all on their own before her muttered spells.
Barefoot, she scampered down the narrow alleys,
her left hand pressed against her brow and draping
55a veil that cloaked her eyes and radiant cheeks,
her right hand holding up her dress’s hem.
So, frantic and in fear, she made her way
by covert routes outside the battlements
of broadly paved Aea. No watchmen
60 (49)observed her, no, she hastened past unseen.
Safely outside, she contemplated deep
within herself how best to reach the temple.
She was quite familiar with the roads
since she had traveled on them many times
65in search of corpses and the earth’s worst herbs,
the kinds that witches use. Convulsive terror
fluttered her spirit.
The Titanian Moon
had just then risen over the horizon.
She saw the maiden straying far from home
70in misery and cackled to herself:
“Well, well, I’m not the only one, it seems,
to slip away into a Latmian grotto,
no, not the only one to burn with love
for an adorable Endymion.
75 (59)You bitch! How often you have woven magic
to drive me from the sky in search of love
so that, in total darkness, you could work
your sorcery at ease, your precious spells.
Now you are subject to the same obsession
80I suffered. Yes, the god of lust has given
Jason to you—a grievous blow. Go on,
suffer, for all your ingenuity,
a heavy sentence fraught with misery.”
So Moon was thinking, as the maiden’s feet
85carried her, swiftly, on. The riverbank
was steep but welcome to her, since she saw,
on the opposing bank, the vivid bonfires
the heroes had been stoking all night long
to celebrate the victory. A sound
90 (72)out of the night, she called across the stream
to Phrontis, youngest son of Phrixus. He,
his brothers, even Jason recognized
her voice, and all the heroes stared in silence.
They knew, of course, just what was happening.
95She shouted “Phrontis” thrice, and Phrontis thrice
responded, at the crew’s encouragement.
The ship, meanwhile, was swiftly heading toward her
under oar. Before they threw the cables
onto the facing bank, the son of Aeson
100had vaulted from the deck. Phrontis and Argus,
two sons of Phrixus, jumped ashore behind him.
Clasping their legs with either hand, she pleaded:
“I’m helpless. Save me, friends, from King Aeëtes,
and save yourselves. My deeds have come to light.
105 (85)Danger is everywhere around me now.
Let us escape by ship before he mounts
his eager chargers. I myself will win you
the fleece by putting its protector serpent
to sleep. First, though, in front of your companions,
110you, stranger man, must call the gods to witness
the oath you gave—that you shall never leave me
contemptible, despised, without protection,
once I have traveled far away from home.”
Though she had uttered anguish, Jason’s heart
115greatly rejoiced. He hurried over to her
and eased her up from where she had collapsed
around her brothers’ knees. His words were soothing:
“Sad maiden, may Olympian Zeus himself
and Hera, Wife of Zeus and Queen of Marriage,
120 (97)attest that I shall take you to my palace
to be my wedded wife, once we have made
our journey home to Greece.”
Such was his pledge,
and he was quick to clasp her hand in his.
She ordered them to row the swift ship nearer
125the sacred grove, so that they could acquire
the fleece against the wishes of Aeëtes
and sail off under cover of the night.
Their haste was such that word and deed were one.
They took the girl aboard and shoved off quickly,
130and loud, then, were the grunts of heroes straining
to work the oars. Medea ran astern
and reached her hands out sadly toward her homeland,
but Jason soothed her fears with heartening words
and held her in his arms.
It was the hour
135 (109)when huntsmen shake the slumber from their eyes
(because they want the most out of their dogs,
they never sleep the full night, no, they start
before the potent light of dawn effaces
the quarry’s signs and scents). Such was the hour
140when Jason and Medea disembarked
onto a grassy meadow that is called
“The Manger of the Ram” because the ram
first bent its knees in utter weariness
upon it, after bearing on his back
145Minyan Phrixus, offspring of Athamas.
There was a soot-stained course of stones nearby,
the bottom of the shrine that Aeolid Phrixus
set up for Zeus the God of Fugitives.
That was the spot where Phrixus sacrificed
150 (120)the gilded miracle at Hermes’ bidding
(the god had kindly met him on the way).
At Argus’ behest, the heroes landed
Jason and Medea near this altar.
They took a footpath, reached the sacred grove,
155and found the huge oak tree from which the fleece
was hanging, brilliant as a cloud that glows
red in the rays of fiery dawn.
The serpent
lying before it reared his endless neck.
The sleepless slits had been alert and caught them
160approaching, and his hiss was loud and monstrous.
