Book 1

1. C. Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, Book One.

I sing of the straits first opened to the great sons of gods, and of the prophetic ship that dared to follow the shores of Scythian Phasis and to burst through the midst of the clashing crags, until at last it came to rest in flaming heaven. Phoebus, instruct me, if the chaste tripod of the Cumaean seer stands witness in my pure house, if the laurel grows green worthy upon my brow; and you, to whom belongs the greater fame of the opened deep, since the Caledonian Ocean bore your sails, though once it scorned the Phrygian line of Iulus, snatch me away from the peoples and from the earth wrapped in cloud, holy father, and favour me as I sing the venerable deeds of men of old. Your son shall unfold the overthrow of Idume (for he is able): your brother black with the dust of Jerusalem, hurling firebrands and raging through every tower. He shall establish for you the worship of the gods and your nation's shrines, when you, father, shall shine from every quarter of the pole, and no longer shall the Bear be surer to Tyrian keels, nor Helice be watched by Greek helmsmen, but you shall give the signs, with you as guide shall Greece and Sidon and the Nile send forth their ships. Now, serene, favour my beginnings, that this voice may fill the Latin cities.

Pelias from his earliest years held Haemonia in his rein, already a heavy and long-standing dread to his peoples: whatever rivers of his land seek the Ionian Sea, and Othrys and Haemus, and lowest Olympus too the fortunate man turned over with his ploughshare. But there was no rest in his mind, fearing the offspring of his brother and the threats of the gods; for the seers foretell that this man will be the king's destruction, and at the altars the terrifying warnings are repeated over the slain beasts: above all, the man's own vast fame presses, and his prowess, no joy to a tyrant. Therefore he goes on to forestall his fears and to destroy the youth, the son of Aeson, and he turns over in his mind the ways and times of death. But he sees no wars among the Greek cities, nor any monsters: already Alcides has closed within his temple the jaws of the Cleonaean lion; long since the Arcadian beast was overcome by the serpent of Lerna, and both bulls had their horns broken. The rage of the sea and the perils of the vast deep please him. Then, looking on the youth with calm and no fearsome brow, he accosts him, and gives his face and weight to feigned words. 'Grant me this campaign, fairer than the deeds of old, and lend me your spirit. You have heard how Phrixus, of our blood, the son of Cretheus, fled from his father's altars. Him fierce Aeetes, who dwells in Scythia and by frozen Phasis (alas, the shame of the great Sun), the wine of hospitality . . . mindful of nothing of ours or of the gods. Not rumour alone reports it: the youth himself I see, lamenting such cruelty, him I behold, when late sleep binds my weary limbs; for his mangled shade with ceaseless complaints rouses me, and Helle, the power of the great sea. If I had the strength I once had, you would see the Colchian already pay the penalty, and the king's head and arms here. That fire has grown dull with the years, and my son is not yet ripe for command and the business of war and of the sea. You, in whom now both care and a man's spirit flourish, go, my glory, and to the Greek dome restore the fleece of Nephele's ram, and deem yourself worthy of such perils.' With such words he urges the youth on, and, nearer than one who orders, he fell silent, certain that the Cyanean rocks would clash in the Scythian sea, and that the fleece, possessed by so great a serpent, lay still—the serpent the king's daughter would call from its shrine, flickering its forked tongues, with song and banquets, and give it dark honey from her threefold venom.

Soon the silent guile lay open, nor was the fleece a care to the man, but he saw himself driven by hatred onto the monstrous seas. Yet by what art might he at last seek the bidden Colchians? Now he longs for the winged sandals of aerial Perseus, or burns to have curbed savage dragons to a chariot, like the man who steeped in his plough the lands that knew not Ceres, and condemned the oak by the golden corn-ear. Alas, what is he to do? Should he summon the fickle people, hostile to the old tyrant, and the fathers who once pitied Aeson? Or, relying on Juno as ally and Pallas, should he rather prevail by clashing arms and undertake the bidden seas, if from so great a deed, the sea subdued, some fame might arise? You alone, Glory, scorch the spirits and minds of men; you he sees green and free from old age, standing on the bank of Phasis and calling young men. At last religion steadies his uncertain mind and his confused breast, and stretching his pious palms to the stars he says: 'Almighty queen, whom—when troubled Jupiter shook the dark rain from a black sky— I myself bore over the swollen Enipeus through the headlong storm into the fields and to safety, nor could I believe you a goddess, until I saw you reclaimed by your husband's thunder and his nod, and snatched away in sudden fear, grant me Scythia and Phasis; and you, unwed Pallas, rescue me. To your temples I myself shall give that fleece, and my father shall give to the fire necks with gilded horns, and snowy flocks shall ring the altars.'

The goddesses heard, and with swift gliding through the air they sought their separate ways. To the walls of Thespiae the swift Tritonia flies, and to her dear Argus. She bids him build the ship and bring down with the axe the oak-trees, and now she goes as his companion into the Pelian shades. But Juno, through the Argive and Macetian cities alike, spreads word that the son of Aeson, untried, attempts the south winds against his parents' wish; that already the ship stands ready, proud with its oars, and demands men whom it may carry back and lift to glory through the ages for their deeds.

Every band of leaders longs—those already tested in war and by fame—or those whom the trials of first youth in its flower hold, with no chance yet of great deeds given: but those who have a love of the fields and the harmless plough, these the Fauns, seen in clear light, spur on, and sing with great praise the ship through the wilds and the ways, the goddesses of the woods and the river-gods with lifted horns.

