And she to her handmaids, and all in a troop did these draw nigh
To meet her: she marked them not, as unto her side they drew;
For her soul to the clouds had soared far up ’twixt earth and the blue.
And with feet that moved in a dream she mounted the fleet-running wain:
In her left hand grasped she the reins, in her right the whip hath she ta’en
Curious-fashioned, to drive the mules; and fast did they flee,
As on to the city they sped and the palace; and Chalkiopê
’Gan ask her of all that befell, for her sons’ sake anguish-stirred;
But rapt in a trance of thoughts back-drifting she heard not a word,
And to all that eager questioning never a word she said:
But adown on a lowly stool did she sit at the foot of the bed,
On her left hand propping her cheek as she wearily drooped aside;
And with tears were her eyes brimming over, as surged the dark chill tide
Of remembrance of emprise dread that the covenant bound her to bide.
Now when Aison’s son had wended aback to the place where stayed
His comrades, what time he had left them in faring to meet the maid.
Then, telling them all the story the while, with these did he hie
To the throng of the heroes; and now to the galley drew they anigh.
And they saw him, and lovingly greeted, and asked him of all that befell:
And he in the midst of them all did the maiden’s counsels tell;
And he showed them the dread spell-drug. One only of all sat apart,
Idas, nursing his wrath: but the others with joyful heart
Turned them, when darkness fell, their hands from their labour to stay,
And in great peace laid them down to their rest: but with dawning day
To Aiêtes, to ask for the seed of the serpent, sent they away
Two men; and foremost Telamon Arês-beloved they sent,
And Aithalides, glorious scion of Hermes, beside him went.
So went they, and not for nought, for to these at their coming were given
Of Aiêtes the king the teeth for the grim strife hard to be striven,
The teeth of the dragon Aonian, that, seeking the wide world through
For Europa, Kadmus found in Ogygian Thêbê, and slew,
The monster that lurked, a warder, beside the Aretian spring.
There also he dwelt, by the heifer led, which Apollo the king
By the word of prophecy gave for his guide, that he should not stray.
These teeth did Tritônis the Goddess tear from its jawbone away,
And the gift on Aiêtes and him that had slain the beast she bestowed.
On the plain Aonian Kadmus the teeth of the serpent sowed;
And an earth-born nation was founded there of Agênor’s son,
The remnant left when the harvest of Arês’ spear was done.
So the teeth to bear to the galley Aiêtes gave full fain,
For he weened that to win to the goal of his task he should strive in vain,
Yea, though to the yoking of those dread bulls he should haply attain.
And the sun down under the dark earth far away in the west,
Beyond the uttermost hills of the Aethiops, sank to his rest;
And the Night was laying her yoke on the necks of her steeds. Then spread
On the shore by the hawsers of Argo the heroes each his bed.
But Jason, so soon as the flashing stars of the circling Bear
Had set, and under the firmament hushed was all the air,
Unto the wilderness even as a thief all stealthily hied
With whatso was needful; for all had he taken thought to provide
In the day: and fared with him Argus, and milk from the flock he bore,
And a ewe therewithal; for these had he ta’en from the galley’s store.
But when he beheld the place, which was far aloof from the tread
Of men, where under the unscreened sky the clear meads spread,
There first of all in the flow of the sacred river he bathed
His limbs full reverently, and all his body he swathed
In a dark-hued cloak, which Hypsipylê, daughter of Lemnos’ race,
Gave him aforetime, memorial of many a loving embrace.
Thereafter he digged him a pit in the plain of a cubit wide,
And the billets he heaped, and the lamb’s throat cut by the dark pit’s side.
And the carcase he stretched on the pile, and he thrust thereunder the fire
And kindled the brands, and mingled libations he poured on the pyre,
Calling on Hekatê Brimo to draw for his helper nigh.
And when he had called on her, backward he fared, and she hearkened his cry.
Out of nethermost caverns of darkness the Awful Queen drew near
To the Aisonid’s sacrifice, and about her did shapes of fear,
Even serpents, in horrible wreaths and knots, mid the oak-boughs hang:
And flashed a fitful splendour of torches unnumbered; and rang
Around her wild and high the baying of hounds of hell.
And all the meadow-land trembled under her tread; and the yell
Pealed of the marish-haunting Nymphs of the river, that dance
In the pastures wherethrough Amaryntian Phasis’ ripples glance.
And terror gat hold upon Aison’s son; but, for all his dread,
Yet he turned him not round as his feet thence bore him, until he had sped
Back to his friends: and by this over Caucasus’ snow-flecked height,
As she rose, was the Dawn mist-cradled shooting her shafts of light.
And now did Aiêtes array in the corslet of stubborn mould
His breast, the corslet that Arês gave, in the day when rolled
Mimas of Phlegra beneath his hands in the dust of doom.
And he set on his head the golden helmet of fourfold plume
Flaming like to the world-encompassing sun’s red gleam,
When first in the dawning he leapeth up from the Ocean-stream.
He uplifted his manifold-plated shield, and he grasped in his hand
His terrible spear and resistless: was none that before it might stand
Of the rest of the heroes, since Herakles now they had left afar:
He only against it had matched his might in the shock of war.
And his fair-fashioned chariot of fleet-footed steeds was stayed for the king
By Phaëthon hard by; then to the chariot-floor did he spring;
And he drew through his fingers the reins, and forth of the city-gate
Drove he along the broad
