“Thou mayest well rejoice, then,” observed another of the guests, “to bear the name of one so holy and pure, and so eminently favoured by the happy Gods. So handsome and dignified, moreover, as I may well assert who have often beheld him discharging his sacred functions. And truly, now that I scan thee more closely, the resemblance is marvellous. Only that thy namesake bears with him a certain air of divinity, not equally conspicuous in thee.”
“Divinity!” exclaimed another. “Aye, if Phœbus himself ministered at his own shrine, he could wear no more majestic semblance than Eubulides.”
“Or predict the future more accurately,” added a priest.
“Or deliver his oracles in more exquisite verse,” subjoined a poet.
“Yet is it not marvellous,” remarked another speaker, “that for some considerable time after his installation the good Eubulides was unable to deliver a single oracle?”
“Aye, and that the first he rendered should have foretold the death of an aged woman, one of the ministers of the temple.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Eubulides, “how was that?”
“He prognosticated her decease on the following day, which accordingly came to pass, from her being choked with a piece of gold, not lawfully appertaining to herself, which she was endeavouring to conceal under the root of her tongue.”
“The Gods be praised for that!” ejaculated Eubulides, under his breath. “Pshaw! as if there were Gods! If they existed, would they tolerate this vile mockery? To keep up the juggle—well, I know it must be so; but to purloin my name! to counterfeit my person! By all the Gods that are not, I will expose the cheat, or perish in the endeavour.”
He arose early on the following morning and took his way towards the city of Dorylæum. The further he progressed in this direction, the louder became the bruit of the oracle of Apollo, and the more emphatic the testimonies to the piety, prophetic endowments, and personal attractions of the priest Eubulides; his own resemblance to whom was the theme of continual remark. On approaching the city, he found the roads swarming with throngs hastening to the temple, about to take part in a great religious ceremony to be held therein. The seriousness of worship blended delightfully with the glee of the festival, and Eubulides, who at first regarded the gathering with bitter scorn, found his moroseness insensibly yielding to the poetic charm of the scene. He could not but acknowledge that the imposture he panted to expose was at least the source of much innocent happiness, and almost wished that the importance of religion, considered as an engine of policy, had been offered to his contemplation from this point of view, instead of the sordid and revolting aspect in which it had been exhibited by the old woman.