At once, of his own will, from Inachian Argos the Tirynthian hastens, whose darts, tipped with Arcadian venom, and ready bow upon glad shoulders, the boy Hylas carries: he indeed would wish it, but his hand was not yet equal to the burden, nor could grasp the club. Frenzied with such things, Saturnia pursues them and renews her wonted complaints: 'O would that not all the glory of Greek youth were rushing into new dooms, and that these were now the orders of my Eurystheus. The rain and darkness and the savage trident, even now would I have hurled, and my husband's fire against his will. Now too I would not wish him a comrade or the pillar of our ship, nor may it ever be right to trust to Herculean aid, or to owe so much to a proud companion.' She spoke, and turned her eyes away to the Haemonian waters. She sees all astir with a throng of men, and on every side the felled grove brought down, and the shores resound with the skilled axe; already she sees the Thespian's son loosen the pine with a slender saw and join its side, and soften the pliant timbers with slow fire, the oars now ready, and Pallas seeking arms for the sail-bearing mast. When the hull stood firm, a mass impassable to the long sea, and when the thin wax filled the hidden cracks, he added to the painting its various honours. Here, on the back of a Tyrrhenian fish, longed-for . . . Thetis is borne to the bridal chamber of Peleus; a dolphin seizes the waters, she sits with her gaze cast down beneath her veil, and sighs that no Achilles greater than Jove is to be born. Panope and her sister Doto and Galatea, rejoicing in the wave, attend her likewise with their gleaming arms, seeking the deep: from the Sicilian shore the Cyclops calls her back. Opposite, a fire and a couch of green foliage and feasts and wine, and amid the sea-gods with his bride the son of Aeacus, and Chiron strikes the lyre after the cups. In another part is Pholoe, and Rhoetus mad with much wine, and the sudden battles over the Atracian maiden. The mixing-bowls fly and the tables and the altars of the gods and the cups, the famed work of men of old. Best with the spear here is Peleus, here Aeson is known raging with the sword; on his unwilling back Monychus bears Nestor the victor, Clanis dispatches Actor with a burning oak; on his black horse Nessus flees, and leaning on the rugs in their midst Hippasus hides his head in the empty gold.

Though these things were marvellous to the men, the son of Aeson is stunned, and says to himself: 'Alas, wretched are our sons and fathers. For this are we, easy souls, sent against the clouds upon a ship? Shall the sea now rage on Aeson alone? Shall I not carry off the youth Acastus into the same chances and perils? Let Pelias wish safe waters for the hated keel and entreat the waves, with our mothers, for it.'

As he hesitated over such things, the armour-bearer of Jove came on the left through the air, and lifted up a lamb fixed in his strong talons. But from afar, alarmed, the shepherds follow with shouting from the stalls, and the barking of dogs; swiftly the raptor takes the air, and escapes above the depths of the Aegean deep. The son of Aeson accepts the augury, and glad seeks the house of proud Pelias. Sooner now the royal son flies to him, joining embraces and brotherly hearts. The leader says: 'I come not, as you think, Acastus, with degenerate complaints: my purpose is to join you as companion to my undertaking; for neither Telamon nor Canthus nor Idas, nor the son of Tyndareus, is worthier to me of Helle's fleece. O how much of earth, how much of heaven it is permitted us to know, to what uses we open the sea! Now perhaps you think the toil grievous; but when the ship returns glad and gives me back my dear Iolcos, what shame, alas, will it be then for you to hear of our labours, when I tell of the peoples seen, while you sigh.'

The king did not let the man say more: 'Enough have I prepared for whatever you call me to; nor think us,' he said, 'best of men, sluggish, nor that I trust my father's kingdoms more than you, if under your lead it is settled to gather the first honours of valour and to grow into a brother's fame. Indeed, lest any care of my anxious parent hinder me with excessive fear, I shall deceive him unknowing, and sudden I shall be there with the ready crew, when the ship first leaves the sands.' He had spoken. The other, glad, accepts these spirited promises, and turns his eager steps to the shore.

But at the leader's commands and warning the Minyans in crowds put their shoulders beneath the ship, and with bent knee bowed forward run down and enter the strait. Neither the boatmen's shout from panting chests was lacking, nor charming Orpheus with his shell. Then glad they raise the altars. To you, ruler of the waters, the highest honour; to you on the shore, with sea-blue fillets, and to the Zephyrs and Glaucus a bull, and to Thetis a heifer, Ancaeus brings down. No other was surer than he to break the fat necks with the death-bringing axe. Three times pouring the bowls in libation to the father of the sea, thus the son of Aeson speaks: 'O you who shake the foaming realms with your nod, and embrace all lands with your brine, grant pardon. I know that I, one out of all peoples, attempt forbidden ways and earn the storm: but I am not borne of my own will, nor is it my mind now to pile up mountains, or to demand the thunderbolt from high Olympus. Let not the prayers of Pelias draw you: he devised the harsh commands, and the Colchians, against me and the grief of my own: him only . . . . . . with waves not indignant receive this head and the alder pressed down by kings.' So speaking, he heaps the flame with rich offering.

