But his comrades afront of him closed, and they drew their keen-whetted brands
Out of their scabbards: and Kastor the first with the sword-sweep cleft
The head of a foe, as against him he rushed; and to right and to left
Upon either shoulder aslant did the ghastly halves of it fall.
Polydeukes o’erthrew the giant Itymoneus, Mimas withal;
For, weaponless, one with a sudden leap did he spurn on the breast
With his foot, and in dust he fell; and one, as to conflict he pressed,
Over the left brow smote he with swift right hand, and he tare
The eyelid away, that it left the wretch’s eyeball bare.
And Oreides, Amykus’ henchman, a brawny champion,
Stabbed with his lance at the flank of Talaus, Bias’ son;
Howbeit he slew him not, but sliding along the skin
The brass sped under his belt, neither tasted the flesh within.
And Arêtus at Iphitus smote with a club of the knotted oak,
That Eurytus’ scion, the battle-bider, reeled from the stroke.
Howbeit not yet was the hero doomed unto deadly bane;
Nay, soon was the smiter’s self by Klytius’ sword to be slain.
Then did Ankaius the dauntless son of Lykurgus in haste
Swing up his mighty axe, and around his left arm cast
The bear’s dark fell for a shield, and amidst the Bebrykian array
In fury of onset he plunged, and beside him charged to the fray
Aiakus’ sons, and Jason the valiant leapt to the fight.
And as when mid the folds the grey wolves scare in huddled affright
Vast throngs of sheep on a wintry day, having rushed on the pen
By the keen-nosed dogs unscented, unmarked of the shepherd’s ken;
And in fury they seek to leap the fence, and to seize the prey,
Glaring and glaring, a fierce-eyed ring; and, shrinking away
Upon every side, on each other trample the sheep; even so
Drave they in ghastly rout the haughty Bebrykian foe.
And as when bee-keepers or shepherds fill with the stifling smoke
The cleft of a rock where dwell the honey-fashioning folk,
And the bees for a while all thronging within their cavern-home,
Murmur with muffled hum, till, driven at last therefrom
By the murky fume, they pour from the crag, and they flee away;
Even so not long they abode, but scattered in disarray
Through Bebrykia bearing the tidings of Amykus’ doom did they fly.
Fools!—nothing they knew of another woe even then drawn nigh
All unforeseen, for their orchards were wasted in that same hour,
And amidst of their hamlets did Lykus’ ravening spears devour,
And the Mariandynians slew, forasmuch as their king was afar,
For that aye for the iron-bearing land were the nations at war.
So now had the spoilers fallen on garth and byre and fold;
While seaward the heroes headed their sheep in throngs untold,
And this one to that one cried the while they drave the prey:
“Bethink ye, what price had they paid for their felon folly to-day,
If haply a God had but brought our Herakles hither to aid!
Ha! surely had he but been here, no trial, I ween, had been made
Of strife with the fists; but so soon as the caitiff drew nigh to proclaim
His ordinance, straightway the club should have made him forget the same,
Even as he spake it, yea, and forget the might of his hand.
Ah, but we left him, we left him, alone on a desolate strand,
And we sailed away oversea:—full soon shall we know, each one,
Our baneful folly, seeing our mightiest champion is gone!”
But the counsels of Zeus had wrought all this, beyond their ken.
So here through the night they abode, and the hurts of the wounded men
They tended, and slew to the Gods everlasting the sacrifice;
And a mighty supper they dight: fell sleep upon no man’s eyes,
By the bowl as they sat and the blazing altar the long night through,
With their golden locks enwreathed with the leaves of a bay that grew
Hard by the strand, about whose stem was their hawser bound.
And to Orpheus’ lyre they chanted; their voices’ blended sound
Rang tunefully: all the breathless beach lay tranced with the spell
Of the song; for of Zeus of Therapnae’s child did the sweet hymn tell.
Over the dusky hills did the light of the new sun leap,
As he rose from his far sea-bourn, as he roused the shepherds from sleep.
Then from the stem of the bay did the heroes their hawser uncoil,
And they laid in the galley so much as sufficed for their need of the spoil;
And before the breeze up swirling Bosporus’ flood they steered.
There steep and high the surge, as a mountain’s crown upreared
Afront of the prow, rusheth on them as leapeth a beast on the prey—
Higher, still higher upheaved to the clouds: thou wouldst verily say,
“They cannot escape grim doom, for that full o’er the galley’s side
Swingeth its madding crest like a cloud!” Yet a bark may ride
Safe even o’er such, if she have but a helmsman good at need.
And by Tiphys’ steering-craft even so did the heroes speed
Through the peril unscathed, yet sore dismayed. So the wild day passed,
And the night; and with dawn on Bithynia’s shore the anchor they cast.
There hard by the sea had Phineus Agênor’s son his abode,
Who endured above all men trouble and anguish, a baleful load.
For a spirit of prophecy Lêto’s son had bestowed of old
On him; yet he thrust all reverence aside, and to mortals foretold
The sacred purpose of Zeus, the mind of Heaven’s King.
Therefore did Zeus requite him with eld long-lingering;
And he took from his eyes the pleasant light, and he suffered him not
To have joy of the meats untold which the dwellers around aye brought,
What time to his halls they resorted the purpose of heaven to hear.
But out of their caverns of cloud ever suddenly swooping anear
The Harpies would snatch them away from his lips and his hands evermore
With their talons, and whiles was there left unto him of all that store
No whit, and whiles but a crumb, that for torment his life might be spared.
And they poured over all a loathly stench: was none that dared,
I say not, to carry thereof to his mouth, but even to stand
Far off, so foully the remnants reeked of
