It is needless to say that remedies of all sorts had been tried upon the eyes of the hapless monarch. Many physicians had exerted their utmost skill in endeavouring to ameliorate his condition. He had visited in turn not only the most celebrated baths and watering-places, but also the various oracles then existing in Europe.
Disheartened and hopeless, he had at last well-nigh succumbed to his fate, when a strange incident once more roused the seemingly subdued, yet ever dormant passion of hope in his breast.
Antiphon (the foster-brother of the blind King), while wandering on the hills surrounding Deva, in his vocation of shepherd, noticed sulphureous fumes issuing from a cleft he had never before observed in the mountain's side. Taking with him a torch, he cautiously entered the yawning aperture, and groped his way along, until he suddenly found himself in a lofty subterranean cave. In the centre of this cave lay a marble block, fashioned like a huge coffin. Antiphon hastened home to tell his neighbours of his discovery and to gain assistance. Returning to the cave, he and his fellows succeeded in pushing off the ponderous lid, which fell crashing to the ground, and broke into a thousand pieces.
Within the sarcophagus was now exposed to view a shrivelled though perfect mummy; and an old man of the party recollected having heard an ancient prophecy which foretold that answers regarding future events should one day issue from "withered lips, dumb with the silence of ages, and awful in their semblance to humanity."
Antiphon at once carried the news of this prophecy to King Antiphates, who, ready to do anything to vary the horrors of his solitary existence, though secretly doubting the efficacy of such attempts, disguised himself as a shepherd, and, unknown to his courtiers, accompanied his foster-brother to the cave.
Here, after observing the accustomed ceremonies of purification and prayer, Antiphates approached the sarcophagus, and kneeling beside it, craved some knowledge of his future fate, humbly demanding at the same time whether any sacrifice on his part would procure for him the priceless gift of sight.
Having made these inquiries, the reluctant monarch, had now to lay low his kingly head upon the breast of the long dead, and thus in a stifling and constrained attitude await the much-desired response. Each moment seemed an age to the afflicted prince. All alone with these terrible emblems of mortality (for Antiphon remained without to guard the entrance of the cave) he listened for he knew not what.
At last there arose upon the still dank air, as if from echoing vaults beneath, an unearthly monotonous voice, chanting slowly the following words:
A mighty King is blind,
And severed from his kind;