Book 3

3. C. Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, Book Three.

Now the third Tithonian dawn had loosed the cold shadows and stripped them from the sky; the calm deep called for Tiphys. The Argo's band goes from the dwellings, and the sons of Aenius, pouring from the city, cling in fond partings to their companions. They give corn and chosen cattle, and Bacchus, not sprung from a Bithynian or Phrygian vine, but the wine which Lesbos yields from its own slope across the strait of narrow Helle. Cyzicus himself directs to the shore the steps joined to those of Aeson's son, weeping at the departure . . . For gifts his Percosian wife brought the finest robes, which Clite gave and had varied with embroidered gold. Then a helmet and the unconquerable weapon of his father's right hand he added; he himself takes the leader's bowls and the Thessalian bridle in exchange, and the descendants joined the hands they gave.

Now tell me the causes, Clio, and the unspeakable battles of the men; for to you, maiden, is given by the gods the power to know men's minds and the ways of things. Why did Jupiter suffer such arms, why did right hands joined in hospitality clash? Whence the trumpets, and what did the Fury stir by night? While, harsh, on his winged horse Cyzicus shook Dindyma that revelled in the bloody arms of its servants, and wearied the woods, deceived by a vast love of plunder he crushed with his javelin, as it returned to the bridle, a lion accustomed to bear its mistress through the Phrygian cities. And now he set the mane and the captive face upon his doorposts, an unlucky spoil and shameful to the goddess. And she, not forgetful of so great a wrath against Haemonia, when she sees from the bronze-sounding mountain the ship and the shields of kings fixed before it, plans new horrors for the man, new deaths, to set in conflict the allied hands in the night and to entangle the city in impious war and savage wanderings.

It was night, and the seas grew white with a gentle furrow, and now the light stars were scattering easy sleep. A breeze bears them on; they fasten the oars and with the sail leave Procnessus, and you now yellowing in the mid-sea, Rhyndacus, and the foamy Scylaceon they pass by, with its broken wave. Tiphys himself looks afar to the daylight and the couches of the sun, himself tends the ship by wind and stars. And sleep does not soothe him before, after so great a struggle, driving him at the gods' commands; his hand falls unknowing from the rudder, and lets his eyes drop, and the comforted ship, in a whirling eddy bends its course and is borne back into a friendly harbour.

When she had glided onto the well-known shoals, the trumpets give long signals through the air, and a voice sent out from the midst of the darkness: 'The enemy holds the harbour, the wonted Pelasgians have returned.' Their rest is broken; the god had crazed the doubtful city, Mygdonian Pan, bearing the most savage commands of his mother, Pan, lord of the groves and of war, whom from the hours of light the caverns hold; through trackless ways he is open till midnight, his bristly flank and the hissing hair of his grim brow. One voice above all the trumpets, at which the helmet-cone and the swords, at which the charioteer with his trembling wheels, and at night the bars fall from the walls; such terrors neither the war-helmet of Mars nor the hair of the Furies, nor the grim Gorgon from the sky could scatter, nor sweep the battle-line with such great shadows. And that too is a sport to the god, when he carries off the frightened cattle from the stalls, and the fleeing bullocks strew the thickets.

At once the shout rushes to the king. He leaps from his high couch, leaving the dread dreams and the pale phantoms, Cyzicus. Behold, above the unbarred doors Bellona, her side bare, and moving the orichalc with sonorous step, stood, and striking the gables with her triple crest thence rouses the man. Mad, he follows the goddess through the walls and by the fates strains toward the last battles, as against Alcides and Theseus Rhoetus, in the cloud of unjust wine, seeing a double Pholoe and greater stars, rushes on, or as the father returns, his huntings done, singing of the dens and of Trivia, and on his shoulder Learchus he carries, while wretched Thebes turn away their eyes. And now neither the gate delays the leader, nor behind the band of guards allotted to the watch, who first fly to the madman; hence others come up, as each nearest house trembled and received the empty stir.

But a wavering fear fixed the Minyans; the men's sick hearts falter, nor do they make out what the region is or the perils, why the helmets and shields flash, whether sleeplessly in arms . . . until a flying spear, with a monstrous whirl, sounded on the benches and warned the ship to snatch the random arms that came to hand. First Jason binds his helmet, crying out: 'This first battle, father, receive of your son, and you, men, believe the longed-for Colchians have come hither.' As into the midst of the Bistonians the Martian chariot leaps from the stars, when great souls and the shout and the bloody trumpets have helped the god, no more slowly does that man seize the fields, raging; all the force of the Achaeans follows. They crowd to his flanks, and bristling with thick breastplates the band stands, which neither the fierce maiden with her aegis-sounding breast could scatter, nor the right hand of Jove, and Terror and Panic, the horses of Mars. So with linked bosses they press on, as when Jupiter has set up a cloud with its dark blue column: the Zephyrs strive, and in vain the South wind beats it stiff from both sides; mortal hearts hang in long fear, on what straits, on what fields it may fall.

