Phineus and the Harpies.

    When the Argonauts landed at the Thracian port of Salmydessus they were met by the blind king, Phineus, a noted soothsayer. He was the son of Agenor (or Poseidon), the brother of Cadmus and Europa, and the husband of Cleopatra, daughter of Boreas, the north wind. He had been blinded by Zeus (Jupiter) because his prophetic gift trespassed on the gods’ prerogative of knowing the future, or by Zeus or Boreas in retribution for blinding his own sons. Zeus then sent Harpies to torment Phineus; they stole most of the food that was set before him and defiled the rest. In another version, Phineus chose blindness in return for a long life, whereupon Helios sent the Harpies to plague him for choosing never to see the sun.
    In answer to Phineus’s plea for help, the Argonauts Zetes and Calais, the winged sons of Boreas, chased the Harpies to the Strophades Islands. They would have killed the creatures, but Iris, Zeus’s messenger, interceded and promised that they would desist from tormenting the king. In return, Phineus forewarned the Argonauts of the dangers awaiting them on the remainder of their journey to Colchis.
    
    Classical Sources. Hesiod, fragments 138, 151, 157 (Merkelbach-West). Sophocles, Anyone 969—81. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica i.2iiff., 2.178-489. Diodorus Siculus, Biblioteca 4.43.3-4. Virgil, Aeneid 3.209-19. Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.2-4. Apollodorus, Biblioteca 1.9.21, 3.i5.2ff. Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.18.15, 5.17.11. Hyginus, Fabulae r9.