The Argonautica

lay heavy on their hardship and pain; their search was not

in vain, but reached the sacred plain where Ladon the serpent

until only yesterday guarded the all-golden apples

in Atlas' country, an earthborn snake; and round him the nymphs,

the Hesperides, moved busily, singing their lovely song.

But then, at that very time, struck down by Heracles,

he lay beside the apple-tree's trunk; only the very tip

of his tail still writhed; from his head down the whole black

length of his spine he lay breathless; where arrows had left

the Lernaean Hydra's bitter poison within his blood,

flies on the festering wounds lay withered and shriveled.

Nearby the Hesperides, with their white arms laid over

their golden heads, wailed shrill; the heroes approached them

suddenly all together; as the men hurried forward,

the nymphs turned into dust there; Orpheus perceived

the divine signs and prayed to win their favor for his comrades:

O beautiful and kindly divinities, be gracious now, queens,

whether high heaven counts your band among celestial goddesses,

or chthonian goddesses, or lonely desert Wanderers by name,

nymphs, come, O nymphs of the sacred lineage of Ocean,

appear face-to-face; fulfill our yearning to behold you,

some flow of fresh water spilling from rock, or some sacred

stream gushing forth from earth, goddesses, whose waters

will quench the thirst that burns without ceasing. If ever