Hence the unhappy band drives forward with a great shout stones and black firebrands and the weights of the twisted sling; the unmoved phalanx bears the noises and holds back its wrath, until the first heap should flow away. Mopsus marks the starry covering and Eurytus the vast shadow of Corythus. That one halted in his stride and held himself back from the gleam of the iron, headlong, as a shepherd at a sudden river, foaming with storms and bringing down the orchards in its flood. But Tydeus said: 'Behold, whom with strained strength shall I await, whom would I choose to be given to my hands at close quarters? Where you have stood, there you shall die.' The spear of the Olenian sinks in; he gave a sound, and biting and pressing down the waters, with his sobs spat out the purple shaft. And as in the midst of the sea a bristling rock lies hidden, over which the unknowing helmsmen never steered their headlong ships unharmed, so against the blind column the band rushes with drawn swords. There fall Iron and Cotys and Bienor, better than his father Pyrnus. But meanwhile, troubled with various motion, more the city is driven. Genysus' wife had moved the arms away; but for him a sudden fire blazed again from the winds and the living brand; you rejoice, pitiable one, in the weapons you have found. Medon too leaves the streaming tables and the rites, all night unfinished; a cloak twisted round his hand wraps it in unwarlike purple, and with drawn sword he lights up the ways. Thus he rushes to arms, nor are the wine and feasts removed, and the couch stands in its place, where the attendants remained. Thence scattered, with weapons not in like fashion nor by like chances they joined hand to hand, and lay slain far apart. Behold, shaking a torch heavy with knots and rich bitumen, Phlegyas runs down from the troubled city. He, thinking that the light hands and the line of the Pelasgians, after their custom, had returned through the night, and seeking the routed one, often sought Thamyris for himself with vain shouting, lofty and flashing far in a smoking cloud; as great as when from the boundless sky Typhon looked forth, red at once with fire and winds, whom Jupiter holds high by the hair; the ships tremble beneath the dread light. Hence the Tirynthian rises and with bent bow rushes, with sure breast directing his shafts against the opposing flame: the arrow, kindled through the pitchy masses, and through the middle of the breast, stretched taut, flies on; that man falls with his face above the flaming torch, and a greater fire appeared.

Peleus lays low Ambrosius, Ancaeus the huge Echeclus, and lets Telecoon come nearer to his lifted right hand, and split his soft face with the axe down to the neck. At the same time the victor draws off the rough belt, flickering in the faint shadow: 'These spoils, I pray, and the rich corpses,' says Nestor, 'leave to me: rather with the sword for me, with the sword let my right hand do its work,' and seizing Amastrus by the hand he cuts him down, and at the same time warned the comrades to attack the scattered squadrons. They go on, poured forth, the testudo broken, where the darkness and the fields bear them. Heavy Phlias finds Ochus, and Pollux is driven against trembling Hebrus. He himself, above the faces and the backs swimming in gore, lord of the field and mighty in war, as the blind storm runs over the deep, leaves Zelys and Brontes and Abaris half-dead: he follows Glaucus, and Glaucus as he falls he seizes, and works the wound at his opened throat. That one against him holds the weapon in his hand, in vain stirring his last words, and sees the fixed spear-shaft dwindle. Hence Halys, hence, running across with rigid sword, he reaps Protis and Dorceus, famed for the lyre and flowing song, who later dared to stand at the festal tables with sweet plectrum, after the great nursling of Bistonia. No longer does the Tirynthian ply the quiver or the keen bows, but with his club he scatters the allied columns. And as when with the great axe the dense wood of young trees totters and the heavy oak groans as the wedges are driven home, and now firs and pines fall, so under the blow the hard bones of men and their jaws sound, and the field grows white, scattered with brains. Light Hidmon had crouched before his feet; he seizes the man's face and beard, and over the club above thunders: 'You shall fall,' and 'now,' he says, 'by Hercules' arms, a huge gift and a fate ever wondrous to your kin.' That one shuddered as he fell, and first recognized the friendly name, and brought the dread crime to the ignorant shades. Nor then did it profit you, Ornytus, to have warmed the Thessalian kings with hospitality, or to have fostered their delays with a kindly mind, and consecrated the day with offerings to your household gods; from afar Idmon comes and strikes him, as he met him, wearing the helmet and the red crests, alas, your own gifts. How, and in what state, shall your stunned parent behold you, Crenaeus! Behold, cold sleep now overtakes your purple orbs, now your bloom and your years fail, and from your loosed life all your beauty flees: forsake now the grove and, hard one, the loves of the Nymphs. But to deceive with the bowstring Sages, troubling things on the other side, then for the first time the boy Hylas dared (the greatest hope in war, fair Hylas, if the fates allow, if Juno is favourable), and laid the man low with a swift dart through the breast.