When the fire, struggling in the thick entrails, put forth its crest and climbed the leaping vitals of the bull, behold, hallowed and wholly the god's along the shores, Mopsus, monstrous to look upon, whirls his fillet and his hair rising through the air, and the laurel. A voice was at last returned, a voice dread to the men; then silence was made for the seer: 'Alas, what do I behold! Roused but now by our daring, behold, Neptune calls the gods of the sea and a great council. They urge to rage and to defend the law. So in your embrace, so the breast of your brother, Juno, hold; and you, Pallas, do not desert the ship: now turn aside the threats of your uncle. They have yielded, and have received the ship upon the sea. Through how many perils of fortune am I delivered! Why does fair Hylas veil his hair with sudden reed? Whence on his shoulders an urn, and through his snow-white limbs sea-blue garments? Whence these wounds upon you, Pollux? How great the fire from the swollen nostrils of the bulls? The helmets rise, and from all the furrows spears, and now, even now, shoulders. What battle around the fleece do I behold? What woman, dripping with slaughter, cleaves the air with winged serpents? Whom does she strike with the sword? Wretched one, snatch up the little ones, son of Aeson! I see the bridal chamber too ablaze.'

For long . . . he terrifies the Minyans and the leader with riddling words; but against him the Phoebean Idmon, dreadful to the men neither by pallor nor by any bristling of hair, full of fate and with Phoebus at peace, to whom his sire granted by warning to foreknow the gods' omens, whether he questioned the flames, or the slippery entrails close at hand, or the air filled with sure-flying birds, thus sings to his comrades and to Mopsus: 'As much as the augur Apollo and the first flame teach, I see indeed the work full of hard toil, but a work which the enduring ship shall conquer all. Hold firm, great souls, and stretch out to the sweet embraces of your parents.' Tears fell as he sang, because he found Argos already closed to himself amid the fires.

Scarcely had he said this, when the Aesonian leader joined such words: 'Since you behold the counsels of the gods, O comrades (and how great a hope is given to great undertakings!), do you too now bring strength and a father's courage. Not by me is the piety of the Thessalian tyrant to be blamed, nor his suspected guile: a god commands these things, a god with a favouring omen; Jupiter himself willed commerce for his world and to mingle such great labours of men. Go, men, with me, and prevail in doubtful affairs, deeds it shall delight to remember, and which shall urge on our descendants. But this night, comrades, gladly along the shore lead through with sweet talk and play as it comes.' Let it be obeyed. The young men sprawl on the soft seaweed, and the Tirynthian conspicuous on his couch. The servants snatched the entrails on spits and gave the corn from baskets.

And now Chiron came running down from the topmost peak, and showed from afar Achilles calling to his father. When the boy saw Peleus risen at the well-known voices and stretching out his arms with a mighty stride, he leapt to him and long hung upon the dear neck. Neither the cups foaming with strong Bacchus nor the figures worth gazing on in ancient metal hold him; he is amazed among the leaders, and drinks in their great talk, and brings his face close to the Herculean lion. But glad Peleus snatches kisses from his clinging son, and looking up to heaven says: 'If you wish Peleus to run upon a calm wave,' he says, 'and to gain the favouring winds, preserve, you gods, this head. The rest, Chiron, give to me. Let the little one marvel at you telling of trumpets and wars; under you as master let the boy bear childish weapons and hasten toward our spear.' Thence to all warmth was added by the wine: to go through the deep they wish with high heart. The fleece of Phrixus, though absent, is promised, and Argo to return with golden clusters at the stern.

The sun rushes down, and for the rejoicing Minyans the waves drew off the whole day. The lights are scattered along the curving shore, showing the lands to no sailors yet. Here the Thracian seer draws out the night with his sweet shell, telling how Phrixus, his temples bound with fillets, fled the unjust altars, hidden by clouds, leaving Athamas to Ino's Learchus; how the golden ram bore the youth upon the pitying waves, and how Helle sat clinging to its horns. The Dawn had run seven courses, and the Moon as many shadows in the sky, and Sestos, seen far off across no sea, had begun to part from twin Abydos. Here the daughter of Aeolus, doomed to abide through all time, deserts him—alas, in vain snatched from her cruel stepmother. She indeed, with weary palms, reaches far for the wet fleece, but the wave drags the garments, soaked with their pressing weight, and her hands slip from the smooth gold. What grief was yours, Phrixus, when, driven by the swift surge, you looked back at the wretched maiden's crying face and her last hands and her hair scattered across the seas.

And now there was a limit to wine and play, and laid upon the couches of rest they fell silent; alone of them all, stretched out in order, impatient of sleep, the leader remains. Him heavy Aeson and Alcimede, wakeful alike, watch and hold, their eyes full. To them Jason offers the words of calm speech, and soothes their troubled hearts. Soon, when their eyes, overcome by heavy sleep, had closed, the gleaming guardian of the crowned keel seemed to press the leader with these words: 'You see the Dodonian oak, the handmaid of Chaonian Jove. With you I enter the waters, nor could Saturnia tear me from the prophetic woods except by the promise of heaven. The time is here; come, break off delay; and while over the whole sea we run, if the doubtful sky should draw on clouds, even now put away fear, trusting in the gods above and in me.' She had spoken. He, trembling, though the gods' omen was glad, leapt from his bed. At once Tithonia, kindly, brought before him all the Minyans, rippling the sea with the new sun of Phoebus. They scatter to the benches: some loose the yards from the high mast, others on the marble surface try out the oars beforehand; from the high prow Argus gathers the rope.

