The Argonautica

he went back toward the ship, while still the furrows waited

empty of earthborn men; his comrades gathered round him

and heartened him with words. He drew clear water from the river

using that same helmet, and quenched his burning thirst.

He flexed his supple knees and filled his mighty spirit

with courage, raging like a wild boar sharpening tusks

against the hunters, while around its furious jaws thick foam

streams thickly from its angry mouth and spills to the ground.

Already earthborn men were sprouting through the whole field,

and all the precinct bristled thick with sturdy shields,

both double-pointed spears and shining helmets--the precinct

of man-destroying Ares; bright radiance climbed upward

from earth toward Olympus, flashing brightly in the high sky.

As when much snow falls thickly down upon the earth

and afterward the tempests scatter wintry clouds apart

beneath black night, and all at once appeared the gathered

stars, blazing through the dark; so earthborn men in armor

shone while rising from the ground; then Jason remembered

Medea's crafty counsel and made ready to obey it;

and seized a huge round boulder lying on the field,

the dreadful, massive discus-stone of Ares Enyalius.

Even four young men together could not budge it from earth.

He gripped it in his hand, then sprang and hurled it deep into their midst;

then crouched beneath his shield, escaping all their notice.