The sons of Tyndareus drew near each other (a horror), driven on by the deceiving darkness: Castor first went into the strokes unknowing; but a new light and a sudden peak on the brow parted them. Then Castor pierces Itys, where the dark belt encircles him and the twin serpents join their mouths, his brother Hages and Thapsus and axe-bearing Nealces, and Cydrus, pale with the wound of Canthus. This man, straining with all his strength, had hurled his spear at the hunter Erymus, but the fates, as he bore it, betrayed the brief weapon, and the Moon, pitying her companion, shone forth in the pitchy sky; the manes drooped, and the wound was snatched through the air, and the swift helmet rang at the spear-point's end. Telamon strikes Nisaeus and Ophelten, sounding empty threats, through the work of the yielding shield and the triple-woven frame, where the secret of the stomach is, and glad declares: 'Gods, I pray, may this be a king, or may high chance have chosen me one sprung of an equally noble line, and may he, great and lamentable to his city, have fallen.' He adds besides Ares and his brother Melanthus and the Phocean son of Olenus, who, driven from the Lelegian shores, had won the king's friendship and the honours of a nearer servant— by what patient art, I know not. The deep night of the falling resounds with vast noises and increases the ruins: as more Inarime, more the roarer Vesuvius gasps, keen, when it rouses the astonished cities . . . so the work of battle thickens; for the fiery stars do not yield their place, the conscious night clings to its slow car. Come, Muse, with me once and for all to follow all the things of the Tartarean night. Phaethon had breathed from on high upon trembling Tisiphone, and now, with the light near, a heavier shadow presses the places; they make out no standards of men, no deaths, and their faces glow the more with madness. Reveal, you goddesses, the squadrons of the Eumenides and of the night, and let there be opened to the seer the crash of arms, and the warm fields with the sobs of the falling, and the shades driven by the Minyans along the shores. Cyzicus here fills the line with vain runnings, drawing on his fate; now he believes the columns of the Pelasgians have been driven and have yielded to him, now scattered here and there through the empty fields he rejoices: such forms, such joys the wrath of the gods feigns for him. As when in the lowest depth Coeus, the chains of Jove broken and dragging his fetters of shattered adamant, calls upon Saturn and Tityus, and, mad, conceives the hope of the upper air, but the dog of the Eumenides and the mane of the scattered hydra drove him back, the rivers and the night remeasured: so he rages, fiercely roaring, and chides the slow column from the walls: 'Will grief and valour never come over hands that have dared nothing without a king? But if the barbarian boxwood pipe should call, and Dindyma howling with stirred rites, then the sword would please, and frenzy, if only the priest hold out the weapons and the blood gush over the bidden arm.' Insulting them with such words, now for a long while by the goddess's power he fails, his broken courses grow faint with cold, his heart trembles, he hears the roars and wraths of lions and the horns, and sees among the clouds the towers stirred. Then heavy, and stretching with sure whistle through the shadow, the spear of the Aesonian leader comes, and beneath his deepest breast breaks a broad path. How he would now wish for the unknown lairs, and no years given over to the hunt. Such weapons the great-souled men hurl in a scattered storm, and the sounds of feet and movements suspected they explore; they grasp their comrades and demand again the watchword. But if so great a plague had lasted into the late risings, the day would have seen the race extinguished and only mothers through the walls, and the nation laid low on the shore.

