[Illustration: The Dance of the Corybantes.]
{9} Compelled to renounce his claim in favour of Saturn, who delivered them
all from their confinement; but with the condition that whatever children
might be born to him, should be destroyed. Saturn, faithful to his promise,
swallowed, at their birth, all the male children brought to him by his wife
Cybele. But a mother's yearning for her offspring, appears to have filled
even the breast of a goddess; and when delivered of Jupiter and Juno, she
placed a stone instead of the newly-born, in the arms of the god, habited
in an infant's dress.
[Illustration]
---- "Jealous of the infant's future power,
A stone the mother gave him to devour;
Greedy he seized the imaginary child,
And swallowed heedless, by the dress beguiled;
Nor thought the wretched god of aught to fear,
Nor knew the day of his disgrace was near;
Invincible remains his Jove alive,
His throne to shake, and from his kingdom drive
The cruel parent; for to him 'tis given
To rule the gods, and mount the throne of heaven."