Mythology, Greek; Trojan War -- Literature and the war; Troy (Extinct city) -- Legends
These came, and many more, and they set shipbuilders to work, and oaks
were felled for beams, and ashes for oars, and spears were made, and
arrows feathered, and swords sharpened. But in the prow of the ship they
placed a bough of an oak tree from the forest of Zeus in Dodona where
the trees can speak, and that bough spoke, and prophesied things to
come. They called the ship 'Argo,' and they launched her, and put bread,
and meat, and wine on board, and hung their shields outside the
bulwarks. Then they said good-bye to their friends, went aboard, sat
down at the oars, set sail, and so away eastward to Colchis, in the land
of the world's end.
All day they rowed, and at night they beached the ship, as was then the
custom, for they did not sail at night, and they went on shore, and took
supper, and slept, and next day to the sea again. And old Chiron, the
man-horse, saw the swift ship from his mountain heights, and ran down
to the beach; there he stood with the waves of the gray sea breaking
over his feet, waving with his mighty hands, and wishing his boys a safe
return. And his wife stood beside him, holding in her arms the little
son of one of the ship's company, Achilles, the son of Peleus of the
Spear, and of Thetis the goddess of the Sea Foam.
So they rowed ever eastward, and ere long they came to a strange isle
where dwelt men with six hands apiece, unruly giants. And these giants
lay in wait for them on cliffs above the river's mouth where the ship
was moored, and before the dawn they rolled down great rocks on the
crew. But Heracles drew his huge bow, the bow for which he slew Eurytus,
king of Oechalia, and wherever a giant showed hand or shoulder above the
cliff, he pinned him through with an arrow, till all were slain. After
that they still held eastward, passing many islands, and towns of men,
till they reached Mysia, and the Asian shore. Here they landed, with bad
luck. For while they were cutting reeds and grass to strew their beds on
the sands, young Hylas, beautiful Hylas, went off with a pitcher in his
hand to draw water. He came to a beautiful spring, a deep, clear, green
pool, and there the water-fairies lived, whom men called Nereids. There
were Eunis, and Nycheia with her April eyes, and when they saw the
beautiful Hylas, they longed to have him always with them, to live in
the crystal caves beneath the water, for they had never seen anyone so
beautiful. As he stooped with his pitcher and dipped it into the stream,
they caught him softly in their arms, and drew him down below, and no
man ever saw him any more, but he dwelt with the water-fairies.
But Heracles the strong, who loved him like a younger brother, wandered
all over the country crying '_Hylas! Hylas!_' and the boy's voice
answered so faintly from below the stream that Heracles never heard him.
So he roamed alone in the forests, and the rest of the crew thought he
was lost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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