Through the Clashing Rocks they burst:
They passed by the Cape unsleeping
Of Phineus’ sons accurst;
They ran by the starlit bay
Upon magic surges sweeping,
Where folk on the waves astray
Have seen, through the gleaming grey,
Ring behind ring, men say,
The dance of the old Sea’s daughters.[[33]]
But Destiny was guiding them to something stranger than they had either hoped or dreaded. For this wild land, fiercely guarded from approach by the Rocky Gateway of the Symplêgades, was the country to which Artemis had carried Iphigenia from the altar in Aulis. And in the temple where they must seek the sacred statue, the daughter of Agamemnon was even now a priestess.