le 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.

(ll. 236-240) 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.

(ll. 241-252) 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.

(ll. 253-256) 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:

(ll. 257-293) "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 immortal gods, who have sprung from
Tritonian Thebes. As yet all the stars that wheel in the heaven were
not, nor yet, though one should inquire, could aught be heard of the
sacred race of the Danai. Apidanean Arcadians alone existed, Arcadians
who lived even before the moon, it is said, eating acorns on the hills;
nor at that time was the Pelasgian land ruled by the glorious sons of
Deucalion, in the days when Egypt, mother of men of an older time, was
called the fertile Morning-land, and the river fair-flowing Triton, by
which all the Morning-land is watered; and never does the rain from Zeus
moisten the earth; but from the flooding of the river abundant crops
spring up. From this land, it is said, a king [1401] made his wa