friendliness, and when they knew of the quest and their lineage welcomed
them with hospitality, and persuaded them to row further and to fasten
their ship's hawsers at the city harbour. Here they built an altar to
Ecbasian[1] Apollo and set it up on the beach, and gave heed to
sacrifices. And the king of his own bounty gave them sweet wine and
sheep in their need; for he had heard a report that whenever a godlike
band of heroes should come, straightway he should meet it with gentle
words and should have no thought of war. As with Jason, the soft down
was just blooming on his chin, nor yet had it been his lot to rejoice in
children, but still in his palace his wife was untouched by the pangs of
child-birth, the daughter of Percosian Merops, fair-haired Cleite, whom
lately by priceless gifts he had brought from her father's home from the
mainland opposite. But even so he left his chamber and bridal bed and
prepared a banquet among the strangers, casting all fears from his
heart. And they questioned one another in turn. Of them would he learn
the end of their voyage and the injunctions of Pelias; while they
enquired about the cities of the people round and all the gulf of the
wide Propontis; but further he could not tell them for all their desire
to learn. In the morning they climbed mighty Dindymum that they might
themselves behold the various paths of that sea; and they brought their
ship from its former anchorage to the harbour, Chytus; and the path they
trod is named the path of Jason.

[Footnote 1: i.e. god of disembarcation.]

But the Earthborn men on the other side rushed down from the mountain
and with crags below blocked up the mouth of vast Chytus towards the
sea, like men lying in wait for a wild beast within. But there Heracles
had been left behind with the younger heroes and he quickly bent his
back-springing bow against the monsters and brought them to earth one