Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.7.2 · 1.7.2

To "soften" the oracle, παραμυθήσασθαι, is to give it what it asks for in a milder form. The god seems to want the two together, so there will be a wedding; the verses speak of a flight over the sea, so the parents will send them abroad themselves. In Herodotus, Croesus tried a remedy of the same kind: warned in a dream that his son would die by an iron spear, he found the young man a wife and kept him from war, and the son was killed in a boar hunt all the same (Herodotus 1.34.3, 1.43.2). The plan is repeated when the time comes to send the couple off (1.10.3), and on that voyage the pirates take them (1.13).

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