So said                        the ready-voiced   daughters
of great Zeus, and they plucked and
gave me a rod,                     a shoot of sturdy laurel,
a marvelous thing,             and breathed into
me a divine                 voice to         celebrate things
that                 shall be            and things there             were
aforetime; and they            bade me sing of the
race of the blessed         gods that are eternally,
but ever to sing of themselves both first
and last.    But why all            this about oak or stone?