way are the rocks that mariners call The Clashers.
These rocks are not fixed as rocks should be, but they rush one against
the other, dashing up the sea, and crushing whatever may be between.
Yea, if Argo were of iron, and if she were between these rocks when
they met, she would be crushed to bits. I have sailed as far as that
passage, but seeing The Clashers strike together I turned back my ship,
and journeyed as far as the Sea of Pontus overland.

"But I have been told of one who knows how a ship may be taken through
the passage that The Clashers make so perilous. He who knows is a king
hereabouts, Phineus, who has made himself as wise as the gods. To no
one has Phineus told how the passage may be made, but knowing what high
favor has been shown to us, the Argonauts, it may be that he will tell
us."

So Tiphys said, and Jason commanded him to steer the Argo toward the
city where ruled Phineus, the wise king.

To Salmydessus, then, where Phineus ruled, Tiphys steered the Argo.
They left Heracles with Tiphys aboard to guard the ship, and, with the
rest of the heroes, Jason went through the streets of the city. They
met many men, but when they asked any of them how they might come to
the palace of King Phineus the men turned fearfully away.

They found their way to the king's palace. Jason spoke to the servants
and bade them tell the king of their coming. The servants, too, seemed
fearful, and as Jason and his comrades were wondering what there was
about him that made men fearful at his name, Phineus, the king, came
amongst them.

Were it not that he had a purple border to his robe no one would have
known him for the king, so miserable did this man seem. He crept along,
touching the walls, for the eyes in his head were blind and withered.
His body was shrunken, and when he stood before them leaning on his
staff he was like to a lifeless thing. He turned his blinded eyes upon
them, looking from one to the other as if he were searching for a face.

Then his sightless eyes rested upon Zetes and Calais, the sons of
Boreas, the North Wind. A change came into his face as it turned upon
them. One would think that he saw the wonder that these two were
endowed with--the wings that grew upon their ankles. It was awhile
before he turned his face from them; then he spoke to Jason and said:

"You have come to have counsel with one who has the wisdom of the gods.
Others before you have come for such counsel, but seeing the mis