Then the almighty father, thinking it time, the king now slain, to turn the fates and break off the wretched battles, hastened his final aid, and with serene nod thundered, at which they who are born of Night, and the troubled Lord of Arms, shudder: then the infernal gate of grim war closes. At once they turn their backs in fear, and turned through the fields they scatter, which is their only safety; nor do the Minyans turn their mind to follow the backs of those who flee: their valour stood anxious. But behold, the risen day already began to scatter the harbour with its first light, and the well-known towers (a horror) to grow white. 'Gods of the sea,' cries out Tiphys from the astonished line, 'how you condemned my breast with fatal sleep. Alas, comrades, with what monstrous things they have filled the shores.' But they neither yet lift their groans nor faces conscious of the deed; a bristling stiffness holds their bloodless limbs; as the Thyiad quakes at the hair and the sad face of Pentheus, when the god, driven on, has now withdrawn himself from the column of mothers and the horns of the slain bull vanish. And no less the aged crowd, poured out to the shores, when they saw the allied bands, turned their backs backward in fear. Stretching out his right hand Jason proclaims: 'Whom do you flee? Would that in this slaughter I myself and my men had rather fallen. A god, a god harsh to both, entangled these things. We are the Minyans, behold, we are your guest-host. Why do we still delay the flames and the wretched honours?' Then over the bloodless heaps of the crowded slaughter with headlong beating of the breast they rush; in the high carnage the parent recognizes her own weaving, the wife her own gifts. A groan goes through the whole sky over the winding waters. Some grasp the thin breaths and the still-hissing wounds, some compose the late-closing eyes with their hand. But indeed, the king found bloodless in the midst of the heaps, though all else be silent in their sad lament, yet such is the grief of servants and mothers, such all to one the band is turned. Around, sick with tears and minds, the Minyans stand and bewail the horror, and console the bitter lot of the leader and the blow of the Aesonian spear. He, when he recognized the hair now matted with thick blood, and the pale cheeks, and the weapons broken on the dear breast, and not yesterday's face in his host, groaned, and embracing the friendly limbs spoke: 'Yet you, ignorant of so great a frenzy, pitiable one, the night holds, attesting our covenant with no complaint: but to me the mournful daystar comes. With whom am I here in converse, to what hospitality has Fortune borne me back? Did I hope (this one thing was lacking to the fates) that you could be destroyed by my hand? Such did I leave these halls, friend? But if wars now awaited and this pleased the gods, would not these obsequies more justly be mine? And let your error, without crime, mourn me, nor would I now arraign the caves of the Clarian god and the oak of the Thunderer. Such battle-lines, such triumphs did the lot grant? And the knowing mind of the seers fell silent about so great a horror, singing the cruel destruction of my father's old age and so many bitter things? Alas, by hostile gods the realms seem given to me. What return is there? What guest-land will receive me? What land will not bar me from its first sands? The gods grudged it, lest, having ravaged the fields of distant Phasis and the Scythian wealth, I should come again to these shores, nor go then as avenger against your foes. Yet it is right to lay cheek to cheek, right to join with you breast to breast and mingle in embraces our bloodless limbs. Come, you, roll the funeral woods to the shores and purify the comrades' pyres; give to the slain the due gifts, which Cyzicus would have sent to our fire.'

In another part Clite, her torn hair poured over the face of her husband, calls the bands of mothers, wretched, to lamentation and speaks these words: 'My husband, snatched away in your first years, you draw all with you; not yet any offspring, nor any joys of you are mine, by which, sad, I might now endure your fall, O best of men, beguiling grief with a slender solace. The Mygdonian arms and the deadly battles lately snatched away my father and my natal home, and the mother of mighty Trivia died, consumed by a secret arrow: you, who were to me alike husband and brother and parent, alone, and from my first youth my one hope, forsake me, alas, and the god has driven the whole city at once. But I did not even, Cyzicus, see you in the midst of death stretching your hands to me, nor did I bear any words of one warning; nay, having just complained that you lingered in the chamber, alas, I received you such, and untroubled of so great a fear.' Her, scarcely, mourning with the twin Castor, does Pollux lift up, clinging and dragging her pressed-down neck.

Meanwhile they urge, on the stripped mountains, countless pyres in rivalry, and adorn them, and sad lay the bodies on the top. The steed goes with neck let down, nor does the huntress troop of dogs and the herds delay . . . the funeral things—what hand, what care of his own, what fortune each one had. In the mid-mound the king far stands out; him, shaking his face with thick sobs, the son of Aeson lifts up and lays on lofty purple. He gives the litters, painted with gold and burning with murex, which Hypsipyle had snatched in haste, the south winds calling at the weapons; a helmet and the belt dear to the king he flings on. He, his face turned toward his own city, holds in his hand the sceptre, the gear of his ancient forefathers. For since there was neither other offspring nor blood at last, he himself brings back the glory and the ensign of the realm to its father. Then, as the Minyans bore round their armed circuit three times, the shaken pyres trembled, three times the air shuddered, the grief-bringing trumpet sounding; then with a final shout they cast the torches; all the labour of things into the air is dissolved, and the seas gleam with the lofty flames. Surely these things awaited the youth and the peoples at that time, when the tree should fall from the Pelian mountains; this the threats of birds and the prophetic thunderbolts, driven over the long sea, had borne. But who would not refute the first omens of the gods, and not augur long years for himself? And now the honour to the ashes is done, now with sick steps the brides slip away with their offspring, and at last the discordant shoals, with all-night lament, grow quiet, just as the Memphian station of the sunny Nile falls silent for the year, the cranes to their northern homes carried back in mid-spring.

