The histories of Herodotus;

131-134] MYCERINUS 133
count of this cow and these statues: That Mycerinus fell in
love with his own daughter, and had intercourse with her
against her will ; but afterward, they say, the girl strangled
herself through grief, and he entombed her in this cow; but
her mother cut off the hands of
trayed her daughter to the father ;
the servants who had be-
and now their images have
suffered the same that they did when alive. But these things,
as I conjecture, are trifling fables, both in other respects and
in what relates to the hands of the statues, for I myself saw
that they had lost their hands from age, which were seen
lying at their feet even in my time. The cow is in other parts
covered with a purple cloth, but shows the head and the neck,
covered over with very thick gold; and the orb of the sun
imitated in gold is placed between the horns. The cow is not
standing up, but kneeling ; in size it is equal to a large living
cow. It is carried every year out of the chamber. When
the Egyptians beat themselves for the god that is not to be
named by me on this occasion, they then carry out the cow
to the light ; for they say that she, when she was dying, entreated
her father Mycerinus to permit her to see the sun once
every year. After the loss of his daughter, this second calamity
befell this king: An oracle reached him from the city of
Buto, importing that he had no more than six years to live,
and should die in the seventh: but he, thinking this very
hard, sent a reproachful message to the god, complaining
that his father and uncle, who had shut up the temples, and
paid no regard to the gods, and moreover had oppressed
men, had lived long; whereas he who was religious must die
so soon. But a second message came to him from the oracle,
stating that for this very reason his life was shortened, because
he had not done what he ought to have done; for it
was needful that Egypt should be afflicted during one hundred
and fifty years ; and the two who were kings before him
understood this, but he did not. When Mycerinus heard
this, seeing that this sentence was now pronounced against
him, he ordered a great number of lamps to be made, and
having lighted them, whenever night came on, he drank and
enjoyed himself, never ceasing night or day, roving about the
marshes and groves, wherever he could hear of places most
suited for pleasure : and he had recourse to this artifice for the
purpose of convicting the oracle of falsehood, that by turning
the nights into days, he might have twelve years instead
of six.
This king also left a pyramid much less than that of his
father, being on each side twenty feet short of three plethra;