To stand; and a countless multitude hastened forth at his side.
And as when to the Isthmian athlete-strife Poseidon doth ride
High-borne on his car, or Tainarus-wards, or to Lerna’s mere,
Or Hyantian Onchestus, the temple-grove that the nations revere;
And as when to Kalaurea ofttimes his chariot-wheels have rolled,
And Haimonia’s rock, and Geraistus’ town that the forests enfold,
Even so was Aiêtes, lord of the Kolchian folk, to behold.
But Jason the while, obeying the rede from Medea that came,
In water hath steeped that drug; and he sprinkled his shield with the same,
And his sturdy spear and his sword; and his comrades with might and main
Made proof of his harness, thronging around: yet essayed they in vain
To bend that spear, though it were but a little; but evermore
Unyielding and stark it abode in their strong hands, even as before.
But Idas, Aphareus’ son—for with wrath was the heart of him black—
With his great sword hewed at the shaft by the butt; but the blade leapt back
As hammer from anvil, jarred by the shock; and a mighty shout
From the heroes rejoicing in hope of the trial’s end rang out.
Thereafter his own limbs Jason sprinkled; and lo, he was filled
With terrible prowess, unspeakable, aweless; the hands of him thrilled
Tingling with strength, as waxed their sinews with gathering might.
And even as when a battle-steed afire for the fight
Leapeth and neigheth and paweth the ground, and glorying rears
His neck like a stormy-crested billow, and pricketh his ears,
Even so in the pride of his prowess triumphant was Aison’s son,
And hither and thither on high he bounded now and anon,
In his hands uptossing his brazen shield and his spear’s tough ash.
Thou hadst said that adown through the murky welkin the leaping flash
Of the tempest-levin was gleaming and flickering once and again
From the clouds that are bringing hard after their burden of blackest rain.
Nor long time now would they tarry from faring forth to essay
The emprise, but row after row upon Argo’s thwarts sat they,
And onward exceeding swiftly to Arês’ plain they sped.
Overagainst the city so far before them it spread
As the space from the start to the turning-post that the car must win
What time, when a king unto Hades hath passed, his princely kin
For hero and horse ordain the strife of the funeral game.
There found they Aiêtes, and other the tribes of the Kolchian name,
The folk on the cliffs Caucasian in lines far-stretching arrayed,
While the king by the winding brink of the river their coming stayed.
And Aison’s son, when his comrades had made the hawsers fast,
Then with his spear and his shield to the mighty trial passed,
Bounding from Argo forth; and there was he bearing with him
His gleaming helm with the dragon’s sharp teeth filled to the brim,
With his brand on his shoulders slung, bare-limbed, and in some wise seeming
As Arês, in some wise Apollo the lord of the sword gold-gleaming.
O’er the fallow he glanced, and the brazen yoke of the bulls he espied.
And the plough, hewn solid of massy adamant, therebeside.
So he strode thereunto, and beside it his strong spear planted upright
On the butt-spike thereof, and leaning against it the morion he pight.
Then tracing the countless tracks of the bulls right on did he fare
With nought but his shield: but suddenly forth from an unseen lair,
From a den in the bowels of the earth, wherein was their grimly stall,
Whereover the lurid-gleaming smoke ever hung as a pall,
Forth rushed they together as one, outbreathing the splendour of flame;
And the heroes quaked when they saw. But Jason, as onward they came,
Set wide his feet; and even as a rock in the sea doth abide
The charging surges whereon the scourging storm-blasts ride,
Before him he held to withstand them his shield; and the terrible twain
Their strong horns bellowing dashed against it with might and main:
Nevertheless by their onset they stirred him never a jot.
And even as when the armourers’ bellows of stout hide wrought
In the piercèd melting-pot anon with murmur and sigh
Kindle the ravening flame, and anon doth the breath of them die;
And an awful roar goeth up therefrom as the flames leap higher
From beneath, even so these twain outbreathing the rushing fire
Roared from their mouths, and about him as lightning leapt and played
The devouring blaze: yet warded him ever the spells of the maid.
Then grasped he the tip of the horn of the right-hand monster, and so
Mightily haled with his uttermost strength, till he bowed it low
To the brazen yoke, and, striking its hoof of brass with his foot,
Suddenly cast it adown on its knees, and its fellow brute,
Even as it charged him, with one thrust down on its knees did he throw.
Then his broad shield cast he away on the ground, and, to and fro
To this side and that side striding, he kept them fall’n in their place
On their fore-knees, swiftly moving athwart the fervent blaze,
While marvelled the king at the hero’s might. Then drew nigh two,
Even Tyndareus’ sons—for that thus long since had he bidden them do;—
And they lifted and gave him the yoke on the necks of the bulls to be bound:
And deftly thereon did he bind it, and ’twixt them upraised from the ground
The brazen pole, and he made it fast by its pointed tip
Unto the yoke: and they twain back from the fire to the ship
Withdrew. Then he caught up again, and cast on his shoulders his shield
Behind him; the helmet strong with the serpent’s sharp teeth filled
He grasped, and his spear resistless, wherewith, as a ploughman wight
Pricketh his oxen with goad Pelasgian, so did he smite
The flanks of the monsters, and starkly and steadily still did he hold
Unswerving the plough-heft cunningly fashioned of adamant mould.
But the bulls were raging the while with fury exceeding sore
Outbreathing the ravening splendour of fire: as that mad roar
Of the buffeting winds was the blast of their breath, when the seafarers quail
At their yelling above all else, and furl the straining sail.
Yet it was not long ere the beasts, as the stern spear bade them to toil,
Moved on, and behind them was broken the fallow’s rugged soil
Cloven apart
