By them I lost not what I lost; rather by them I gained what I have gained, and with them dwell Copartner in these regions of the World, If not disposer--lend them oft my aid, Oft my advice by presages and signs, And answers,
oracles, portents, and dreams, Whereby they may direct their future life.
I MEAN not to speak of divine prophecies; nor of heathen
oracles; nor of natural predictions; but only of prophecies that have been of certain memory, and from hidden causes.
To Laius, King of Thebes, an
oracle foretold that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother.
But Oedipus, instructed by an
oracle that he had reached his final resting-place, refuses to stir, and the stranger consents to go and consult the Elders of Colonus (the Chorus of the Play).
Anne, in the months before Little Jem's coming, had pored diligently over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial, "Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children." Sir Oracle implored parents by all they held sacred never to talk "baby talk" to their children.
When Gilbert teased her she laughed Sir Oracle to scorn.
But, when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to Delphi, and inquire of the oracle what thou shalt do next."
After performing this last sorrowful duty, he set forth alone, and took the road towards the famous oracle of Delphi, as Telephassa had advised him.
More suspicious is the statement that Socrates received the first impulse to his favourite calling of cross-examining the world from the
Oracle of Delphi; for he must already have been famous before Chaerephon went to consult the
Oracle (Riddell), and the story is of a kind which is very likely to have been invented.
As to temples for public worship, and the hall for the public tables of the chief magistrates, they ought to be built in proper places, and contiguous to each other, except those temples which the law or the
oracle orders to be separate from all other buildings; and let these be in such a conspicuous eminence, that they may have every advantage of situation, and in the neighbourhood of that part of the city which is best fortified.
The fact that the
oracle for some reason ordered him to go there, is outside the general plan of the play.
And there upon its border is built a city, Dodona (62); and Zeus loved it and (appointed) it to be his
oracle, reverenced by men....