To make ready with speed a galley to bring these home oversea.
This emprise do thou accomplish of free will: then, when again
Thou comest, I swear to yield thee the throne thereon to reign.
And let Zeus himself be the witness, that the oath-pledge firm may be,
Zeus, the ancestral father of the race of thee and me.”
So in peace they parted, consenting that so should the covenant stand.
Then Jason sent heralds to publish the Quest through every land.
Antistrophe 8
And lo, three sons of Kronion came at his call straightway:
No labour of battle could tire them, seed of the Highest they!
The one of Alkmena the star-eyed was born, and of Leda twain.
And there came two heroes with helmets tossing the stormy mane;
And these were the Earth-shaker’s scions, and honour was blent with their might.
Thither they journeyed from Pylos and Tainarus’ foreland-height.
Perfected so is the glory that thou, Euphemus, hast found,
And thine, Periklymenus, peerless in prowess far-renowned.
And, sped by Apollo thither, the master of harp-strings came,
The father of song, even Orpheus of unforgotten fame.
Epode 8
And of Hermes, the Lord of the Golden Sword, have two sons gone
To the toil wherefrom no respite was given, Echion the one,
And the other Eurytus, joying in the strength of life’s spring-day.
And swiftly came from their dwelling at the roots of Pangaius that lay
Zetes and Kalais: gladly their father Boreas, king
Of the Winds, arrayed them in pinions on their shoulders fluttering.
Hera it was that enkindled the yearning whose strong spell drew
All these demigod heroes to be of Argo’s crew,
Strophe 9
That none by the side of his mother be left still drowsing on
In a sodden life unperilled, but, though through death it were won,
Along with the rest his compeers he should find in the land oversea
And drain the magic chalice of the glory of chivalry.
So came they, the flower of all shipmen, down to Iolkos’ shore;
And the tale of them all told Jason, and thanked them o’er and o’er.
And his helper Mopsus the prophet enquired the will of Heaven,
For he noted the tokens of bird-flight and hallowed lots that were given;
Then joyfully cried to them: “Get you aboard, for the hour is now!”
And they heaved and hung the anchor over the galley’s prow.
Antistrophe 9
Then a golden bowl their chieftain took in his hands, and high
On the stern unto Zeus the Father of the Heavenly Ones did he cry,
Unto him whose lance is the lightning; to the rushing feet did he pray
Of the waves, and the wild wind-pinions, to speed them on their way;
To the nights and the great deep’s highways he prayed, that the days might be
Gracious, and kindly the fortune of the home-return oversea.
And a voice of thunder propitious out of the welkin crashed,
And dazzling gleams of lightning from the rifted cloud-walls flashed.
And the heroes breathed more lightly, their hearts with comfort glowed,
For they put their trust in the tokens that God from his heaven forth-showed.
Epode 9
And of hopes with fear unmingled the seer spake, while he bade
To smite with the oar the waters: the swiftly-flashing blade
Swung by their hands untiring over the sea sped on,
And the south-wind onward-wafting blew; and so they won
To the mouth of the Sea Unfriendly: there made they a holy place
To the Lord of the Deep; and a red-felled herd of the bulls of Thrace
Was there, and a new-built altar of stone with a basin therein.
And now, as they sped on, deeper they plunged into peril’s gin.
Strophe 10
But they cried to the Lord of Shipmen to bring them safely through
The resistless rush of the Countering Rocks; for these were two,
And alive they were, and onward they rolled more fearful-fast
Than the thunderous-roaring battalions of winds; but death at the last
By the demigods’ voyage was dealt them. To Phasis then came they,
And there with the swart-faced Colchians they clashed in battle-play,
Yea, in the very presence of King Aietes. Then
The Queen of the Darts keen-piercing brought from Olympus to men
That dappled bird of the madness of love, the wryneck, and bound
Was the thing by the Lady of Cyprus on a wheel whirled ceaselessly round
Antistrophe 10
From whose arms there was no escaping; and she was the first that brought
Unto earth that charm. And to Aison’s son the Goddess taught
The Suppliant’s Incantation, whose glamour should cause to depart
All reverent love of parents out of Medea’s heart,
That a longing for Hellas might lash her with Suasion’s whip, till afire
Was her soul. And she straightway taught him to achieve the tasks that her sire
Had appointed to him; for she blended in magical wise with oil
Strange drugs to anoint him, counter-spells for the fiery toil.
And therewithal these vowed them each unto other to be
Linked in the bands delightsome of spousal unity.
Epode 10
But when in the midst Aietes had set the adamant plough
And the bulls, which out of their glowing jaws were breathing now
The flame of a fire fierce-burning, as hoof after hoof of them stamped
On the shuddering ground, as with brazen feet they heavily tramped,
Then, unholpen of any, he led them to the yoke; straight furrows he drew,
And up from a trench of a fathom deep huge clods he threw.
Thereafter he cried his challenge: “This work now let your king,
Whosoe’er hath command of your galley, to its accomplishment bring,
Strophe 11
“And so bear off for his guerdon the unperishing coverlet,
Even the Fleece with golden-gleaming tassels beset.”
As he spake it, his saffron mantle did Jason cast aside,
And trusting in God he grappled with the task, and the rushing tide
Of flame played on him unquailing, for magic wrapped him round
By the spells of the sorceress-stranger. He seized the plough, and he bound
The bulls’ necks fast in the harness, he stabbed each strong-ribbed frame
With the merciless goad; and so to the end of the set task came
That stalwart hero. Aietes, in amazement’s agony,
Beholding the might of the stranger, gasped a wordless cry.
Antistrophe 11
Then to the strong-limbed hero, in token of love that they bare.
Stretched forth their hands his comrades, and crowned with garlands his hair,
And with loving praises they hailed him, and
