Note 116 — Chapter VI · SUPERSTITIONS
Arthur Edward Waite translation
I have suffered these lines to stand as they are given by Éliphas Lévi, following the French translation of Salomon Certon. Shelley, who rendered Homer’s Hymn to Mercury into verse which is unworthy of his name, represented the Greek original by asterisks at this point, and I have taken a lesson from the counsel. Lévi gives some further lines—I scarcely know why, but they stand as follows in Shelley’s version:
“Phœbus on the grass Him threw, and whilst all that he had designed He did perform—eager although to pass, Apollo darted from his mighty mind Towards the subtle babe the following scoff:— ‘Do not imagine this will get you off, “‘You little swaddled child of Jove and May!’ And seized him: ‘By this omen I shall trace My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.’”