The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum

thanks of Phineus will much avail you all.”
    Clasping the hands of Zetes and Calais he led the heroes through hall after hall of his palace and down into his treasure chamber. There he bestowed upon the banishers of the Harpies crowns and arm rings of gold and richly colored garments and brazen chests in which to store the treasure that he gave. And to Jason he gave an ivory-hilted and gold-encased sword, and on each of the voyagers he bestowed a rich gift, not forgetting the heroes who had remained on the
Argo
, Heracles and Tiphys.
    They went back to the great hall, and a feast was spread for the king and for the Argonauts. They ate from rich dishes and they drank from flowing wine cups. Phineus ate and drank as the heroes did, and no dread shapes came before him to snatch from him nor to buffet him. But as Jason looked upon the man who had striven to equal the gods in wisdom, and noted his blinded eyes and shrunken face, he resolved never to harbor in his heart such presumption as Phineus had harbored.
    When the feast was finished the king spoke to Jason, telling him how the
Argo
might be guided through the Symplegades, the dread passage into the Sea of Pontus. He told them to bring their ship near to the Clashing Rocks. And one whohad the keenest sight amongst them was to stand at the prow of the ship holding a pigeon in his hands. As the rocks came together he was to loose the pigeon. If it found a space to fly through they would know that the
Argo
could make the passage, and they were to steer straight toward where the pigeon had flown. But if it fluttered down to the sea, or flew back to them, or became lost in the clouds of spray, they were to know that the
Argo
might not make that passage. Then the heroes would have to take their ship overland to where they might reach the Sea of Pontus.
    That day they bade farewell to Phineus, and with the treasures he had bestowed upon them they went down to the
Argo
. To Heracles and Tiphys they gave the presents that the king had sent them. In the morning they drew the
Argo
out of the harbor of Salmydessus, and set sail again.
        But not until long afterward did they come to the Symplegades, the passage that was to be their great trial. For they landed first in a country that was full of woods, where they were welcomed by a king who had heard of the voyagers and of their quest. There they stayed and hunted for many days in the woods. And there a great loss befell the Argonauts, for Tiphys, as he went through the woods, was bitten by a snake and died. He who had braved so many seas and so manystorms lost his life away from the ship. The Argonauts made a tomb for him on the shore of that land—a great pile of stones, in which they fixed upright his steering oar. Then they set sail again, and Nauplius was made the steersman of the ship.
        The course was not so clear to Nauplius as it had been to Tiphys. The steersman did not find his bearings, and for many days and nights the
Argo
was driven on a backward course. They came to an island that they knew to be that Island of Lemnos that they had passed on the first days of the voyage, and they resolved to rest there for a while, and then to press on for the passage into the Sea of Pontus.
    They brought the
Argo
near the shore. They blew trumpets and set the loudest voiced of the heroes to call out to those upon the island. But no answer came to them, and all day the
Argo
lay close to the island.
        There were hidden people watching them, people with bows in their hands and arrows laid along the bowstrings. And the people who thus threatened the unknowing Argonauts were women and young girls.
    There were no men upon the Island of Lemnos. Years before a curse had fallen upon the people of that island, putting strife between the men and the women. And the women hadmastered the men and had driven them away from Lemnos. Since then some of the women had grown old, and the girls who were children when their fathers and