The mothers' groans increase, and the fathers' brave hearts grow faint; weeping, they cling in long embraces. Yet the voice of Alcimede rises above all the lamentation. As much as she rages with womanly wailings, so much as the war-trumpet of Mars drowns the Idaean boxwood, she speaks also these words: 'Son, about to face unworthy toils, we are parted; nor was it given me before to compose my mind to these chances, but I feared wars for you and lands. Vows must be made to other gods. If the fates bring you back to me, if the sea is appeasable to trembling mothers, I can indeed endure the daylight and the long fear. But if Fortune prepares otherwise, pity your parents, kind Death, while there is fear and not yet grief. Ah me, the Colchians— why did I, and the fleece of carried-off Phrixus, ever dread them? What days already in my mind, what cruel sleepless nights with cares I foresee! How often, at the hoarse beating of the shore, shall I faint, fearing the Scythian sea and sky, nor, ungrateful, believe my fair weather brings you safety. Grant me, I pray, your embraces, and leave words to cling in my ears, and even now press my eyes with your sweet right hand.' With such words Alcimede mourns; but Aeson, stronger, lifting up her spirits with words: 'O if I had the blood I had, as great, when this hand subdued Pholus threatening with no lighter mixing-bowl of gold, first upon the bronze-clad ship would I have set my arms and rejoiced to raise the vessel with the struck oar. But my country's prayers prevailed, and the vows heard by the great gods: I see so many kings upon our sea, and you as their leader. Such, such men was I wont to lead and to follow. Now that day (may Jupiter grant it, I pray), that day remains, when victor over the Scythian king and the sea I shall receive you, your shoulders blazing with the fleece you have seized, and yield my own deeds to your youth.' So he speaks. The other supported on his breast the mother fallen, and received the old man on his great neck.

And now was the end. The third trumpet with its sad signal had loosed the embraces that held back the West Wind and the ship. The men each give their names to an oar, give their names to the benches. Here Telamon holds the leftward sea, higher there Alcides takes another part, the rest of the company is divided: swift Asterion, whom as he fell from his mother his father Cometes of Piresiae cherished by twin streams, where Enipeus more slowly feels the strength of Apidanus. Here Talaus strains, and Leodocus presses with his oar the back of his own brother, men whom noble Argos contributed. Hence too is sent Idmon, though the birds forbade him; but it is shameful for a man to have feared the future. Here too the son of Naubolus rises against the twisted waves, Iphitus, here Neptunian Euphemus breaks his father's sea, who holds wave-sounding Psamathe and ever-open Taenarus, and from the soft shore of Pellene Deucalion sure with the javelin and at close quarters with the sword, the noble Amphion, whom Hypso bore alike and could not, nor wished to, learn to tell their like faces apart. Then strong Clymenus with battered breast plies the oar, and his brother Iphiclus draws the ship, and with savage torch soon to drive the Danaans upon your rocks, Caphereus, Nauplius, and Oileus who shall groan at the bolt not hurled by Jove, his son hissing through the Euboean waves, and Cepheus, who at the Tegean threshold helped the son of Amphitryon as he sweated under the weight of the Erymanthian monster, and Amphidamas (but his brother, fuller of deeds, chose with Ancaeus rather to touch the fleece of Phrixus), and Eurytion, his neck covered with the saved hair, whom his father shall shear when he returns to the Aonian altars. You too, Nestor, the fame of the Thessalian ship snatches into the seas, who one day at the Mycenaean sails shall marvel at the white waters and a thousand pressing helmsmen. Here is the seer, and the not-vain pledge of his father Phoebus, Mopsus, around whose purple buskin a white robe flows, striking his lowest feet, and on his filleted brow a helmet, and at its peak the Penean laurel. Moreover from the Herculean rank rises Tydeus and the son of Neleus, Periclymenus, whom little Methone . . . light Elis in horses, and Aulon facing the waves, saw breaking the opposing faces with the gauntlet.—

