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Of these things the first are said by the priestesses of Dodona, and the latter things, those namely which have regard to Hesiod and Homer, by myself. As regards the Oracles both that among the Hellenes and that in Libya, the Egyptians tell the following tale.
As Ali reflected how the storm he had raised could best be laid, he was informed that the ruler of the marriage feast sent by Moustai, Pacha of Scodra, to receive the young bride who should reign in his harem, had just arrived in the plain of Janina. He was Yussuf Bey of the Delres, an old enemy of Ali's, and had encamped with his escort of eight hundred warriors at the foot of Tomoros of Dodona.
Others of your ancestors, old tree, formed the sacred grove of Dodona, where the oracles spake to minds as yet in darkness. They were accounted fit to compare in might and majesty with Jove himself, and some of them stood like sturdy sentinels around his Roman temple.
"Meantime I will keep them very safely for you." The first thing that Jason thought of doing after he left the king's presence was to go to Dodona and inquire of the Talking Oak what course it was best to pursue. This wonderful tree stood in the center of an ancient wood. Its stately trunk rose up a hundred feet into the air and threw a broad and dense shadow over more than an acre of ground.
Afterwards when much time had elapsed, they learnt from Egypt the names of the gods, all except Dionysos, for his name they learnt long afterwards; and after a time the Pelasgians consulted the Oracle at Dodona about the names, for this prophetic seat is accounted to be the most ancient of the Oracles which are among the Hellenes, and at that time it was the only one.
The rape of Proserpine, the wanderings of Ceres, the Eleusinian mysteries, and the orgies of Bacchus were all imported from Egypt or Phoenicia, while the wars between the gods and the giants were celebrated in the romantic annals of Persia. The oracle of Dodona was copied from that of Ammon in Thebes, and the oracle of Apollo at Delphos has a similar source."
But the Northern elements in the conception of Zeus have on the whole triumphed over any Pelasgian or Aegean sky-god with which they may have mingled, and Zeus, in spite of his dark hair, may be mainly treated as the patriarchal god of the invading Northmen, passing from the Upper Danube down by his three great sanctuaries, Dodona, Olympus, and Olympia.
Of couldst thou speak, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees Oracular, I would not curious ask The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past."
One flew toward the north and the other toward the west. The former crossed the Mediterranean, and then continued its flight over the Peloponnesus, and over all the southern provinces of Greece, until it reached Dodona. There it alighted on a beech-tree, and said, in a human voice, that that spot was divinely appointed for the seat of a sacred oracle.
The latter seems to have been the first to circulate among the Romans various geographical tales current among the Greeks, such as the Delian legend of Latona, the fables of Europa and of the marvellous bird Phoenix; as it was likewise reserved for him on his travels to discover at Dodona and to copy that remarkable tripod, on which might be read the oracle imparted to the Pelasgians before their migration into the land of the Siceli and Aborigines a discovery which the Roman annals did not neglect devoutly to register.
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