Pines aforetimes sprung from Pelion peak floated, so 'tis said, through liquid billows of Neptune to the flowing Phasis and the confines Aeetaean, when the picked youth, the vigour of Argive manhood seeking to carry away the Golden Fleece from Colchis, dared to skim o'er salt seas in a swift-sailing ship, sweeping caerulean ocean with paddles shapen from fir-wood. That Goddess who guards the castles in topmost parts of the towns herself fashioned the car, scudding with lightest of winds, uniting the interweaved pines unto the curving keel. That same first instructed untaught Amphitrite with sailing. Scarce had it split with its stem the windy waves, and the billow vext with oars had whitened into foam, when arose from the abyss of the hoary eddies the faces of sea-dwelling Nereids wondering at the marvel. And then on that propitious day mortal eyes gazed on sea-nymphs with naked bodies bare to the breasts outstanding from the foamy abyss. Then 'tis said Peleus burned with desire for Thetis, then Thetis contemned not mortal hymenaeals, then Thetis' sire himself sanctioned her joining to Peleus. O born in the time of joyfuller ages, heroes, hail! sprung from the gods, good progeny of mothers, hail! and favourably be ye inclined. You oft in my song I'll address, thee too I'll approach, Peleus, pillar of Thessaly, so increased in importance by thy fortunate wedding-torches, to whom Jupiter himself, the sire of the gods himself, yielded up his beloved. Did not Thetis embrace thee, she most winsome of Nereids born? Did not Tethys consent that thou should'st lead home her grandchild, and Oceanus eke, whose waters girdle the total globe? When in full course of time the longed-for day had dawned, all Thessaly assembled throngs his home, a gladsome company o'erspreading the halls: they bear gifts to the fore, and their joy in their faces they shew. Scyros desert remains, they leave Phthiotic Tempe, Crannon's homes, and the fortressed walls of Larissa; to Pharsalia they hie, 'neath Pharsalian roofs they gather. None tills the soil, the heifers' necks grow softened, the trailing vine is not cleansed by the curved rake-prongs, nor does the sickle prune the shade of the spreading tree-branches, nor does the bullock up-tear the glebe with the prone-bending ploughshare; squalid rust steals o'er the neglected ploughs.