The Argonautica

out from Lake Triton, but for long they had no plan

and all day long were carried aimlessly about.

As a serpent goes writhing along its crooked pathway

whenever the sun's sharp blaze scorches its parched body;

with a hiss it turns its head now here, now there, and its eyes

blaze like the sparks of fire in furious, desperate striving

then slips through a deep, dark cleft into its hidden lair;

thus Argo searched the lake to find a navigable outlet,

roamed for a long time. At once Orpheus called on them

to bring Apollo's great tripod outside of the ship

and set it before the local gods, appeasing them for homecoming.

They went onto land and set Phoebus' gift in the earth;

and wide-ruling Triton met them, seeming wholly mortal,

a young man; lifting a clod of earth in his hand,

he held it out as a guest-gift to the best heroes and said:

Take it, friends, since no magnificent gift do I have

here now at hand to put into my visitors' palms.

But if you seek a safe path crossing this sea, as often

happens to men who cross a foreign people's lands,

I shall explain: my father made me master of the broad sea's waters--

Poseidon; I rule every reach of this vast seaboard.

perhaps, though far away, you heard my name proclaimed:

Eurypylus, born in Libya, nurse of wild beasts.

So he spoke; Euphemus gladly held both hands beneath the clod