Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/97



Pinetrees of old, born on the top of Pelion, are said to have swum through the liquid waters of Neptune to the waves of Phasis and the realms of Aeetes, when the chosen youths, the flower of Argive strength, desiring to bear away from the Colchians the golden fleece, dared to course over the salt seas with swift ship, sweeping the blue expanse with fir-wood blades, for whom the goddess who holds the fortresses of city-tops made with her own hands the car flitting with light breeze, binding the piny structure of the bowed keel. That ship first hanselled with voyage Amphitrite untried before.

So when she ploughed with her beak the windy expanse, and the wave churned by the oars grew white with foam-flakes, forth looked, wild visages, from the foaming tide the Nereids of the deep wondering at the strange thing. On that day, if on any other, mortals saw with their eyes the seaNymphs standing forth from the hoary tide naked as far as the paps. Then is Peleus said to have caught fire with love of Thetis, then did Thetis not disdain mortal espousals, then the Father himself knew in his heart that Peleus must be joined to Thetis. O ye, in happiest time of ages born, hail, heroes, sprung from gods! hail, kindly offspring of good mothers, hail again! you often in my song, s you will I address. And specially thee, greatly blessed by fortunate marriage torches, pillar of Thessaly, Peleus, to whom Jupiter himself, the king of the gods himself granted his own Love. Thee c. 11