Apollo

Apollo struck his lyre, and the Muses lifted up their sweet voices, taking turns.

Let us ask some priest or seer [ mantis], or some reader of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Zeus) who can tell us why Phoebus Apollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some vow that we have broken, or hecatomb that we have not offered, and whether he will accept the savor of lambs and goats without blemish, so as to take away the plague from us.

"Chryses," said he, "King Agamemnon has sent me to bring you back your child, and to offer sacrifice to Apollo on behalf of the Danaans, that we may propitiate the god, who has now brought sorrow upon the Argives.

But the one that will be nearest and most to the point must be sought out, and, having called upon Persuasion and the Muses and Apollo, set forth as earnestly as we can.

and the temples should be propitiated with such adornments, just as Hector thought fit, when challenging the best of the Achaeans, saying that if he prevailed he would give the body back to the man's allies, but the arms, he said, 'I will strip off, and hang them in the temple of Apollo the far-darter.

accounting all his subjects slaves and ministers of his own luxury, not having even the character of a decent herdsman, who provides shelter and pasture for his flocks and besides wards off beasts and guards against thieves—but being himself the first to plunder and destroy, and permitting others to do so, as though, I think, with the spoil of enemies—then I would never call such a man either rule …

When we got to Sounion, which is the point of Athens, Apollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of Menelaos' ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in rough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his hand, and Menelaos, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites.

I can only compare you to a young palm tree which I saw when I was at Delos growing near the altar of Apollo - for I was there, too, with many people after me, when I was on that journey which has been the source of all my troubles.

Apollo killed the first of them while he was still a bridegroom and without male issue;

“Master,” said Croesus, “you will most gratify me if you will let me send these chains of mine to that god of the Greeks whom I especially honored and to ask him if it is his way to deceive those who serve him well.

Then the Lydians say that Croesus understood Cyrus ' change of heart, and when he saw everyone trying to extinguish the fire but unable to check it, he invoked Apollo, crying out that if Apollo had ever been given any pleasing gift by him, let him offer help and deliver him from the present evil.

When he asked that last question of the oracle and Loxias gave him that answer concerning the mule, even that Croesus did not understand.

Then, though there are many other things that we praise in Homer, this we will not applaud, the sending of the dream by Zeus to Agamemnon, nor shall we approve of Aeschylus when his Thetis avers that Apollo singing at her wedding, foretold the happy fortunes of her issue — Their days prolonged, from pain and sickness free, And rounding out the tale of heaven’s blessings, Raised the proud paean, making glad my heart.

or again to believe that he said to Apollo Me thou hast baulked, Far-darter, the most pernicious of all gods, Mightily would I requite thee if only my hands had the power.

We are not innovating, my friend, in preferring Apollo and the instruments of Apollo to Marsyas and his instruments.

There is a report which I may also mention, that when Alemaeon, son of Amphiaraus, was wandering about after the murder of his mother, Apollo directed him by an oracle to inhabit this region, by suggesting to him that he would have no release from his terrors till he should discover and inhabit a country which had not yet been seen by the sun, nor existed as land, at the time he slew his mother;

The Leucadians, on the wasting of their territory, both without and within the isthmus, on which stands Leucas and the temple of Apollo, being overpowered by such numbers, remained quiet;

(This Rhenea is so short a distance from Delos, that Polycrates the tyrant of Samos, after being powerful at sea for a considerable time, and ruling over the rest of the islands, and taking Rhenea, dedicated it to the Delian Apollo, by connecting it with Delos by a chain.

"O Delphians, servants of the far-shooting Apollo, I have come to deliver the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus, being wroth with my own brother Apollo.

"And in time Apollo was born" — and no wonder, since he is found serving Admetus, together with Heracles, for a great year.

21.135. And Theopompus and Ephorus and Timaeus record a certain Orthagoras as a seer, as does Pythocles of Samos, in the fourth book of his Italica, Gaius Julius Nepos. But these are all thieves and robbers, as the Scripture says, having foretold most things from observation and from probabilities, like the physicians and seers who judge by physiognomy; while others were moved by demons, or distur …

It was here, according to the story, that Apollo flayed Marsyas, after having defeated him in a contest of musical skill;

Xenophon, accordingly, after offering the sacrifices to the gods that Apollo’s oracle prescribed, set sail, overtook Proxenus and Cyrus at Sardis as they were on the point of beginning the upward march, and was introduced to Cyrus.

So Xenophon went and asked Apollo to what one of the gods he should sacrifice and pray in order best and most successfully to perform the journey which he had in mind and, after meeting with good fortune, to return home in safety;

But Diopeithes, a man very well versed in oracles, said in support of Leotychides that there was also an oracle of Apollo which bade the Lacedaemonians beware of the lame kingship.

After this Agis, having gone to Delphi and offered to the god the appointed tithe of his booty, on his way back fell sick at Heraea, being now an old man, and although he was still living when brought home to Lacedaemon, once there he very soon died;

In this way, accordingly, the truce was made, and Agesilaus went to Delphi and offered to the god a tithe of the amount derived from his booty, an offering of not less than one hundred talents;

For in that way it will be allowed to say that Jupiter is always bearded, Apollo always beardless, that Minerva's eyes are grey, Neptune's blue.

for from childhood we have known Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo, and the rest of the gods by that face which painters and sculptors chose, and not only by face but by adornment, age, and dress.

