Читать книгу The Tale of the Argonauts онлайн

40 страница из 84

For not with the captives their husbands alone for the sin did they slay,

But every male therewithal, lest perchance in the coming day

Out of these might arise an avenger for that grim murder’s sake.

In one alone for an aged sire did compassion awake,{620}

Hypsipylê, daughter of Thoas, the king of the folk of the land.

In an ark did she send him to drift o’er the sea from the murder-strand,

If he haply might ’scape. And fisher-folk saved him and brought to the isle

Which men call Sikinus now, but Oinoë named it erewhile;

For from Sikinus folk renamed it, the child whom the Maid of the Spring,

Oinoë, bare, when she couched in love with Thoas the king.

So it came to pass that for these to tend the kine, and to wear

War-harness of brass, and to furrow the wheat-bearing land with the share,

In the eyes of them all seemed task more light than Athênê’s toil

Wherewithal were their hands aforetime busy: yet all the while{630}

Across the broad sea ever they cast and anon their eyes

With a haunting fear lest the Thracian sails in the offing should rise.