Histories

Hearing this, the cowherd took the child and went back the same way and came to his dwelling. Now as it happened his wife too had been on the verge of delivering every day, and as the divinity would have it, she did in fact give birth while the cowherd was away in the city. Each of them was anxious for the other, the husband being afraid about his wife's labor, and the wife because she did not know why Harpagus had so unexpectedly sent for her husband.

So when he returned and stood before her, she was startled by the unexpected sight and asked him before he could speak why Harpagus had so insistently summoned him. “Wife,” he said, “when I came to the city, I saw and heard what I ought never to have seen, and what ought never to have happened to our masters. Harpagus' whole house was full of weeping; astonished, I went in;

and immediately I saw a child lying there struggling and crying, adorned in gold and embroidered clothing. And when Harpagus saw me, he told me to take the child in haste and bring it away and leave it where the mountains are the most infested with wild beasts. It was Astyages, he said, who enjoined this on me, and Harpagus threatened me grievously if I did not do it.