to buy the right to wed her. Nonetheless,
he brought himself to leave the marriage chamber
1310and bridal bed and entertain the heroes.
He had dismissed suspicion from his heart.
They asked each other questions at the feast—
Cyzicus learned of Pelias’ bidding
and the objective of their quest. The heroes,
1315in turn, inquired about the neighboring cities
and the whole basin of the vast Propontis,
but Cyzicus’ knowledge ranged no further,
much as they wished to learn what lay beyond.
So half the heroes set about ascending
1320 (985)Dindymum at dawn to see firsthand
what waters they would cross, and to this day
the path they took is known as Jason’s Way.
The other half, however, stayed behind
and rowed the Argo from her former mooring
over to Chytus Haven.
1325All at once
the Earthborn ones came down around the mountain
and tried to block the exit from the harbor
by dropping countless rocks into the water,
the way men catch sea creatures in a pool.
1330Heracles and the younger men, however,
had stayed back with the ship, and Heracles
nocked arrows nimbly on his back-bent bow
and dropped the giants freely one by one
since they had focused all their strength on heaving
1335 (995)and hurling jagged rocks into the sea.
No doubt the goddess Hera, Zeus’ consort,
had reared these horrid things as yet another
labor for Heracles. The other heroes
turned back before they reached the mountaintop
1340and joined their comrades, and they all got down
to slaughtering the Earthborn Giants, routing
by shaft and spear their reckless, headlong charges
till each and every one of them was dead.
As woodcutters, once they have finished felling
1345colossal old-growth trees, proceed to lay them
side by side along the surf to soak
and soften and receive the dowels, the heroes
laid out the Earthborn Giants one by one
along the shorefront of the choppy harbor—
1350 (1008)some headfirst in the brine, their tops and torsos
submerged, their legs protruding landward; others,
conversely, had their feet out in the deep
and heads out on the beach. Both groups were doomed
to serve as meals for fish and birds alike.
1355After the men returned, unscathed, from battle,
they loosed the hawsers, and the wind came up,
and they pursued their quest across the swell.
All day the Argo coasted under sail.
At evening, though, the wind became unsteady.
1360Gusts from the opposite direction seized her
and blew her back until she reached once more
the island of the kindly Doliones.
They disembarked at midnight, and the rock
to which they hastily attached a line
1365 (1019)is called the Sacred Outcrop to this day.
But none among them was astute enough
to notice they had stopped at the same island.
Since it was night the Doliones failed
as well to mark their friends come back again,
1370no, they assumed Pelasgian invaders,
Macrian men, had breached their beach instead,
and so they took up arms and started fighting.
Their shields and ash-wood lances clashed as swiftly
as fire that has sparked on arid brushwood
1375leaps aloft in crested conflagration.
Battle, horrible and unforgiving,
befell the Doliones. Cyzicus
was not permitted to escape his doom
or go home to enjoy his bridal bed.
1380 (1032)Just as he joined the battle, Jason ran up
and stabbed him in the center of the chest.
Ribs shattered round the spear tip, and he crumpled
upon the beach and met his destined end.
Mortals can never sidestep fate; the cosmic
1385net is extended round us everywhere.
And so it was that, on the very night
Cyzicus had assumed that he was safe
from bitter slaughter at the heroes’ hands,
destiny snared him, and he joined the fray.
1390Many others on his side were slain:
Heracles clubbed the life from Megabrontes
and Telecles; Acastus slaughtered Sphodris;
Peleus vanquished battle-keen Gephyrus
and Zelys; and that mighty ash-wood spearman
1395 (1043)Telamon triumphed over Basileus.
Idas in turn disposed of Promeus; Clytius,
Hyancinthus; and the brothers Castor
and Polydeuces slew Megalossaces
and Phlogius. Beside them Meleager
1400son of Oeneus dispatched Artaces
leader of men and bold Itymoneus.
Still today the locals venerate
the men who perished in that fight as heroes.
The remnants of the Doliones turned
1405and fled like doves pursued by swift-winged hawks.
After they stumbled, hoarse and helter-skelter,
into the city, cries of lamentation
erupted—yes, its soldiers had retreated,
retreated from a dismal fight.
At daybreak
1410 (1053)both parties recognized the fatal error,
but nothing could be done to make it right.
Violent sorrow gripped the Minyans
once they had spotted Aeneus’ son
Cyzicus lying, bloody, in the dust.
1415Three days the heroes and the Doliones
tore out their hair and mourned the loss together.
Then, after putting on their bronze war gear,
they marched three times around the corpse, entombed it,
and filed away to the Leimonian plain
1420to hold memorial games, as is the custom.
