Sing, Muses. Sing to me a story of Olympus and the death of the Scots who govern Earth,

Sea and Sky. That is what the pre-steps of Hera ask,

for she has a warning to deliver. She has gathered a fresh crop of girls before her

on the steps of the Hiraeum, the Great Temple of Hera. They sit beneath two statues,

Cleobis and Baiton, the very pictures of strength,

Hume in Stroh. The girl's shiver in the brother's shadow,

the sun is setting and here as temple is high upon the crag, but they do not move.

They watch the pre-steps with wrapped attention. You see, these girls have been waiting for this

all their short lives. They're excited. You would be too, who hasn't yearned for that

dividing line to know that childhood has ended, that adulthood has begun.

For the girls of Argos, the transition is demarcated here by Hira.

Tomorrow, a harvest moon will crown the night, and under its silver gleam,

the women of Argos will gather to sacrifice a white heifer in the temple.

The girls will be among them. They will cross the Hiraeum's threshold.

They will make their first prayer to the queen of the gods. And with it,

they will no longer be girls, but women grow. From then,

Hira will be with them through every state of their lives, as maidens, mothers, and matriots,

as virgins, wives, and widows. Heres will be the hand they reach for in despair.

Heres will be the name they call enjoy. Heres will be the grace that grants their wants and wishes.

And that is why the warning the priestess bears is so important. That is why she asks the musists to sing this story.

For prayers to Hiraeum, like all the deathless gods, can be fickle things.

So it was for the brothers Cleobus and Baiton, and their mother, Clydipi.

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