Myths That Every Child Should Know: A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People
General
Myths That Every Child Should Know: A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People
Mythology -- Juvenile literature
But the Argonauts went eastward, and out into the open sea, which we now
call the Black Sea, but it was called the Euxine then. No Hellen had
ever crossed it, and all feared that dreadful sea, and its rocks, and
shoals, and fogs, and bitter freezing storms; and they told strange
stories of it, some false and some half true, how it stretched northward
to the ends of the earth, and the sluggish Putrid Sea, and the
everlasting night, and the regions of the dead. So the heroes trembled,
for all their courage, as they came into that wild Black Sea, and saw it
stretching out before them, without a shore, as far as eye could see.
And first Orpheus spoke, and warned them: "We shall come now to the
wandering blue rocks; my mother warned me of them, Calliope, the
immortal muse."
And soon they saw the blue rocks shining, like spires and castles of
gray glass, while an ice-cold wind blew from them, and chilled all the
heroes' hearts. And as they neared, they could see them heaving, as they
rolled upon the long sea waves, crashing and grinding together, till the
roar went up to heaven. The sea sprang up in spouts between them, and
swept round them in white sheets of foam; but their heads swung nodding
high in air, while the wind whistled shrill among the crags.
The heroes' hearts sank within them, and they lay upon their oars in
fear; but Orpheus called to Tiphys the helmsman: "Between them we must
pass; so look ahead for an opening, and be brave, for Hera is with us."
But Tiphys the cunning helmsman stood silent, clenching his teeth, till
he saw a heron come flying mast high toward the rocks, and hover awhile
before them, as if looking for a passage through. Then he cried, "Hera
has sent us a pilot; let us follow the cunning bird."
Then the heron flapped to and fro a moment, till he saw a hidden gap,
and into it he rushed like an arrow, while the heroes watched what would
befall.
And the blue rocks clashed together as the bird fled swiftly through;
but they struck but a feather from his tail, and then rebounded apart at
the shock.
Then Tiphys cheered the heroes, and they shouted; and the oars bent like
withes beneath their strokes, as they rushed between those toppling ice
crags, and the cold blue lips of death. And ere the rocks could meet
again they had passed them, and were safe out in the open sea.
And after that they sailed on wearily along the Asian coast, by the
Black Cape and Thyneis, where the hot stream of Thymbris falls into the
sea, and Sangarius, whose waters float on the Euxine, till they came to
Wolf the river, and to Wolf the kindly king. And there died two brave
heroes, Idmon and Tiphys the wise helmsman; one died of an evil
sickness, and one a wild boar slew. So the heroes heaped a mound above
them, and set upon it an oar on high, and left them there to sleep
together, on the far-off Lycian shore. But Idas killed the boar, and
avenged Tiphys; and Ancaios took the rudder and was helmsman, and
steered them on toward the east.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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