Now who was the next that died?—for the heroes again in grief
Another earth-mound heaped for another perished chief:
Yea, there be memorials twain of the wanderers yet high-reared.
Now telleth the tale how Tiphys the Hagniad died; for his weird
Was to voyage no further thereafter; but him, far away from his home,
Short sickness hushed into sleep, the endless sleep of the tomb,
While yet were the death-rites rendered to Abas’ son by the folk:
And grief unendurable seized them for this new ruin-stroke.
Yea, and when hard by the seer him too they had buried there,
On the shore of the sea did they cast them adown in utter despair,
Rolled in their mantles from head to foot, all hushed: no part
Had meat nor drink in their thoughts; but in bitterness of heart
They spake not, for hope of returning was dead in each man’s breast.
And for grief had they gone no further, had there made end of the Quest,
But that Hêrê enkindled exceeding courage within the soul
Of Ankaius, whom Astypaleia, where Imbrasus’ waters roll,
Bare to the Sea-god, a man most deft in the steering of ships.
So now unto Peleus he turned him, and spake with eager lips:
“Is it well done, Aiakus’ son, that, forgetting the great work, we
On an alien shore should linger and linger?—I, even he
Whom Jason brought on the Quest of the Fleece from Parthenia afar,
Have knowledge of ships—yea, even beyond my cunning in war.
Wherefore, as touching the plight of our ship, no whit fear thou.
Yea, others in steering deft came hitherward with us, I trow:
Whomsoever of these at the helm we set, no hurt shall befall
Our seafaring. Haste then, and unto our fellows tell forth all,
And unto the high emprise arouse them with heartening word.”
So spake he; the soul of the other with gladness exceeding was stirred.
No whit did he tarry, but straight in the midst of them all did he say,
“Ho, friends!—why cherish we thus a bootless sorrow for aye?
For I ween these twain by the doom first drawn with their life’s lot died:
But in this our array there be found with us other helmsmen beside,
Yea, many an one: let us put them to proof: make we no stay;
But rouse ye unto the deed, and cast your griefs away.”
But in helpless despair unto him did the son of Aison say:
“O Aiakus’ son, these helmsmen of thine—now where be they?
For they which concerning their cunning therein once vaunted loud,
Even these yet more than I with vexation of spirit are bowed.
For us then, as for the dead, ill doom doth mine heart foretell,
Whose lot shall be never to win to the town of Aiêtes the fell,
No, neither ever again to pass through the grim sea-gate
To the land of Hellas returning; but now shall an evil fate,
As we wax old deedless, enshroud us nameless and fameless here.”
He spake: but Ankaius eagerly proffered himself to steer
The sea-swift ship; for within him the power of the Goddess was strong.
Erginus and Nauplius then, and Euphêmus forth from the throng
Strode, eager all for the helm: but their comrades drew back these,
For that none would they have but Ankaius to guide them over the seas.
So then on the twelfth day hied them adown the Argo’s crew
At dawn; for the West-wind now, the mighty wafter, blew.
Speedily out of the Acheron’s mouth with the oars they passed,
And they shook the broad sail forth to the wind, and far and fast
With outspread canvas cleaving the leagues of summer wave,
By the outfall of Kallichorus the river swiftly they drave,
The place where the child Nysaian of Zeus, as the tale doth tell,
When, leaving the tribes of the Indians, in Thêbê he came to dwell,
Held revel, and dances in front of the cave did the God array
Wherein, through the nights unsmiling, in hallowed slumber he lay.
Wherefore the people called it the River of Dances Fair,
And the cavern the Bedchamber, seeing a God once slumbered there.
Thereafter espied they the barrow of Sthenelus, Aktor’s son,
Who, when from valorous battle against the Amazon
He was turning aback—for with Herakles thither to war had he hied—
By an arrow was smitten, and there on the surf-lashed sea-strand died.
Nor yet for a space did they sail on thence; for Persephonê, won
By his prayers and tears, sent forth the spirit of Aktor’s son
A moment to gaze upon men of passions like to his own.
So he mounted the crest of his barrow: on Argo looked he down,
Even such to behold as when to the war he went. On his head
His beautiful helm four-crested flashed with its plume blood-red.
Then down into blackness of darkness returned he: they looked thereon,
And marvelled. Then by the word of prophecy Ampykus’ son,
Mopsus, caused them to land, and to pay drink-offerings due.
So furled they the sail in haste, and the hawsers forth they threw;
And there on the strand round Sthenelus’ grave-mound gathered they.
Drink-offerings they poured, and the fatlings of sacrifice did they slay.
And, besides the libations, an altar they built, laying thighs on the blaze
To Apollo the Saviour of Ships; and his lyre did Orpheus upraise
And dedicate; wherefore the “Lyre” from that day called they the place.
Then straight, when the wind blew strong, did they board the galley again,
And they dropped the sail from the yard, and the feet thereof did they strain
On either hand with the sheets; and over the sea did she fly
Swift-racing, as when some hawk through the welkin soaring high
To the breeze committeth his wings, and is borne fast: onward sweeping
He stirreth them not, on restful pinions in mid-heaven sleeping.
And lo, by the streams of Parthenius’ seaward-murmuring water,
Most softly-sliding of rivers, they passed, where Lêto’s Daughter,
What time from the hunting she cometh, ere up to the heaven she go,
In its lovely ripples cooleth her limbs from the summer-glow.
Then through the night-tide onward and onward unresting they sped.
Past Sêsamus, past the long Erythinian steeps they fled;
By Krôbialus and by Krômne, Kytôrus the forest-crowned;
Then, as the sun’s shafts glanced o’er the waters, swept they around
Karambis; and still by an endless strand the oars they plied
Through the livelong day, and on through the night, when the daylight died.
On
