Jason and the Argonauts

by Apollonius Of Rhodes

  2115 (1640)as threats to keep the Minyans from mooring

  once they had sailed into the bay of Dicte.

  Long, long ago ash trees had given birth

  to men of bronze, and Talus was the last

  still living in the age of demigods.

  2120The son of Cronus gave him to Europa

  to guard the island. Three times every day

  he strode the coastline on his brazen feet.

  All of his limbs and body were of bronze

  impenetrable, all except the vein

  2125that carried blood down through the ankle tendon.

  The tender film across it meant the limit

  of life and death for him. The heroes, though,

  subdued already by their own exhaustion,

  quickly rowed the ship away from land

  2130 (1651)in terror. And they would have fled from Crete

  in a distress of thirst and agony

  had not Medea said as they were leaving:

  “Listen. I think that I can kill that man

  all by myself, whoever he might be,

  2135yes, even if his body is entirely

  made out of bronze, so long as he is not

  invulnerable. Come, then, friends, and hold

  the Argo steady here outside his range

  until he yields and tumbles down before me.”

  2140So said Medea, and they worked the oars

  to hold the ship steady outside his range,

  and everyone was eager to discover

  what sort of spell she would employ. She draped

  a doubled purple veil before her face

  2145 (1664)and mounted to the deck with Jason holding

  her hand and guiding her between the benches.

  Once there, she sang hypnotic lullabies,

  praising the heart-devouring Fates of Death,

  Hades’ intrepid monster hounds, who range

  2150abroad in air to hunt the living down.

  In her entreaty she pronounced their titles

  thrice in incantation, thrice in prayer.

  Then, putting on a wicked cast of mind,

  she hypnotized the eyes of brazen Talus

  2155and held him helpless in her hostile glare.

  Grinding her teeth in earnest anger, then,

  she hurled homicidal ghosts his way.

  Father Zeus, profound astonishment

  has stormed my mind—to think that death can come

  2160 (1674)not only through disease and injury,

  but people can undo us from afar,

  just as that man, though made of bronze, surrendered

  and fell down underneath the far-flung onslaught

  of that ingenious conjurer, Medea.

  2165Just as he heaved a stone to block the heroes

  from reaching anchorage, he scraped his ankle

  across a jagged rock, and all the ichor

  drained from him in a rush like molten lead.

  No, he did not long stand astride the outcrop

  2170but like a massive tree atop a mountain,

  a Cretan pine that woodcutters had only

  cut half through with their axes and abandoned

  when they started back down through the forest,

  and then the breezes shake it in the night

  2175 (1686)and then it snaps off at the trunk and comes

  rumbling earthward, so did Talus totter

  this way and that way on his stubborn legs

  and then at last lost balance, toppled sideways,

  and landed with a crash as loud as thunder.

  2180So in the end they spent the night on Crete.

  When daylight came again, they built a shrine

  in honor of Athena the Minoan,

  drew water, and embarked, eager to row

  quickly beyond the Salmonian cape.

  2185But as they crossed the spacious Cretan Sea,

  a deep and nightlike darkness called the “Shroud”

  swept down and frightened them. No constellations,

  no moonbeams penetrate its deathlike blackness.

  No, it was like the depths fell from the sky

  2190 (1698)or an abyss had risen from the depths,

  and they themselves no longer knew if they

  were on the waves or down in Hades’ hall.

  Left without options, they could only trust

  the sea, wherever it might steer their course.

  2195So Jason raised his palms and cried Apollo!

  Apollo! summoning the god to aid them,

  and tears were falling from him in his grief.

  He vowed to offer many gifts at Pytho,

  more at Ortygia, and at Amyclae

  2200countless gifts. And you, O son of Leto,

  ready of ear, came swiftly down from heaven

  and settled on the Melanteian rocks

  that crop out of the ocean. Perched upon

  one of the pair of summits there, you brandished

  2205 (1709)in your right hand a golden bow from which

  a dazzling light shot out in all directions.

  A tiny island then appeared to them,

  one of the Sporades beside the small

  Isle of Hippuris. There they dropped anchor

  2210and waited for the light of dawn. At daybreak

  they cordoned off a plot of land as sacred

  in honor of the god and built a shrine

  under the shade of trees. They also coined

  a title there, Apollo God of Radiance,

  2215because his beams were radiant, and they named

  that barren isle Epiphany because

  the god revealed it to them, like a vision,

  when they were sunk in fear.

  The men could only

  offer the god the paltry sorts of things

  2220 (1720)sailors marooned on desert shores could offer,

  so, when Medea’s Phaeacian handmaids

  saw them decanting liquid offerings

  of water on the blazing altar fire,

  they couldn’t keep the laughter in their chests

  2225since they had only ever seen expensive

  ox offerings at Alcinoös’ palace.

  Delighted by their taunts, the men responded

  with crude suggestions, and delightful insults

  and sweet harassment sparkled back and forth

  2230among them. So, because of all this humor,

  the women on that island to this day

  fling naughty innuendos at their men

  whenever in their holy sacrifices

  they toast Apollo God of Radiance

  2235 (1730)and Guardian of the Isle Epiphany.

