The Argonautica

For Phoebus had given two tripods to be carried far away

by Aeson's son, as his appointed need drove him to Pytho

the sacred place, to inquire about this very voyage;

and fate ordained that wherever on earth the tripods stood,

never would enemies come and lay that country waste.

Therefore, even now, this tripod lies hidden in that land

near the pleasant city of the Hylleans, deep beneath

earth's surface, so it may forever lie hidden from mortals.

They found no ruler still alive within that country,

Hyllus, the son whom beautiful Melite bore to Heracles

among Phaeacians; Heracles came seeking cleansing to the halls

of King Nausithous and Macris, the nurse who tended Dionysus,

to purge his guilt for murdering his children; there he won a maiden,

River Aegaeus' daughter, won through Heracles' desire,

the Naiad Melite, who bore his powerful son Hyllus.

But once Hyllus came of age, he would not live on

that island under the haughty brows of ruling Nausithous;

he sailed to the Cronian Sea, gathering a native host

of Phaeacians; King Nausithous fully furnished the journey,

the heroic ruler. Hyllus settled there; the Mentores

killed Hyllus as he guarded cattle grazing afield.

But, goddesses, how beyond this sea and round the country

of Ausonia and those Ligystian islands mortals call

the Stoechades, where traces left by Argo's mighty ship