If the strange king touching the maiden unrighteous judgment spake.
And lo, mid the throng as they wrangled, the night, that putteth to sleep
The labours of men, stole o’er them, and all the earth did she steep
In the balm of her quiet: but not on the maid fell slumber’s peace
One whit, but her heart in her bosom for anguish writhed without cease.
Even as when a toiling woman windeth her thread
Through the night, and her fatherless children around her be moaning for bread,
For that widowed she is; and adown her cheeks stream ever the tears
As she thinketh upon this dreary lot that hath darkened her years;
Even so were the maid’s cheeks wet, and her heart evermore in her breast
On the anguish-thorn impaled was writhing in wild unrest.
But amidst of the city the palace within, as in days gone by,
Alkinoüs the king, and the lady of queenliest majesty,
The wife of Alkinoüs, lay in their bed, and many a word
Through the darkness in counsel they spake of the maiden; and thus to her lord
With loving and earnest speech made answer the queen, and she said:
“Yea, O my beloved—yet save, I beseech thee, the woe-stricken maid
From the Kolchians, showing a grace to the Minyan men. For anigh
To our isle lieth Argos; the men of Haimonia dwell hard by.
But Aiêtes—he dwelleth not even anear, and nought do we know
Of Aiêtes: we hear but his name. But the maiden’s awful woe,
When she made supplication, mine heart within my breast hath torn.
Yield her not up to the Kolchians, my king, to her sire to be borne.
In madness she sinned at the first, when she gave him the charm that should tame
The bulls; and with wrong to amend that wrong—ay, ofttimes the same
In our sinning we do!—she straightway essayed; and, shrinking in fear
From her proud sire’s tyrannous wrath, she fled. Now the man, as I hear,
This Jason, is bound by mighty oaths, which his own lips said,
When he pledged him to make her, his halls within, his wife true-wed.
Wherefore, beloved, constrain not Aison’s son to forswear
His oath, of thy will, nor consent that the sire from the daughter should tear
Her life in the rage of his soul amid pangs unendurably keen:
For cruelly jealous against their daughters are fathers, I ween.
What vengeance did Nykteus wreak on Antiopê lovely-faced!
What woes were of Danaê borne on the wide sea’s desolate waste
Through her sire’s mad rage! And of late, nor afar, it came to pass
That wanton-tyrannous Echetus thrust the goads of brass
Through the eyes of his daughter: and wasted and worn by her woeful doom,
She is grinding the grain of brass in a hovel’s dungeon-gloom.”
So spake she beseeching; and softened so was the heart of the king
By the words of his wife, and he spake in such wise answering:
“Arêtê, the Kolchian men would I even, in harness arrayed,
Drive forth of the land, for a grace to the heroes, to save yon maid.
But I fear to set the unswerving justice of Zeus at nought.
Nor were this well done, to contemn, according to this thy thought,
Aiêtes:—of kinglier king than Aiêtes may no man tell.
Yea, war, if he list, shall he bring against Hellas, afar though he dwell.
Wherefore ’tis meet and right that the sentence be spoken of me
That in all men’s eyes shall be best, and I will not hide it from thee:—
If the damsel be virgin yet, I decree that the daughter be led
To the father: but if she minister unto a husband’s bed,
I will part not from husband wife; nor, if haply she bear ’neath her zone
His offspring, to foes will I yield up a child of Aison’s son.”
So spake he, and round him straight did the veil of slumber close.
But she laid up his wisdom her heart within; and she straightway uprose
From her couch in the palace: the women her handmaids with hurrying feet
Came, eagerly tending their lady the Queen with service meet.
And she silently summoned her herald, and spake in his ears her request
To be instant in bidding Aison’s son, at his Queen’s behest,
To wed with the maiden, nor more with Alkinoüs the king to plead;
For himself to the Kolchians would go and pronounce the doom decreed,
That, if she were virgin yet, he would render her up to be led
To her father: but if she ministered unto a husband’s bed,
Not then would he sever the wife from the love of the lawfully wed.
So spake she, and forth of the hall the feet of the herald sped
Unto Jason, Arêtê the Queen’s fair-omened message to bring,
And Alkinoüs’ counsel, the word of the god-revering king.
And the heroes he found by the ship in their war-gear abiding awake
In the haven of Hyllus, anigh to the city; and out he spake
The Queen’s whole message, and each man’s spirit was gladness-stirred,
Forasmuch as he spake in their ears an exceeding welcome word.
Straightway they mingled the bowl to the Gods that abide for aye;
And with reverent hands to the altar the victim-sheep drew they.
And the selfsame night for the maiden prepared they the couch of the bride
In a hallowed cave, where of old time Makris wont to abide,
The child of the Honey-lord, Aristaius, whose wisdom discerned
The toils of the bees, and the wealth of the labour of olives learned.
And she was the first that received and in sheltering bosom bore
The child Nysaian of Zeus, on Euboea’s Abantian shore.
And with honey she moistened his lips, where the dew of life was dried
When Hermes bare him out of the fire. But Hêrê espied,
And from all the isle that Nymph in her fierceness of anger she drave.
Wherefore she dwelt far thence in the holy Phaeacian cave,
And blessing and weal beyond word to the folk of the land she gave.
Even there did they spread them the mighty couch and thereover they laid
The glittering Golden Fleece, that the marriage so might be made
Honoured, a song in the mouths of bards. Flowers manifold-fair
The Nymphs in their snowy bosoms gathered, and thitherward bare.
And a splendour like as of fire glowed round those shapes divine,
Such glory-gleams from the golden tufts did shimmer and
