Were the smoke-grimed bellows. Thereafter on to the third hath she passed,
Aiolus, Hippotas’ glorious son. And even the while
Her message she told, and her swift knees rested from journeying toil,
Thetis from Nereus had gone and her sisters, and up from the sea
And Olympus-ward to the presence of Hêrê the Queen passed she.
And she caused her to sit by her side, and she uttered forth the word:
“Hear, Goddess Thetis, the thing that my spirit to tell thee is stirred.
Thou knowest how honoured is Aison’s son of me in mine heart,
And they that with him in the toil of the Quest have borne their part.
Alone did I save them then through the Clashing Rocks when they flew,
When lightened the terrible flames, when the storm of the fire-blast blew,
When white were the ragged reefs with the spume of the boiling surge.
But a path by Scylla the Rock and Charybdis’ fathomless gorge
Dreadly outbelching, awaits them:—O Thetis, I nursed thee of yore,
Even I, when thou wast but a wordless babe, and I loved thee more
Than the others thy fellows, the Maids in the halls of brine which abide,
Because thou refusedst, for all his desire, to couch by the side
Of Zeus—ay, so evermore be his thoughts all lust for embrace
Of a Goddess immortal, or couch of a princess of mortal race!
But for reverence of me, and for sacred fear which the heart of thee bare,
Didst thou shrink from his love: thereafter a mighty oath he sware
That never shouldst thou be called the bride of a God undying;
Yet for all this spared not, but followed thee sore loth, lustfully eyeing,
Till reverend Themis revealed unto him all Fate’s decree,
How that thy weird was to bear a son who should mightier be
Than his father: wherefore, for all his desire, he refrained, for dread
Lest another should rise up matching his might, and should rule in his stead
O’er the Deathless, and so should himself not hold the dominion for aye.
But the best of the sons of earth for thine husband I found, in the day
That saw thine espousals, that sweetness of marriage might comfort thee,
And babes: and the Gods to the feast of thy solemnity,
Even all, did I bid: in mine own hands then did the splendour shine
Of the bridal torch, to requite that love, that honour of thine.
Go to now, a word will I tell thee, a prophecy faithful and fast:
What time thy son to the plain Elysian shall come at the last—
Thy son, who now in the dwellings of Cheiron the Centaur-king,
Forlorn of the mother’s breast, is nursed by the Maids of the Spring—
There is it his weird to wed Aiêtes’ daughter; but thou,
Medea’s mother that shalt be, help thy daughter now,
Yea, Peleus withal—ha! why is thine anger quenchless-hot?
Folly was his; yet even the Gods may be folly-distraught.
Of a surety, I ween, by my behests shall Hephaistus cease
To cause the might of his fire to burn; and Hippotades,
Aiolus, all the rushing wings of his winds shall refrain,
Save only the steadfast-breathing West, till the heroes shall gain
The havens Phaeacian. Devise for them thou a return without bane.
For the crags and the tyrannous-buffeting surges make me afraid,
These only; and these shall be foiled, if thou and thy sisters aid.
In ’wildered amazement suffer them not to thrust their keel
Charybdis-ward, lest down through her jaws to destruction they reel.
Neither suffer thou them to approach unto Scylla’s hideous lair—
Ausonian Scylla the deadly, whom nightmare Hekatê bare,
Even she whom Krataiïs they call, to the Ancient of the sea—
Lest with her horrible jaws down-swooping suddenly
She destroy of the heroes the chiefest. But guide thou onward the ship
In the course where still is a hairbreadth escape from destruction’s grip.”
So spake she, and Thetis to her made answer with suchlike word:
“If the might of the ravening fire and the winds’ breath fury-stirred
Shall in very deed be refrained, would I of a surety essay—
Yea, I would pledge me, what though the surges should bar their way,
To bring their ship safe through, if the West blow fresh and strong.
But now is it time that I fare on the far track measureless-long
Unto my sisters—they which herein shall strengthen mine hand—
And to where the ship’s stern-hawsers be cast forth on to the strand,
That the men may at dawn take thought for the home-return to their land.”
She spake, and departed, and plunged from the height of the heaven mid swirls
Of the dark-blue sea; and she called to her sisters, the Nereïd-girls,
To come to her help: and the Maids of the Sea, so soon as they heard,
Gathered; and Thetis told them according to Hêrê’s word;
And she sped them all to the sea Ausonian thence forthright.
And swifter herself than the flash of an eye, or the arrows of light
Of the sun, from the uttermost bourne when his chariot-wheels upflame,
On through the water she fleeted and flashed, until she came
Unto the beach Aiaian of that Tyrrhenian main.
And she found by the galley the heroes: the shaft on the string did they strain
For their sport, and the javelin they hurled: but she stole unto Peleus’ side,
And she touched his hand; for of old had he won her, his Goddess-bride.
But the eyes of the others were holden: to him did the Goddess appear,
Of his eyes only discerned; and she murmured low in his ear:
“No longer now on the beaches Tyrrhenian sitting abide;
But cast ye the hawsers of Argo loose with the dawning-tide,
Obeying your helper Hêrê’s command; for at her behest
The Sea-maids, daughters of Nereus, all to the trysting have pressed,
Through the midst of the Rocks which the Wanderers hight your galley to speed
Safe; for thereby is your course, and the path by fate decreed.
But see that thou show me to none, when thine eyes my form discern
Mid the Nymphs, as we meet thee, lest hotter thou cause mine anger to burn
Than when erst thou didst kindle my spirit to anger swift and stern.”
She spake, and she plunged through abysses of sea, and he saw her no more:
And sharp pain smote him, who had not beheld her theretofore
Since the day she forsook her
