Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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Then, when many of the guests cried out Io Pæan, Pontianus said;—I wish, my friends, to learn from you whether Io Pæan is a proverb, or the burden of a song, or what else it is. And Democritus replied;—–Clearchus the Solensian, inferior to none of the pupils of the wise Aristotle, in the first book of his treatise on Proverbs, says that “Latona, when she was taking Apollo and Diana from Chalcis in Eubœa to Delphi, came to the cave which was called the cave of the Python. And when the Python attacked them, Latona, holding one of her children in her arms, got upon the stone which even now lies at the foot of the brazen statue of Latona, which is dedicated as a representation of what then took place near the Plane-tree at Delphi, and cried out ῞ιε, παῖ; (and Apollo happened to have his bow in hand;) and this is the same as if she had said ῎αφιε, ῞ιε, παῖ, or βάλε, παῖ, Shoot, boy. And from this day ῞ιε, παῖ and ῞ιε, παιὼν arose. But some people, slightly altering the word, use it as a sort of proverbial exclamation to avert evils, and say ἰὴ παιών, instead of ῞ιε, παῖ. And many also, when they have completed any undertaking, say, as a sort of proverb, ἰὴ παιὼν; but since it is an expression that is familiar to us it is forgotten that it is a proverb, and they who use it are not aware that they are uttering a proverb.”

But as for what Heraclides of Pontus says, that is clearly a mistake, “That the god himself, while offering a libation, thrice cried out ἵη παιὰν, ἵη παιών.” From a belief in which statement he refers the trimeter verse, as it is called to the god, saying "that each of these metres belongs to the god; [p. 1122] because when the first two syllables are made long, ἵη παιὰν, it becomes a heroic verse, but when they are pronounced short it is an iambic, and thus it is plain that we must attribute the iambic to him. And as the rest are short, if any one makes the last two syllables of the verse long, that makes a Hipponactean iambic.