You too, son of Poeas, with your oar seek the Colchians of Phrixus, fated to see Lemnos twice, now glorious for your father's spear, one day to wield the Herculean arrows. Next to him Butes, rich from the Actaean shores; for he shuts in countless bees and, proud, darkens the day with a long cloud, while he opens the cells full of nectar and sends his kings forth to sweet Hymettus. You follow, Phalerus, and bear your own mishaps graven on your arms; for slipping from the spreading tree the serpent encircled you, little, four times with its burning back: your anxious father stands far off, bending his doubtful bow. You too bear arms graven with other terrors, Eribotes . . . nor was Peleus lacking, trusting in his bride a goddess and in his bride's father, and your spear gleams from the high prow, son of Aeacus: so much higher than the other spears was it, as it had surpassed the Pelian rowans on the summit. The son of Actor too leaves his son in Chiron's cave, that as a comrade he may study together with dear Achilles the strings of the lyre, and together as a boy may launch the light spears, may learn as a rider to mount the back of the gentle master, and Phlias, whose descent—as fame, not deceived—is from Lyaeus, his father's hair flowing from his head. Nor does his mother fear to commit Ancaeus to the deep, whom she bore to the king of the sea. No less untroubled upon the waters is Erginus borne, the offspring of Neptune, who knows the snares of the sea, the stars of the bright night, and whom Aeolus marks out from his closed caves, who would not fear if the ship's command, if heaven itself were handed over by Tiphys, his face wearied with the constant Bear. Swift the Laconian bears the rough straps with wounding lead, that at least into the empty winds he may fling his arms, and the Pagasaean ship may watch the Oebalian nursling celebrating the shores in untroubled sport. And Castor, better at curbing mouths with the Thessalian rein, while he sought a bearer for fearful Helle, let Cyllarus grow fat on the Amyclaean grass. On them alike trembles the fiery purple, dyed with Taenarian crimson, the work their mother on a double web drew, a thing to behold; twice she had wrought Taygetus and its leafy woods, twice she had poured Eurotas in soft gold; and each man's own steed bears him on the snowy thread, and from the breast of both flies the swan of their father. But for you the brooch has now loosed the gathered garments and shown your strong shoulders and the breadth of your proud breast, equal, Meleager, to the Herculean arms. Hence a numerous band, the Cyllenian offspring: sure is Aethalides to gather sudden arrows as the string returns; you, Eurytus, are good to go through the midst of the foe with the sword; nor, by your father's craft, ignoble to the Minyans, Echion, who renders the leader's messages to the peoples. But not by your arms, Iphis, will Argo return: alas, swiftly the sad Scythian sand shall leave you, and shall mourn the idle oar at your bench. You too the Pheraean fields give, fortunate in so great a herdsman, Admetus; for in your fields the Delian made amends, because with thankless bow he had laid Steropes low. Ah, how often did his sister, meeting the servant in the well-known woods, weep, when he sought the cool of the Ossaean oak and was wasting his wretched locks in the rich Boebeis. Canthus rises at the benches and turns Nereus with his oar, whom a barbarian spear shall roll in Aeaean dust; but meanwhile the glory of the bright shield lies beside him, which his father Abas bore: through the wave the golden covering cleaves the Euripus, fleeing the Chalcidian sands, and you rise, Neptune, in the midst, wheeling the high reins of the half-beast wolves, from the oyster-bearing Geraestus. But for you, Polyphemus, brought back in your Palladian pine, it remains before the city to find the relics of your burning father, the rites long delayed by his servants, should you come. With shorter oar Idas now seeks the blue and takes his place, and last of all sits far off at his bench. But his brother Lynceus is preserved for great uses, whom Arene bore, who can pierce the earth and catch with his far-darting sight even silent Styx. From the midst of the waves he shall give lands to the helmsman and shall give stars to the ship, and when Jupiter has lost the heaven in shadow, Lynceus alone shall pass through the clouds. Moreover the offspring of Cecropian Orithyia is free, that Zetes and his brother may temper the quivering ropes. Nor indeed is Odrysian Orpheus spent at the benches, nor subdues the sea with the oar, but with song teaches the oars to move, lest everywhere they fight on the surface of the flood. The son of Aeson gives the sea and the toils of the young men also to Iphiclus, whom Phylace had sent, worn with age, no longer for a share in the work, but that he might hand on keen warnings and the men who would fire the youths with the praises of their great forefathers. Argus, your care is for your own ship; the walls of Thespiae give you, skilled by Pallas' gift; yours is the task, lest in any part the ship draw the silent sea and, split by the wave, you bind up the wounds with pitch or with soft wax. Ever-wakeful Tiphys hung upon the Arcadian star, the son of Hagnias, fortunate, who gave the use of the sluggish stars and to hold a heavenly course over the seas with the sky as guide.

Behold, through the swift shortcut of the sloping mountain the eager leader, glad of the trick, recognizes Acastus, bristling with javelins and flashing with the light of his shield. When he had carried himself through the shields and the men of the ship's midst, the son of Aeson cut the mooring-ropes with burning iron; not otherwise than when the swift hunter flees the glades and the ravaged lairs, and drives on the horse fearful for its master, pressing to his breast the tender tigers, which by cunning he has snatched in his terror, while the savage mother hunts on Amanus opposite for the cubs she has left. The ship, driven forth, goes alike; the mothers stand on the shore and follow with their eyes the bright sails and the shields of the men struck by the sun, until now the sea, higher than the masts, and the boundless air, took the ship from those who watched.

Then from his starry citadel the father, beholding the fairest beginnings of the Greeks, and the great mass of the work rising up, rejoices; for he does not approve the idleness of his father's reign. All the gods rejoice as one, and the Fates see the times coming upon the world for them, and the ways of the waters growing. But not without alarm at his son's peril, the father, the Sun, pours forth from his breast such words: 'Highest sire, for whom our daylight, as the years revolve, accomplishes and renews so many changes, is this your will? And does the Greek ship now go upon the waves with you as guide and with favouring nod? Or is it right for me to break off deserved complaints? Fearing this, and lest there be any envious hand against my son, I chose not the wealth of the middle earth, nor the wicked fields of a rich region (let Teucer hold the most fruitful, and the Libyan, and the house of your Pelops): the harsh fields I press, bound with savage frost, and we have settled by frozen rivers. He would yield even these and bear himself off without honour yet farther, but stiff with cloud and ignorant of things the zone stands above, and already beats back our fires. What does the monstrous region, what does barbarous Phasis with any rivers, what does my offspring offer to alien peoples? What have the Minyans deserved to complain of? Does he take the Greek fleece by force? Nay, he refused of his own will to join his troops to fleeing Phrixus, nor came to the altars of Ino, but, keeping the man by a share of his rule and by his daughter's marriage, he sees now grandsons of Greek stock, and calls them sons-in-law, and lands joined to himself by blood. Turn aside the ship and the upheavals, father, nor with our wound open the seas to the men: enough does the wood of the Po, witness of old grief, and the sisters weeping at the sight of their father.'

