The Argonautica

eager to leave the lake through hard labor at the oars.

Now, eager, they pressed onward. Meanwhile the stranger

swiftly took up the great tripod and seemed to enter

the lake; none saw him afterwards, nor saw the tripod again;

both vanished at once. Warmth filled the heroes' hearts:

a blessed god had met them in a kindly mortal form.

They urged Aeson's son to choose the finest of the sheep

and offer it, taking it up with prayers spoken over it.

Straightway in haste he picked the victim out and lifted it,

slaughtered it over the stern, and added words of prayer:

God, whatever name you bear, appearing at this lake's border,

whether Triton, wonder of the sea, or Phorcys is your name,

or sea-born daughters address you by Nereus' name,

be gracious, grant our homecoming a joyful, perfect ending.

He spoke; then with his solemn prayer cut the victim's throat

and cast it astern in the water; the god gleamed from the depths,

revealing the true form he bore to mortal vision.

As when a man brings a swift horse into the broad circle

of a racecourse, grasping its shaggy mane, and the horse obeys,

while he runs swiftly beside it; proud with neck held high,

it follows, while the gleaming bit lies deep within its jaws

clatters on either side as the horse champs it hard;

then Triton grasped the keel of hollow Argo firmly

and guided her onward to sea; his divine shape, from the crown