The Argonautica

stand unmistakably revealed? What distant necessity

carried them here? Which winds drove the storm-tossed vessel?

When Apsyrtus fell with a hero's great, resounding crash,

Zeus himself, perhaps, wrathful king of gods,

planned punishment for their deed through Aeaean Circe's counsel

to cleanse their blood-guilt once countless woes had plagued them,

before return; no hero understood the dark decree.

Instead, they sped far onward, leaving the Hyllean country,

and left behind all those islands that the Colchians before

had filled in close succession, the Liburnian islands in the sea,

the three islands Issa, Dysceladus, and lovely Pityeia.

After these islands next they sailed beside Corcyra,

There Poseidon gave Asopus' daughter a home,

fair-haired Corcyra, far away from the country of Phlius,

after abducting her through desire. Sailors who see the island

from out at sea, darkened on every side by somber woodland,

therefore give it the added name Corcyra the Black.

Then, rejoicing greatly in the warm wind, they passed Melite,

steep Cerossus, and farther off the isle Nymphaea,

where Queen Calypso, daughter of Atlas, made her dwelling;

and thought they saw the lofty summits veiled in mist,

of the Ceraunian Mountains. Then Hera learned the purposes

of Zeus concerning Argo's crew, and his immense, heavy anger.

Devising means to bring the long voyage to fulfillment,