Or to reap confusion of face, or a glory far-renowned.”
So spake he, and donned his harness of fight; and shouted the crew
With wondrous-eager souls; and forth of the scabbard he drew
His sword, and the ship’s stern-hawsers he severed in twain with the brand.
And hard by the maiden, in armour clad, hath he taken his stand
By Ankaius the helmsman, and flashed the oars as the good ship raced,
As to speed her forth of the river they strained in desperate haste.
But by this to Aiêtes the king and to all the Kolchians known
Was Medea’s love, and revealed were all the deeds she had done.
And they swarmed to the gathering-place in their harness of battle, untold
As the crested waves of the sea by the stormy wind uprolled,
Or as leaves of the forest myriad-branched that earthward sail
In the month of the fall of the leaf—whereof who telleth the tale?
So numberless these went pouring the banks of the river along
With frenzy of shouting: on fair-fashioned chariot amidst of the throng
Glorious Aiêtes showed above all with his steeds, the gift
Of the Sun-god; for even as the blasts of the wind were they passing-swift.
In his left hand his shapely-rounded buckler on high did he rear,
And a pine-brand exceeding huge in his right: and his giant spear
Beside him rose up straight and high; and the reins of the car
Absyrtus grasped in his hands. But Argo by this was afar
Cleaving the brine, to the stalwart oarsmen’s stroke as she leapt
By the down-rushing flood of the mighty river seaward swept.
But the king in a madness of anguish uplifted his hands to the sky:
To the Sun and to Zeus, the beholders of evil deeds, did he cry;
And he turned him to all his host, and he shouted terribly:
“Except ye lay hands on the maiden, and seize, or on land it may be,
Or finding their ship yet tossed on the swell of the open sea,
And bring her, that so I may glut my fury, wherewith I burn
For revenge, on your own heads all these things shall light: ye shall learn
The measure of all my wrath and all my revenging then.”
So spake Aiêtes: on that same day did the Kolchian men
Launch forth their galleys, and cast in the ships their tackling-array,
And the selfsame day sailed forth on the sea: thou wouldst not say
That so mighty a host was this of ships, but in crowd on crowd
The nations of bird-folk over the sea were clamouring loud.
Swiftly the wind blew, even as Hêrê the Goddess planned,
To the end that Aiaian Medea might reach the Pelasgian land
Right soon, that in her might the bane of Pelias’ house be found.
So the men with the third day’s dawn the hawsers of Argo bound
To the Paphlagons’ strand, where the sea and the waters of Halys meet:
For Medea bade them to land, and with sacrifice to entreat
Hekatê’s grace. What things for that incantation of hell
The maiden prepared and offered, thereof let no man tell.
Let my spirit enkindle me not to darken therewith my lay!
Yea, awe refraineth my lips. Yet the altar on that far day
To the Goddess upreared by the heroes hard by the breaking sea
Yet standeth, a sign to be seen of the children of days to be.
Straightway to Aison’s son, and the heroes withal, came back
Remembrance of Phineus, and how that he spake of another track
To be found from Aia: howbeit to all was his meaning dim,
Till Argus arose and spake, and eager they hearkened to him:
“We may win to Orchomenus, whither the prophecy bade us fare
Of the seer unerring, whose guests in the days overpast ye were.
For another voyaging-course there is, a sea-path shown
By the priests of the Deathless, the sons of Thêbê, Tritônis’ town.
Not yet was the star-host, that whirl round heaven their chariots of fire:
Not yet of the sacred Danaan race, though a man should inquire,
Aught might he hear. Apidanian Arcadians alone on the earth
Dwelt—the Arcadians which lived, or ever the moon had birth,
Mid the mountains acorn-sustained, it is told. No sceptred hand
Of Deukalion’s glorious line ruled then the Pelasgian land,
In the days when men called Egypt, the fruitful land of corn,
The Morning-land, the mother of peoples elder-born.
And of Trito her fair-flowing river was named, of whom all the plain
Of the Morning-land is watered; for never descendeth the rain
From Zeus thereupon: from his floods the stintless harvests spring.
From that land, say they, a certain king went journeying
All Europe and Asia through, by the strength and the prowess made bold
And the aweless might of his people, and cities he builded untold
Whithersoever he came, whereof some remain to this day,
Some not, for that long generations since then have passed away.
But Aia abideth unshaken: a nation the sons’ sons yet
Abide of the men whose dwelling in Aia the hero set.
And graven memorials these men keep of their fathers’ days
Upon pillars, whereon is every bourne and all the ways
Of the watery waste and the land, as ye journey on all sides round.
Now a river, the uttermost horn of the Ocean, therein is found,
Wide and exceeding deep, that a dromond may sail the same.
Far on their chart have they traced it, and Ister they named its name.
And awhile through the boundless tilthland it cleaveth its way afar
As but one; for beyond the North-wind’s blasts its fountains are,
Where midst the Rhipaian mountains it bursteth forth in thunder:
But so soon as it parteth the Thracian and Scythian marches asunder,
There is it cleft in twain, and the half of its flood it sendeth
Hereby to the sea Ionian, the residue southward trendeth
Where a deep gulf up from the sea Trinacrian northward bendeth—
That sea which lieth beside your land, if the tale be true
That forth of your land Acheloüs the river fleeteth thereto.”
So spake he; and sent by the Goddess a happy portent came;
And all they looking thereunto hailed it with joyful acclaim
For a sign that their voyaging-track was this: for a splendour in heaven
Shone in a far-stretching furrow to point where their path was given.
And there glad-hearted they left the son of Lykus, and fled
With
