The Argonautica

exactly as you wish, dear to your heart. This island

and my father's scepter await you, if one day

you return home and desire to come back again.

With ease you could assemble one vast host for yourself

out of other cities; yet your heart will never harbor

that longing, nor do I foresee it will so be fulfilled.

Remember Hypsipyle both abroad and safely home,

and leave one charge my willing heart may carry out

with all my heart, should gods allow me to bear a child.

Aeson's admiring son replied to Hypsipyle in turn:

Hypsipyle, may every hope you named prove auspicious

from blessed gods; but keep a better thought of me.

For Pelias' grace makes dwelling in my homeland enough;

Only may gods release me now from these hard labors.

But should fate forbid my reaching Hellas' native land

on my far homeward voyage, and you bear a male child,

send the grown youth onward to Pelasgian Iolcus,

a cure for grief that burdens father, mother, both,

if still he finds them living there, apart from the king,

that far from Pelias they may tend their own hearths at home.

Jason spoke, then led the boarding; all the other

chieftains boarded; then their strong hands grasped the oars,

seated in order; Argus took hold of their stern-lines,

and freed each stern-line from beneath the salt-washed rock;