Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

PHILIP'S DREAM. 21
"Philip shall come and shall see that which hath
"come upon thee , be strong, and fear not, neither
"be thou afraid of him." Thus did he blacken the
heart of Olympias by the might of his sorcery.
Then^ Nectanebus took a swift bird,'' and mutter-
ed over it certain charms^ and names [of gods]"*, Nectanebus
and he ordered it to fly betwixt heaven and earth, dream to
and in one day and one night it traversed many^*"''*"'
lands, and countries, and seas, and it came to
Philip by night and stopped [there]. And it came
to pass at that very hour and on that very night
that Philip saw a marvellous dream, for being moved
and stirred by the bird, he saw as it were one
of the gods of the earth, who was exceedingly
beautiful in form, and who had upon his head
a horn, and whose head and beard were shaven,
come to queen Olympias and sleep with her. And
the god said to her, "Behold thou hast conceived
"of me a child, who will protect thee and who will
"avenge thee on Philip."^ [And when Philip awoke
he sent straightway for an interpreter of dreams and
told him what he had seen. And he said], "I,
"Philip, saw the womb of the queen, but it was
' See Pseudo-Callisthenes, Bk. i, chap. 8 (Miiller, p. 8,
Meusel, p. 710). ^ Gr. lepaKa TTeXdxiov.
3 ^fi't '•
altered into j^A'Th = + Read flJ?ift'^'> : ?
s Some words having the following meaning have probably
dropped out of the text. In the Greek the whole dream is
described without a break, and it is only when the touch
of the bird's wings has awakened him that he seeks to find
out the meaning of the dream.