The School Board Readers: Standard IV. ; Adapted to the Requirements of the New Code, 1871 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The School Board Readers: Standard IV.; Adapted to the Requirements of the New Code, 1871

As soon as the wind was fair the heroes embarked again in the ship Argo, to sail to Colchis. In the middle of the sea they had to cross floated two huge rocks, as the ice bergs float in the seas where it is always winter. Now when these rocks knocked together they crushed everything between them to pieces, and when a fish swimming in the water, or a bird flying in the air, passed between them, they killed it, and when a ship sailed through, they crushed it to pieces and killed all the people on board. These rocks had been put there by Jupiter, so that nobody might get to Colchis.

When they came to the rocks they found them floating far asunder, but already beginning to come nearer to each other. The Argonauts sailed right on towards the middle, and when they were close to the rocks, one of the heroes stood in front of the ship, with a dove in his hand, and let her fly. Now when anything living went between the rocks they struck together and then flew wide asunder. But the dove flew fast, and Minerva helped her, because she was a good and kind dove, and she was snow-white, and when the rocks closed, they only pulled out the feather of her tail, which soon grew again. And the rocks flew apart, and the heroes rowed with might and main and got safely through, and the rocks only knocked off a little bit of the ship's stern; the dove alighted on the ship, and was not angry with the Argonauts; and afterwards Minerva took her and set her in the sky, where she may still be seen as a living constellation.

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