At these words he who sees the fleece, given as a gift, fixed for the War-god, roars and shakes his head, and Pallas tried the contrary, and Saturnia groaned at the complaints of both. Then the father: 'These ancient things, established for us, go on in their order, each fixed from the first beginning of the world and from its course; for there was no blood of mine in any lands when I appointed the fates, and the power of justice came to me hence, when I was building up varied kings through the ages. And I shall recall the decrees of my own cares: long since a region, which descends to the sea of the maiden Helle and as far as the Tanais from the boundless East, flows with horses and flowers with men, nor against it has any band dared to lift equal courage and win a name in wars; so the fates ordained, so I myself cherished the places. But the final day hastens, and we leave Asia tottering, and the Greeks demand of me now their own times. Thence my oaks and tripods and the souls of their fathers sent this band to the sea. A way is made through the waters and through the storms, Bellona, for you. Nor does the fleece alone await its outraging, and nearer is that grief from the snatched maiden, but no resolve is more firmly fixed in my mind: for a shepherd shall come from Phrygian Ida, who shall bring like groans and wraths and mutual gifts to the Greeks. What wars then, poured forth from the fleet of suitors, how many winters at Troy with Mycenae weeping, how many chiefs and sons of gods, what bulwarks shall you see fall, and Asia yield to the great fates. Hence from the end of the Danaans it is settled, and I shall cherish other nations soon. Let the mountains and woods and lakes lie open, and all the barriers of the sea; let hope and fear be for all. I myself, the arbiter, by moving the places and earthly heights, shall make trial, what realms, longest of all for the peoples, I would wish, and where, assured, I may leave the reins I have given.' Then he turns his eyes back to the Aegean blue, to the Herculean might, and gazing on the race of Leda, thus he speaks: 'Reach for the stars, men: my royal house first laid upon the world, after the wars of fierce Iapetus and the toils of Phlegra, a hard journey for you and a grievous one of heaven. So, behold, my Liber, so, the circuit of the world performed, and Apollo, having tried the lands, returned.' He spoke, and through the void he aimed a torch flaming the clouds with a mighty furrow, which, the ship near, parted into a forked path and sought the brothers, the sons of Tyndareus, and gently in the midst of their brows stayed at once upon both, and harmlessly pours a purple light, one day to be implored by wretched sailors.

Meanwhile savage Boreas, having watched from his Pangaean height the sails let loose upon the mid-deep, straightway, roused, makes for Aeolia and the Tyrrhenian caves. All the grove groans beneath the god's swift wings, the corn is laid low, and the black sea is stirred beneath the flier. On the Trinacrian sea, and on the side of receding Pelorus, stands a rock dreadful to the straits: as high as it rises into the air with its masses, so far it is sent down beneath the infernal waves. Nor is another land seen near it, less in crags or caves. That one Acamas inhabits and naked Pyragmon, these the storm-clouds and winds hold as their homes, and the shipwrecking tempest. Hence to the lands and the broad deep there is a way, hence once they were wont to confound the pole and the unhappy strait (for not yet was Aeolus then their ruler, when the stranger Ocean broke through Calpe from Libya, when, weeping, Oenotria was losing its Sicilian borders, and the waves were entering amid the mountains), until from the air the Almighty thundered upon the frightened winds, and gave them a king, whom the savage host was bidden to fear: scarcely with the mountain's steel and the rocks heaped on walls does he master the East winds. When now he cannot hold back the roaring mouths, the king himself willingly breaks open the entrances and bars, and calms the wild murmurs at the opened gate. Boreas as messenger drives him from his lofty throne: 'What an outrage, Aeolus, I have seen from the Pangaean height,' he says, 'the Greek youth has contrived a new mass with iron and goes on, rejoicing, and tames the seas with a vast sail, nor have I freedom to lift the straits from their lowest sands, such as I was, not yet shut in chains and prison. Hence their spirit and the confidence of the men in the built ship, because they see Boreas under a king. Grant me to sink the Greeks and their mad ship: my own pledges touch me nothing; only check the threats of men, while close by the Thessalian shores no other lands have yet seen these sails.'