But neither the day after, nor the night, which is more harsh with cares, released the Minyans from so great an image of the slain. Twice now the Zephyrs call the sails: no confidence is in the sad men, the sick mind is consumed by ceaseless tide, nor do they think all the tears and all the rites yet rendered to the slain; the love of their country and the keen love of toils is driven from their eyes, and it pleases to grow cold in sluggish grief. The son of Aeson himself too, although the saddest of things must be chidden by a leader and pressed down with serene face, indulges sweet tears and opens his grief. Then drawing apart Mopsus to the Phoebean shores he says: 'What is this plague, or what is the gods' purpose? Did the dread come decreed by fate, or do their hearts weave delays for themselves? Why, forgetful of fame and of home, are we tormented? Or what end will this cowardice bring forth?' 'I will tell,' he says, 'and will teach the causes and the blight deeply,' Mopsus, and gazing at the stars: 'Not because we suffer mortal limbs and brief allotments and the times of a small fate are we, who were once the companion fire of high Olympus, therefore permitted to mingle slaughters and with the sword to drive forth, lingering, the souls from here, and the seeds to return to heaven. For we are dissolved neither into the winds nor into our last bones: the wrath abides and the grief endures. When then to the throne of dread Jove they have come and with complaint have made known the unspeakable death, the gate of death lies open to them and again it is allowed to return; one of the sisters as companion is added, and alike they wander the lands and the seas. Each entangles his own guilty ones and hostile hearts in penalties, and drives the deserving with various dread. But those whose right hands grew wet with blood against their will, if savage chance bore the wretched men, yet near to guilt, these the mind itself drives in various ways, and their own deeds gnaw at the men: idle, and now daring nothing further, they sink down into tears and humble fears and a sick sloth, whom, behold, you see. But our care will seek the way. Long since known to the mindful seer is, far off, the silence of Stygian night sloping down, the Cimmerian home, a land unknown to the gods above, dark with its dusky decay, where the flaming Sun never sends his yoke, nor Jupiter the starry years. The silent leaves stand and the unmoved wood bristles on its leafy maple ridge; a cavern, and the passage of the shades beneath, and the headlong roar of Ocean, and the fields vast with black dread, and sudden voices after long silences. Here, sword-bearing and sitting in a black robe, Celaeneus atones for the innocent in their error and, remitting their guilt, rolls out songs that appease the troubled shades. He revealed to me what purifications must be given to the slain, he, willing, unrolled Erebus and the lands. Therefore when the rising sun shall have kindled the purple waves, bring your comrades to the rites, and two herds for the great gods; for me to approach your gatherings now is not right meanwhile, until all night I bear the lustral vows. Behold, the Latonian goddess drives her cold car: bend your step; come, let the shores be silent at the chosen undertakings.'

And now sleep had pressed the earth in the mid hours and round about, in the silent world, dreams flitted, when, wakeful, having watched the times of the secret rite, the son of Ampycus seeks, through the opposing woods, the Aesepian streams, and runs down at once to the seaward waves. Here in the purple salt and the living gleaming water he renews his limbs and fits himself for the horrific deeds. Then, chaste, he binds his temples with fillets and suppliant olive and marks out the shore with drawn steel; round about he sets low altars and the unknown names of the gods, and over them saddens the place with a dark wood, and when he had added dread and a divine power to the place and a sacred quiet, he calls forth from the deep a gleaming radiance with his fire.

And the Argo's band, conspicuous in various arms, went on, driving the chosen sheep with gilded brows. Here from afar the Delian priest in shining robe meets them and calls them with the branch; and now he himself, on the fresh mound, sends the bands across with the peaceful laurel. He leads them also to the rivers, and shows first to loose the bonds of their feet, and bids the grey-green leaves be set before their hair, and from here to lift their hands high toward the orb of rising Phoebus, and at once to bow down over all the fields. Then pitch-black sheep are slain, and the carved breasts in part, in part Idmon bears, meeting them, through the midst. Three times they drove their silent steps, three times, touching the sad arms together and the men's garments, he casts the lustral things behind into the sea; the rest is consumed by the swift flames. Nay, also the truncated oaks and the effigies of men he duly sets, and binds on the simulated arms. Hither he prays the Stygian threats and the wrath of the stern blood to pass over, on these to lay their wakeful cares, and thus with lustral song he calls: 'Go, you slain, and forgetful, abolish your threats; let there be rest for you, let there be now love of the Stygian seat; far from our column and far be from the sea, and stand off from all wars. I would not that you ever strive toward the Greek cities or howl at the crossroads, and for that reason let no plagues fall upon the flock and the sown fields, nor a grief-bringing year, nor let the peoples or our descendants atone for these deeds.' He had spoken, and on the topmost altars he laid the leafy boughs and poured the feast in libation, which at once the gentle snakes, the servants of the shades, snatched with their flickering tongues.

