This passage may mean
that that part of the sea had not been navigated before; though
many of the poets assert that the Argo was the first ship that was
ever built. It is more probable that it was the first vessel that
was ever fitted out as a ship of war.]

EXPLANATION.

Plato tells us that the story of the rape of Orithyia is but an
allegory, which signifies that, by accident, she was blown by the wind
into the sea, where she was drowned. Apollodorus and Pausanias,
however, assert that this story is based on historical facts, and that
Boreas, king of Thrace, seized Orithyia, the daughter of Erectheus,
king of Athens, and sister of Procris, as she was passing the river
Ilissus, and carried her into his dominions, where she became the
mother of twins, Calais and Zethes. In the Argonautic expedition,
these chiefs delivered Phineus, the king of Bithynia, from the
persecution of the Harpies, which were in the habit of snatching away
the victuals served up at his table.

BOOK THE SEVENTH.

FABLE I. [VII.1-158]

Jason, after having met with various adventures, arrives with the
Argonauts in Colchis, and demands the Golden Fleece. Medea falls in
love with Jason, and by the power of her enchantments preserves him
from the dangers he has to encounter in obtaining it. He obtains the
prize, and carrying off Medea, returns in triumph to Thessaly.

And now the Minyae[1] were ploughing the sea in the Pagasaean ship;[2] and
Phineus prolonging a needy old age under perpetual night, had been
visited, and the youthful sons of the North wind had driven the birds
with the faces of virgins from {before} the mouth of the distressed old
man;[3] and having suffered many things under the famous Jason, had
reached at length the rapid waters of the muddy Phasis.

And while they go to the king, and ask the fleece that once belonged to
Phryxus, and conditions are offered them, dreadful for the number of
mighty labors; in the meantime, the daughter of AEetes[4] conceives a
violent flame; and having long struggled {against it}, after she is
unable to conquer her frenzy by reason, she says: "In vain, Medea, dost
thou resist; some God, who, I know not, is opposing thee. It is a wonder
too, if it is not this, or at least something like this, which is called
'love.' For why do the commands of my father appear too rigid for me?
and yet too rigid they are. Why am I in dread, lest he whom I h