1165then trusted in the wind, unfurled the canvas,
and, with the sail spread taut, went coasting onward,
cleaving their way in favorable weather.
Soon they passed the mouth of Callichorus,
“River of Gorgeous Dancing.”
It was here,
1170 (905)they say, that the Nysaean son of Zeus,
after departing from the Indic tribes
and settling at Thebes, initiated
secret rites and set up choral dances
before the cave where he had once spent mirthless,
1175unearthly nights. Ever since then the locals
have called the nearby river “Gorgeous Dancing”
and the cave “The Hostel.”
Next they sighted
the tomb of Sthenelus the son of Aktor.
While he was marching homeward after waging
1180glorious war upon the Amazons
(he had gone there with Heracles), an arrow
struck him and laid him dead upon the beach.
The heroes sailed no farther for a time
because Persephone herself had sent up
1185 (917)Sthenelus’ shade. With tears and wailing
the ghost had begged her, please, please, let him see,
just for a little, soldiers like himself.
Watching them from the barrow’s crest, he seemed
such as he was when first he went to war—
1190a four-billed, formidable helmet gleaming
upon his head, its crest a deep dark red.
Then he descended back into the gloom.
The heroes marveled at the vision. Mopsus
son of Ampycus saw it as a sign
1195and urged the men to beach the ship and honor
the hero with libations.
So they furled
the sail, ran the hawsers to the beach,
and paid homage to Sthenelus’ tomb
by pouring offerings and sacrificing
1200 (927)sheep to his shade. They also raised, nearby,
an altar to Apollo Ship-Preserver
and burned thigh pieces on it. Orpheus
enshrined a lyre there as well—that’s why
the spot is known as Lyra to this day.
1205Then, since the wind was calling, they embarked,
unfurled the sail, and used the sheets to pull it
taut, and the Argo coasted out to sea
with bellied canvas, as on lofted wings
a hawk goes coasting swiftly through the air,
1210its pennons poised and level. Like a hawk, then,
the Argo passed the seaward-flowing stream
Parthenius, a very gentle river.
Artemis often stops there after hunting
and bathes her body in its soothing waters
1215 (939)before she joins the gods upon Olympus.
They coasted without pausing all night long,
skirting Seisamus, rugged Erythini,
Cromna, Crobialus, tree-lined Cytorus.
Just as the sun first cast its beams they rounded
1220Carambis and were pushing past the Long Shore
the whole day through, the whole night under oar,
until they beached on the Assyrian coast.
Here Zeus himself had settled Sinopa
the daughter of Asopus and allowed her
1225lasting virginity, but only after
she hoodwinked him with his own lover’s oaths.
When he was aching for her love, he promised
to give her anything her heart desired,
and, clever girl, she asked for maidenhood.
1230 (952)When Phoebus tried in turn to lie with her,
she tricked him in the same way, then deceived
Halys the River God as well. What’s more,
no mortal ever stole her innocence
with vehement caresses.
On this coast
1235three sons of brave Deimarchus the Triccean—
Deileon, Phlogius, and Autolycus—
had camped out ever since they lost their comrade
Heracles. As soon as they discerned
the party of heroic men, they ran
1240to meet them and explain their destitution.
They did not desire to be marooned there
forever, so they climbed aboard, and soon
a stiff nor’wester started blowing.
So,
with new recruits, the heroes took to sea
1245 (962)before the eager gale and coasted past
the Halys River, then the nearby Iris,
then the sandy delta of Assyria.
That day they also rounded, at a distance,
the cape that guards the Amazonian harbor
1250where the hero Heracles once ambushed
Melanippa daughter of the war god
when she went traveling abroad. Her sister
Hippolyta was quick to pay the ransom,
and he returned her safe and sound.
Because
1255the sea had turned too turbulent for travel,
the heroes anchored at the harbor where
the Thermodon goes down into the sea.
There is no river like the Thermodon,
none that divides into as many branches.
1260 (974)Reckon them up, the tally would be only
four shy of a hundred. But the true
headwater is a single stream that tumbles
down mountains called the “Amazonian Heights”
onto a lowland where it multiplies,
1265its rills meandering this way, that way,
one near, one far, each seeking lower ground.
Most of them dissipate anonymously,
but several merge to form the Thermodon,
which hurls itself, a vaulted span of froth,
into the Hostile Sea.
1270The men might well
have lingered for a time there, making war
upon the Amazons, and they would surely
have suffered losses if they had because
the Amazons in the Doean plain
1275 (987)were not at all docile and civilized.
