The young, radiant Apollo rushed across the azure sky with a cithara in his hands, with a silver bow over his shoulders; golden arrows rang loudly in his quiver. Proud, jubilant, Apollo rushed high above the earth, threatening everything evil, everything born of darkness. He strove to where the formidable Python lived, pursuing his mother Latona; he wanted to take revenge on him for all the evil that he caused her.
Apollo quickly reached the gloomy gorge, the home of Python. Rocks rose all around, reaching high into the sky. Darkness reigned in the gorge. A mountain stream, gray with foam, rushed rapidly along its bottom, and mists swirled above the stream. The terrible Python crawled out of his lair. His huge body, covered with scales, twisted between the rocks in countless rings. Rocks and mountains trembled from the weight of his body and moved from place. The furious Python brought devastation to everything, he spread death all around. The nymphs and all living things fled in horror. Python rose, powerful, furious, opened his terrible mouth and was ready to devour the golden-haired Apollo. Then the ringing of the string of a silver bow was heard, as a spark flashed in the air of a golden arrow that could not miss, followed by another, a third; arrows rained down on Python, and he fell lifeless to the ground. The triumphant victory song (paean) of the golden-haired Apollo, the conqueror of Python, sounded loudly, and the golden strings of the god’s cithara echoed it. Apollo buried the body of Python in the ground where the sacred Delphi stands, and founded a sanctuary and an oracle in Delphi in order to prophesy in it to people the will of his father Zeus.
From a high shore far out to sea, Apollo saw a ship of Cretan sailors. In the guise of a dolphin, he rushed into the blue sea, overtook the ship and flew up from the sea waves to its stern like a radiant star. Apollo brought the ship to the pier of the city of Chris and led the Cretan sailors through a fertile valley, playing the golden cithara, to Delphi. He made them the first priests of his sanctuary.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru