Then--then, O sad Antæus, wilt thou yearn For dense green woodlands and the fragrant fern; Then stretch thy form upon the sward, and rest From worldly toil on Hertha's gracious breast; Plunge in the foaming river, or divide With happy arms gray ocean's murmuring tide, And drinking thence each solitary hour Immortal beauty and immortal power, Thou may'st the buffets of the world efface And live a Titan of earth's earliest race. --MORTIMER COLLINS. THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION. From what was probably a maritime adventure that plundered some wealthy country at a period when navigation was in its infancy among the Greeks, we get the fable of the Argonautic Expedition. The generally accepted story of this expedition is as follows: Pe'lias, a descendant of Æ'o-lus, the mystic progenitor of the Great Æol'ic race, had deprived his half-brother Æ'son of the kingdom of Iol'cus in Thessaly. When Jason, son of Æson, had attained to manhood, he appeared before his uncle and demanded the throne. Pelias consented only on condition that Jason should first capture and bring to him the golden fleece of the ram which had carried Phrix'us and Hel'le when they fled from their stepmother I'no. Helle dropped into the sea between Sigæ'um and the Cher'sonese, which was named from her Hellespon'tus; but Phrixus succeeded in reaching Col'chis, a country at the eastern extremity of the Euxine, or Black Sea. Here he sacrificed the ram, and nailed the fleece to an oak in the grove of Mars, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. Joined by the principal heroes of Greece, Hercules among the number, Jason set sail from Iolcus in the ship Argo, after first invoking the favor of Jupiter, the winds, and the waves, for the success of the expedition. The ceremony on this occasion, as descried by the poets, reads like an account of the "christening of the ship" in modern times, but we seem to have lost the full significance of the act. And soon as by the vessel's bow The anchor was hung up, Then took the leader on the prow In hands a golden cup, And on great father Jove did call; And on the winds and waters all Swept by the hurrying blast, And on the nights, and ocean ways, And on the fair auspicious days, And sweet return at last. From out the clouds, in answer kind, A voice of thunder came, And, shook in glistening beams around, Burst out the lightning flame. The chiefs breathed free, and, at the sign, Trusted in the power divine. Hinting sweet hopes, the seer cried Forthwith their oars to ply, And swift went backward from rough hands The rowing ceaselessly. --PINDAR. Trans. by Rev. H. F. CARY.