omen in the work of the fields; they hunted the beasts
with them, and over and over again they were surprised at how
skillfully the women had ordered all affairs. Everything in Lemnos was
strange to the Argonauts, and they stayed day after day, thinking each
day a fresh adventure.

Sometimes they would leave the fields and the chase, and this hero or
that hero, with her who was his friend amongst the Lemnian maidens,
would go far into that strange land and look upon lakes that were all
covered with golden and silver water lilies, or would gather the blue
flowers from creepers that grew around dark trees, or would hide
themselves so that they might listen to the quick-moving birds that
sang in the thickets. Perhaps on their way homeward they would see the
Argo in the harbor, and they would think of Heracles who was aboard,
and they would call to him. But the ship and the voyage they had been
on now seemed far away to them, and the Quest of the Golden Fleece
seemed to them a story they had heard and that they had thought of, but
that they could never think on again with all that fervor.

When Jason looked on Hypsipyle he saw one who seemed to him to be only
childlike in size. Greatly was he amazed at the words that poured forth
from her as she stood at the stone throne of King Thoas--he was amazed
as one is amazed at the rush of rich notes that comes from the throat
of a little bird; all that she said was made lightning-like by her
eyes--her eyes that were not clear and quiet like the eyes of the
maidens he had seen in Iolcus, but that were dark and burning. Her
mouth was heavy and this heavy mouth gave a shadow to her face that,
but for it, was all bright and lovely.

Hypsipyle spoke two languages--one, the language of the mothers of the
women of Lemnos, which was rough and harsh, a speech to be flung out to
slaves, and the other the language of Greece, which their fathers had
spoken, and which Hypsipyle spoke in a way that made it sound like
strange music. She spoke and walked and did all things in a queenlike
way, and Jason could see that, for all her youth and childlike size,
Hypsipyle was one who was a ruler.

From the moment she took his hand it seemed that she could not bear to
be away from him. Where he walked, she walked too; where he sat she sat
before him, looking at him with her great eyes while she laughed or
sang.

Like the perfume of strange flowers, like the savor of strange fruit
was Hypsipyle to Ja