He had spoken. But within all the winds roar and demand the seas. Then the son of Hippotes struck the strong gate with a whirled blast. Glad from their prison the Thracian horses pour forth, and the Zephyr, and the Notus, his wings the colour of night, with the brood of the storm-clouds, and the East wind bristling with squalls and yellow in his head with much sand; they brought on the storm, and with hoarse drag to the shores with one mind they bear the curving seas, nor stir the realms of the trident alone: alike the fiery air rushes down with thunder, and night presses all things with a pitch-black sky. The oars are struck from the hands, and the ship, its forehead turned aslant, takes the resounding blows on its side; above the trembling mast a sudden whirlwind snatches the flying sails. What dread then for the trembling Minyans, when the pitch-black poles flashed, and before the fearful ship the flickering fires fell, and the yardarm bent down with its left horn lifted the gaping wave! Not knowing, they think the storm and the loosed winds do not rise, but that the sea is thus by nature. Then with sad murmur: 'This it was to defile the forbidden waves with our cables, which our fathers feared. Scarcely had we loosed the ship from the shore, and with how great a roar did the Aegean lift itself. Is it on this sea that the Cyanean cliffs run together? Or does a sadder sea remain for the wretched? Leave, you lands, the hope of the deep, and set apart again the sacred floods.' These things they repeat, weeping to meet a coward's death. The great-souled son of Amphitryon looks at his quiver and his useless club; others, terrified, mingle their last words and join hands and weary their faces, wholly in the wretched spectacle, when at once the alder loosens and the ship swallows the sea with a vast gulf. Now here, now there the East wind, twisting it, lashes it, now hissing the Notus bears it off with the Zephyrs; on every side the waters boil, when suddenly Neptune with his three-pronged spear lifted his sea-blue head from the depths. 'Let Pallas and my sister have stolen this ship from me,' he says, 'soothing my breast with their weeping; let the Pharian and Tyrian keels come and think themselves permitted. How often soon shall I see the sails snatched by the south winds, and the waves full of evil cries. Not my Orion nor the Taurus savage with the Pleiad is the cause of new death. To wretched nations you, Argo, prepare their fates, nor now deservedly, Tiphys, shall any parent wish you a quiet Elysium and the shades of the pious.' This he says, and the father sets the sea and the troubled shores back in place, and drives off the south winds, which a blue terror and a heavy wave with wet bosom, and the rain following far behind, make together for the Aeolian gate over the sea. The day flashed forth unbarred, and the rainbow unloosed the sky, and the clouds returned to the topmost mountains. Now the ship stands out on calm waters, which from the lowest deep both Thetis and Nereus, the great father-in-law, raise with their mighty arms. So the leader veils his shoulders with the sacred robe and takes the Aesonian bowl, which Salmoneus, glad of the gift, had left in hospitality, and had repaid the quivers with gold— not yet that madman who would fashion with a four-cleft beam the weapons of high Jove, and, a rival, against him as he rushed on would burn either Athos or Rhodope or the high groves of mournful Pisa, and himself burn the wretched fields of Elis. With this he pours libation of liquid to the sea, and thus begins: 'Gods, to whom belongs the rule of the waters and the sounding tempest, and a palace deep within equal to great heaven, and you, father, who drew the sea and the two-formed gods by lot, whether this night was chance or the turning of the sky, that, as the work of the gods above, so this too may shine, and the deep has its turn to be lifted in turn, or whether the new sight of an unknown ship and of arms and men drove you to rise into fierce wraths, let me have atoned enough, and may your divinity, ruler, now be kinder to me. Grant me to restore to the lands these lives, and to embrace the threshold of my homeland's gate. Then in whatever place richest honour feeds your deserved altars, wherever, dread with wheels and horses, you stand, father, and on either side mighty Triton holds the flowing reins, so great will I found you through our cities.' He had said these things. A shout arises, and the right hands follow the leader's words. So when great wrath of the gods has fallen upon the stalls and the harvests, and Sirius, ravager of the Calabrian field, the anxious band of countrymen gathers into the ancient grove, and the priest dictates pious vows to the wretched. But behold, they see the Zephyrs descend with a soft glide; the hollow pine flies with reins let loose, and cleaves the brine and spews foam from the three-pronged bronze: Tiphys steers, and the silent attendants sit at his commands; just as around the throne of highest Jove all things lie ready, prepared for the god, the winds and rains and snows and lightnings and thunders and the rivers still in their springs.

But a sudden fear, keener than every care, shakes the leader, and a mind foreboding evil, because, having attacked the king's offspring and cruelly carried off Acastus by guile, he had left the rest naked to death, and in the midst of the crime abandoned the father, and walled him round with no defending arms, himself far off now, holding safety; for surely all the fury will rush upon him. Nor does he fear in vain, nor tremble at the future.

Fierce Pelias rages, and from his high peak sees the hostile sails, nor where, burning, he may pour himself out. Nothing avails his spirit, nothing his realms; he roars, his cohort shut in by the barrier of the sea, and the brine flashes with weapons and torches. Not otherwise than when winged Daedalus leapt forth from the bronze-sounding shore, and beside him his comrade with shorter wings, a new cloud leaving their homes, the Minoan band roared in vain and is wearied with the empty sight, and every horseman returns to Gortyn with full quivers. Moreover in the chambers and at the very threshold of Acastus the youth, poured upon the ground, presses with his mouth the footsteps and the empty traces, and gathering the tracks with scattered hair: 'You too now, perhaps, the image of your mournful father, my son,' he says, 'and the sighs of our grief come upon you, and now you see the snares and round about the perils of savage death a thousandfold. Where, unhappy one, on what shores shall I pursue you? Not to the Scythian halls nor to the mouths of Pontus does that cruel man hold his way, but, captured by love of false praise, he now tears you, boy, to the torments of our old age. Or if the seas were passable to high ships, would I not myself have chosen the youths and the fleet? O house, O household gods, sons in vain.' He spoke, and at once terrible with frenzy and threatening wrath: 'Here too are your wounds, robber, here are tears and a dear parent.' At the same time through the high halls he comes and goes, roaring, and turns over the harshest of things: as when Thyoneus turned his savage horns against the deserving Bistonians, and Haemus, unhappy, with a thousand frenzies, and now the high groves of Rhodope groan, such, hurried along the long porticoes, his wife and his sons fled from Lycurgus.

