Herodotus. Book 1, Chapter 38.
38. Then Croesus answered, "My son, it is not because I have seen in you either cowardice or anything else which has displeased me that I keep you back; but because a vision which came before me in a dream as I slept, warned me that you were doomed to die young, pierced by an iron weapon. It was this which first led me to hasten on your wedding, and now it hinders me from sending you upon this enterprise. Fain would I keep watch over you, if by any means I may cheat fate of you during my own lifetime. For you are the one and only son that I possess. The other, whose hearing is destroyed, I regard as if he were not."
38. Then Croesus answered, "My son, it is not because I have seen in you either cowardice or anything else which has displeased me that I keep you back; but because a vision which came before me in a dream as I slept, warned me that you were doomed to die young, pierced by an iron weapon. It was this which first led me to hasten on your wedding, and now it hinders me from sending you upon this enterprise. Fain would I keep watch over you, if by any means I may cheat fate of you during my own lifetime. For you are the one and only son that I possess. The other, whose hearing is destroyed, I regard as if he were not."
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Text source: Herodotus. Translated by George Rawlinson, first issued in 1858. Grammar and spelling updated by Michael Presky, 1993.
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