gladly accomplish, if haply heaven shall grant me to be a mother."

And Aeson's son in admiration thus replied: "Hypsipyle, so may all these
things prove propitious by the favour of the blessed gods. But do thou
hold a nobler thought of me, since by the grace of Pelias it is enough
for me to dwell in my native land; may the gods only release me from my
toils. But if it is not my destiny to sail afar and return to the land
of Hellas, and if thou shouldst bear a male child, send him when grown
up to Pelasgian Iolcus, to heal the grief of my father and mother if so
be that he find them still living, in order that, far away from the
king, they may be cared for by their own hearth in their home."

He spake, and mounted the ship first of all; and so the rest of the
chiefs followed, and, sitting in order, seized the oars; and Argus
loosed for them the hawsers from under the sea-beaten rock. Whereupon
they mightily smote the water with their long oars, and in the evening
by the injunctions of Orpheus they touched at the island of Electra,[1]
daughter of Atlas, in order that by gentle initiation they might learn
the rites that may not be uttered, and so with greater safety sail over
the chilling sea. Of these I will make no further mention; but I bid
farewell to the island itself and the indwelling deities, to whom belong
those mysteries, which it is not lawful for me to sing.

[Footnote 1: Samothrace.]

Thence did they row with eagerness over the depths of the black Sea,
having on the one side the land of the Thracians, on the other Imbros on
the south; and as the sun was just setting they reached the foreland of
the Chersonesus. There a strong south wind blew for them; and raising
the sails to the breeze they entered the swift stream of the maiden