The Argonautica

Book I

First in my song shalt thou be, O Phoebus, the song that I sing
Of the heroes of old, who sped, at the hest of Pelias the king,
When down through the gorge of the Pontus-sea, through the Crags Dark-blue,
On the Quest of the Fleece of Gold the strong-ribbed Argo flew.

For an oracle came unto Pelias, how that in days to be
A terrible doom should be dealt him of him whom his eyes should see
From the field coming in, with the one foot only sandal-shod.
Nor long thereafter did Jason fulfil the word of the God:
For in wading the rush of Amaurus swollen with wintertide rain
One sandal plucked he forth of the mire, but the one was he fain
To leave in the depths, for the swirl of the waters to sweep to the main.
Straightway to the presence of Pelias he came, and his hap was to light
On a banquet, the which unto Father Poseidon the king had dight,
And the rest of the Gods, but Pelasgian Hêrê he heeded not.
And the king beheld him, and straightway laid for his life the plot,
And devised for him toil of a troublous voyage, that lost in the sea,
Or lost amid alien men his home-return might be.

Of the ship and her fashioning, bards of the olden time have told
How Argus wrought, how Athênê made him cunning-souled.
But now be it mine the lineage and names of her heroes to say,
And to tell of the long sea-paths whereover they needs must stray,
And the deeds that they wrought:—may the Muses vouchsafe to inspire the lay.

Of Orpheus first will I sing, of the child that Calliopê bare,
As telleth the tale, for she loved Oeagrus, Thracia’s heir.
By the peak Pimplean was born the Song-queen’s wondrous child;
For they tell how he charmed by the voice of his song on the mountains wild
The stubborn rocks into life, made rivers their flowing refrain,
And the wildwood oaks this day be memorials of that weird strain;
For they burgeon and bloom by Zonê yet on the Thracian shore,
Ranked orderly line upon line, the selfsame trees which of yore,
Spell-drawn by his lyre, from Pieria followed the minstrel on.
Such an one was the Orpheus that Aison’s son for a helper won
For his high emprise, when he followed the pointing of Cheiron’s hand—
Orpheus, who ruled o’er the Bistonid folk in Pieria-land.