At once the son of Ampycus bids them seek the ship and sit at the benches, nor turn their gaze to the land: let what was done by their hands, what was owed to the fates, fall away. They, eager, some lay the arms, some over the steep couches spread the planking, and there rises the sound of the trembling oars and the harmony of a glad voice. As when Jupiter has driven the pressing cloud from the topmost Ceraunia and moved it from the ridges, suddenly there flashed both the groves and the cliffs, and the bright air is brought back, so the spirits returned to the men, and now the master himself nods from the ship's height and strives to set the oars against the swell. First they begin the contests, Eurytus loose in his cloak and Idas, not terrified by the words of Talaus; then others chide and lift the seas with their chests. The labour is equal in groan and stroke, and turned in turn the sea is sent against the stern by the oar. Glad himself too, Alcides: 'Who calls these waves to contest?' he said, and rising tall against the twisting waves, struck his deceived breast with a sudden fragment, and falling onto his back overwhelmed Talaus and brave Eribotes and Amphion, far untroubled by so great a mass, and laid his head, Iphitus, upon your bench.

Now Phoebus, more shining, had conquered the highest heights of heaven and, at mid-course, had called back the long shadows: hence slower, the man failing, Tiphys is carried to the nearest shores and the mountains which dense-timbered Mysia offered. The Tirynthian seeks the lofty rowans; Hylas clings to his side and follows the uneven steps. When Juno from the summit of the pole sees that he has left the ship, the goddess, judging it time to harm, that Pallas, sharer of her cares and guiding the courses, lest thence any delay should arise to the undertakings, first contrives to deceive, and to turn aside by guile from her dear brother. Then thus she addresses her: 'Driven by the unjust force of the chiefs and by his brother's hand (you recall by what crime), Perses has now stirred the barbarian powers and the Hyrcanian standards. Aeetes, on the contrary, with his chamber and his daughter pledged reconciles the Scythian kings, and first, his forces gathered, Styrus the son-in-law brings the Alban columns through the gate. A vast war, and Gradivus himself with swift reins pours forth his horses. Do you see from the Arctic pole how great a cloud lifts itself and hangs over the black sea? Seize first the ways; when Perses has crossed the end of deep Phasis and brought his line up to the city, report the undertaking, and a little (a horror), and weave covenants into your counsels and by your art. Promise that kings will come, god-begotten, whoever willing should join their arms, whoever their columns.' But the maiden, although she perceives the snares and the heat of her stepmother and her seeking to feign coaxing looks, yet obeys, and swiftly seeks the bidden shores.

Juno groaned, and at last breaks the silence: 'Behold the labour, behold the head unconquerable to our hatreds. What Nemea, wearied by so many threats, what beast of Lerna shall I try? That of his own accord he rushes against the Phrygian monsters, the man, and unbarring Pergamum from the fair sea, indeed we have seen. Behold, I now the sister of kings—and is there for me any honour of my race? Even then, dishonouring and a just first-fruit of my griefs, were the serpents straightway overcome by the infant. I ought to have sought no perils now for the youth, conquered, nor perhaps to descend to such battles. But press on with your own spirit, and stretch the deed . . . forth, shame; soon I shall move both the Furies and Dis.' This she says, and at the same time looks back to the pine ridges of the leftward mountain and the Nymphs hunting in a fair band, the glory of the waters and the groves. Light is the bow of all, and green their gloves, and the myrtle drawn taut by the leash, their robe at the top of the knee, and the wandering hair floats in a thin shadow, running down to the girdle of the dark breast. The very earth, beaten by the foot of the hurrying sisters, resounds, and sends up the grass beneath their tender soles. Of these, Dryope, struck by the Herculean crash, when now the beasts were fleeing the weapons, had gone forth beyond, about to see the troubled grove, and was seeking the spring again, and bringing back her astonished looks from Hercules. Her, gliding down from the pole and leaning on the dark pine, Juno calls, and seizing her by the hand thus coaxingly speaks: 'The one whom for you in marriage, having scorned so many suitors, I dedicated, Nymph, behold, a boy has landed in his Haemonian alder, bright Hylas, and wanders your glades and springs. You saw through these places Bacchus with his rosy reins when he led the tamed battle-lines and the litters of the Eastern realm, and again stirred the dances and the rites. Believe that this one is given to you, even Phoebus, his plectrum laid aside, to hunt. What hope is taken from the Achaean Nymphs, with how great a complaint the Boebeian offspring will hear him snatched away, and how sad the daughter of golden Lycormas.' So she speaks, and through the leafy trackless ways a swift stag she rouses and offers to the youth, lofty with his horns. That one, spirited and slow in flight and long resisting, tempts him and persuades him to vie in an equal course. Hylas believes it, and fierce with the ardour of the near prey pursues; at the same time Alcides urges him on with encouragements, looking out; and now each is borne from sight, when the four-footed beast leads the boy, pressing on and threatening with weapons in his weary hand, far off to the breathing-vents of the bright spring, and itself, nimble, escapes over the untouched waters. By this means the boy's hope is mocked, nor does he strive to press further; and as the sweat had washed away his limbs and his heaving breast, eager he sinks down at the welcome streams. The wandering pools so glitter with light, when Cynthia looks forth from the sky, or the bright wheel of mid-Phoebus passes: such a radiance it sheds upon the waters; nothing did the shadow and the hair and the sound of the Nymph rising to his kisses disturb. She, throwing her eager hands, drags down, alas, him calling too late for aid and bringing back the name of his great friend; for her strength was aided by the downward weight.

