Drew from his quiver different kind of arrows,
One causing love, golden and sharp and gleaming,
The other blunt, and tipped with lead, and serving
To drive all love away,
Are those shakespear and hamlet?
"Fools, what prevents us from returning home--
what, have we shed our kinsmen's blood? Have we
set sail to seek fiancees in contempt
of ladies on the mainland? Are we planning
to divvy up the fertile fields of Lemnos
and settle here for good? We won't accrue
glory while cooped up here with foreign girls
for years on end."
"No deity is going
to nab the golden fleece in answer to our prayers
and send it flying back to us. Come, then,
let's each go off and tend his own affairs.
And as for that one-- leave him to enjoy
Hypsiple's bedchamber day and night
until he peoples Lemnos with his sons,
and deathless glory catches up with him."
Argus
loosed the hawsers from a sea-washed rock,
and soon the heroes were exuberantly
slapping the water with their lengthy oars.
Farewell, Electra, and farewell your powers
whose task it is to guard and keep the secrets of which it is forbidden me to sing.