The Argonautica

mother; a serving-woman bore him; and therefore Oeneus

sent the aging man as guardian to his son; and thus,

so young Meleager entered the greatly daring company

of heroes; none, I think, surpassed young Meleager,

apart from Heracles, had he stayed for merely one more

year in that place, still reared among the Aetolian people.

His mother's brother shared his road, well skilled with a spear,

and skilled in standing against his man at close quarters,

Iphiclus, Thestius' son, kept pace beside Meleager.

Palaemonius came too, Olenian Lernus' son,

called Lernus' son, but in birth descended from Hephaestus;

and therefore lame in foot; yet no one would dare despise

his bodily frame or valor; Palaemonius stood numbered

with all the foremost heroes, swelling Jason's glory.

Then from the Phocians came Iphitus, of Ornytus' line,

Naubolus' son, once bound to Jason in guest-friendship,

when Jason traveled to Pytho to seek a sacred oracle

for his voyage; there Iphitus received Jason in his halls.

Then Zetes and Calais came, the two sons of Boreas,

whom once Oreithyia, Erechtheus' daughter, bore to Boreas

at Thrace's farthest edge, a land of cruel winters; there

Thracian Boreas snatched her up and carried her from Cecropia,

from Ilissus' stream, where young Oreithyia whirled in dance,

and bore her far away, to the Sarpedonian Rock, which men