“While others idly rove, and gods revere, Their fancied gods! they know not who or where; Let us, whom Pallas taught her better arts, Still working, cheer with mirthful chat our hearts; And, to deceive the time, let me prevail With each by turns to tell some antique tale.” She said: her sisters liked the humour well, And, smiling, bade her the first story tell. But she a while profoundly seem’d to muse, Perplex’d amid variety to choose; And knew not whether she should first relate The poor Dircetis, and her wondrous fate (The Palestines believe it to a man, And show the lake in which her scales began): Or if she rather should the daughter sing, Who in the hoary verge of life took wing; Who soar’d from earth, and dwelt in towers on high, And now a dove she flits along the sky: Or how the tree, which once white berries bore, Still crimson bears, since stain’d with crimson gore. The tree was new; she likes it, and begins To tell the tale, and as she tells she spins.