But the plea of the sweet hope of home suffered us not to stay.  Then he said that he was Eurypylos son of the earth-embracer, immortal Ennosides; and for that he was aware that we hasted to be gone, he straightway caught up of the chance earth at his feet a gift that he would fain bestow.  Nor was the hero unheeding, but leaping on the shore and striking hand in hand he took to him the fateful clod.

But now I hear that it was washed down from the ship and departed into the sea with the salt spray of evening, following the watery deep.  Yet verily often did I charge the labour-lightening servants that they should keep it safe, but they forgat:  and now upon this island[3] is the imperishable seed of spacious Libya strown before the time appointed; for if the royal son[4] of Poseidon, lord of horses, whom Europa Tityos’ child bare him on Kephisos’ banks, had in his own home thrown it down beside the mouth of Hades’[5] gulf, then in the fourth generation of his sons his seed would have taken that wide continent of Libya, for then they would have gone forth from mighty Lakedaimon, and from the Argive gulf, and from Mykenai.

But now he shall in wedlock with a stranger-wife raise up a chosen seed, who coming to this island with worship of their gods shall beget one to be lord of the misty plains[6].  Him sometime shall Phoibos in his golden house admonish by oracles, when in the latter days he shall go down into the inner shrine at Pytho, to bring a host in ships to the rich Nile-garden of the son of Kronos[7].’

So ran Medea’s rhythmic utterance, and motionless in silence the godlike heroes bowed their heads as they hearkened to the counsels of wisdom.

Thee, happy son[8] of Polymnestos, did the oracle of the Delphian bee[9] approve with call unasked to be the man whereof the word was spoken, for thrice she bid thee hail and declared thee by decree of 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.