The Argonautica

he told the god-sent words of Mopsus, Ampycus' son.

At once the younger men drove oxen from the stalls

and led the cattle thence to the mountain's lofty summit.

The others unloosed cables bound to the Sacred Rock

and rowed into the Thracian Harbor; then all heroes

went uphill, leaving just a few aboard the ship.

The high Macrian lookouts and all the opposite coast

of Thrace appeared, so near their hands could almost grasp it;

visible lay misty Bosporus' mouth and the Mysian

hills; on the farther shore flowed Aesepus' stream

Adrasteia's city with the Nepeian plain spread wide.

There stood a sturdy vine-stock, grown deep in the woodland,

an utterly aged tree; they cut it down to become

a sacred image of the mountain goddess; Argus carved it

with consummate skill; high on the rugged mountain knoll

they set the image beneath the highest oaks' canopy,

which root there on the summit, the loftiest trees of all.

There they heaped a pebble altar; then with leaves

of oak they crowned themselves and tended sacred rites,

invoking mighty Dindymian Mother, sovereign queen,

Phrygia's indweller, joined by both Titias and Cyllenus,

who, sole among the many, allot fate and bear the title

of Idaean Mother's two most honored assessors,

of all the Cretan Dactyls of Ida; once the nymph