Now the name of Apollo is Greek;

And so he relates that, just as swans — who are dedicated to Apollo not without cause, but because they seem to have from him a power of divination, by which, foreseeing what good there is in death, they die with song and pleasure — so all good and learned men ought to do.

and doubtless this is the force of Apollo's precept, by which he counsels each man to know himself.

who, when they had built a temple for Apollo at Delphi, worshipping the god, asked a reward — and no small one — for their work and labour:

But Zeus, appearing later — if he was a god, perhaps having got a share of the savour of the roasting flesh, the privilege which your gods admit they are allotted — blasted the Titans with the thunderbolt and entrusted the limbs of Dionysus to his son Apollo for burial.

the Clarian, the Pythian, the Didymaean, the oracle of Amphiaraus, of Apollo, of Amphilochus;

And how many Apollos are there even now — countless mortal and perishable men, called by the same name as those mentioned before?

’Tis I, Pallas, after whom your land is named, that am here, by Apollo sent in headlong haste;

Forth rushed the young man, whom the oracle of Loxias to his sire assigned, taking with him the banqueters, and standing mid the Delphic nobles made harangue,

Loxias out of kindness is establishing thee in a noble family, for hadst thou been called the god’s son, thou hadst never inherited a father’s home and name.

Injustice it was, after all, from an unjust mouth, when Loxias on the tripod of Themis decreed my mother’s most unnatural murder.

Give me my horn-tipped bow, Apollo’s gift, with which he told me to ward off the goddesses, if ever they sought to scare me with wild transports of madness.

Though he persuaded Orestes to slay his own mother, a deed that few approved.

Your pure notes rise through the thick leaves of the yew-tree right up to the throne of Zeus, where Phoebus listens to you, Phoebus with his golden hair.

and then let Apollo cure them, since he is a physician and is paid for the purpose.

Apollo the Deliverer!

Hear me again, King Phoebus, Delian Apollo, who inhabitest the high-peaked Cynthian rock!

By Apollo, of a truth you have rightly confirmed this by your present argument.

Yes, by Apollo!

In the priesthood of Cleinagoras, at the spring session, it was resolved by the Wardens, Assessors, and General Synod that whereas the Amphissians who have occupied the sacred territory are tilling and grazing the same, and, when forbidden to do so, have appeared in arms and resisted the common assembly of the Greeks by force, and have actually wounded some of them, the general appointed by some o …

Since the Ozolian Locrians, settled at Amphissa, are outraging the temple of Apollo at Delphi and come in arms to plunder the sacred territory, I consent to join you in helping the god and in punishing those who transgress in any way the principles of religion.

I invoke also Pythian Apollo, the ancestral divinity of this city, and I solemnly beseech them all that, if I shall speak the truth now, and if I spoke truth to my countrymen when first I saw this miscreant putting his hand to that transaction—for I knew it, I knew it instantly—they may grant to me prosperity and salvation.

O king Paean, devise for Admetus some means of escape from his sorrows.

In thee it was that Pythian Apollo, the sweet harper, deigned to make his home, and in thy halls was content to lead a shepherd’s life, piping o’er the sloping downs shepherd’s madrigals to thy flocks.

For in Pheres’ son I found a man as holy as myself, and him I saved from death by cheating Destiny, for they promised me, those goddesses of fate, that Admetus should escape the impending doom, if he found a substitute for the powers below.

For his sire stands not by my side to lend his aid and cannot avail his child at all, being absent in the land of Delphi, where he is offering recompense to Loxias for the madness he committed, when on a day he went to Pytho and demanded of Phoebus satisfaction for his father’s death, if haply his prayer might avert those past sins and win for him the god’s goodwill hereafter.

and that thou, rash mortal, hadst never charged the great god Phoebus with aiming that murderous shaft that spilt thy hero-fathers blood!

This is how that prince who vouchsafeth oracles to others, that judge of what is right for all the world, hath revenged himself on Achilles’ son, remembering his ancient quarrel as a wicked man would.

Flight is not to be endured, nor are we accustomed to it, and we must not bring reproach on the god’s oracle;

O Phoebus, where have you again brought me into the snare, by your oracles, since I avenged my father’s blood by the murder of my mother, and was driven by successive Furies, a fugitive, away from the land, and completed many winding courses;

And you told me to go to the boundaries of the Tauric land, where Artemis, your sister, has an altar, and to take the statue of the goddess, which is said here to have fallen to this temple from heaven;

O conquering Strength, O Sire Apollo!

Thymbraean, Delian, Birth divine,

Phoebus.

O Demeter, guardian of this Eleusinian land, and ye servants of the goddess who attend her fane, grant happiness to me and my son Theseus, to the city of Athens and the country of Pittheus, wherein my father reared me, Aethra, in a happy home, and gave me in marriage to Aegeus, Pandion’s son, according to the oracle of Loxias.

What said Apollo to determine the maidens’ marriage?

Dark riddles of Phoebus stole away my judgment.

For it is through the Muses and far-shooting Apollo that there are singers and harpers upon the earth;

Also she brought forth a holy company of daughters who with the lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping—to this charge Zeus appointed them—Peitho, and Admete, and Ianthe, and Electra, and Doris, and Prymno, and Urania divine in form, Hippo, Clymene, Rhodea, and Callirrhoe, Zeuxo and Clytie, and Idyia, and Pasithoe, Plexaura, and Galaxaura, and lovely Dione, Melobosis and Thoe and handsome Polydora,

Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising Zeus the aegis-holder, and queenly Hera of Argos who walks on golden sandals, and the daughter of Zeus the aegis-holder bright-eyed Athena, and Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis who delights in arrows, and Poseidon the earth holder who shakes the earth, and revered Themis, and quick-glancing …

The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns,

Once modulated on the many chords,

Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.