's ear has even now been loosed by
the hands of his dear wife, and I divine that our mother is none else
than our ship herself; for surely she bare us in her womb and groans
unceasingly with grievous travailing. But with unshaken strength and
untiring shoulders will we lift her up and bear her within this country
of sandy wastes, where yon swift-footed steed has sped before. For he
will not plunge beneath the earth; and his hoof-prints, I ween, will
point us to some bay above the sea."

(ll. 1380-1392) Thus he spake, and the fit counsel pleased all. This is
the tale the Muses told; and I sing obedient to the Pierides, and this
report have I heard most truly; that ye, O mightiest far of the sons
of kings, by your might and your valour over the desert sands of Libya
raised high aloft on your shoulders the ship and all that ye brought
therein, and bare her twelve days and nights alike. Yet who could tell
the pain and grief which they endured in that toil? Surely they were
of the blood of the immortals, such a task did they take on them,
constrained by necessity. How forward and how far they bore her gladly
to the waters of the Tritonian lake! How they strode in and set her down
from their stalwart shoulders!

(ll. 1393-1421) Then, like raging hounds, they rushed to search for a
spring; for besides their suffering and anguish, a parching thirst lay
upon them, and not in vain did they wander; but they came to the sacred
plain where Ladon, the serpent of the land, till yesterday kept watch
over the golden apples in the garden of Atlas; and all around the
nymphs, the Hesperides, were busied, chanting their lovely song. But
at that time, stricken by Heracles, he lay fallen by the trunk of the
apple-tree; only the tip of his tail was still writhing; but from his
head down his dark spine he lay lifeless; and where the arrows had left
in his blood the bitter gall of the Lernaean hydra, flies withered and
died over the festering wounds. And close at hand the Hesperides, their
white arms flung over their golden heads, lamented shrilly; and the
heroes drew near suddenly; but the maidens, at their quick approach, at
once became dust and earth where they stood. Orpheus marked the divine
portent, and for his comrades addressed them in prayer: "O divine ones,
fair and kind, be gracious, O queens, whether ye be numbered among
the heavenly goddesses, or those beneath the earth, or be called the
Solitary nymphs; come, O nymphs, sacred race