The Argonautica

he vows they shall not escape the heart-harrowing anger of Zeus,

and merciless wrath, nor dire curse and unbearable payment

owed for Phrixus, till the Fleece reaches the land of Hellas.

Pallas Athena built their ship, one utterly unlike

any ship owned by men who inhabit the country of Colchis.

We met the vilest: raging sea and blasting wind

split our ship; Argo's dowels held her fast,

holds, though every storm should bear down together upon her.

She runs with equal swiftness, driven on by the wind

and when men with tireless hands urge her onward with oars.

All Achaea's foremost heroes he gathered onto the ship

and reached your city, sorely tried by many wanderings

past many towns and gulfs of the hateful sea, if you grant him

the Fleece. Yet whatever seems good to you, so shall it happen;

for he comes with no violent hand; instead, he is eager

to pay a worthy return for the gift; he has heard from me how

the Sauromatians hate you, and he will bend them beneath your sceptres.

And if you truly desire to learn each name and birthline,

who each of them is, I shall tell you the whole and conceal none.

This man, for whose sake the others assembled from Hellas,

they call Jason, Aeson's son, grandson of Cretheus.

If in truth his descent is directly from Cretheus' own blood,

then he must be our own kinsman in the line of our fathers.

For both Cretheus and Athamas were brothers, sons of Aeolus,