(ll. 30-38) `An omen of great luck for me so soon!  I do not slight it.  Hail, comrade of the feast, lovely in shape, sounding at the dance!  With joy I meet you!  Where got you that rich gaud for covering, that spangled shell —­ a tortoise living in the mountains?  But I will take and carry you within:  you shall help me and I will do you no disgrace, though first of all you must profit me.  It is better to be at home:  harm may come out of doors.  Living, you shall be a spell against mischievous witchcraft (13); but if you die, then you shall make sweetest song.

(ll. 39-61) Thus speaking, he took up the tortoise in both hands and went back into the house carrying his charming toy.  Then he cut off its limbs and scooped out the marrow of the mountain-tortoise with a scoop of grey iron.  As a swift thought darts through the heart of a man when thronging cares haunt him, or as bright glances flash from the eye, so glorious Hermes planned both thought and deed at once.  He cut stalks of reed to measure and fixed them, fastening their ends across the back and through the shell of the tortoise, and then stretched ox hide all over it by his skill.  Also he put in the horns and fitted a cross-piece upon the two of them, and stretched seven strings of sheep-gut.  But when he had made it he proved each string in turn with the key, as he held the lovely thing.  At the touch of his hand it sounded marvellously; and, as he tried it, the god sang sweet random snatches, even as youths bandy taunts at festivals.  He sang of Zeus the son of Cronos and neat-shod Maia, the converse which they had before in the comradeship of love, telling all the glorious tale of his own begetting.  He celebrated, too, the handmaids of the nymph, and her bright home, and the tripods all about the house, and the abundant cauldrons.

(ll. 62-67) But while he was singing of all these, his heart was bent on other matters.  And he took the hollow lyre and laid it in his sacred cradle, and sprang from the sweet-smelling hall to a watch-place, pondering sheer trickery in his heart —­ deeds such as knavish folk pursue in the dark night-time; for he longed to taste flesh.

(ll. 68-86) The Sun was going down beneath the earth towards Ocean with his horses and chariot when Hermes came hurrying to the shadowy mountains of Pieria, where the divine cattle of the blessed gods had their steads and grazed the pleasant, unmown meadows.  Of these the Son of Maia, the sharp-eyed slayer of Argus then cut off from the herd fifty loud-lowing kine, and drove them straggling-wise across a sandy place, turning their hoof-prints aside.  Also, he bethought him of a crafty ruse and reversed the marks of their hoofs, making the front behind and the hind before, while he himself walked the other way (14).  Then he wove sandals with wicker-work by the sand of the sea, wonderful things, unthought of, unimagined; for he mixed together tamarisk and myrtle-twigs, fastening together an armful of their fresh, young wood, and tied them, leaves and all securely under his feet as light sandals.  The brushwood the glorious Slayer of Argus plucked in Pieria as he was preparing for his journey, making shift (15) as one making haste for a long journey.