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He would have preferred to go on board the staunch Tacheia and be borne far away with his uncle and Daphne, but he was obliged to deny himself the fulfilment of this desire. He must now think solely of regaining his sight. Obedient to the oracle, he would go to the desert where from the "starving sand" the radiant daylight was to rise anew for him.
"You know, even so great a man as Caesar consulted the oracle and the omens and the soothsayers. Why should not I practice a little divination? Now answer me, young man or I'll say, young men of the State?" "Yet I can't think you really mean that, General," protested Harlan, wholly confused by this persistent banter. "Call it in fun, call it in earnest, still I demand my answer."
After these preliminaries, he descended into the cave by a narrow passage. This place could be entered only in the night. The person returned from the cave by the same narrow passage, bat walking backwards. He appeared melancholy and defected; and hence the proverb which was applied to a person low- spirited and gloomy, "He has been consulting the oracle of Trophonius."
And here Apollo founded his oracle at Delphi, the only oracle "that was not exclusively national, for it was consulted by many outside nations, and, in fact, was held in the highest repute all over the world. In obedience to its decrees, the laws of Lycurgus were introduced, and the earliest Greek colonies founded. To this Byron alludes in his Childe Harold, iv. 161:
Thus she became their goddess and his; at any rate for a time. But while they desired to worship her only, and use her rumoured wisdom as an oracle, he sought to make her his wife; the more impossible it became, the more he sought it. She refused him with contumely, and he laid plots to decoy her to Zululand, thinking that there she would be in his power.
The earth is the great parent of all; the stones are her bones; these we may cast behind us; and I think this is what the oracle means. At least, it will do no harm to try." They veiled their faces, unbound their garments, and picked up stones, and cast them behind them. By degrees, they put on a rude resemblance to the human form, like a block half finished in the hands of the sculptor.
According to Ovid, Deucalion now consulted the ancient oracle of Themis respecting the restoration of mankind, and received the following response: "Depart from the temple, veil your heads, loosen your girded vestments, and cast behind you the great bones of your parent."
"In fine," continues his biographer, "I should be too prolix were I to tell all the honours conferred upon him, and all the great nobles and learned men that arrived at his house, from the very ends of the earth, to see and converse with him as if he had been an oracle. Many strangers, in fact, came to France for no other purpose than to consult him."
In his eagerness Myndert read the oracle aloud, and then he sunk into his seat, affecting to laugh at the whole as a childish and vain conceit. "Proclamation, me, no proclamations! Is it a time of hostilities, or of public danger, that one should go shouting with his tidings through the streets? Measure for Measure, truly!
It was observed one evening that Lyman passed the post-office with two sheep-covered books under his arm, and when he had gone beyond hearing, old Buckley Lightfoot, the oracle, turned to Jimmie Bledsoe, who was weighing out shingle nails, and said: "Jimmie, hold on there a moment with your clatter." "Can't just now, Uncle Buckley. Lige, here, is in a hurry for his nails."
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