Had they warred with the proud Bebrykians, and faced the battle-blast.
So they went up into the city, and all together they passed
Into Lykus’ palace, and that day through by the meat and the bowl
In all lovingkindness they sat, and with converse gladdened their soul.
And Aison’s scion his lineage told, and the names of the rest
Of the hero-helpers withal, and the tale of Pelias’ hest;
And how the women of Lemnos in kindness dealt with them well;
And of all that in Kyzikus, land of the Dolian men, befell;
How to Mysia they came, and to Kios, where Herakles lion-souled
Sore loth they forsook; and the words of the Sea-god Glaukus he told;
And how they laid the Bebrykian people and Amykus low;
And of Phineus’ prophecies told he and all his weary woe;
And how they escaped through the Crags Dark-blue, and beheld on the isle
Lêto’s son: and still, as he told all, Lykus the while
Hearkened in gladness of soul; but with grief did the heart of him ache
For Herakles left behind, and unto them all he spake:
“O friends, what a hero’s help ye have lost for the way ye must go
Far-sailing to halls of Aiêtes!—myself have beheld him, and know
What manner of man he was; for in Daskylus’ halls did he stand,
Even here in the halls of my sire, when he marched through the Asian land
Afoot, that belt of the battle-revelling queen to win,
Hippolytê: then did he find me with youth’s soft down on my chin.
Here, when Priolaus my brother was unto his grave-mound borne—
Who was slain by our Mysian foes, and for whom the people mourn
With exceeding piteous dirges from that day forth—in the lists
Against Titias the strong he stood, and prevailed in the strife of the fists
Over him who amidst of our young men never his match had found
In stature and might: but Herakles dashed his teeth on the ground.
Beneath my father’s sceptre withal the Mysians he bowed,
And the Phrygians, for hard by our marches their fields our foemen ploughed.
And the tribes of Bithynians he smote, and won their land by his might,
Even to the outfall of Rheba, and unto Kolonê’s height.
And the Paphlagonians of Pelops yielded, nor faced that foe,
Even all round whom Billaios’ darkling waters flow.
Then came the Bebrykians; and Amykus’ lawless tyranny,
While Herakles dwelt afar, reft these my possessions from me,
Long carving out of my land huge cantles, till stretched the line
Of their bounds to the meads where Hypius’ deep-flowing waters shine.
But ye made them to pay requital for all: it was not, I wot,
But by will of the Gods that war by Tyndareus’ son was brought
That day on Bebrykia’s sons, when their champion giant he slew.
Wherefore what thanks soever Lykus may render to you
With joy will I render; for meet and right it is that the weak,
When the strong for their helping arise, by deeds their thanks should speak.
Lo, Daskylus now will I bid that he be of your company,
Even my son, and if this man your fellow in wayfaring be,
With kindly greeting shall all men hail you, and welcome fain
Through all your way, till the mouth of the river Thermodon ye gain.
But to Tyndareus’ sons on the Acherusian foreland’s steep
A temple on high will I rear: far off across the deep
Shall seafarers mark that fane, and to these in prayer shall they call.
Rich fields of the fertile plain will I set apart withal
Unto them, as unto the Gods, without the city-wall.”
Even so through the livelong day at the banquet revelled they on.
But with dawning down to the strand they hied them, in haste to be gone.
Then went with them Lykus, and gifts in their galley to bear gave he
Without number, and sent his son, their voyaging comrade to be.
There did the doom fate-spoken descend upon Abas’ son,
Idmon, in soothsaying peerless: but safety for him was there none
In his soothsaying lore, for that now must he die by the doom decreed.
For it chanced that there lay in a reedy river’s water-mead,
Cooling his flanks and his mighty belly wallowed in mire,
A wild boar gleaming-tusked, so baleful a monster and dire
That of him were the meadow-haunting Nymphs themselves adread.
No man knew his lair; alone in the fen wide-stretching he fed.
But it chanced unto Abas’ son o’er the marshy rises to fare
Of the plain, and the beast on a sudden, forth of his unseen lair
High-leaping out of the reed-bed, gashed in his sidelong rush
His thigh, that the sinews were severed, and snapped was the bone by the tush.
With one sharp cry to the earth he fell, and with answering shout
His comrades ran to the stricken; and Peleus in haste thrust out
With his hunting-spear, as the murderous monster fled to the fen.
Then turned he, and charged full on them; but Idas stabbed him then,
And harshly screaming he fell impaled on the keen spear-head.
There on the earth as he lay, unheeded they left him dead.
But their friend to the galley in death-throes gasping his comrades bore
Sore grieved: but he died in their arms or ever they reached the shore.
Then from their voyaging stayed they, they cared not now to depart:
To their dead friend’s burial turned they in heaviness of heart.
For three whole days they wailed, and their dead, when the fourth day broke,
Did they bury as one of the princes; and Lykus and all his folk
Had part in the woeful rites; and victims of sheep not a few,
As meet and right for the dead it is, by his grave they slew.
And a barrow that standeth yet unto this man there did they raise,
And a token is there, to be seen by the men of the unborn days,
A galley’s roller of olive-wood; into leaf doth it break
But a little below Acherusia’s height: and—if I may speak
This too by the power of the Muses that stirreth within my breast—
To Boeotian men and Nisaian Apollo spake his behest,
Worship to him as unto their city’s protector to pay,
And around that ancient olive a city’s foundations to lay.
But by this is tradition dim, and they render the honour-meed
Unto one Agamestor, and not