  When they had loosed the cables, and the weather

  was fair, Euphemus happened to recall

  a dream that he had dreamed one night, a dream

  sent down to him by Maia’s famous son:

  2240it seemed that he was clutching to his breast

  a clod of earth, a sacred gift, and white

  droplets of milk were somehow nursing it,

  and from the clod, small as it was, emerged

  what seemed a maiden. Ravenous desire

  2245took hold of him, and he made love to it

  but afterward cried out in lamentation—

  he felt as if he had deflowered the daughter

  he had been nourishing with his own milk.

  Soon, though, the figure said to reassure him:

  2250 (1741)“Dear friend, I am the child of Triton, nurse

  of all your heirs-to-be, and not your daughter,
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  no, Libya and Triton are my parents.

  Please hand me over to the Nereids

  beside the island of Epiphany.

  2255I later shall emerge into the sunlight

  and be the grounds for all of your descendants.”

  Euphemus had retained this night encounter

  within his memory and now divulged it

  to Jason. Jason thought the dream resembled

  2260an utterance of the Archer-King Apollo,

  and he himself proclaimed the prophecy:

  “Dear friend, a glorious destiny awaits you.

  Once you have thrown this clod into the sea,

  the gods will make an island out of it,

  2265 (1752)and there your children’s children shall reside.

  The sea god Triton graced you with the earth,

  a piece of Libya, as a parting gift—

  it was none other of the deathless gods

  than he who gave it to you when he met us.”

  2270So Jason read the omen, and Euphemus

  did not invalidate his friend’s prediction.

  No, giddy with the prophecy, he flung

  the clod of earth into the sea and from it

  emerged the sacred island of Callista,

  2275the nursemaid of Euphemus’ descendants.

  In former days they lived on Sintian Lemnos

  but, driven thence, they settled down in Sparta

  as hearth friends. Then, once they had moved from

  Sparta,

  Theras, Autesion’s distinguished son,

  2280 (1763)guided them to this island of Callista

  and named it Thera after his own name.

  But all this happened generations after

  Euphemus.

  After this they swiftly left

  the great expanse of sea astern and landed

  2285on Aegina. At once they set about

  a friendly contest over fetching water

  to find out who could draw it and return it

  first to the Argo, since the stiff tailwind

  and hope for home were urgent. To this day

  2290the Myrmidons compete with big jugs full

  of water on their shoulders, sprinting round

  a track, light-footed, seeking victory.

  O heroes, offspring of the blessed gods,

  look warmly on this work, and may my song

  2295 (1774)grow sweeter year by year for men to sing.

  No further trials befell you once you sailed

  from Aegina, no other gales opposed you,

  so I have now arrived at your adventure’s

  glorious conclusion. After gladly passing

  2300the land of Cecrops, Aulis in Euboea,

  and the Opuntian cities of the Locrians,

  you landed on the beach of Pagasae.

  Notes

  ABBREVIATIONS

  fr.fragment

  frr.fragments

  Gr. Greek

  Pf.R. Pfeiffer, ed. Callimachus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949–53.

  PMGD. L. Page, ed. Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.

  V.E.-M. Voigt, ed. Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta. Amsterdam: Plak and Van Gennep, 1971.

  W.M. L. West, ed. Iambi et Elegi Graeci. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

  BOOK 1

  1.1 from you, Phoebus Apollo: The Argonautica begins and ends (Argonautica 4.2293–2302) with poetic gestures that mark it as a traditional Greek hymn, one of the many indications of generic complexity of the poem.

  1.7–8 Pelias had received / a prophecy: The background to the poem is given as a very short summary, set between parts of the proem: a feature of Hellenistic poetry is variation of emphasis.

  1.28 Past poets: Interestingly, we do not have any evidence about whom the poet refers to here, whether individual poets, poems, or a larger poetic tradition.

  1.34 surrogates of my song: One of the most enigmatic and debated phrases in the poem. It is clear, however, that the poet is in some way repositioning himself in relation to the Muses, traditionally figured as the direct source of the poet’s artistic inspiration, as the opening lines of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey both demonstrate.

  1.35 Orpheus is the first: Catalog is a traditional feature of the epic genre. Whereas the Catalog of Ships in Homer’s Iliad assembles multiple leaders and peoples, Apollonius’ catalog of heroes figures individuals who man one ship, the Argo.

  1.36 Calliope: The Muse frequently figured as the patron of poetic song, Calliope appears here in the context of the epic narrative as the mother of Orpheus, often thought to be the first poet.

  1.43 still today: A standard feature of Hellenistic poetry is the aetion, or “origin” of, among other things, contemporary natural phenomena, animal behavior, and cult practices. Apollonius’ contemporary Callimachus composed a four-book poem, his Aetia, that interweaves a series of individual etiological narratives. There are many aetia in Apollonius’ poem.