Savage aggression and the works of Ares
were all their care. In fact, they claimed descent
from Ares and the nymph Harmonia.
She bedded down beside him in a dale
1280in the Acmonian woods and bore him daughters
that dote on war.
But, under Zeus’ sway,
the northwest wind returned and pushed the heroes
beyond a cape where other Amazons,
Themiscyreans, girt their loins for battle.
1285The Amazons, you see, did not inhabit
one city but were settled separately
in three tribes scattered all throughout the land:
those called Themiscyreans lived in one part
under the warrior queen Hippolyta,
1290 (999)the Lycastians settled in another,
and the spear-mad Chadesians a third.
During the next day and the following night
the heroes skirted Chalybian country.
Pushing teams of oxen through the fields
1295and sowing thought-sweetening plants and trees
hold no appeal for the Chalybes.
They cleave dense, iron-bearing soil instead
and barter what they find for wares and produce.
Dawn never rises for them without toil,
1300more toil, unending toil in soot and smoke.
After the Chalybes, the heroes rounded
the Cape of Zeus God of the Genes River
and passed the country of the Tibarenians.
Here, when a women is with child, her husband
1305 (1013)wraps his own head in towels, lies in bed,
and howls, and his woman brings him food
and draws and boils a childbirth b
ath for him.
After the Tibarenians they passed
a sacred mountain and the country where
1310the Mossynoeci dwell along the slopes
in towers or the “mossynes” they take their name from.
Odd laws and customs mark their way of life.
Everything that we do out in the open
either in council or the marketplace,
1315they find some way to do inside their homes,
and all the things we do inside our homes,
they do out in the middle of the street
without the least compunction. Public sex
is not disgraceful there. Like boars in heat,
1320 (1024)they feel not even slight embarrassment
with others present but engage their women
in open copulation on the ground.
Their ruler sits inside the highest tower,
rendering personal verdicts to his subjects—
1325poor wretch, since, if his rulings seem unfair,
they lock him up in prison for a day
without a meal.
After the Mossynoeci,
they labored dead ahead toward Ares’ Island,
hacking their course with oars all day because
1330the gentle breeze had left them in the night.
And then they spotted one of Ares’ birds,
the special breed indigenous to the island,
flitting back and forth above their heads.
With one wing pump above the moving ship,
1335 (1036)it launched a tapered feather dart, which struck
the left shoulder of noble Oileus.
Injured, he dropped his oar, and his companions
sat awestruck gaping at the tufted shaft.
His bench mate Eurybotes yanked it out,
1340unhitched the sword belt running through his scabbard,
and bound the wound. Soon, though, a second fowl
was circling like the first. This time the hero
Clytius, the offspring of Eurytus,
because he had his longbow nocked and ready,
1345released a speedy arrow, struck the bird,
and brought it, spinning, down into the sea
beside the heaving Argo. Amphidamus
son of Aleus spoke his mind among them:
“Now the Isle of Ares is at hand.
1350 (1047)You yourselves, doubtless, guessed the news already,
since we have met the birds. I doubt that arrows
will be enough to get us to the shore,
so let us come up with a plan—that is,
if you respect the words of Phineus
and still intend a landfall here.
1355 Not even
Heracles, when passing through Arcadia,
had strength enough to drive off with his bow
the birds that rode on the Stymphalian slough.
I saw it all myself. No, what he did
1360was stand atop a rock and make a racket
by shaking copper rattles—all the birds
fled from the noise in terror and confusion.
We should devise some similar arrangement,
and I will tell you what I have in mind:
1365 (1060)let’s all set on our heads our high-plumed helmets,
and half our number, every other of us,
mind the rowing, while the other half
walls off the ship with polished spears and shields.
Then we should all raise so grotesque an uproar
1370that they scatter at the strangeness of it—
the ruckus, bobbing crests, and brandished spears.
And if we make it to the island, then
make noise by clattering your shields together.”
So he proposed, and everyone accepted
1375his prudent plan. They set atop their heads
helmets forged from brightly glinting bronze
with crimson feathers flickering above them.
Half of the heroes plied the oars, and half
covered the Argo’s deck with shields and spears.
1380 (1073)As when a fellow roofs his house with tile
to trim it and protect against the rain,
and each tile dovetails snugly with the next,
so half the heroes locked their shields together
and roofed the ship. The clangor that arose
1385from ship to air resembled the percussion
that rises from opposing hordes when soldiers
dash together, and the ranks collide.
