(ll. 87-89) But an old man tilling his flowering vineyard saw him as he was hurrying down the plain through grassy Onchestus.  So the Son of Maia began and said to him: 

(ll. 90-93) `Old man, digging about your vines with bowed shoulders, surely you shall have much wine when all these bear fruit, if you obey me and strictly remember not to have seen what you have seen, and not to have heard what you have heard, and to keep silent when nothing of your own is harmed.’

(ll. 94-114) When he had said this much, he hurried the strong cattle on together:  through many shadowy mountains and echoing gorges and flowery plains glorious Hermes drove them.  And now the divine night, his dark ally, was mostly passed, and dawn that sets folk to work was quickly coming on, while bright Selene, daughter of the lord Pallas, Megamedes’ son, had just climbed her watch-post, when the strong Son of Zeus drove the wide-browed cattle of Phoebus Apollo to the river Alpheus.  And they came unwearied to the high-roofed byres and the drinking-troughs that were before the noble meadow.  Then, after he had well-fed the loud-bellowing cattle with fodder and driven them into the byre, close-packed and chewing lotus and began to seek the art of fire.

He chose a stout laurel branch and trimmed it with the knife....  ((LACUNA)) (16) ....held firmly in his hand:  and the hot smoke rose up.  For it was Hermes who first invented fire-sticks and fire.  Next he took many dried sticks and piled them thick and plenty in a sunken trench:  and flame began to glow, spreading afar the blast of fierce-burning fire.

(ll. 115-137) And while the strength of glorious Hephaestus was beginning to kindle the fire, he dragged out two lowing, horned cows close to the fire; for great strength was with him.  He threw them both panting upon their backs on the ground, and rolled them on their sides, bending their necks over (17), and pierced their vital chord.  Then he went on from task to task:  first he cut up the rich, fatted meat, and pierced it with wooden spits, and roasted flesh and the honourable chine and the paunch full of dark blood all together.  He laid them there upon the ground, and spread out the hides on a rugged rock:  and so they are still there many ages afterwards, a long, long time after all this, and are continually (18).  Next glad-hearted Hermes dragged the rich meats he had prepared and put them on a smooth, flat stone, and divided them into twelve portions distributed by lot, making each portion wholly honourable.  Then glorious Hermes longed for the sacrificial meat, for the sweet savour wearied him, god though he was; nevertheless his proud heart was not prevailed upon to devour the flesh, although he greatly desired (19).  But he put away the fat and all the flesh in the high-roofed byre, placing them high up to be a token of his youthful theft.  And after that he gathered dry sticks and utterly destroyed with fire all the hoofs and all the heads.