In the hour when men from their eyes the fetters of slumber cast,
Even huntsmen, which put their trust in their hounds, nor ever waste
In slumber the end of the night, but the light of the sun they prevent,
Lest, ere they be forth, he efface the track of the beasts, and the scent
Of the quarry, with stainless-gleaming shafts down-smiting thereon;
Even then with the maid from the galley forth stepped Aison’s son
On a grassy sward. The Couch of the Ram men call that spot,
For that there he rested first his knees with toil overwrought,
As he bare on his back the Minyan scion of Athamas.
And anigh it all smoke-besmirched the base of an altar there was,
Which the Aiolid Phrixus to Zeus the Preserver of Exiles did build,
And the Golden Marvel offered thereon, as, gracious-willed,
Hermes bade, in the way as he met him. The hero-crew
There set them aland, as Argus gave them counsel to do.
So these twain fared by the pathway that led to the sacred grove,
Seeking the oak-tree marvellous-huge, mid the branches whereof
Was hanging the Fleece, like a morning-cloud that flusheth red
In the beams of the sun as he riseth up from his ocean-bed.
But barring their path did the neck exceeding long uprise
Of the serpent glaring upon them with keen unsleeping eyes
As they came; and in awful wise did he hiss; and the banks of the flood
Far-stretching echoed, and sighed the measureless depths of the wood.
The people that dwell from Titanian Aia far away
In the Kolchian land by the outfall of Lykus heard, even they—
Of Lykus, which parteth his flow from Araxes’ rattle and roar,
And blendeth with Phasis his sacred stream, and these twain pour
Their mingled waters in one to the dark Caucasian sea.
Young mothers in terror awoke, and their hands in agony
Cast they around their babes new-born, in their arms which slept,
As the tiny limbs with the horror of that hiss thrilled and leapt.
And even as when, above a smouldering faggot-pile,
The eddies of smoke roll upward in murky coil on coil,
One after another swiftly ever on high they spring
From beneath in wavering wreaths uprushing and hovering;
Even so that monster was writhing and heaving the endless trail
Of his coils overlapped with the myriad-ranged harsh-crackling scale.
But, even as he writhed him, came before his eyes the maid,
With sweet voice summoning Sleep, most mighty of Gods, to her aid,
On the monster to cast his spell: and to her that through night’s deep mirk
Paceth, the Underworld Queen, she cried to speed her work.
And followed her Aison’s son in fear: but, lulled by the song,
The serpent by this was relaxing the thorn-ridge endless-long
Of his Titan-spires, and was lengthening out his coils untold,
Even as a dark wave over a sluggish sea slow-rolled,
A dumb and a thunderless surge: yet still, in despite of the spell,
His grisly head he uplifted on high, with purpose fell
To encompass the twain with the grip of his murderous jaws: but she,
Dipping the newly-slivered spray of a juniper-tree
In her mystic brewis, singing—singing—rained down fast
Untempered spells on his eyne, and about him and o’er him was cast
Sleep by the drug’s strong fume; and his dragon-jaws he laid
On the earth in the selfsame place, and his endless coils through the shade
Of the myriad stems of the forest stretching afar were unrolled.
Then from the oak-tree the hero snatched the Fleece of Gold
At the maiden’s bidding. Unswerving all the while she stayed
And smeared on the head of the monster her unguent, till Jason bade,
Till himself said, “Turn we again, and fare to the galley aback.”
Then left she the War-god’s grove, where the vast shades brooded black.
And even as a maiden may catch on her vesture of delicate thread
The light of the mid-month’s moon, when she saileth the heavens overhead
Her high-roofed bridal bower, and her heart in her breast is aglow
With joy that her eyes behold that lovely splendour; so
Exulting did Jason the mighty Fleece in his hands upraise.
And suddenly over his forehead and over his sunburnt face
From its shimmering flocks there rested a flush that flamelike shined.
And great as the hide of a yearling steer, or the fell of a hind
That is callèd a brocket in speech of the hunters of the wold,
So great was its length and its breadth all overtufted with gold,
Heavy with flocks thick-clustered; and ever as onward he passed
From under his feet the earth an answering sheen upcast.
Now veiling the man’s left shoulder the gleaming burden shone
Down-trailed from the height of his neck to his heel as he trod, and anon
Did he gather it up in his clutch, for that sorely he feared the while
Lest a God or a man might meet him and wrest from his hands the spoil.
Dawn over the earth was spread, and now those twain returned
To their company. Marvelled the youths to behold how the great Fleece burned
A splendour as lightning of Zeus. Upsprang they, for eager-keen
Was each man to touch the glory, and clasp it his hands between.
But the son of Aison withheld them: a mantle thereover he threw
New-woven, to hide it. To Argo’s stern the maiden he drew,
And he seated her there; and he spake to the heroes all his rede:
“No longer forbear now, friends, to your fatherland homeward to speed:
For the emprise now for the which we dared the peril and pain
Of a desperate voyage, toiling with bitter travail and strain,
All this by the maiden’s counsels lightly hath been fulfilled.
To the home-land her will I bring—yea, so herself hath willed—
My bride true-wedded: but ye, forasmuch as the saviour she is
Of all Achaia-land, and of your own souls, I wis,
Save her; for surely, I ween, will Aiêtes with all his array
Go forth, with intent from the river seaward to bar our way.
Now down through the ship, man ranged after man in order arow,
Shall the half of you sit at the oars to toil, that the half of you so
May uplift the ox-hide shields for a fence from the darts of the foe,
Guarding our home-return. Lo, now in our hands do we bear
Our children, our fatherland dearly-beloved, and the silver hair
Of our sires; and