The whole grove, then the riverbanks resounded.
Many Colchians heard it, though they lived
as far off as Titanian Aea,
way out beside the sources of the Lycus
165 (132)which, as it leaves the loud, sacred Araxes,
joins with the river Phasis, and they swirl
together down to the Caucasian Sea.
Young mothers started up in trepidation
and squeezed the newborns cradled in their arms.
Their little limbs were quivering.
170Imagine
spirals, innumerable coils of smoke,
swirling above a pile of smoldering wood,
one billow coming swiftly on another,
each of them rising in a hazy wreath—
175that’s how the serpent rode on countless coils
covered with hard dry scales.
Soon, though, the maiden
fixed the writhing creature with her gaze
and summoned with a sweet voice Sleep the Helper,
the highest of the gods, to charm the serpent.
180 (147)She also asked the Netherworldly Queen,
the Late-Night Wanderer, to support the venture.
Jason, terrified, came on behind her.
The song, though, had already charmed the snake.
Loosing the tension of his coils, he settled
185upon his countless spirals like a dark wave
settling soft and soundless on a sluggish sea.
Still, though, his crested head was lifted, still
he burned to grip them in his deadly jaws,
and so the maiden dipped a fresh-cut sprig
190of juniper into a magic potion
and drizzled it into his open eyes,
&
nbsp; warbling all the while a lullaby,
as the aroma of its potency
spread sleep. The monster laid his head down then,
195 (160)and his innumerable convolutions
lay flat among the undergrowth behind him.
Then, at the maiden’s bidding, Jason took
the golden fleece down from the topmost boughs.
She stayed right where she had been, raining slumber
200upon the serpent’s head, till Jason told her
the time had come to head back to the Argo.
So they left the leaf-dark grove of Ares.
Just as a maiden catches in a gauzy gown
the shimmer of the full moon as it rises
205above her lofty chamber, and her heart
rejoices as she looks upon the light,
so, then, did Jason hold the great fleece up.
A sheepfold’s worth of wool gave forth a gleam
like flame that flushed his comely cheeks and brow.
210 (174)Wide as a yearling ox’s hide or that of
the stag that huntsmen call the “moose,” the fleece
was golden on the surface, heavy, dense,
and thick with wool. The path that Jason followed
glimmered before him every step he took.
215He started with the fleece around his neck
dangling from his shoulder to his ankles,
then rolled it up and stroked it, fearing greatly
some man or god would come and take it from him.
Dawn was already spreading through the world
220when they arrived at camp. The heroes marveled
at the colossal fleece, jumped up and down,
giddy to touch it, take it in their hands,
but Jason held them back and threw across it
a freshly woven robe. He scooped the girl up,
225 (189)set her down astern, and spoke as follows:
“No longer, friends, restrain yourselves from turning
homeward. By this maiden’s means the prize
for which we undertook our grievous voyage
and toiled in misery has been attained.
230And I shall take her home to be my wife
since she desires that it be so. Because
she has so nobly saved both you yourselves
and all Achaea, you must keep her safe.
Quite soon, I think, Aeëtes will descend
235with all his men around him to prevent us
from sailing from the river to the sea.
Therefore, let every other man among you
sit and attend to rowing while the rest
hold up their ox-hide shields to make a strong
240 (201)bulwark against the arrows of our foe,
and so safeguard our voyage home. We hold
parents and children, our entire homeland,
here in our hands. On our persistence hangs
the glory or the infamy of Greece.”
245Such were his words. He donned his battle armor,
and they replied with raucous cheers, and so
he drew his broadsword from the sheath and severed
the hawsers. Fully armed beside the maiden,
he stood up near the new steersman, Ancaeus,
250and soon the ship went speeding under oar,
with all his comrades heaving, passionately,
to clear the river’s mouth.
But by that time
news of Medea’s love and treachery
had spread through town and reached the Colchians
255 (214)and King Aeëtes. Armed from head to foot,
they started swarming toward the Council House
as thickly as the dead leaves tumble earthward
out of a tree with many boughs in autumn
—who could count them? So they all came swarming,
260mad with clamor, down the riverbank.
Aeëtes was preeminent among them
because he rode upon a war car drawn
by wind-swift stallions, gifts of Helius.
His left hand waved a big round shield, his right
265a giant pine-wood torch, while at his side
a six-foot throwing spear was pointing forward.
His son Absyrtus held the stallions’ reins.
