The Argonautica

held back; and gifts for guests beyond all count the Thynians

sent all day long to Phineus, eager to give him pleasure.

Then afterward they built an altar to the blessed Twelve

beside the surf across the strait and laid sacred gifts;

then boarded the swift ship to row. Nor did they forget

to take the trembling dove among them; but that bird

cowering in terror Euphemus carried, clutched in his hand;

they loosed the double cables binding ship to land.

They started onward; goddess Athena saw them go.

At once, with urgent speed, she planted both her feet

on a weightless cloud that bore her swiftly, mighty though she was,

and swept toward the sea, with loving thoughts for all the rowers.

As one who roams abroad, a long way from his homeland,

as mortals often wander, sorely tried, finds no

land far away, but every road lies clear before him;

he sees the house that is his own, and all at once the way

by water and by land appears, now here, now there,

and pondering sharply, strains to reach his home with his eyes:

so swiftly did the daughter of Zeus dart down from heaven

and set her feet firm on bleak Thynia's coast.

Now when they reached the narrow throat of the winding passage,

hemmed upon either side by rough and jagged reefs,

beneath, the whirling current surged up hard against

the moving ship; in overwhelming fear they pressed ahead.