Highest of the gods, lord of the sea, Poseidon of the golden trident, earth-shaker in the swelling brine, around thee the finny monsters (theres) in a ring swim and dance, with nimble flingings of their feet leaping lightly, snub-nosed hounds with bristling neck, swift runners, music-loving dolphins, sea-nurslings of the Nereis (Nereid) maids divine, whom Amphitrite bore, even they that carried me, a wanderer on the Sikelian (Sicilian) main, to the headland of Tainarion (Taenarum) in Pelops’ land, mounting me upon their humped backs as they clove the furrow of Nereus’ plain, a path untrodden, when deceitful men had cast me from their sea-faring hollow ship in to the purple swell of sea.
By Arion, as quoted in Aelian, On Animals 12. 45 (trans. Schofield)