scape death, but the heroes rushed upon the whole
crew, destroying them like a flame; and at last Jason met them, and was
eager to give aid where none was needed; but already they were taking
thought for him too. Thereupon they sat to devise some prudent counsel
for their voyage, and the maiden came upon them as they pondered, but
Peleus spake his word first:

(ll. 495-502) "I now bid you embark while it is still night, and take
with your oars the passage opposite to that which the enemy guards, for
at dawn when they see their plight I deem that no word urging to further
pursuit of us will prevail with them; but as people bereft of their
king, they will be scattered in grievous dissension. And easy, when the
people are scattered, will this path be for us on our return."

(ll. 503-506) Thus he spake; and the youths assented to the words of
Aeacus' son. And quickly they entered the ship, and toiled at their oars
unceasingly until they reached the sacred isle of Electra, the highest
of them all, near the river Eridanus.

(ll. 507-521) But when the Colchians learnt the death of their prince,
verily they were eager to pursue Argo and the Minyans through all the
Cronian sea. But Hera restrained them by terrible lightnings from the
sky. And at last they loathed their own homes in the Cytaean land,
quailing before Aeetes' fierce wrath; so they landed and made abiding
homes there, scattered far and wide. Some set foot on those very islands
where the heroes had stayed, and they still dwell there, bearing a name
derived from Apsyrtus; and others built a fenced city by the dark deep
Illyrian river, where is the tomb of Harmonia and Cadmus, dwelling among
the Encheleans; and others live amid the mountains which are called
the Thunderers, from the day when the thunders of Zeus, son of Cronos,
prevented them from crossing over to the island opposite.

(ll. 522-551) 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