descendant of Euphemus, at last led his colonists to Cyrenè.
The first of these three legends—the loves of Apollo and the nymph Cyrenè—is charmingly told in the Ninth Pythian Ode. This poem is addressed to Telesicrates of Cyrenè, winner in the race of footmen in full armour.
Cyrenè, says the poet, was the daughter of Hypseus, a divinely-descended king of the Thcssalian Lapithæ. He describes her as a heroine of Amazonian tastes and habits, such as Virgil afterwards portrayed in his famous description of Camilla,[1]—a mighty huntress, scorning the dull home-life of an ordinary Grecian maiden:—
"Small joy she found to guide the shuttle's tortuous round,
Or share the feasts, her home-pent mates that cheered.
But brazen javelins she threw,
And savage beasts with brandished falchion slew,
Making in restful peace to dwell
The cattle of her sire, and yielding scanty space
To Slumber's sweet embrace,
When on her weary eyes at dawn he fell."
Apollo saw her on her native mountains—
"As unarmed, unaided, she defied
And grappled fearless a lion fierce."
He consulted the wise old Centaur Chiron, and bore the nymph away to Libya's "golden halls," where she became his bride, and the mother of a heavenly progeny. And there, says Pindar, she reigns yet, and
