from the top of the crags, above the rock
glowing with fire, and the air was misty with smoke, nor could you have
seen the sun's light. Then, though Hephaestus had ceased from his toils,
the sea was still sending up a warm vapour. Hereupon on this side and on
that the daughters of Nereus met them; and behind, lady Thetis set her
hand to the rudder-blade, to guide them amid the Wandering rocks. And as
when in fair weather herds of dolphins come up from the depths and
sport in circles round a ship as it speeds along, now seen in front, now
behind, now again at the side and delight comes to the sailors; so the
Nereids darted upward and circled in their ranks round the ship Argo,
while Thetis guided its course. And when they were about to touch the
Wandering rocks, straightway they raised the edge of their garments over
their snow-white knees, and aloft, on the very rocks and where the
waves broke, they hurried along on this side and on that apart from one
another. And the ship was raised aloft as the current smote her, and all
around the furious wave mounting up broke over the rocks, which at
one time touched the sky like towering crags, at another, down in the
depths, were fixed fast at the bottom of the sea and the fierce waves
poured over them in floods. And the Nereids, even as maidens near some
sandy beach roll their garments up to their waists out of their way and
sport with a shapely-rounded ball; then they catch it one from another
and send it high into the air; and it never touches the ground; so they
in turn one from another sent the ship through the air over the waves,
as it sped on ever away from the rocks; and round them the water spouted
and foamed. And lord Hephaestus himself standing on the summit of a
smooth rock and resting his massy shoulder on the handle of his hammer,
beheld them, and the spouse of Zeus beheld them as she stood above the
gleaming heaven; and she threw her arms round Athena, such fear seized
her as she gazed. And as long as the space of a day is lengthened out in
springtime, so long a time did they toil, heaving the ship between
the loud-echoing rocks; then again the heroes caught the wind and sped
onward; and swiftly they passed the mead of Thrinacia, where the kine of
Helios fed. There the nymphs, like sea-mews, plunged beneath the depths,
when they had fulfilled the behests of the spouse of Zeus. And at the
same time the bleating of sheep came to the heroes through the mist and
the lo