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Oracles prophesied is not by any reported, but at Delphi, so soon as
the Lydians entered the sanctuary of the temple[40] to consult the god
and asked that which they were commanded to ask, the Pythian
prophetess spoke thus in hexameter measure:

"But the number of sand I know,[41] and the measure of drops in the ocean;
The dumb man I understand, and I hear the speech of the speechless:
And there hath come to my soul the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise
Boiling in caldron of bronze, and the flesh of a lamb mingled with it;
Under it bronze is laid, it hath bronze as a clothing upon it."

48. When the Pythian prophetess had uttered this oracle, the Lydians
caused the prophecy to be written down, and went away at once to
Sardis. And when the rest also who had been sent round were there
arrived with the answers of the Oracles, then Crœsus unfolded the


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