The Argonautica

Iapetus' son, as pain drove his heart into madness.

Medea brought it away and placed it inside the fragrant girdle

which clasped her body close, encircling her ambrosial breast.

Going outside, she climbed upon the swift-running wagon;

and four of her handmaids went with her, two on either side.

Medea herself took the reins and a skillfully fashioned whip

in her right hand, and drove through the city; the rest of her women

behind her laid hold of the wicker-built body of the wagon,

and ran along the broad wagon-road, raising up their garments

their fine-woven folds as high as the white gleam of their knees.

Just as beside the warm and gentle waters of Parthenius,

or after she bathes herself in the current of the river Amnisus,

Leto's daughter stands upright on a chariot fashioned of gold

and drives her swift-running fawns across the hills and the ridges,

to meet from afar a hecatomb rich in fat-burning smoke;

and close at her side follow nymphs, her attendant companions,

some gathering close at the spring of Amnisus itself,

and others through groves and across many-fountained mountain heights;

while beasts all around whimper and fawn, trembling as she advances;

just so the maidens sped through the city; the people around them

gave way before her, avoiding the eyes of the royal maiden.

But once she had left behind the city's well-built streets,

then drove across the plain and reached the temple of Hecate,

At once she stepped down from the smoothly rolling wagon,