So smote with the oars, by the lyre of Orpheus timing the stroke,
The sea’s wild water, and over the blades the surges broke.
And on this side and that with the foam the dark brine seething flashed;
Like muttered thunder it sounded by strokes of the mighty updashed.
And glanced in the sun like flame, as the ship winged onward her flight,
Their armour: the wake far-weltering ever behind gleamed white,
As an oft-trodden path through a grassy plain lieth clear in sight.
And all the Gods that day from the height of the heaven looked down
On the ship, and the might of the demigod heroes, the men of renown,
Sailing the sea; and afar on the crests of the hill-tops lone
The Maids of the Mountain, the Pelian Nymphs, in amaze looked on
At the work of Athênê Itônis, the heroes’ goodly array,
As the ashen blades in their hands kept time with measured sway.
Yea, and there came one down from the mountain’s height to the shore,
Even Cheiron, Philyra’s son, and plashed the surf-wash hoar
On his feet, as his broad hand waving many a farewell sent,
And he shouted, “Good speed, and a sorrowless home-return!” as they went.
And there was his wife, with Peleus’ babe in her arms held high,
Achilles, waving a greeting as sped his sire thereby.
So when they had rounded the headland, and left the haven behind
By the cunning and wisdom of Hagnias’ son the prudent of mind—
Even of Tiphys, who swayed in the master-craftsman’s grip
The helm smooth-shaven, to guide unswerving the course of the ship—
Then set they up in the centre-block the towering mast,
And on either hand strained taut the stays, and they lashed them fast;
And the sail they unfurled therefrom, from the yard-arm spreading it wide.
And a breeze shrill-piping upsprang, and the sheets upon either side
O’er the polished pins on the deck then cast they in order meet;
And past the long Tisaian ness did they restfully fleet.
And Orpheus, in song whose rhythmical cadence kept time to the lyre,
Sang of the Saviour of Ships, the Child of the Glorious Sire,
Artemis, she that hath those crags of the sea in her keeping,
The Lady that wardeth Iolkos-land. And the fishes leaping
Up from the deep sea came, and, drawn by the spell of the lay,
Both small and great followed gambolling over the watery way.
And as when in the track of a shepherd, the warder of flocks on the wold,
Follow sheep that have fed to the full of the grass, a throng untold,
And he goeth before with his shrill reed piping them home to the fold,
As sweetly he fluteth a shepherd’s strain—so over the seas
Followed the fishes: on wafted her ever the chasing breeze.
And ere long melting in haze the Pelasgians’ land of corn
Sank out of sight; and past Mount Pelion’s cliffs were they borne
Aye running onward; and sank in the offing the Sepian strand,
And sea-girt Skiathos rose, and a far-away gleam of sand,
The Peiresian beach and Magnesian, clear in the summer air
On the mainland; and lo, the barrow of Dolops: at eventide there
Beached they the ship, for against them the veering breeze had turned.
And they honoured the dead, and victims of sheep in the gloaming they burned,
While the sea-surge stormily tossed. Two days to and fro on the shore
They loitered, but ran on the third their galley asea once more;
And the broad sail spread they on high, and the keel from the strand shot away:
Men call it “The Launching of Argo”—Aphetai—unto this day.
Onward they ran, ever onward: they left Meliboia behind;
They caught but a glimpse of the foam-flecked beach of the stormy wind:
And with dawning on Homolê looked they, and lo, it was looming anigh;
Broad-couched on the breast of the waters it lay as they passed it by.
Thereafter full soon by the outfall of Amyrus’ flood must they fly.
Eurymenê then, and the surf-tormented gorges they spied
Of Olympus’ and Ossa’s seaward face: wind-wafted they ride
By the slopes of Pallênê; beyond Kanastra’s foreland-height
They passed, running lightly before the breath of the breeze in the night.
And before them at dawn on-speeding the pillar of Athos rose,
The Thracian mountain: its topmost peak’s dark shadow it throws
Far as a merchantman goodly-rigged in a day might win,
Even to Lemnos’ isle, and the city Myrinê therein.
And the wind blew all that day till the folds of the darkness fell,
Blew ever fresh, and the sail strained over the broad sea-swell.
Howbeit the wind’s breath failed them at going down of the sun:
So to Lemnos the craggy, the Sintian isle, by rowing they won.
There all the men of the nation together pitilessly
By the violent hands of the women were slain in the year gone by;
Forasmuch as the hearts of the men from their lawful wives had turned,
And in love for their captive handmaids with baleful passion they burned,
Maids that themselves from the Thracian land in foray had brought
Oversea:—’twas the wrath of the Cyprian Queen that curse had wrought,
Because that for long they had left her unhonoured by sacrifice:—
Ah hapless, whose hungering jealousy craved that woeful price!
For not with the captives their husbands alone for the sin did they slay,
But every male therewithal, lest perchance in the coming day
Out of these might arise an avenger for that grim murder’s sake.
In one alone for an aged sire did compassion awake,
Hypsipylê, daughter of Thoas, the king of the folk of the land.
In an ark did she send him to drift o’er the sea from the murder-strand,
If he haply might ’scape. And fisher-folk saved him and brought to the isle
Which men call Sikinus now, but Oinoë named it erewhile;
For from Sikinus folk renamed it, the child whom the Maid of the Spring,
Oinoë, bare, when she couched in love with Thoas the king.
So it came to pass that for these to tend the kine, and to wear
War-harness of brass, and to furrow the wheat-bearing land with the share,
In the eyes of them all seemed task more light than Athênê’s toil
Wherewithal were their hands aforetime busy: yet all the while
Across the broad sea ever they cast and anon their eyes
With a haunting fear lest the Thracian sails in the offing should
