y dug a deep grave with mattocks of bronze; and
they tore their hair, the heroes and the maidens, bewailing the dead
man's piteous suffering; and when he had received due burial rites,
thrice they marched round the tomb in full armour, and heaped above him
a mound of earth.

But when they had gone aboard, as the south wind blew over the sea, and
they were searching for a passage to go forth from the Tritonian lake,
for long they had no device, but all the day were borne on aimlessly.
And as a serpent goes writhing along his crooked path when the sun's
fiercest rays scorch him; and with a hiss he turns his head to this side
and that, and in his fury his eyes glow like sparks of fire, until he
creeps to his lair through a cleft in the rock; so Argo seeking an
outlet from the lake, a fairway for ships, wandered for a long time.
Then straightway Orpheus bade them bring forth from the ship Apollo's
massy tripod and offer it to the gods of the land as propitiation for
their return. So they went forth and set Apollo's gift on the shore;
then before them stood, in the form of a youth, far-swaying Triton, and
he lifted a clod from the earth and offered it as a stranger's gift, and
thus spake:

"Take it, friends, for no stranger's gift of great worth have I here by
me now to place in the hands of those who beseech me. But if ye are
searching for a passage through this sea, as often is the need of men
passing through a strange land, I will declare it. For my sire Poseidon
has made me to be well versed in this sea. And I rule the shore--if
haply in your distant land you have ever heard of Eurypylus, born in
Libya, the home of wild beasts."

Thus he spake, and readily Euphemus held out his hands towards the clod,
and thus addressed him in reply:

"If haply, hero, thou knowest aught of Apis[1] and the sea of Minos,
tell us truly, who ask it of you. For not of our will have we come
hither, but by the stress of heavy storms have we touched the borders of
this land, and have borne our ship aloft on our shoulders to the waters
of this lake over the mainland, grievously burdened; and we know not
where a passage shows itself for our course to the land of Pelops."

[Footnote 1: An old name of the Peloponnesus.]

So he spake; and Triton stretched out his hand and showed afar the sea
and the lake's deep mouth, and then addressed them: "That is the outlet
to the sea, where the deep water lies unmoved and dark; on each side
roll white br