Cleite, however, Cyzicus’ wife,
refused to stay behind among the living
now that her man was dead. She heaped a further
sorrow on top of what had gone before
1425 (1065)by fastening a noose around her neck.
Even the woodland nymphs bewailed her passing.
In fact, these deities collected all
the tears that tumbled earthward from their eyelids
into a spring called Cleite—the “Renowned”
name of the ill-starred widow.
1430Zeus had never
dropped a more heart-devastating day
upon the Dolionan men and women.
None of them could enjoy the taste of food
and, far into the future, sorrow kept them
1435from working at the mill, and they subsided
on raw provisions. Still today, in fact,
when the Cyzician Ionians
make yearly sacrifices to the dead,
they always use the public stone, and not
1440 (1072)the stones they keep at home, to grind the meal.
And then stiff winds arose and blew, preventing
the heroes from departing, twelve nights, twelve days,
but on the thirteenth night, when all their comrades
had yielded to exhaustion and were sleeping
1445heavily through the final watch, two men—
Ampycus’ son Mopsus and Acastus—
were standing sentry, and a halcyon
appeared and fluttered round the golden hair
of Jason son of Aeson, prophesying
1450with strident voice the calm
ing of the gales.
As soon as Mopsus heard and apprehended
the seabird’s joyous news, some higher power
dispatched it fluttering aloft again
to perch atop the Argo’s sculpted stern post.
1455 (1090)Mopsus immediately ran to shake
Jason sleeping under soft sheep fleeces.
Soon as his captain was awake, he said:
“You, son of Aeson, must ascend to where
a temple stands on rugged Dindymum
1460and soothe the Mother of the Blessed Gods
upon her shining throne. Once you have done this,
the stormy gales shall cease. Such is the message
I heard just now. You see, an ocean-dwelling
halcyon fluttered round your sleeping head,
1465revealing everything that must be done.
The winds, the ocean, and the earth’s foundations
all depend upon the Mother Goddess,
as does the snow-capped bastion of Olympus.
When she forsakes the mountains and ascends
1470 (1101)the mighty vault of heaven, Zeus himself,
the son of Cronus, offers her his place,
and all the blessed gods bow before her power.”
Such were his words, and Jason welcomed them,
vaulted for joy out of his bed, and ran
1475to rouse his comrades. Once they were awake,
he told them what the offspring of Ampycus,
Mopsus, had ascertained.
The younger heroes
hurried to drag some oxen from the stalls
and drive them all the way up Dindymum’s
1480precipitous ascent. After detaching
the hawsers from the Sacred Rock, the others
rowed into the so-called “Thracian Harbor,”
picked out some few to stay and guard the ship,
and went to scale the mountain.
From the peak
1485 (1112)the Macrian massifs and all the Thracian
coastline stretching opposite them seemed
almost within arm’s reach. They also spotted
the misty entrance to the Bosporus,
the Mysian hills, and there, across the strait,
1490Asepus River and its namesake city
and the Nepeian plain of Adrasteia.
There in the forest was an old vine stump,
stubborn and dry. They cut it out to make
a sacred image of the Mountain Goddess.
1495Artful Argus carved it, and they set it
atop a rugged outcrop in the shade
of lofty oaks, which shoot their taproots deeper
than any other tree.
They built an altar
of fieldstone, garlanded their brows with oak leaves,
1500 (1125)and offered sacrifice, invoking Mother
Dindymena, Dweller in Phrygia,
and Queen of Many Names. They also summoned
Titias and Cyllenus who, alone
of all the Dactyls bred on Cretan Ida,
1505have earned the titles “Destiny Assessors”
and “Confidants” of the Idaean Mother.
A nymph named Anchiala brought them forth
in the Dictaean Cave while squeezing fistfuls
of Oaxian earth to ease the pain.
1510The son of Aeson poured libations over
the blazing victims and implored the goddess
with various prayers to turn the storms away.
Under the tutelage of Orpheus
the younger men performed the Dance in Armor,
1515 (1135)leaping and pounding swords on shields so that
any unlucky cry of grief the locals
might possibly be making for their king
would vanish in the din. From that day on
the Phrygians have always celebrated
1520Rhea with tambourine and kettledrum.
These flawless sacrifices clearly won
the goddess’ approval. Signs appeared,
conclusive proof: fruit tumbled from the trees
in great abundance, and beneath their feet
1525the earth spontaneously sprouted flowers
out of the tender grass, and savage creatures
forsook their dens and thickets in the wild
to fawn and beg with wagging tails around them.
