Herodotus, Histories 1.91.5 · 1.91.5
The mule
Read the full text in our reader
τῷ καὶ τὸ τελευταῖον χρηστηριαζομένῳ εἶπε Λοξίης περὶ ἡμιόνου, οὐδὲ τοῦτο συνέλαβε. ἦν γὰρ δὴ ὁ Κῦρος οὗτος ἡμίονος· ἐκ γὰρ δυῶν οὐκ ὁμοεθνέων ἐγεγόνεε, μητρὸς ἀμείνονος, πατρὸς δὲ ὑποδεεστέρου·
As for what Loxias told him the last time he consulted the oracle, about the mule, he did not understand that either. For this Cyrus was the mule: he had been born from two parents not of the same people, of a better mother and a lesser father.
Word by word
The setting
A second oracle, given earlier, that Croesus also failed to understand.
A note on this passage
The second riddle gets the same treatment. To teleutaion chrēstēriazomenōi eipe Loxiēs peri hēmionou, "the last time he consulted the oracle, Loxias spoke to him about a mule," and again, oude touto synelabe, "he did not grasp this either." A mule, to a Greek ear, is a sterile hybrid, neither horse nor donkey, and Croesus heard it as nonsense rather than as a person.
Herodotus supplies the key himself: ēn gar dē ho Kyros houtos hēmionos, "this Cyrus was the mule." Cyrus came ek dyōn ouk homoethneōn, "from two not of the same people," a mother who outranked his father, mētros ameinonos, patros de hypodeesterou. The mule was never an animal. It was Cyrus's own mixed birth, spoken plainly enough that only a man determined to hear good news could miss it.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Herodotus, Histories 1.91.5 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Herodotus, Histories — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Herodotus, Histories 1.91.5 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/herodotus/1.91.5/