They next stopped in the country of the Bebrykians, where the boxing contest took place between the king Amykus and the Argonaut Pollux:[554] they then proceeded onward to Bithynia, the residence of the blind prophet Phineus. His blindness had been inflicted by Poseidôn as a punishment for having communicated to Phryxus the way to Kolchis. The choice had been allowed to him between death and blindness, and he had preferred the latter.[555] He was also tormented by the harpies, winged monsters who came down from the clouds whenever his table was set, snatched the food from his lips and imparted to it a foul and unapproachable odor. In the midst of this misery, he hailed the Argonauts as his deliverers—his prophetic powers having enabled him to foresee their coming. The meal being prepared for him, the harpies approached as usual, but Zêtês and Kalaïs, the winged sons of Boreas, drove them away and pursued them. They put forth all their speed, and prayed to Zeus to be enabled to overtake the monsters; when Hermês appeared and directed them to desist, the harpies being forbidden further to molest Phineus,[556] and retiring again to their native cavern in Krête.[557] [554] See above, chap. viii. p. 169. [555] Such was the old narrative of the Hesiodic Catalogue and Eoiai. See Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. ii. 181-296. [556] This again was the old Hesiodic story (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 296),— Ἐνθ᾽ οἵγ᾽ εὔχεσθον Αἰνηΐῳ ὑψιμέδοντι. Apollodôrus (i. 9, 21), Apollônius (178-300), and Valerius Flacc. (iv. 428-530) agree in most of the circumstances. [557] Such was the fate of the harpies as given in the old Naupaktian Verses (See Fragm. Ep. Græc. Düntzer, Naupakt. Fr. 2. p. 61). The adventure of the Argonauts with Phineus is given by Diodôrus in a manner totally different (Diodôr. iv. 44): he seems to follow Dionysius of Mitylênê (see Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. ii. 207).