fate Kyrene's king, what time thou enquiredst what help should be from
heaven for thy labouring speech. And verily even now long afterward,
as in the bloom of rosy-blossomed spring, in the eighth descent from
Battos the leaf of Arkesilas is green. To him Apollo and Pytho have
given glory in the chariot-race at the hands of the Amphiktyons: him
will I commend to the Muses, and withal the tale of the all-golden
fleece; for this it was the Minyai sailed to seek when the god-given
glories of their race began.

What power first drave them in the beginning to the quest? What
perilous enterprise clenched them with strong nails of adamant?

There was an oracle of God which said that Pelias should die by force
or by stern counsels of the proud sons of Aiolos, and there had come
to him a prophecy that froze his cunning heart, spoken at the central
stone of tree-clad mother Earth, that by every means he should keep
safe guard against the man of one sandal, whensoever from a homestead
on the hills he shall have come to the sunny land of glorious Iolkos,
whether a stranger or a citizen he be.

So in the fulness of time he came, wielding two spears, a wondrous
man; and the vesture that was upon him was twofold, the garb of the
Magnetes' country close fitting to his splendid limbs, but above he
wore a leopard-skin to turn the hissing showers; nor were the bright
locks of his hair shorn from him but over all his back ran rippling
down. Swiftly he went straight on, and took his stand, making trial of
his dauntless soul, in the marketplace when the multitude was full.

Him they knew not; howbeit some one looking reverently on him would
speak on this wise: 'Not Apollo surely is this, nor yet Aphrodite's