62

He boasts his lineage from the god of day,
And countless are the tribes that own his sway.
In dreadful voice, in strength and warlike pride,
He dares to vie with Mars the homicide.
The guardian monster let your eyes behold,
And then aspire to win the fleece of gold!
A serpent vast, exempt from death and sleep,
Produced by earth on the Caucasian steep.
Where black the Typhaonian rocks arise,
And thunderstruck enormous Typhon lies. 1740
His impious hands were raised with madding ire,
And on his head descends the' eternal fire.
Warm, smoking from the wound the gore distils,
To Nyssa's plains he fled, and rising hills;
There chain'd in iron sleep, no more to wake,
He rolls; and o'er him spreads the vast Serbo-
nian lake.'

He ceased; and paleness on each visage dwelt,
For all the terrors of that conflict felt,

But Peleus thus his hardy speech address'd—
'O friend, expel despondence from thy breast;
Nor strength we want, nor skill in war's alarms,
With fierce Eëtes to contend in arms. 1752
What, though from gods he draws his vaunted line,
We too can boast an origin divine.

Let him the fleece concede; or haply, vain
His heavenly lineage, and his subject train.'

Thus speech alternate wing'd away the hour; The banquet done, they yield to slumber's power. The morn with rising gales dispersed their sleep, And gentle murmurs call'd them to the deep. 1760

62 Typhon, struck and wounded by the thunder of Jupiter, came in that plight to Syria, thence to the regions about Pelusium, in Egypt, still pursued by Jove.

They raised their sails, the canvass caught the wind,
And soon they left that isle of Mars behind.
The night succeeding, with propitious blast
Along the shores of Philyra" they pass'd.
There, Chronus, eldest progeny of Heaven,
To thine embrace, fair Philyra, was given;
When from Olympus thou the Titans sway'd,
And Jove was in the Cretan cavern laid!
There, the Curetes, fill'd with pious fears, 1769
Nursed the young sovereign of the starry spheres.
Though studious to withdraw from Rhea's
What arts the glance of jealousy may fly?
The' offended wife surprised their guilty loves,
Changed to a horse the conscious husband roves.
Through shame, the nymph, fair daughter of the

main,

eye,

Forsook the favourite seat, the native plain;
The lofty mountains of Pelasgia sought,
And there to birth a monstrous offspring brought.
In origin, part bestial, part divine,

He bore resemblance of the mingled line. 1780
The region of Macrones they survey,

And plains immense, where the Bechiri sway. These, in their voyage, pass'd, the shores they trace,

Where the Sapirians dwell, a lawless race.
Still onward borne by the propitious blast,
They plough'd the deep, and the Byzeres pass'd;
Its ample bay the Colchian shore reveals,
And Caucasus his head in heaven conceals.
There 'mid the rocky crags that rise around,
With brazen shackles was Prometheus bound;

63 An island so called from Philyra, the daughter of Oceanus, who had an amour with Saturn.

1791

His vitals are the famish'd eagle's food,
Still, still devour'd, and evermore renew'd;
Still the dire feast the bird of carnage brings,
To dip the beak in gore, and flap the wings.
That eve they saw him, by the twilight pale,
At first beneath the clouds he seem'd to sail.
They heard him scream terrific as he pass'd
With level'd pinions o'er the lofty mast.
Their canvass flutter'd as his plumage moves,
No bird he seems that field aerial roves; 1800
But, like some vessel, borne by sail and oars,
Ample and dark, with steady flight he soars.
Oh! soon they hear most lamentable sounds,
With shrieks of torture all the air resounds.
Canst thou, O wretch, withdraw the accustom'd
feast?

What hope? what means to shun the direful guest?
Till from the cliffs returning, gorged with food,
Slowly he sails, distilling drops of blood.

64

While night prevail'd, by Argus 4 taught, they

1809

found The mouths of Phasis, and the Colchian bound; The sails and yards within their places stored, And laid the' inclining mast along the board; With oars the mighty current they ascend That gurgles hoarse, and to the stroke they bend. The rocks of Caucasus, that meet the sky, And Scythian Æa", on the left hand lie: The plains of Mars were on the right display'd, And consecrated groves with horrid shade.

64 Not the builder of the ship, but the son of Phryxus, who, by his local knowledge, could best pilot them.

65 Ea, the capital of Colchis at the time of the Argonautic expedition, was on the Phasis, about fifteen miles from the Euxine sea.

The guardian serpent there, that never slept,
The fleece, suspended 'mid the foliage, kept.
In Jason's hand the golden goblet flamed, 1821
With awful reverence many a power he named.
Libations pure were on the stream bestow'd,
And next for Earth the racy vintage flow'd;
Then to the deities that haunt the soil,
And shades of heroes freed from mortal toil;
Hail, native powers! propitious be the strand,
In safety guard us as ye guard the land.'
Ancæus then- Behold the Colchian plains,
And Phasis reach'd: what counsel now remains?
Think with Æëtes how we may prevail;
How sooth with art, or with success assail.'
He ceased-as Argus bids, the' heroic race
In the mid stream their ship at anchor place.
The trees above wave gloomy o'er their heads;
Below, the stream its stagnant water spreads.
They court the gifts of slumber through the night,
And hail with gladness the returning light.

1830

66 This river rises on Mount Caucasus, and flows from north to south, as appears from the map of Mingrelia or Colchis, in Thevenot's Collection, and Sir John Chardin's account of the country.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

ON

BOOK I.

LINE 4. Voyage.] One of the reviewers of this translation objected to making voyage a dissyllable; but the reader will find it is always so used by Milton. He will also see many examples to the same purpose in Dyer's Fleece:' indeed, etymology as well as euphony requires this pronunciation.

5. Colchos.] The region to which the voyage of the Argonauts was directed is known to modern geography by the name of Mingrelia; and was a part of Asiatic Scythia, lying between the Euxine sea and Iberia. It was bounded on the north by part of Sarmatia; on the west, by so much of the Euxine sea as extends from the mouth of the river Corax to that of the river Phasis; on the south, by part of Cappadocia ; and on the east, by Iberia.

6. Rocks.] When Argo pass'd-through Bosporus, betwixt the justling rocks.' (Milton's Par. Lost, book ii. 1. 1017.) These were two rocks, at the entrance of the Euxine sea, called Symplegades by the Greeks; by Juvenal, concurrentia saxa. They seemed to open and shut, or (as Milton expresses it) to justle one against the other, with a sort of elastic collision. They were also called Cyanean, from their dark hue. Olivier speaks of the Cyanean rocks, as they appear at this day: 'Here there is a hard rock

VOL. I.

P