eaves that fall to the ground from the wood with its
myriad branches in the month when the leaves fall--who could reckon
their tale?--so they in countless number poured along the banks of the
river shouting in frenzy; and in his shapely chariot Aeetes shone forth
above all with his steeds, the gift of Helios, swift as the blasts of
the wind. In his left hand he raised his curved shield, and in his right
a huge pine-torch, and near him in front stood up his mighty spear. And
Apsyrtus held in his hands the reins of the steeds. But already the ship
was cleaving the sea before her, urged on by stalwart oarsmen, and the
stream of the mighty river rushing down. But the king in grievous
anguish lifted his hands and called on Helios and Zeus to bear witness
to their evil deeds; and terrible threats he uttered against all his
people, that unless they should with their own hands seize the maiden,
either on the land or still finding the ship on the swell of the open
sea, and bring her back, that so he might satisfy his eager soul with
vengeance for all those deeds, at the cost of their own lives they
should learn and abide all his rage and revenge.

Thus spake Aeetes; and on that same day the Colchians launched their
ships and cast the tackle on board, and on that same day sailed forth on
the sea; thou wouldst not say so mighty a host was a fleet of ships, but
that a countless flight of birds, swarm on swarm, was clamouring over
the sea.

Swiftly the wind blew, as the goddess Hera planned, so that most quickly
Aeaean Medea might reach the Pelasgian land, a bane to the house of
Pelias, and on the third morn they bound the ship's stern cables to the
shores of the Paphlagonians, at the mouth of the river Halys. For Medea
bade them land and propitiate Hecate with sacrifice. Now all that the
maiden prepared for offering the sacrifice may no man know, and may my
soul not urge me to sing thereof. Awe restrains my lips, yet from that
time the altar which the heroes raised on the beach to the goddess
remains till now, a sight to men of a later day.

And straightway Aeson's son and the rest of the heroes bethought them of
Phineus, how that he had said that their course from Aea should be
different, but to all alike his meaning was dim. Then Argus spake, and
they eagerly hearkened:

"We go to Orchomenus, whither that unerring seer, whom ye met aforetime,
foretold your voyage. For there is another course, signified by those
priests of the