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We accordingly conducted him to a tent, since there was really nothing the matter with him, save that he seemed somewhat unstrung and wearied by the swiftness and rush of his ride, and we heard from him a story, incredible to all men except to us who with our own eyes had seen its conclusion. Arion said that some time ago he had resolved to leave Italy, and the receipt of a letter from Periander had only stimulated his desire the more, and when a Corinthian merchant-vessel appeared there, he had at once embarked and sailed away from that land. For three days they were favoured by a moderate breeze, and there came over Arion the feeling that the sailors were plotting to make away with him, and later he learned from the pilot, who secretly gave him the information, that they were resolved to do the deed that night. Helpless and at his wits’ end, he put into execution an impulse, divinely inspired, to adorn his person, and to take for his shroud, while he was still living, the elaborate attire which he wore at competitions, and to sing a final song to life as he ended it, and not to prove himself in this respect less generous than the swans. Accordingly he made himself ready, and, first saying that he was possessed by a desire to sing through one of his songs—the ode to Pythian Apollo—as a supplication for the safety of himself and the ship and all on board, he took his stand beside the bulwark at the stern, and, after a prelude invoking the gods of the sea, he began the ode. He had not even half finished it as the sun was sinking into the sea and the Peloponnesus becoming visible. The sailors therefore waited no longer for the night-time, but advanced to the murderous deed; whereupon Arion, seeing knives bared and the pilot already covering up his face, ran back and threw himself as far away from the ship as possible. But before his body was entirely submerged, dolphins swam beneath him, and he was borne upward, full of doubt and uncertainty and confusion at first. But when he began to feel at ease in being carried in this manner, and saw many dolphins gathering around him in a friendly way, and relieving one another as though such service in alternation were obligatory and incumbent upon all, and the sight of the ship left far behind gave a means to measure their speed, there came into his thoughts, as he said, not so much a feeling of fear in the face of death, or a desire to live, as a proud longing to be saved that he might be shown to be a man loved by the gods, and that he might gain a sure opinion regarding them. At the same time, observing that the sky was dotted with stars, and the moon was rising bright and clear, while the sea everywhere was without a wave as if a path were being opened for their course, he bethought himself that the eye of Justice is not a single eye only,Possibly a reference to a line of an unknown tragedian found in Moralia, 1124 F. but through all these eyes of hers God watches in every direction the deeds that are done here and there both on land and on the sea. By these reflections, he said, the weariness and heaviness which he was already beginning to feel in his body were relieved, and when at the last, as the jutting promontory, rugged and lofty, appeared in their path, they rounded it with great caution, and skirted close to the land as if they were bringing a boat safely into harbour, then he fully realized that his rescue had been guided by God’s hand.
