The Argonautica

by the might of the bulls and the ploughman strong.
And terribly crashed and groaned, the ploughshare’s furrows along,
The clods uprent, of a man’s load each, and with sturdy stride
Trampling the path the hero followed, and aye flung wide
The teeth of the serpent over the clods upheaved by the share,
Ever heedfully turning his head, lest haply, or e’er he was ware,
The harvest fell of the Earth-born against him should rise: and with strain
Of brazen hoofs on laboured the while that fearsome twain.
And it was so, that when the third part now was left of the day,
From the dawn as it waned, when the toil-forwearied labourers pray
“O come to us, sweet unyoking-tide! O tarry thou not!”
Even then by the stalwart ploughman the fallowfield’s earing was wrought,
For all it was ploughgates four; and the bulls from the yoke loosed he,
And with shouting and smiting he scared them over the plain to flee.
Then back toward Argo he hied him again, while yet all clear
Of the Earth-born brood the furrows he saw; and with cheer on cheer
His comrades hailed him and heartened. He plunged the brazen gleam
Of his helm mid the river’s waters, and slaked his thirst from the stream.
Then bent he his knees till supple they grew; and he filled with might
His great heart, battle-aflame as a boar, when he whetteth for fight
Against the hunters his tushes, and drippeth the plenteous froth
Down from his jaws to the ground, as he churneth their foam in his wrath.
Now by this was the harvest of Earth-born men over all that field
Upspringing; and all round bristled with thronging shield on shield
And with battle-spears twy-pointed, and morions glorious-gleaming
The garth of the death-dealing War-god: the splendour thereof upstreaming
Through the welkin lightened, and up to the heaven of heavens did it go.
And as when on the face of the earth hath fallen abundant snow,
And the wind-blasts chase the wintry clouds in scattered rout
Under the mirk of the night, and all the hosts shine out
Of the stars through the darkness glittering; so those Earth-born men
Flashed, o’er the face of the ground upgrowing: but Jason then
Remembered the rede that Medea the cunning-hearted spake;
And a huge round boulder up from the earth in his grasp did he take⁠—
A terrible quoit for Arês the War-god: there should not be found
Four stalwart men of strength to upraise it a span from the ground.
This caught he up in his hand, and afar with a leap did he throw
Into their midst, and behind his buckler himself crouched low
Awelessly. Loudly the Kolchians shouted⁠—it rang as the roar
Of the shouting sea when his surges over the sharp reefs pour.
But speechless amazement seized on Aiêtes at that vast sweep
Of the massy crag: and the Earth-born as fleet-foot hounds ’gan leap
Each on his fellow, and yelling they slew: the embattled lines
On their mother the earth, by their own spears slain, were falling, as pines
Or as oaks which the down-rushing blasts of the tempest have scourged and riven.
And even as leapeth a fiery star from the depths of the heaven,
Trailing behind him a splendour, a marvel to men which mark
How he darteth in shattering glories athwart the firmament’s dark,
Even so seemed Aison’s son on the Earth-born rushing: he bare
His sword from the scabbard outflashed; and here he smote them and there,
Mowing them down: full many on belly or flank did he smite
Which had won to the air waist-high, and some which had risen to light
But shoulder-high, and some as they stood but now upright,
And other some, even as their feet ’gan strain in the onset of fight.
And like as, when round the marches the war upstarteth from sleep,
A husbandman, fearing lest foemen the toil of his hands may reap,
Graspeth a curvèd sickle newly-whetted in hand,
And moweth in haste the crop yet green, neither letteth it stand
Until it be parched in the season due by the shafts of the sun;
Even so of the Earth-born the harvest he reaped; and with blood did they run,
Those furrows, as hurrying runnels that brim from a fountain’s plashing.
Fast fell they, some on their faces, bowing their knees, and gnashing
Their teeth on the rough clods⁠—this one stayed on his palm, and he
On his side: as they wallowed they seemed as the monster-brood of the sea.
And many, or ever their feet from beneath the earth had come,
Pierced through, from the height whereunto they had risen, even therefrom
Down-drooping, were resting their death-dewed brows on the earth again.
Even so, I ween, when Zeus down-poureth the measureless rain,
Droop orchard-shoots new-planted, till low on the earth they lie,
Snapped hard by the roots, that the gardener’s toil is doubled thereby,
And there come on the heart of the lord of the vineyard, which planted the same,
Confusion of face and deadly anguish in such wise came
On Aiêtes the king vexation of spirit and heaviness.
And back to the city he wended amidst of the Kolchian press,
Dark-plotting to bring the heroes’ purpose with speed to nought.

And the daylight died, and Jason’s mighty achievement was wrought.

Book IV

Now take thou up the story, O Goddess of Song, and sing
The afflictions and thoughts of the Kolchian maid; for as touching this thing
In a tempest of wilderment whirled is my soul, that I know not to say
Whether for bitter infatuate passion she fled away
From the land of the Kolchian folk, or driven of panic dismay.

Now the king in the midst of his Kolchian princes and men of might
Against the heroes devising treachery sat through the night
In his halls, and hot in his soul did the vehement anger rise
For the trial whose issue he loathed, and he weened not in any wise
That unhelped of his daughters had Jason prevailed that task to fulfil.

But Medea’s spirit did Hêrê with woefullest anguish thrill:
And she quaked like a fawn light-footed, the which the hounds’ deep bay
Hath scared, the while in the tangled depths of a copse she lay.
For straightway she surely foreboded that nothing concealed should remain
Of her help, and for this should she fill up a cup of uttermost bane.
And her maids which were privy thereto she dreaded, and filled