The Golden Fleece

For if those think they attain something now who have seen the mouth of the Pontus and those straits through which passed the ship named Argo, "because chosen Argive men sailed in her to seek the golden fleece of the ram," or those who have seen those straits of Ocean "where the ravening wave divides Europe and Libya" — what spectacle, pray, do we think it will be, when it shall be permitted to be …

Yea, and I slew the dragon which guarded the golden fleece, keeping sleepless watch o’er it with many a wreathed coil, and I raised for thee a beacon of deliver arice.

would to Heaven the good ship Argo ne’er had sped its course to the Colchian land through the misty blue Symplegades, nor ever in the glens of Pelion the pine been felled to furnish with oars the chieftain’s hands, who went to fetch the golden fleece for Pelias;

then let him carry off the immortal coverlet, the fleece gleaming with its golden fringe.

For the fleece lay in a thicket, held in the ravening jaws of a serpent, which in thickness and length surpassed a ship with fifty oars, built by the blows of a hammer.

Today you must stand beside a beloved man, Muse, the king of Cyrene with its fine horses, so that while Arcesilas celebrates his triumph you may swell the fair wind of song that is due to the children of Leto and to Pytho, where once the priestess seated beside the golden eagles of Zeus, on a day when Apollo happened to be present, gave an oracle naming Battus as the colonizer of fruitful Libya, a …