Cometh bursting over his beaches—afar on the innermost shore
Were they suddenly thrust, that the keel’s full depth was covered no more.
Then leapt they forth of the ship, and in trouble of soul did they gaze
On the dimness, the long low backs of the land all formless haze
Far stretching away unbroken. Nor stream nor spring they espied,
Neither path, nor, how distant soe’er, a steading thereon they descried
Of herdmen, but all the landskip in dead calm folded lay.
And in sore vexation of spirit did hero to hero say:
“What manner of land is this? Whither now hath the tempest’s sway
Hurled us? Would God we had dared, all reckless of deadly dismay,
To rush right on through the path of the rocks of the grim sea-gate!
Verily better it were, had we overleapt the fate
Of Zeus, in daring a deed of heroic mood to have died!
But now, what thing should we do, which be prisoned by winds to abide
Here, though but a little span we continue?—in such drear wise
The plain of the limitless land stretcheth up to the lowering skies.”
So cried they: thereafter in utter despair for their evil case
Ankaius the helmsman spake with anguish-darkened face:
“Yea verily, ghastliest doom hath undone us. Escape there is not
From destruction: for us but remaineth to suffer the cruellest lot,
Which have fallen on this desolation; yea, even though a breath there should be
Of air from the land, forasmuch as nought save shoals do I see,
Afar as I gaze o’er the waters around; and scantly the brine
Overscaleth the hoary sands in foam-fretted line upon line.
Yea, and our god-built ship had to shards been wretchedly torn
Long since far off from the shore, but that out of the sea was it borne
By the flood-tide’s self uplifted, and high on the land was it thrown.
But the tide now raceth aback to the deep, and foam alone
Whereon saileth no keel, rolleth on, and but thinly the earth hath it veiled.
Wherefore, I trow, all hope of our sailing hath utterly failed—
All hope of return! Let another man show sea-craft herein.
Lo, there is the helm—whosoever is fain our deliverance to win,
Let him sit in my seat. But little doth Zeus desire, I wot,
To crown with a day of return the toils we have suffered and wrought.”
So spake he, weeping the while; and the others agreed thereto,
Even all which had knowledge of ships; and all the hearts of them grew
Chilly and numb, and over their cheeks was paleness shed.
And even as, like unto lifeless spectres of folk long dead,
Men creep through the streets of a town, and despairing the issue await
Of famine or leaguer of war, or a tempest unspeakably great
Which hath swept o’er the land, and hath flooded the labours of oxen untold;
Or when great gouts of blood from the images sweating have rolled,
Or when from the shrines of the temple ghostly bellowings wail,
Or the sun o’er the day’s mid noontide draweth the night’s black veil
Out of heaven, and the glittering stars come forth in splendour pale;
So stricken, the chieftains then by the strand’s verge endless-wide
Roamed loitering on. And at one stride came dark eventide.
And piteously around each other their arms did they throw
With weeping farewell, that each from his fellow apart might go
To die, and might fling him adown on the sand to wait for the end.
So this way and that way to choose their couch of the night did they wend;
And each in the folds of his mantle enshrouded his head, and they lay
Fasting and thirsting there through the livelong night and the day
Awaiting a piteous death. And the handmaids huddled in fear
Round Aiêtes’ daughter apart shrilled lamentation drear.
And as when, of their mother forsaken, fledglings shrilly cheep,
Which have fallen to earth from a cleft in a sheer scaur’s precipice-steep,
Or as when ’twixt the low-browed banks of Pactolus’ fair-flowing stream
The swans are upraising their song, and the meadow of dewy gleam
Murmureth round, and murmur the river’s ripples fair;
So the handmaidens bowing low in the dust their golden hair,
All through the night were uplifting their pitiful wail of despair.
And now out of life had they slidden, had vanished from human ken,
And the name and the fame of them never more had been heard among men,
Those noblest of heroes!—their task unaccomplished had ended then:
Howbeit the Heroine-nymphs had pity of them as they pined
In helpless despair, the Warders of Libya, they that did find
Athênê, what time from the head of her father, in battle-gear
All flashing, she sprang, and the new-born bathed they in Trito’s mere.
The noon of the day it was, and the sun upon Libya-land
Burned with his fiercest beams: by Aison’s son did they stand,
And the mantle-shroud from his head with soft light touch drew they.
But the hero, downward drooping his eyes, thence turned them away,
For awe of the shapes divine: but with gentle words of cheer
With open face did they speak unto him in his ’wildered fear:
“Ill-starred one, wherefore so grievously smitten art thou with despair?
We know how ye fared for the Golden Fleece: of your toils we be ware,
Even all the strength-overmastering labours on land that ye proved,
And all ye endured on the face of the watery deep as ye roved.
The Solitary Ones of the land, the Heroines, are we,
Warders and daughters of Libya, which speak which our voices to thee.
Up then: let thy spirit not thus to affliction of misery yield,
And uprouse thy comrades, so soon as the steeds of the car swift-wheeled
Of Poseidon, by Amphitritê loosed from the yoke, run free.
Unto your mother the nursing-debt then render ye
For all her travail, when long she bare you her womb within.
So haply again unto hallowed Achaia-land shall ye win.”
So spake they, and vanished, there as they stood, in the selfsame place
Where murmured their voices close in his ear: and with startled gaze
Staring around, on the earth sat Jason, and cried in amaze:
“Be gracious, ye glorious Goddesses, lone in the desert which dwell!
Yet what this word of our homecoming meaneth I wot not well.
I will gather my comrades, and tell them, and learn what token is this
Of escape:—in the multitude of counsellors
