Jason and the Argonauts
Page 12
a lethal beast. Even the marsh nymphs feared it
feeding alone along the river flats.
No mortal knew that it was there.
When Idmon
was strolling on the muddy riverbank,
1070it rushed out of some purlieu in the willows,
gored his thigh, cut through cartilage and femur.
Idmon shrieked and fell. His friends called out,
and Peleus quickly loosed a spear and struck
the monster as it fled into the swamp.
1075When it returned and charged them, Idas pierced it,
and it collapsed upon the sharp tip, squealing.
Leaving it thus impaled, they trundled Idmon
back to the Argo where he coughed up blood
and shortly died in his inconsolable
comrades’ arms.
1080 (835)They thought no more of sailing
but stayed there, grieving, to entomb the body.
Three days they wailed and on the fourth interred him
with hero’s honors. Lycus and his subjects
joined in the mourning, slaughtered many sheep
1085as funeral offerings around the tomb,
as is the custom for the dear departed.
So in a foreign country Idmon’s barrow
was heaped up, and a marker planted on it
for future generations to admire—
1090a wild olive tree, the tree of shipwrights,
a tree that still is flourishing today
under the Acherousian cliffs.
Because
I heed the Muses’ will, I must declare,
upfront, this fact as well: Phoebus Apollo
1095 (847)commanded the Boeotians and Niseans
to worship Idmon as a city founder
and build a town around his barrow tree.
Today, though, all the Mariandynians there
venerate Agamestor rather than
1100god-fearing Idmon, Aeolus’ grandson.
Who else died there? (The heroes surely raised
a second barrow for a fallen comrade
because two mounds are standing to this day.)
Tiphys it was, the son of Hagnias—
1105so runs the story. It was not his fate
to steer the Argo farther toward its goal.
Once they had buried Idmon, a malignant
disease afflicted Tiphys, left him prostrate
and bedrid far, far, from his fatherland.
1110 (858)Struck by these dreadful blows, the men gave way
to absolute despair. Once they had buried
this second fallen comrade, they collapsed
beside the sea in utter helplessness,
shrouded their bodies tightly in their cloaks,
1115and lost all love of food and drink. Grief-stricken,
they threw their hearts away because returning
to Greece was now outside their expectations.
They would have stayed there, grieving, even longer
had Hera not stepped in and filled Ancaeus
1120with special bravery. Astypylaia
conceived him underneath the god Poseidon
and birthed him next to the Imbrasus River,
and he was wise in all the ways of seacraft.
This fellow rushed to Peleus and said:
1125 (869)“Son of Aeacus, how can it be noble
to rest a long time in a foreign land,
shirking our task? Surely the son of Aeson
recruited me out of Parthenia
to undertake this journey for the fleece
1130more for my expertise in steering ships
than making war. Therefore, don’t have the slightest
fear for the Argo. There are expert sailors
among us, none of whom would wreck the voyage
if we should set him at the helm. Go swiftly,
1135tell our comrades all these things, be firm,
force them to think again about the quest.”
So he explained, and Peleus’ spirit
leapt with delight, and he was quick to shout:
“Why, comrades, are we clinging to a sorrow
1140 (881)as profitless as this? These two have died,
I think, the death they were allotted. Think, now,
there are other steersmen in our crew,
a number of them, so stop wasting time,
cast off your woes and rouse yourselves for labor.”
1145Jason had nothing but despair to offer:
“Son of Aeacus, where are all these helmsmen?
Those we regarded as our guides and experts
are lying there more dead to hope than I am.
Thus I foresee an evil ending for us
1150beside our fallen friends if we can neither
reach the city of extreme Aeëtes
nor pass beyond the Rocks again and back
to Greece. An evil fate, one without glory,
will hide us here to age in idleness.”
1155 (894)So he lamented, but Ancaeus promptly
offered himself as helmsman of the Argo.
A god’s encouragement had urged him on.
Next, Nauplius, Erginus, and Euphemus
stood up in eagerness to man the tiller,
1160but others held them back because Ancaeus
was favored by the bulk of the assembly.
Therefore at sunrise, after twelve days mourning,
they boarded, since a stiff west wind was blowing.
Quickly they rowed out through the Acheron,
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
120
0 (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 bath 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 Oil
eus.
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