Now the Tirynthian father had thrust down an ash from the shady heights, and torn off with great roaring of the ridge, had stretched the bristling backs of the tawny monster over his own, seeking the curving shores; for by another path returned he believes Hylas, and that he has increased the feast with the captured game. But neither among the comrades and the tables built on the shore does the sick man see his beloved Hylas, nor straining his keen sight further. Hence love, struck by a cloud of evil, stirs up various tides, on what shores he has stuck, who has brought such delays unpunished, or chance or toil. Meanwhile thick night descends . . . now with greater fear; then indeed both pallor and a frantic stiffness with pitchy sweat. As the look of wintry Jove freezes the hearts of sailors or of farmers, when the threatening shadow gathers, so his companion's loss affects Alcides, and warns him to remember his savage stepmother. At once, as a bull touched in the breast by the winged gadfly darts out through the broken Calabrian pens, rushing at all that meets him, so he, burning, drives himself in such a flight up the rough ridges. All the conscious wood trembles far and wide, the mountains tremble, and, kindled with bitter grief, they wonder what Alcides is plotting and what such wrath portends. He, as a lion whom the wicked lance of the fleeing Moor has touched, blood-stained, is borne with a vast roar and breaks the absent foe beneath his empty teeth, so the Tirynthian, bearing a face kindled with furies, is borne, and runs down the mountains with bow stretched. Alas, on what beasts, on what men ever, undeserving, did he fall through the glades. He flies in no order, seeking all things: now to the banks and the rivers cast down from the rocks, now he runs forth to the known shadows of the groves. Again Hylas and again Hylas through the long trackless ways he cries: the woods answer back, and the wandering echo vies.

But for the comrades the faith was unmoved, and sure for the favouring south winds: there is no delay, nor is Hylas small (although for all alike the first lessons were welcome), under Hercules' name they hang in doubt. All with tears and sad vows demand him back, and uncertain with fear, now along the shore long voices they scatter, now in the late nights they show fires. He himself too, when the leader sees the dense silences of the lofty mountain, or the seas spread out, the winds offered, stands weeping and lingers with great love of the man. His gait, and the quiver fitting to his back, him among the chiefs and in the silences of the sad table the helpless one seeks, who once, with vast hand, drew on the wine he had grasped, and told the monstrous deeds of his harsh stepmother.

