the
Thunderers, from the day when the thunders of Zeus, son of Cronos,
prevented them from crossing over to the island opposite.

Now the heroes, when their return seemed safe for them, fared onward and
made their hawsers fast to the land of the Hylleans. For the islands lay
thick in the river and made the path dangerous for those who sailed
thereby. Nor, as aforetime, did the Hylleans devise their hurt, but of
their own accord furthered their passage, winning as guerdon a mighty
tripod of Apollo. For tripods twain had Phoebus given to Aeson's son to
carry afar in the voyage he had to make, at the time when he went to
sacred Pytho to enquire about this very voyage; and it was ordained by
fate that in whatever land they should be placed, that land should never
be ravaged by the attacks of foemen. Therefore even now this tripod is
hidden in that land near the pleasant city of Hyllus, far beneath the
earth, that it may ever be unseen by mortals. Yet they found not King
Hyllus still alive in the land, whom fair Melite bare to Heracles in the
land of the Phaeacians. For he came to the abode of Nausithous and to
Macris, the nurse of Dionysus, to cleanse himself from the deadly murder
of his children; here he loved and overcame the water nymph Melite, the
daughter of the river Aegaeus, and she bare mighty Hyllus. But when he
had grown up he desired not to dwell in that island under the rule of
Nausithous the king; but he collected a host of native Phaeacians and
came to the Cronian sea; for the hero King Nausithous aided his journey,
and there he settled, and the Mentores slew him as he was fighting for
the oxen of his field.

Now, goddesses, say how it is that beyond this sea, near the land of
Ausonia and the Ligystian isles, which are called Stoechades, the mighty
tracks of the ship Argo are clearly sung of? What great constraint and
need brought the heroes so far? What breezes wafted them?

When Apsyrtus had fallen in mighty overthrow Zeus himself, king of gods,
was seized with wrath at what they had done. And he ordained that by the
counsels of Aeaean Circe they should cleanse themselves from the
terrible stain of blood and suffer countless woes before their return.
Yet none of the chieftains knew this; but far onward they sped starting
from the Hyllean land, and they left behind all the islands that were
beforetime thronged by the Colchians--the Liburnian isles, isle after
isle, Issa, Dysceladus, and lovely Pityeia. Ne