To the voice revealing the wrath of Zeus, and the stern decree
Which ordained that they should not escape from the paths of an endless sea,
And affliction of tempests, till Circê should purge the guilt away
Of Absyrtus’ ruthless murder. Moreover the voice bade pray
Polydeukes and Kastor withal to the Gods everlasting, to grant
First through the Ausonian sea a path to the secret haunt
Of Circê, the daughter whom Persê unto the Sun-god bare.
So Argo cried through the darkness: uprose that god-born pair,
Tyndareus’ sons, and their hands to the deathless Gods did they raise
Praying the prayer commanded; but hushed in awed amaze
Were the rest of the Minyan heroes. On under canvas, and on,
Leapt Argo, till deep within Eridanus’ river they won.
There, stricken of old on the breast with the smouldering levin-fire,
Phaëthon half-consumed from the car of his Sun-god sire
Fell into the gulf of the fathomless mere; and the seething stream
From his burning wound even yet upbelcheth clouds of steam.
Neither across that water outspreading her pinions light
Any fowl of the air may win her way, but, even mid-flight
Faint-fluttering, down mid the flame it plungeth. On either side
Round poplars slim the Sun-god’s daughters in slow dance glide,
In misery wailing a piteous plaint, and adown from their eyne
Raining to earth do the glittering drops of amber shine.
These, parched by the beams of the sun, lie strewn at their feet on the sand;
But whensoever the blasts of the wailing wind on the strand
Are dashing the dark mere’s surging billows and onward hurling,
Then to Eridanus roll they, a huddled throng on-whirling
In a rippling stream. Now a legend thereof do the Kelt-folk tell
How that these which in eddies be tossed be the tears from Apollo that fell,
Even Lêto’s son, which he shed without number in ancient days,
What time he came to the Hyperboreans’ sacred race,
By his father’s threatenings driven from the sunlit heaven to the earth,
Wroth for his son, unto whom Karônis the Nymph gave birth
In bright Lakyreia, where Amyrus’ outfall seaward is rolled.
Yea, such is the tale of these that amidst that people is told.
And, thereon as they sailed, no care for meat nor for drink had they,
Neither turned their thoughts unto gladness; but ever day by day
Sorely afflicted they were till their burdened hearts grew faint
With the noisome stench that uprose, the unendurable taint
From Eridanus’ streams that reeked of Phaëthon burning still.
And ever by night they hearkened the shriek of the long wail shrill
From the Sun-god’s daughters lamenting. Their tears, as they mourned and wept,
Like drops from the fruit of the olive adown to the waters were swept.
Thence into Rhodanus ran they, whose deep-flowing waters fleet
Into Eridanus’ stream: and where the great floods meet,
Roar they turmoiling and seething. Now Rhodanus cometh from far,
From the ends of the earth, where the portals of Night and her mansions are.
Thence bursteth he forth, and divideth his stream; for the one part roareth
To the beaches of Ocean, and one to the sea Ionian poureth;
And a third to the main Sardinian, the sea-gulf limitless-vast,
Through seven mouths sendeth his flood. So from Rhodanus forth they passed,
And they drave over wintry meres wide-spread—none telleth their bound—
Over the Keltic mainland, and well-nigh there had they found
Inglorious doom: for a certain branch turns sidewards flowing
To the Ocean-gulf; thereinto were these, of the peril unknowing,
At point to thrust, and never alive had they won thereout.
But forth out of heaven Hêrê darted, and pealed her shout
From the rock Herkynian: with fear were they shaken because of her cry
As one man all, for terribly crashed the wide-arched sky.
Backward they turned at the Goddess’s warning, and then were they ware
Of the track, whereby for their home-return they needs must fare.
So at last came they to a beach where the sea-surge moaning rolled,
By Hêrê’s devising, through tribes of the Keltic folk untold
And Ligurians passing unharmed; for about them a mist-veil dread
Day after day, as homeward they fared, did the Goddess spread.
And so through the midmost mouth of the river Argo sailed,
And safe on the “Long Row Isles” did they land; for the prayers had prevailed
Of the sons of Zeus; for the which cause altars and temples aye
Unto these have been reared: nor with those seafarers alone went they
As helpers, but Zeus made these all mariners’ saviours to be.
So the “Long Row” left they, and on to Aithalia sped oversea.
There in athlete-strife did they supple their limbs, till the sweat of them dripped
As rain, and the pebbles are flecked as with scarf-skin strigil-stripped
To this day; and their quoits and their wondrous armour are there, all stone;
And yet in the name of the haven the glory of Argo is shown.
And swiftly speeding thence they fleeted the sea-swell o’er,
To Ausonia’s strand Tyrrhenian lifting their eyes evermore.
And they came to Aiaia’s haven renowned, and forth of the prow
The hawsers adown to the strand they cast. And Circê now
There did they find, in the spray of the surf as she bathed her head,
For that dreams of the night had made the Spell-queen sorely adread.
For with blood did it seem that her palace-chambers, and every wall,
Were running, and flame was devouring her magic herbs, even all
Wherewith she was wont to bewitch what strangers soever came.
And herself with the blood of murder quenched that red-glowing flame,
Scooping it up with her hands: so ceased she from deadly dismay.
Wherefore, when dawning uprose, in the sea-surf’s flashing spray
At her waking she washed her vesture and bathed her braided hair.
And beasts—not like unto ravening beasts of the wold these were,
Nor in likeness fashioned as men, but as though from a medley-heap
They had gotten their limbs—in a throng followed after her, even as sheep
From the folds in their multitudes following after the shepherd go.
Such shapes from the slime primeval did earth first cause to grow,
Herself the creator, compacted of limbs in confusion blent,
Ere yet into hardness she grew ’neath a rainless firmament,
Neither yet from the shafts of a scorching sun had she gotten her dews
Of refreshing: but these as the ranks of an army did Time confuse,
As he marshalled them forth into being:—such monsters after her pressed.
And exceeding amazement fell on