Soon enough, every single bird had vanished.
But when the heroes neared the shore and clashed
1390their shields, thousands of them of a sudden
took to the air and flew in all directions.
Just as the son of Cronus shoots thick hail
down out of thunderheads onto the homes
of people sitting patiently inside,
1395 (1085)listening to the rattle at their ease
because the stormy months are no surprise,
and they have wisely reinforced their roofs,
so did the birds rain feathered missiles down
as they went flying off across the ocean
1400toward the massifs that mark the world’s end.
But what did Phineus really have in mind
in telling that divine brigade of heroes
to anchor there? What benefit would come
to them thereafter, as they hoped it might?
1405The sons of Phrixus had embarked upon
a Colchian ship and sailed out of Aea,
away from Cyta and Aeëtes, hoping
to reach the city of Orchomenus
and win the boundless riches of their father.
1410 (1096)This voyage was his dying proclamation.
But, on the day they neared the Isle of Ares,
Zeus urged the potent north wind on to blow
and marked Arcturus’ wet route with showers.
All day long he gently shook the topmost
1415leaves of the mountain forests but at night
swooped monstrously down upon the sea
with shriek and bluster puffing up the tide.
A dark mist veiled the heavens, and the stars
did not shine anywhere beyond the clouds.
1420A murky gloom was brooding all around.
Half-drowned and dreading an abysmal death,
the sons of Phrixus weltered at the waves’ whim.
The gales had long since snatched their sails away,
the roll shaken the ship, the hull broken
1425 (1110)in half, and now, just as the gods had planned,
the four of them were clinging to some flotsam
tightly fitted dowels had held together
when the ship broke up.
The wind and waves
carried the helpless men off toward the island,
1430and they were close to drowning. Then another
horrendous squall erupted, and the rain
assailed the sea, the island, and the whole
coastline opposing it as far away
as where the haughty Mossynoeci dwelt.
1435The swollen tide threw all the sons of Phrixus,
together with the planks, onto the shore.
The night had been a black one, but the torrents
Zeus had been hurling at them ceased at dawn,
and soon the two groups happened on each other.
1440 (1122)Argus the son of Phrixus called out first:
“Please, in the name of Zeus of Supplication
we beg of you, whoever you might be,
to take us in and help us in our need.
The dire storm winds, you see, roughed up the sea
1445and broke apart the wretched ship on which
we had embarked out of necessity
to carry us across the swell. Therefore,
as suppliants we beg you p
lease be kind
and give us clothes, enough to shield our skin.
1450Please be compassionate and rescue men
like you, your age-mates, who are in distress.
Yes, honor us as guests and suppliants,
since guests and suppliants belong to Zeus,
and he, I hope, is watching over us.”
1455 (1134)Though Jason was suspecting all the while
that Phineus’ words were being fulfilled,
he tactfully inquired in response:
“Yes, we are well-disposed. We shall provide you
with all you need. But tell me where you hail from,
1460what circumstances drove you on this voyage,
and what good names and pedigrees are yours.”
All desperation in his shipwrecked state,
Argus replied:
“Not many years ago
a son of Aeolus named Phrixus traveled
1465from Hellas to Aea—I suspect
you know the tale. He rode a flying ram
(and golden, too, since Hermes gilded it)
the whole way to the city of Aeëtes,
and still today the fleece is lying spread
1470 (1145)across the crown of a luxuriant oak.
The ram, you see, could talk as well and ordered
Phrixus to slaughter it in sacrifice
to Zeus the Exiles’ God, the son of Cronus,
before the other gods. Aeëtes welcomed
1475Phrixus into his court and gave his daughter
Chalciope to him, without the bride-price,
out of the kindness of his heart.
We four
are products of their love. But Phrixus, old
already at the time of his arrival,
1480died at Aeëtes’ court. We have resolved
to satisfy our father’s dying wish
by sailing to Orchomenus to claim
Athamas’ estate. If you would like
to know our names, this here is Cytissorus,
1485 (1155)this is Phrontis, this is Melas here,
and you may call me Argus.”
So he told them.
The heroes in delight and wonder greeted
the strangers, and the son of Aeson answered:
“It is as kinsmen on my father’s side
1490that you entreat us to relieve your plight:
Cretheus was the brother of Athamas,
and I, the grandson of that Cretheus,
am sailing from the very Greece you speak of
to King Aeëtes’ city. We shall talk
Jason and the Argonauts (Penguin Classics) Page 12
