the truth of their legends. So it was at Pitanè; the name of the place was given also to a local nymph, bride of Poseidon and mother of Evadne. It was in this latter sense of the name, as referring to a person and not to a place, that Pindar wishes to "come to Pitanè." Availing himself of the ambiguity of the name, Pindar sustains as long as possible the illusion of a journey to the place Pitanè, and then all at once the veil is withdrawn, and the object of the allegorical journey is explained. For Pitanè was the mother of Evadne, and Evadne was the mother of Iamus! that Iamus whose story Pindar had all along designed as the centre of his poem—the prophet-hero from whom Agesias claimed descent.
For reasons of her own, Pitanè had intrusted Æpytus, an Arcadian prince, with the charge of the maiden Evadne. In his care she grew up, fair and gentle, with tresses dark as the iris. Apollo saw, and loved her; but her secret was hid from Æpytus till she became a mother. In vain did the guardian inquire her lover's name. But the strange irony of fate sent him at last to ask counsel in this matter from the lover himself!
"Forth with rage and grief at heart, to Pytho speeding fast,
Counsel he sought of the god that might such woes remove."
Ere long he returned delighted and amazed. "The god had owned his child. The child was to be a prophet, unrivalled among men, and the parent of an imperishable race. But where was the child?"
