There were hidden people watching them, people with bows in their hands and arrows laid along the bowstrings. And the people who thus threatened the unknowing Argonauts were women and young girls. There were no men upon the Island of Lemnos. Years before a curse had fallen upon the people of that island, putting strife between the men and the women. And the women had mastered the men and had driven them away from Lemnos. Since then some of the women had grown old, and the girls who were children when their fathers and brothers had been banished were now of an age with Atalanta, the maiden who went with the Argonauts. They chased the wild beasts of the island, and they tilled the fields, and they kept in good repair the houses that were built before the banishing of the men. The older women served those who were younger, and they had a queen, a girl whose name was Hypsipyle. The women who watched with bows in their hands would have shot their arrows at the Argonauts if Hypsipyle’s nurse, Polyxo, had not stayed them. She forbade them to shoot at the strangers until she had brought to them the queen’s commands. She hastened to the palace and she found the young queen weaving at a loom. She told her about the ship and the strangers on board the ship, and she asked the queen what word she should bring to the guardian maidens. “Before you give a command, Hypsipyle,” said Polyxo, the nurse, “consider these words of mine. We, the elder women, are becoming ancient now; in a few years we will not be able to serve you, the younger women, and in a few years more we will have gone into the grave and our places will know us no more. And you, the younger women, will be becoming strengthless, and no more will be you able to hunt in the woods nor to till the fields, and a hard old age will be before you. “The ship that is beside our shore may have come at a good time. Those on board are goodly heroes. Let them land in Lemnos, and stay if they will. Let them wed with the younger women so that there may be husbands and wives, helpers and helpmeets, again in Lemnos.” Hypsipyle, the queen, let the shuttle fall from her hands and stayed for a while looking full into Polyxo’s face. Had her nurse heard her say something like this out of her dreams, she wondered? She bade the nurse tell the guardian maidens to let the heroes land in safety, and that she herself would put the crown of King Thoas, her father, upon her head, and go down to the shore to welcome them. And now the Argonauts saw people along the shore and they caught sight of women’s dresses. The loudest voiced amongst them shouted again, and they heard an answer given in a woman’s voice. They drew up the _Argo_ upon the shore, and they set foot upon the land of Lemnos.