Earthborn, like fleet-footed hounds, leaped upon
one another and slew with loud yells; and on earth their mother they
fell beneath their own spears, likes pines or oaks, which storms of wind
beat down. And even as a fiery star leaps from heaven, trailing a furrow
of light, a portent to men, whoever see it darting with a gleam through
the dusky sky; in such wise did Aeson's son rush upon the earthborn men,
and he drew from the sheath his bare sword, and smote here and there,
mowing them down, many on the belly and side, half risen to the air--and
some that had risen as far as the shoulders--and some just standing
upright, and others even now rushing to battle. And as when a fight is
stirred up concerning boundaries, and a husbandman, in fear lest they
should ravage his fields, seizes in his hand a curved sickle, newly
sharpened, and hastily cuts the unripe crop, and waits not for it to be
parched in due season by the beams of the sun; so at that time did Jason
cut down the crop of the Earthborn; and the furrows were filled with
blood, as the channels of a spring with water. And they fell, some on
their faces biting the rough clod of earth with their teeth, some on
their backs, and others on their hands and sides, like to sea-monsters
to behold. And many, smitten before raising their feet from the earth,
bowed down as far to the ground as they had risen to the air, and rested
there with the damp of death on their brows. Even so, I ween, when Zeus
has sent a measureless rain, new planted orchard-shoots droop to the
ground, cut off by the root the toil of gardening men; but heaviness
of heart and deadly anguish come to the owner of the farm, who planted
them; so at that time did bitter grief come upon the heart of King
Aeetes. And he went back to the city among the Colchians, pondering how
he might most quickly oppose the heroes. And the day died, and Jason's
contest was ended.

BOOK IV

(ll. 1-5) Now do thou thyself, goddess Muse, daughter of Zeus, tell of
the labour and wiles of the Colchian maiden. Surely my soul within me
wavers with speechless amazement as I ponder whether I should call it
the lovesick grief of mad passion or a panic flight, through which she
left the Colchian folk.

(ll. 6-10) Aeetes all night long with the bravest captains of his people
was devising in his halls sheer treachery against the heroes, with
fierce wrath in his heart at the issue of the hateful contest; nor did
he deem at all that