The Argo was already off, however,
riding the river’s seaward current under
270 (228)its oarsmen’s power. Throwing up his hands
in wild frustration, King Aeëtes summoned
Zeus and Helius as witnesses
to all that he had suffered. Furthermore,
he leveled horrid threats against his people:
275Unless they should by their own hands arrest
the maiden there on land or on the waves
of open ocean and return her to him
so that he could satisfy his rage
by punishing the girl for her misdeeds,
280they all would learn, through summary beheadings,
what it was like to know his wrath and vengeance.
So he proclaimed, and when the Colchian sailors
dragged out their warships, loaded tackle in them,
and took to water, you would not have thought
285 (239)so vast a gathering was an armada,
no, rather, an innumerable flock
of seabirds clamoring across the swell.
The winds were blowing strong to aid the heroes,
as Hera had devised, so that Medea
290might leave Aea, reach Pelasgia,
and prove a bane to Pelias’ house
as soon as possible. Three mornings later
they reached the coast of Paphlagonia
and tied the Argo’s hawsers to the shore
295right at the Halys River’s mouth. Medea,
you see, insisted that they disembark
and honor Hecate with sacrifices.
Holy dread prevents me from divulging
all that she did to carry out the rites—
300 (249)no man should know them; let my mind cease straining
to name them. But the shrine the heroes built
to honor Hecate remains today
for later generations to admire.
Jason and all the others then remembered
305Phineus had informed them that their route
out of Aea would be different,
but what that route would be remained unknown
to all of them, so they were quick to listen
when Argus spoke his mind about their course:
310“We four were sailing to Orchomenus
the way the faithful seer you met en route
had forecast to you. We already knew
there is another route to Greece. The priests
who serve the powers born of Triton’s daughter
315 (261)Theba recorded its discovery:
Not yet had all the stars that circle heaven
come into being, nor is any record
available, however much one searches,
about the sacred race of the Danaans.
320Back then Arcadians alone existed,
the Apidanian Arcadians,
that is, Arcadians who, legends tell us,
lived in the mountains eating acorn mash
before the moon was born. Way back before
325Pelasgia was under the illustrious
sons of Deucalion, the land of Egypt,
mother of all the men of old, was called
the fecund ‘Misty Land,’ and River Ocean
went by the name of ever-flowing ‘Triton.’
330 (270)This river was required to irrigate
the Misty Land because the showers of Zeus
had never graced its soil. (The annual flooding
is what brings up the ample harvests there.)
From there, they say, a certain king, relying
335upon his soldiers’ courage, might, and vigor,
/> pushed through all of Europe, all of Asia,
founding settlements along the way.
Some of the cities have survived, some not.
Though many ages have expired since then,
340Aea has remained right where it was,
along with the descendants of the men
this king had settled there. The priests, you see,
preserved this ancient knowledge by inscribing
pillars with markers. You can trace around them
345 (281)all the courses of the land and sea
from the perspective of a navigator.
The River Ocean’s north-most arc is broad
and deep enough for vessels to traverse.
They label it the Ister on the pillar
350and mark its whole course off. For quite a ways
it runs through an interminable plain
in one great rush because its sources rumble
and burst forth up in the Rhipaean mountains,
yes, up among the blasts of Boreas.
355However, when this mighty river enters
the country of the Scythians and Thracians,
it splits in two. Half of the water drains
right there into the Eastern Sea; the rest
reaches a deep and navigable gulf,
360 (291)a bay of the Trinacrian Sea, which borders
your homeland—that is, if the Acheloös
does, in fact, run seaward out of Hellas.”
So he submitted, and the goddess sent
a clear and timely portent. When they saw it,
365the heroes voiced approval of the route
he had described—a comet had appeared
before them, and its tail delineated
the heading they should follow.
Giddy, then,
they dropped off Dascylus the son of Lycus
370and in a hopeful mood put out to sea
with bellied sails. The Paphlagonian mountains
were what they steered by, but they never rounded
Carambis, since a gale and gleams of fire
from heaven haunted them until they reached
the Ister’s mighty spate.
375 (303)As for the Colchians,
one squadron sailed beyond the Clashing Rocks
out of the Pontus on a useless search.
Absyrtus turned the rest of the armada
upriver at the Ister through the inlet
380known as “the Handsome Mouth.” Thus they went past
the neck of land and reached the farthest gulf
of the Ionian Sea before the heroes.
There is an island in the Ister’s mouth,
a large three-sided island known as Peuca.
Jason and the Argonauts (Penguin Classics) Page 19
