as he drove the wide-browed kine straight towards Pylos. And as soon as he had shut them up quietly, and had gone home by crafty turns and twists, he lay down in his cradle in the gloom of a dim cave, as still as dark night, so that not even an eagle keenly gazing would have spied him. Much he rubbed his eyes with his hands as he prepared falsehood, and himself straightway said roundly: ‘I have not seen them: I have not heard of them: no man has told me of them. I could not tell you of them, nor win the reward of telling.’” When he had so spoken, Phoebus Apollo sat down. But Hermes on his part answered and said, pointing at the Son of Cronos, the lord of all the gods: “Zeus, my father, indeed I will speak truth to you; for I am truthful and I cannot tell a lie.