A man had wrought a Mercury for sale
In marble. Would-be buyers did not fail.
One for a pillar (he'd just lost a son)
To buy it wish'd; for a god's statue, one.
Night came: yet it the sculptor had not sold.
So he agreed at morn again t' unfold
The statue, if they'd come. In slumber deep
He gazed on Hermes at the gates of sleep,
Who said, "Good measure of my worth you take,
Since god or corpse of me you mean to make."
Source: Davies: Fables of Babrius = Babrius 30.
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