Then to Tartarean Jove and the Stygian shades Alcimede was bringing the sacred rites, anxious above all for so great a son, in case from the roused shades she might foreknow something better. And the wife brings Aeson himself, equal in cares and pressing such fears in his heart, yet willing, for the rite. In the trenches is blood, and the lavish honour of opened Phlegethon stands stagnant, and the aged Thessalian woman calls with savage tumult the lifeless ancestors, and the grandson of great Pleione. And now to the songs the thin faces she had brought forth, and, looking sadly on her son and her son's wife, such things, the blood once tasted, Cretheus unfolded: 'Put away fear: he flies upon the sea, and the nearer he draws, the more and more does Aea marvel at the prodigies of the gods, and the oracles shake the fierce Colchians. Alas, with what fates he advances, what dread to the nations he goes on. Soon, proud with Scythian spoils and brides, he will come; I myself could wish then to break the heavy earth. But for you the king prepares a sad and unholy thing, and troubled brother's arms, and conceives the savage fires of his wraths. Why do you not snatch your life from here and swiftly flee your servant limbs? Go, you are mine; already the pious throng of the silent calls you to the groves, and your father Aeolus, flitting in the secret fields.'

Meanwhile the mourning house shuddered at the servants' supreme cry, and the crash spreads through the walls that the king rouses a thousand hands and now gives orders to those summoned. The priestess flings down the blazing altars and the robe and the grove, and Aeson, afraid, looks round at the sudden things, what to do. As a lion, having hesitated long in the close mass of men, has pressed his cheeks and his eyes with his jaws, so cares came over the leader, whether to seize the unwarlike iron and the gear of his first age, an old man now, or to sharpen the fathers and the changeable crowd of the realm. Against him the band poured out, and his wife clinging to his breast, 'Me too,' she says, 'whatever chance approaches, as companion you shall receive, nor shall I drag out my fate and see my son without you, having been patient enough of the sky, when first over the deep he gave his sails, I who could bear so great a grief.' Such things through tears. And now Aeson looks round, by what end he may forestall the threats, what fate he may seize worthy enough: to demand great deaths for his son and house and the line of Aeolus and the wars that have been fought. There is also before his eyes another offspring, raw in years, whom he would wish to learn great spirit and brave deeds, and one day to remember his father's death. Therefore he renews the sacred rites. Beneath the night of an old cypress a bull stood still, foul and pale with much rust, with sea-blue fillets through its horns and a brow rough with the foliage of the yew; itself sick, panting, impatient of the place and terrified at the shade it saw. This one, after the custom of the unspeakable race, the Thessalian woman had kept as chief for the late uses of Dis: . . . when she appeases the threefold mistress and entreats with her last fire the Stygian homes, even now driving the song backward to be appeasable; for not before does the black ferryman carry off the light shades, and they stand bound at the first jaws of Orcus. When she saw this one survive in time for the terrifying rites, she resolved on death, and speaks his last words himself, touching with his hand the horns of the doomed bull: 'You, to whom belongs the rule of Jove and the not-sluggish journey of light accomplished, names known to me in councils, known in wars, the great names of mighty grandsons, hallowed by fame; and you, parent, called up from the shades, that you might see our death and might endure, forgetting the gods above, our griefs, grant me the way to a peaceful seat, and let the victim sent before reconcile me to your places. You, virgin who announce the guilty to Jove, who look upon the lands with equal eyes, and you avenging goddesses, and Right, and the aged parent of the Furies, Punishment, come to the deserving king's house and bring savage torches. Let a hallowed terror seize his fierce heart; nor let him think his son's grievous arms and ship alone will come: let him turn over in his mind fleets and Pontic standards and kings indignant at the violated shore, and ever in fear let him run down to the waves, stirring the sand; let late death close his way and the tried escapes, and be unable to outrun our curses, but let him behold the men now, even now returning, and the journey flashing with gold. I shall stand exulting and against his face and hands shall I bear my own. Then, if there remains for you any unattempted and secret crime, and as yet untold lots of death, give to my deceitful old age shameful destruction and dishonourable deaths. Not by Mars nor by arms nor by my son, I pray, let that man ever be deemed worthy to fall by the sword; let some faithful band, some dear hand of his own tear and rend the old man, nor cover his limbs with a tomb. Let our blood take these atonements from the king, and, alas, all the nations he has sent upon the seas.'— The greatest of the Furies herself, with heavy right hand, touched the cups smoking with black gore; they eagerly drank the blood received in the bowls.

A crash arises; in through the doors burst those who bore the savage commands and the swords drawn at the royal orders. Now in the midst of death they behold the old folk, their eyes filling with death, and vomiting back the gore through their streaming robes; and at the very threshold, raw in the order of things, you, boy, pale at the death of your parents you have seen, they tear away and add to your own. Far off Aeson shuddered, departing, and bore beneath the clouds a remembering shade.

Beneath our axis, and cut off from the upper world, sits the hall of the Tartarean father, not to be approached by the falling pole, should Chaos roll the conquered mass and lie with its vast maw, which could consume the matter wearied by its weight and the falling, sinking world. Here are twin eternal gates, of which one, by harsh law ever open, receives peoples and kings; but to try the other is forbidden, and to go against it: rarely and of its own will it opens, when at times a leader bearing well-known wounds upon his breast, with helmets and wheels set before, or one whose home or pursuit was to drive off mortal cares, honoured faith, fear far off and desire unknown, or a priest comes in fillets and in chaste raiment. All these the offspring of Atlas, gentle on his feet and shaking his torch, leads on. The way shines wide with the god's fire, until they come to the woods and the pleasant places of the pious and the fields, where the sun and through the whole year the sunny day endures, and dances and choruses of men and songs, and those for whom there is now no desire among peoples. Into these seats and eternal walls the father leads his son and his son's wife. Then how great a punishment at the left gate awaits Pelias, at what threshold he shows. They marvel at such great noises and the rushing throng and the places and the infernal honours of kindly virtue.