Minerva visits Mount Helicon, the seat of the Muses, by whom she is hospitably entertained.
Thus far Minerva was content to rove With Perseus, offspring of her father Jove: Now hid in clouds Seriphus she forsook, And to the Theban towers her journey took; Cythnos and Gyaros, lying to the right, She pass’d unheeded in her eager flight; And choosing first on Helicon to rest, The virgin muses in these words address’d:
“Me the strange tidings of a new-found spring, Ye learned sisters, to this mountain bring. If all the true that Fame’s wide rumours tell, ’Twas Pegasus discover’d first your well; Whose piercing hoof gave the soft earth a blow, Which broke the surface where these waters flow. I saw that horse by miracle obtain Life, from the blood of dire Medusa slain; And now this equal prodigy to view, From distant isles to famed Boeotia few.”