Of Asôpus, had given a home. By his own rash promise beguiled
Zeus’ self bestowed on the maiden the gift of her maidenhood.
For he longed for her love, and he promised that, whatsoever she would,
He would give her her heart’s desire, and he sealed the pledge with his nod:
And she in her subtlety asked her maidenhood of the God.
So in like wise made she a mock of Apollo, whose soul was fain
Of her couch, and of Halys the river withal. Nor did any man gain
His desire, in the arms of love to embrace her, and humble her pride.
Now there did noble Trikkaian Deïmachus’ sons abide—
Even three, Deïleon, Autolykus, Phlogius withal, were these—
Since the day when they wandered away from the host of Herakles.
And these, when they marked draw near the warrior-chiefs’ array,
Went shoreward to meet them, and told them in all truth who were they.
Neither willed they there to abide any longer, but fared with the crew
In Argo, so soon as the cloud-dispelling south-wind blew.
So in their company went they borne by the breeze swift-blowing,
And Halys the river they left, and Iris beside him flowing,
And the river-delta land of Assyria: the selfsame day
They rounded the headland that sheltered the Amazons’ harbour-bay.
Melanippê, Arêtus’ child, forth-faring, by ambuscade
Of Herakles there was caught, and her sister Hippolytê paid
For her ransom the Belt of renown, the splendour-gleaming band:
So the hero sent her back, and she gat no hurt of his hand.
In the harbour that beareth her name, where seaward Thermodon pours
Ran they ashore, for that contrary now was the wind to their course.
That river—on earth there is not his like; there is none that doth spread
Over the land so many streams from his fountain-head.
There should lack but four of a hundred, if one should tell them o’er
Each after each, and from one true fountain do all these pour.
Down from the mountains high to the plains it sendeth its rills,
From the heights which be called, men say, the Amazonian Hills.
Thence over the hilly country inland-straying they flow
Ever onward, albeit their paths in manifold windings go
This way and that evermore, wheresoever on low-lying ground
They may light, so roll they along; and this one afar shall be found,
And that one anear; and nameless many an one is lost
Swallowed up in the sands; and a blended remnant of all that host
Into perilous Pontus plunge with arching crests high-tossed.
And, there as they tarried, in battle against the Amazon horde
Had they closed, and in that grim strife had blood been as water outpoured;
For all ungentle the Amazons are, neither have they regard
Unto justice, the terrible ones who the plain Doiantian ward;
But the deeds of the War-god they love, and outrage of tyrannous scorn;
For the daughters of Arês they are, of the Nymph Harmonia born:
For she bare to the Man-destroyer the battle-revelling maids,
When their couch was spread mid the folds of Alkmonian forest-glades:—
But again from Zeus ’gan blow the breath of the fair south-wind;
So sped by the blast they left the rounded foreland behind,
While the Themiskyreian Amazons yet were arming for war:
For in one great city assembled they dwelt not, but sundered afar
From their fellows throughout the land were the tribes of them parted in three;
In the one place Themiskyreians, whose queen was Hippolytê
In that old time; and there the Lykastians dwelt, and anon
Dart-hurling Chadisians yonder. The next day sped they on,
And at nightfall unto the land of the Chalyban men they won.
That folk drive never the ploughing oxen afield: no part
Have they in the planting of fruit that as honey is sweet to the heart;
Neither lead they the pasturing flocks over meadows a-glitter with dew:
But the ribs of the stubborn earth for the treasure of iron they hew,
And by merchandise of the same do they live: never dawning broke
Bringing respite of toil unto them, but ever midst mirk of smoke
And flame at the forge are they moiling and plying the weary stroke.
Round the headland of Zeus the All-begetter swept they then;
And safely they sped by the land of the Tibarenian men.
When a woman in that land beareth a child to her lord, on his bed
Doth her husband cast him adown, and he groaneth with close-swathed head
As in anguish of travail, the while the woman with tender care
Doth nurse him and feed, and for him the child-birth bath doth prepare.
The Sacred Mountain thereafter, and that land passed they by
Wherein the Mossynoecians dwell amid mountains high
In their towers of timber goodly-wrought, and they call the same
“Mossyni,” wherefrom moreover the nation hath gotten its name.
Strange is the justice of these, and customs uncouth have they.
Whatsoe’er we be wont to do before men in the sight of the day,
Or the market-stead, all this they perform their houses within;
And whatso we do in our chambers apart, they account it not sin
Without, in the midst of the streets of their city, to do unblamed.
No modesty have they in love, but as rooting swine unshamed,
No whit abashed for the eyes of beholders that stand thereby,
On the earth for their bed of love with their women unwedded they lie.
In their loftiest block-house sitteth their king, and holdeth his court,
Decreeing his righteous judgments to them that thither resort.
Ah, luckless wight!—if perchance in his sentence he swerve from the right,
Unto prison they hale him, therein to fast till falleth the night.
These passed they by, and well-nigh overagainst the shores
Of the Isle of Arês they cleft them a path with unresting oars
Through the livelong day, for the gentle breeze in the gloaming died.
Then all in a moment one of the War-god’s birds they espied,
Which haunt that isle, through the welkin darting high overhead;
And behold, his pinions he shook, and down on the ship as she sped
A feather keen hath he shot: to the leftward shoulder it sprang
Of Oïleus: he dropped from his hands his oar at the sudden pang
Of the stroke, and they marvelled all when the feather-arrow they saw.
But the shaft from the flesh did his rowing-mate Eribôtes draw;
And he bound up the wound; for his baldric-band he unclasped, that
