[Footnote 72: _Lesbos._--Ver. 591. This was an island in the Ægean sea, lying to the south of Troy.]
[Footnote 73: _Plectrum._--Ver. 601. This was a little rod, or staff, with which the player used to strike the strings of the lyre, or cithara, on which he was playing.]
History does not afford us the least insight into the foundation of the story of Coronis transformed into a crow, for making too faithful a report, nor that of the raven changed from white to black, for talking too much. If they are based upon some events which really happened, we must be content to acknowledge that these Fables refer to the history of two persons entirely unknown to us, and who, perhaps, lived as far back as the time of the daughters of Cecrops, to whom the story seems to bear some relation. Coronis being the name of a crow as well as of a Nymph, Lucian and other writers have fabled that her son, Æsculapius, was produced from the egg of that bird, and was born in the shape of a serpent, under which form he was very generally worshipped.
Ocyrrhoe, the daughter of the Centaur Chiron, attempting to predict future events, tells her father the fate of the child Æsculapius, on which the Gods transform her into a mare.
In the meantime the half-beast { Chiron} was proud of a pupil of Divine origin, and rejoiced in the honor annexed to the responsibility. Behold! the daughter of the Centaur comes, having her shoulders covered with her yellow hair; whom once the nymph Chariclo,[74] having borne her on the banks of a rapid stream, called Ocyrrhoë. She was not contented to learn her father’s arts { only; but} she sang the secrets of the Fates. Therefore, when she had conceived in her mind the prophetic transports, and grew warm with the God, whom she held confined within her breast, she beheld the infant, and she said, “Grow on, child, the giver of health to the whole world; the bodies of mortals shall often owe their { own existence} to thee. To thee will it be allowed to restore life when taken away; and daring to do that once against the will of the Gods, thou wilt be hindered by the bolts of thy grandsire from being able any more to grant that { boon}. And from a God thou shalt become a lifeless carcase; and a God { again}, who lately wast a carcase; and twice shalt thou renew thy destiny. Thou likewise, dear father, now immortal, and produced at thy nativity, on the condition of enduring for ever, wilt then wish that thou couldst die, when thou shalt be tormented on receiving the blood of a baneful serpent[75] in thy wounded limbs; and the Gods shall make thee from an immortal { being}, subject to death, and the three Goddesses[76] shall cut thy threads.”