shall ye possess my temple, rich And greatly honoured by the tribes of men. For I am son to Zeus. Apollo is My sacred name. 'Twas I that led you hither Over the mighty bosom of the deep, Intending you no ill; for ye shall here Possess a temple sacred to me, rich, And greatly honoured of all mortal men. The counsels of the deathless gods shall be Revealed to you, and by their will your days Shall pass in honour and in peace for ever. Come then and, as I bid, make haste to do. ... Build by the sea an altar; kindle flame; Sprinkle white barley grains thereon, and pray, Standing about the altar. And as first Ye saw me leap into your swift black bark In likeness of a dolphin, so henceforth Worship me by the name Delphinius, And Delphian ever be my far-seen shrine.'" 

"A stout and lusty fellow,

Thus the establishment of the Dorian god in Phocis is explained, and the wealth and dignity of his temple are justified by prophecy and by divine intention. For Apollo is not satisfied with repeatedly describing the future temple, by an incidental epithet, as opulent; that hint would not have been enough for the simplicity of those merchant sailors, new as they were to the mysteries of priestcraft. It was necessary for Apollo to allay their fears of poverty by a more explicit assurance that it will be easy for them to live by the altar. And what is more, Hermes and all the thieves he inspires will respect the shrine; its treasures, although unprotected by walls, shall be safe for-ever.

These were truly, as we see, the hymns of a levitical patriotism. With Homeric breadth and candour they dilated on the miracles, privileges, and immunities of the sacred places and their servitors, and they thus kept alive in successive generations an awe mingled with familiar interest toward divine persons and things which is characteristic of that more primitive age. Gods and men were then nearer together, and both yielded more frankly to the tendency, inherent in their nature, to resemble one another.

The same quality is found in another fragment, the most beautiful and the most familiar of all. This is the hymn to Demeter in which two stories are woven together, one telling of the rape of Persephone, and the other of the reception of Demeter, disguised in her sorrow, into the household of Celeus, where she becomes the nurse of his infant son Demophoon. Both stories belong to the religion of Eleusis, where this version of them seems intended to be sung. The place was sacred to Demeter and Persephone and its mysteries dealt particularly with the passage of souls to the nether world 

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