The Argonautica

both stood nearby, to strike them with swords when they rushed in.

And now the old man first reached out and touched the food;

at once, like savage storm-winds or flashing lightning bolts,

the Harpies, without warning, sprang from clouds and hurtled down,

shrilling and raging for food; the heroes saw the onslaught,

cried out amid the onrush; at their cry the Harpies

gulped down everything and swept away over the sea,

far out to sea; an unbearable stench remained there.

Boreas' two sons came racing close behind them,

both holding swords aloft; for Zeus had planted

tireless strength within them; yet apart from Zeus they could not

have followed, since the Harpies always outstripped Zephyr's gales

on every swift flight to Phineus and back again.

As hunting-hardened hounds run over mountain slopes,

tracking horned goats or roe deer racing before them,

straining just a little way behind their quarry,

their teeth clash vainly at the very tips of their jaws;

so Zetes and Calais, darting very close behind,

vainly just grazed them with the tips of outstretched fingers.

And now, against the gods' will, they would have torn them apart

when far away they finally caught them at the Floating Islands,

had swift Iris not seen them and leapt down through the ether

from heaven, and checked both brothers with persuasive words:

No sacred law permits you, sons of Boreas, to strike