Later, another marvel came to pass:
1530 (1147)water had never flowed on Dindymum
but on that day it sprang forth on its own
ceaselessly from the barren mountaintop,
and locals from that day have called the spring
“The Font of Jason.” Then they held a feast
1535in honor of the goddess of that mountain,
the Mountain of the Bears, and sang the praises
of Rhea, Rhea, Queen of Many Names.
The storm winds died by daybreak, and they left
the island under oar. And then a spirit
1540of healthy competition spurred the heroes
to find out which of them would weary last.
The air had calmed around them, and the waves
fallen asleep. Trusting in these conditions,
they heaved the Argo on with all their might.
1545 (1158)Not even lord Poseidon’s tempest-footed
stallions could have outstripped them as they dashed
across the sea.
But when the violent winds
that rise up fresh from rivers in the evening
had riled the swell again, the heroes tired
1550and gave up trying. Heracles alone,
he and his boundless strength, pulled all those weary
oarsmen along. His labor sent a shudder
through the strong-knit timbers of the ship,
and soon the Argo raised Rhyndacus strait
1555and the colossal barrow of Aegaeum.
But as they passed quite near the Phrygian coast
in their desire to reach the Mysian land,
Heracles, in the very act of plowing
deep furrows through the sea swell, broke his oar
1560 (1169)and toppled sideways. While the handle stayed
locked in his fist, the ocean caught and carried
the blade off in the Argo’s wake. He sat up,
dumbstruck, silent, swiveling his eyes:
his hands were not accustomed to disuse.
1565At just the hour when a field hand,
a plowman, gratefully forsakes the furrows
to head home hungry for his evening meal
and squats on weary knees, sun-burned, dust-caked,
before the door, eying his calloused hands
1570and calling curses down upon his belly,
the heroes reached the land of the Cianians
who dwell beneath Mount Arganthonia
along the delta of the Cius River.
Since they had come in peace, the local people,
1575 (1179)Mysians by race, received them warmly
and gave provisions, sheep and ample wine,
to satisfy their needs. Some of the heroes
collected kindling; others gathered leaves
out of the fields to make up mattresses;
1580still others grated fire out of sticks,
decanted wine in bowls, and, after giving
due offerings at dusk to Lord Apollo,
the God of Embarkation, cooked a feast.
After encouraging his friends to banquet
1585heartily, Heracles the son of Zeus
set out into the woods to find a tree
to carve into an oar that fit his hands.
He wandered for a while until he spotted
a pine with few boughs and a dearth of needles,
1590 (1190)most like a poplar in its height and girth.
He set his bow and arrow-bearing quiver
straightway upon the ground and laid aside
the lion skin. Then, leveling his club,
a great big bronze-encinctured log, he loosened
1595the trunk inside the soil. With all his faith
placed in his strength, he wrapped his arms around it,
squared his shoulder, braced his feet, pulled tight,
and heaved it, deeply rooted though it was,
out of the earth, with big clods dangling from it.
1600In just the way that, after dire Orion
has made his stormy setting in the sea,
a sudden bluster from above assails
a ship’s mast unexpectedly and snaps it
free of the stays and wedges, Heracles
1605 (1205)ripped out the pine. Afterward he retrieved
his bow and arrows, lion skin, and club
and went galumphing shoreward.
Meanwhile Hylas
had taken up a pitcher cast in bronze
and wandered far from his companions, seeking
1610a holy flowing river, so that he
might draw off water for the evening meal.
He wanted to get everything in order
promptly, before his lord came back to camp.
Such were the habits Heracles himself
1615had fostered since he first took Hylas, then
a toddler, from the palace of his father,
the noble Theodamas, whom the hero
ruthlessly slew among the Dryopes
in a dispute about a plowing ox.
1620 (1213)You see, this Theodamas had been poor,
so he was furrowing his fields himself
when Heracles commanded him to yield
the plowing ox or else. The hero did this
only to find a pretext for a war
1625against the Dryopes because they lived
scornful of justice—but this tale would steer
my song too far from its purported subject.
Soon Hylas happened on a spring called Pegae
among the locals. As it chanced, the nymphs
1630were just then gathering to dance. In fact,
the nymphs who dwelled upon that lovely summit
convened each night to honor Artemis
in song. All those whose haunts were peaks and torrents—
the guardian forest nymphs—were in the woods
chanting their hymns.
1635 (1228)But one, a water nymph,
had surfaced from the sweetly flowing spring,
and she could see the boy, how flush with beauty
he was, how captivating in his sweetness,
because the moon shone full and clear above them
1640and cast its beams on him. The goddess Cypris
Jason and the Argonauts (Penguin Classics) Page 7