And no less meanwhile cruel Juno stirs Iapyx continually, and offers it with the first suns. And now, impatient of delay, Tiphys chides the daring that hesitates and warns to break the idleness, the course offered. Therefore Jason, his mind bent by the words of the one pressing him, yields, and at the same time speaks thus to all his comrades: 'O would that, when I was building deaths in the Scythian lands, the Parnassian voice had brought me the lots it lied, that he who, greatest in arms of so great a band, should be present, was held by Jove's commands and by fate before the stormy sea with its wandering rocks: neither then was the report of the man, nor any surer source. But come, and since hearts waver with doubtful cares, take counsel, and if the way urges you with the breezes stirred, go on, and recall with me the labours begun, or whether to endure more delays and again upon the nearby ridges to have searched, no light price of the time spent.' He had spoken; but the youth, long since eager for the deep, prays to enter the ways: that one is absent from so great a gathering, nor less, they say, in themselves are their race and their right hands powerful. With such a breath the greater part raises its mind, and their hearts swell with vain tongue: as when in the midst of the glades the glad hind then at last brings back the herd, then the boar exults and the she-bear roars at close quarters at the proud wolves, when the Martian tigress has withdrawn herself or the silent lion has hidden in his curving cave. But Telamon, with greater wrath, now wavers with roaring, and sowing now quarrels with savage words he presses on and implores the gods with a great complaint, the same one praying, and grasps the men, and downcast, a suppliant, clings to the leader's face: that he says nothing about Hercules' loss, but with any companion, groaning, although harsh report now tells of the places, now of the beasts through the barbarous shores and the peoples, that against another no Alcides, no such breast could be given. Again he goads and leads on the favouring ones, the great-souled son of Calydon, that man fostering the worse against the better, and hard to defend always the perverse, never overcome by any fair words, nor mindful of his rulers. 'Not for Hercules,' he says, 'taken away, but your honour drew these our silences into late complaints, while you gave the rights, while the times of speaking. The seventh south wind here has come down from the high mountains and now perhaps would have set the ship on the Scythian shores; we, forgetful of our country, as though no joys await us when borne back, but savage Mycenae under a hard king, hesitate at the mid-journey. If in any borders I could endure these delays and the empty times, I would today hold my realm and sweet Calydon with its sceptre, glad in wealth and in my own peace, and would remain safe where my father and mother are. Why on idle land do we cling? Why do the seas weary our empty gaze? Do you think Alcides will be present further at the fields of Phasis, do you think his quivers allied to you beyond? Not such is the peace to his hatreds, nor has Juno forgotten herself with her divine power wearied. Perhaps new monsters from Tartarean seed, and again a messenger now urges from Inachian Argos. This offspring of great Jove is not granted; but for you Pollux and Castor remain, equal in stock, and the rest, the offspring of gods, nor is my confidence in my own race small. And I, and wherever you call, with my iron I will reap more; for you my hand is pledged, for you whatever in the very blood will be, and now from here the greatest of the works I demand. Surely our safety stood in the arms of the fugitive Hercules alone; nay, all alike bear mortal faces, behold; the oars went, indeed, in equal order. That man, long since troubled either by the mad tide or now swelling with the praise he has won, despises the fellowship of fame, and refuses to be borne a companion in our deeds. You, in whom both valour and hope are at the first threshold, strain, while a heat enduring of things and raw strength is in your limbs; for it is not enough to give death to the Colchians alone, and to have ranged the sea with all our youth. What hope, in such a chance, could be longest for me, has been; whatever love of seeking the man through the woods drove me; crying out, I left no places. Now too, while the resolve wavers with shifting motion, I hope to behold him returning down the mountains. Enough has been given to tears and to the companion, whom by the lots of fate believe even snatched from you in the blood of mid-battle.'

With such words the son of Oeneus presses on; at once the band of heroes is stirred by his words. Before all Calais bade the Argo's bonds be snatched. The son of Aeacus marvels at the frenzy of the exulting, and much grief bears the man's hesitating heart, whether to deny himself a companion to such sad deeds and, mourning, seek the heights of the lofty mountain. Yet he does not cease to pour forth both groans and empty wraths. 'What a day, O Jupiter,' he says, 'for the Achaean lands is this, what joys the savage Colchians will take. Not such was the breath then, not such the pride in words, when, on our native shore, the south winds now seeking the sails, all favour was turned toward Alcides: he himself would help, he himself would undertake the leader's cares and the deserved honours. Now in spirit, now in race are we equal, and the famed right hand of the crowd? No faith, no tears over Hercules? Now the son of Porthaon, now is the Thracian offspring my leader? Now does the fierce lamb rush against the timid lions? This spear, the spoil of great-souled Didymaon, which now neither green leaves nor shadows will put forth, since once it was torn from the ridges and its mother slain performs faithful service and grim, undertakes harsh battles, I call to witness, and by this, leader, with every divine power I affirm to you: often in fear, often in the slender crisis of things, the Herculean aid, now too late, and the arms of the scorned man you will call upon, nor will these swollen words then help us.'

The son of Aeacus, pressing his comrades with such terrors, weeps, and disfigures his hair with much sand. The fates draw on, and the leader, snatched from the men's contention, went, and soothed with his veiling robe his covered eyes. But here indeed their hearts are seized with vast grief again, when the comrades sat in their places and no spoils of the lion and the tracks of so great a bench call. The pious son of Aeacus weeps, the Poeantian heart mourns, and Pollux groans with sweet Castor. All still call on Alcides, the ship fleeing, all on Hylas, names perishing in the mid-sea.

Meanwhile from afar over all the sea the father Phorcys gives the signal, and with twisted murex draws together the monstrous seals, seeking the caves; at once the Massylian and together the Lyctian and the Calabrian herdsman returns from the fields. At once the night of the farthest Sun hid the Iberian homes deep, and lifted the stars on its axis. The rivers fell silent, the sea is still with its breezes. The son of Amphitryon sees neither what new lairs to seek, nor by what way to attempt the journey, nor what to report to the parent of his companion's fate, nor with what mind to revisit the comrades. Love burns him, and he refuses to depart from the solitary woods. Not otherwise once with a groan a lioness, her offspring taken, turned her back; thence she sits in the ways, and the forts shut in keep watch all night with long fear; grief draws on her circuits, and meanwhile her foul mane drips with wretched mourning.