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The first part of this story goes back to the Odyssey; the second part is told only by the third-century Alexandrian poet Theocritus; the last part could have been written by no one except the satirist Lucian, in the second century A.D.

Homer’s vigor and power of storytelling, the pretty fancies of Theocritus, the smart cynicism of Lucian, illustrate in their degree the course of Greek literature.

His adventure with the snakes when he was a baby is told by Pindar in the fifth century and by Theocritus in the third.

In my account I have followed the stories given by the two tragic poets and by Theocritus, rather than Pindar, one of the most difficult of poets to translate or even to paraphrase.

Adonis I have taken from two third-century poets, Theocritus and Bion.