what degree of personification is intended.

* * * * *

I pray thee, lover of splendour, most beautiful among the cities of
men, haunt of Persephone, thou who by the banks of Akragas' stream
that nourisheth thy flocks, inhabitest a citadel builded pleasantly--O
queen, graciously and with goodwill of gods and men welcome this crown
that is come forth from Pytho for Midas' fair renown; and him too
welcome therewithal who hath overcome all Hellas in the art which once
on a time Pallas Athene devised, when she made music of the fierce
Gorgon's death-lament.

That heard she pouring from the maiden heads and heads of serpents
unapproachable amidst the anguish of their pains, when Perseus had
stricken the third sister, and to the isle Seriphos and its folk bare
thence their doom.

Yea also he struck with blindness the wondrous brood of Phorkos[1],
and to Polydektes' bridal brought a grievous gift, and grievous
eternally he made for that man his mother's slavery and ravished bed:
for this he won the fair-faced Medusa's head, he who was the son of
Danaë, and sprung, they say, from a living stream of gold.

But the Maiden[2], when that she had delivered her well-beloved from
these toils, contrived the manifold music of the flute, that with such
instrument she might repeat the shrill lament that reached her from
Euryale's[3] ravening jaws.

A goddess was the deviser thereof, but having created it for