  1.90 he sank into the earth: One of many fantastical moments in the poem. The Argonautica is something of a combination of the heroic and the fantastical (rather like the narrative of Odysseus in the Odyssey).

  1.95 the sacred signs exhibited by birds: Augury through reading the flight or sounds of birds was a standard practice in Greco-Roman antiquity. A recently discovered papyrus roll of short poems attributed to Apollonius’ near-contemporary poet Posidippus includes a section of poems on bird omens.

  1.121–22 Libya, a land / as far from Colchis: A possible learned double entendre, as the Colchians were sometimes thought to be originally Egyptian (Herodotus 2). The image may be a subtle allusion to the extent of the Ptolemaic Empire at the time of Ptolemy II.

  1.135 Peleus: The father of Achilles, hero of the Iliad. An ongoing leitmotif of the poem is that the legend of the Argonautica occurs chronologically before the Trojan War, while Apollonius’ poem is composed many generations later than the Iliad.

  1.165 the Argo was the most remarkable: The construction of the Argo, the story not told in the opening of the poem, is invoked repeatedly in the course of the hexameter narrative.

  1.190 Hylas: The hero’s attendant is to be the cause of Heracles’ separation from the expedition. The reference here, juxtaposed to that of Heracles’ taskmaster Eurystheus, creates an ironic foreboding of what is to happen later in Argonautica 1.

  1.288 offspring of Hephaestus: Hephaestus’ hobbled feet are the source of laughter among the gods at the conclusion of the first book of the Iliad. Hephaestus’ hobbled feet are a sign of his parents’ wrath, those of Palaemonius rather one of the distinction of a divine father.

  1.312 a wonder to behold: The Argonauts include among their number both the heroic and the fantastical, as befits a ship that has the power of speech.

  1.319 Argus: With the shipwright of Athena, we return to the launching point of the catalog, the note that the poet would not sing of the ship’s building, but of its heroes.

  1.323 “Minyans”: Apollonius attempts here to clarify a problem in ancient genealogy regarding early southern Thessaly and northern Boeotia, to which he returns twice later in the poem, giving two other explanations. We do not know that all three of these explanations carried equal weight for the poem’s audience. This one, that most of the heroes are descended from the shadowy figure Minyas, seems exaggerated (some certainly are: that Alcimide was descended from Minyas is found in Stesichorus).

  1.378 As a lonely maiden: Apollonian similes are a fascinating enhanced development of Homeric ones, often with unusual implications within the surrounding narrative. Alcimede, through the possible loss of her son, risks being left a helpless and mistreated dependent.

  1.425 Think of Apollo: The simile influences Virg
il’s description of Aeneas as Apollo at Aeneid 4.143–50. Apollo thus informs the poem as patron god of song, figure of comparison, and through his own two appearances as himself. The comparison of Jason to Apollo, and of Medea to Artemis in Argonautica 3, lends a particularly complex character to their eventual union.

  1.456 the course he thought most prudent: One of many moments that mark Jason as cautious, a potentially ambivalent value in a traditionally heroic setting.

  1.468 mighty Heracles: The heroes first choose Heracles as their leader, a moment that problematizes Jason’s position among the assembled men and is indicative of a contrast of heroic types: managing details and alliances are not Heracles’ standard attributes.

  1.498 the tasks at hand: While eschewing to narrate the building of the Argo, the poet gives a detailed description of embarking the ship. A primary model for the scene is Odysseus’ building of the raft in Odyssey 5.

  1.540–41 divvying / the benches: Apollonius’ response to an oft-repeated Homeric “set scene.” Such scenes of eating, dressing, sleeping, and rising are a standard feature of Homer, and a characteristic of oral poetry.

  1.625 like a man in sorrow: Jason’s thoughtful, often reflective nature is at odds with the behavior of many an epic hero, as Idas’ challenge here illustrates.

  1.663 forecast with your prophet’s art: A main model for this scene is Eurymachus’ mistreatment of the seer Halitherses at Odyssey 2.178–80.

  1.675 He sang of how the earth: Orpheus’ cosmogony (“origin of the world”) is a reflection of earlier cosmogonic hexameter poetry. Orpheus was himself thought by many to have been the first poet.

  1.742 the gods looked down from heaven: Another Apollonian response to a repeated Homeric scene, where the gods’ major pastime in the Iliad is as spectators of the events on the battlefield. This is the only such scene in the Argonautica.

  1.754 infant Achilles: The moment is emblematic of the poem’s relationship to the Homeric epics. The Argonautica saga is of an earlier generation than the Trojan War, while Apollonius’ poem is composed after, and in light of, the Homeric epics.

  1.774 Fish both big and small: A fragment of the lyric poet Simonides (PMG 567) tells of Orpheus charming the birds and fish with his song, and suggests that Apollonius may well have had Simonides in mind here.

  1.837 Hipsipyle: Earlier treatments of Hipsipyle and the Lemnian women include Aeschlyus and Euripides. Considerable fragments of the latter’s play are extant. Callimachus (fr. 226 Pf.) also treated this story.