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O mute Pythia! dash then thy head against the rocks of thy cavern, and mingle thy raging blood with the foam of the sea; for thou deemest thyself to have possessed the almighty Word, and these ten thousand years thou art seeking him in vain." Or Sylvia's cry over Jacques by his glacier in the Tyrol
"Would you like to hear what was prophesied of me?" "What a question!" "Listen then; the saying I will repeat to you came to me from no less an oracle than the Delphic Pythia: "'That which thou boldest most precious and dear Shall be torn from thy keeping, And from the heights of Olympus, Down shalt thou fall in the dust." "Is that all?" "Nay two consolatory lines follow." "And they are ?"
Be assured, therefore, that this eternal glory, which He promised to those who trust in Him, will be fulfilled likewise when He comes to judge all nations. For instance, Cassandra, the Pythia in Delphi, Triton and Peristhaea in Dodona, the Sybils, the Velleda of Tacitus, the Mandragoras, and Druidesses, the witches of the Reformation age; and in fine, the modern somnambules are all women too.
The best-known and the most impressive of the utterers of oracles is the priestess of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythia. It was required of her that she be morally and ceremonially pure, and she had to undergo a special preparation for the delivery of her message.
In the middle of the floor there is a wide crack, or crevice; and this crevice goes down, down into the rock, nobody knows how deep. A strange odor comes up out of the crevice; and if any one breathes much of it, he is apt to fall over and lose his senses." "But who is the Pythia that you spoke about?" asked Cadmus. "I will tell you," said the old man.
The spirit which inspired the Pythia of Viterbo took its measures to inform the world that if the Jesuits were forced to submit to being suppressed, they were not so weak as to forego a fearful vengeance. The Jesuit who cut short Ganganelli's days might certainly have poisoned him before the bull was signed, but the fact was that they could not bring themselves to believe it till it took place.
I conjecture this from a dream which I had this very night, not long ago, and you seem very opportunely to have refrained from waking me. Cri. But what was this dream? Socr. A beautiful and majestic woman, clad in white garments seemed to approach me, and to call to me and say, "Socrates, three days hence you will reach fertile Pythia" . Cri. What a strange dream, Socrates! Socr.
"Were not the last words of the Pythia?" 'Then shall the lingering boat to the beckoning meadows convey thee, Which to the wandering foot peace and a home will afford? "Can you misunderstand their meaning? They speak of Charon's lingering boat, which will convey you to your last home, to the one great resting-place for all wanderers the kingdom of Hades." "Yes, my friend, you are right there.
Direct pronouncements of a free-thinking kind one would not expect from an orator and statesman, and yet Demosthenes was once bold enough to say that Pythia, the mouthpiece of the Delphic Oracle, was a partisan of Macedonia, an utterance which his opponent Aeschines, who liked to parade his orthodoxy, did not omit to cast in his teeth.
On the other hand he allowed every one to retain his family and clan and religious rites according to ancestral custom. The names given to the tribes were the ten which the Pythia appointed out of the hundred selected national heroes. Part 22 By these reforms the constitution became much more democratic than that of Solon.
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