The Argonautica

Aeson's son spoke out among them; the others listened,

quietly seated in ordered rows, each man in his station:

My friends, I will tell you the plan that seems best to myself;

but bringing the plan to fulfillment belongs to you all.

Our need is shared; all speech and counsel are held in common

among us alike; but whoever in silence withholds his own thinking

must know he alone strips our whole expedition of homecoming.

The rest of you stay by the ship with your weapons, quiet in waiting;

I myself will go from the ship to the halls of Aeetes,

taking the sons of Phrixus and two more men as companions.

First I shall meet him and test him with words face-to-face,

to learn if, moved by friendship, he will give the Golden Fleece,

or not, trusting his strength and scorning us when we approach him.

Thus, learning straight from the man himself what evil he harbors,

we shall decide: engage in war, or find another way,

some counsel to support us while we hold back battle's cry.

Let us not move to force until words have first been attempted,

and strip this man of his own possession; better at first

to approach him and seek to win his favor by fair speech.

Often a word easily wins what physical courage

hardly accomplishes, smoothing the way in the fitting manner.

Aeetes once received the noble and blameless Phrixus,

fleeing his stepmother's plot and his father's grim sacrifice.

For every man everywhere, even the most shameless among them,