The Argonautica

out of her low-set bed, and drove their feet hard against earth

forcing her forward; Pelian Argo followed behind them

swiftly indeed; on either side they shouted and rushed.

The rollers groaned, crushed by her massive, unyielding keel

grinding along; dark smoke gushed out all around them

under the weight, and she slid down into the sea; but they

held her from rushing ahead, hauling back on the hawsers.

They fitted all the oars to tholepins, then raised the mast,

well-crafted sails and stores for the voyage they laid aboard.

But once they had tended each matter with care and foresight,

first by the casting of lots they allotted the rowing-benches,

appointing two men for each; but the seat in the middle

they chose for Heracles and, apart from all other heroes,

for Ancaeus, who there made Tegea's city his home.

For those two alone they left the bench in the middle

just as it stood, not by lot; all together consenting,

they trusted Tiphys to guard the helm of the well-stemmed ship.

Then, levering stones beside the sea, they built a mound

there as Apollo's shore altar at the edge of sea,

bearing both names, Actius and Embasius; then swiftly

they spread over it billets cut from the dry wood of olive.

Meanwhile the herdsmen led forward out of the herd

two oxen of Aeson's son; the younger companions

hauled both beside the altar; there the others presented