To urge their bark's career what cause was found?
In chains of adamant what peril bound?130
'Twas doom'd that Pelias should expire
By force or fraudulent design,
Who waked the hero's vengeful ire,
Sprung from the brave Æolian line.
To his quick thought returning still135
The oracle of Delphi spoke
In sounds of wo that loud and shrill
From earth's well-wooded centre broke;
And bade his jealous mind beware
The man with foot of sandal bare.140
When he from Chiron's high retreat
The stranger citizen should come
To famed Iolcos' western seat,
And gain at length a foreign home.
Then brandishing his double spear,145
Approach'd the wondrous mortal near.
Wrapp'd are his limbs of beauteous mould
Within a double vesture's fold—
Magnesian, and the foreign pard,
'Gainst pelting rains the surest guard;150
While locks in sacrifice unshorn
His ample back with grace adorn.
Straight coming on with quiet tread,
He show'd a mind devoid of dread. 151
When one among th' assembled crowd155
Turn'd to th' unknown, thus spoke aloud:
"'Tis not Apollo I behold,
Nor Venus' spouse, the god of war,
Who thunders in his iron car.
Long since, as ancient fame has told,160
Deceased in fertile Naxos lie
Iphimedeia's progeny,
