Alexandra: Arcadians and Lycanthropy

χρῄζων πυθέσθαι πημάτων ξυμβουλίαν.Ὁ δεύτερος δὲ νῆσον ἀγρότης μολών, χερσαῖος αὐτόδαιτος ἐγγόνων δρυὸςλυκαινομόρφων Νυκτίμου κρεανόμων,τῶν πρόσθε μήνης φηγίνων πύρνων ὀχὴνσπληδῷ κατ᾿ ἄκρον χεῖμα θαλψάντων πυρός, χαλκωρυχήσει καὶ τὸν ἐκ βόθρου σπάσει βῶλον, δικέλλῃ πᾶν μεταλλεύων γνύθος.

The second who comes to the island is a country-man and a landsman, feeding on simple food, one of the sons of the oak [the Arcadians], the wolf-shaped devourers of the flesh of Nyctimus, a people that were before the moon, and who in the height of winter heated in the ashes of the fire their staple of oaken bread; he shall dig for copper and from the trench drag the soil, mining with mattock every pit. His father the tusk of Oeta slew, crushing his body in the regions of the belly. In sorrow, wretched man, he learnt the truth of the saying that the all-devising fate of men rolls many a thing betwixt the life and the draught of the cup. That same tusk, all flecked with glistening foam, when he had fallen took vengeance on his slayer, smiting with unescapable blow the dancer's ankle-bone.