thrace that the thief of the purple ram dedicated to thee, Trito-born, hard by Myrina.