The Argonautica

Listen, my friends. As I grieved, three goddesses came to me,

girt in goatskins hanging from the summit of each neck

around their backs and waists; their forms resembled young maidens.

They stood extremely close above my head, then uncovered

me, drawing away my cloak with a light hand; they commanded

me to rise, then go myself and rouse the whole assembly,

and pay to our mother a welcome recompense for this labor

for long travail in bearing every hero in her belly,

when Amphitrite at last unyokes the swift, well-wheeled chariot

of mighty lord Poseidon. I cannot fully comprehend

this divine prophecy. Yet they declared their own nature:

heroic guardians, Libya's own divine daughters;

and every trial we ourselves had suffered before now

by land and sea, they claimed to know in every detail.

Across the open space I searched but saw no trace,

but either mist or cloud came between and hid their brightness.

So Jason spoke, and all of the others marveled to hear him.

A mighty portent next came forth among the Minyans.

Out of the sea to the mainland sprang a gigantic horse,

huge in breadth, lifting his neck amid a golden mane;

quickly he shook the streaming sea-brine away from his limbs

and started to run, his feet like the wind. Peleus at once

rejoiced and addressed his companions, all gathered together:

I say that Poseidon's own chariot-team has even now