no task you try will go unfinished—no,
not even if a god should block the path—
640so long as you have Idas on your side.
Just such a champion you are bringing with you
in me, your great salvation from Arene.”
So he proclaimed and picked a full bowl up
with both his hands and swilled the sweet neat wine.
645 (474)He came up with his lips and black beard dripping.
While others muttered curses in the background,
Idmon called him out for all to hear:
“Idiot, have you always cherished wicked
presumptions such as these or is it rather
650the unmixed wine that has incensed your heart
with recklessness and pushed you to offend
the gods? There are a thousand heartening words
a man can say to urge a comrade on,
but you have blurted out offensive ones.
655They say Aloeus’ gigantic sons
sputtered such stuff against the blessed gods,
and you’re not half their valor. All the same,
the two of them, courageous as they were,
went down beneath the arrows of Apollo.”
660 (485)As soon as Idmon finished speaking, Idas
the son of Aphareus, burst out laughing,
glared slantwise at the seer and answered sharply:
“Come now and forecast with your prophet’s art
whether the gods shall work the same destruction
665upon me as your father Phoebus wrought
upon the offspring of Aloeus—stop
and think, though, how you will escape my clutches
when you are caught predicting utter nonsense.”
So Idas raged and threatened, and the quarrel
670would certainly have come to blows, had Jason
and all the others not rebuked and checked them.
Orpheus also did his best to calm them.
He took his lyre up in his left hand
and played a song he had been working on.
675 (496)He sang of how the earth and sea and sky
were once commingled in a single mass
until contentious strife divided each from other
in ordered layers,
how the stars and moon
and sun’s advance consistently provide
clear beacons in the firmament,
680and how
the mountains rose, and roaring watercourses,
each with a nymph, started into existence,
and animals began to walk on land.
He sang of how, back in the world’s beginning,
685Ophion and Eurynoma, the daughter
of Ocean, ruled on snow-capped Mount Olympus
till Ophion released the throne perforce
to strong-armed Cronus, and Eurynoma
gave way to Rhea, and the vanquished gods
690 (507)went tumbling into the ocean waves,
and the usurpers ruled the Titans, happy
so long as Zeus was still a child, still growing
in thought, still hidden in a cave on Dicte.
The earthborn Cyclopes had not yet fashioned
695the lightning bolt, the source of Zeus’ power.
So Orpheus intoned, then hushed his lyre
at the same time as his ambrosial voice.
Though he had ceased, each of his comrades still
leaned forward longingly, their ears intent,
700their bodies motionless with ecstasy.
Such was the magic of the song he cast
upon them. After they had mixed libations
for Zeus, they rose and dutifully poured them
over the victims’ simmering tongues, then turned
their minds toward sleeping through the night.
705 (519) As soon
as radiant Dawn with her resplendent gaze
looked on the steep cliff face of Pelion,
and day broke fair, and breezes stirred the sea
that dashed, in turn, upon the headlands, Tiphys
710awoke and roused the dozing crew and bade them
hasten aboard and man the oars. The harbor
of Pagasae called out, urging departure,
and, yes, the ship itself, Pelian Argo,
called to them also, since its hull contained
715a talking plank. Athena had herself
cut it from a Dodonan oak to serve
beneath them as the keel. And so the heroes
headed to the benches single file
and duly took their seats beside their weapons
720 (531)in just the places they had been assigned.
Ancaeus and colossal Heracles
were seated at the center bench. The latter
set down his club beside him, and the keel
sank deep beneath his feet. The mooring ropes
725were drawn in, and the heroes poured libations
of wine into the bay, and Jason, weeping,
turned his eyes from his ancestral home.
When dancing for Apollo at Ortygia
or Pytho or along the Ismenus,
730young men will sway around a shrine together
heeding the lyre’s rhythm as their nimble
feet beat time—in just that way the heroes
slapped the choppy water with their oars,
churning the sea as Orpheus’ harp
735 (541)accompanied their strokes. The billows surged
around the oar blades, and to port and starboard
the dark brine boiled in foam, its spray excited,
stirred up by the thrusts of mighty men.
Their armor shone like fire in the sunlight,
740and Argo plunged onward, its long white wake
most like a pathway through a grassy plain.
And on that day the gods looked down from heaven
upon the ship and demigods within it—
the finest heroes ever to have sailed.
745Nymphs of the mountains on the topmost peak
of Pelion stood wonderstruck, admiring
the craft work of Itonian Athena
and all those heroes with their hands working
the Argo’s oars. Cheiron, Phillyra’s son,
750 (554)strode from a mountain summit to the sea
and wet his fetlocks where the brackish surf
churns on the shore. Waving a mighty hand,
he wished them all a safe return. Beside him
his wife was holding up infant Achilles
755so that Peleus, the loving father,
could see his son.
Under the tutelage
of prudent Tiphys, Hagnias’ son
(the master hand who gripped the sanded tiller
and kept the vessel steady on her course),
760the heroes left the curved shore of the bay
behind them. When they reached the open sea
they stepped the giant mast up in the mast bed
and pulled the forestays taut on either side
to hold it upright. Then they bent the sail on
765 (566)and draped it from the masthead. When a shrill
wind found and filled it, they were quick to fix
the sheets to polished bollards on the deck.
Finally idle and at ease, they skirted
the long headland of Tisae.
Orpheus meanwhile
770plucked his lyre and sang a lovely hymn
to honor Artemis, the Sailors’ Savior,
the Potent Father’s Daughter, since she guarded
the cliffs beside them and the coast of Iolcus.
Fish both big and small came leaping out of
775the sea to revel in the vessel’s wake.
In just the way innumerable sheep,
after a satisfying meal at pasture,
tread the footsteps of their rustic guide
; back to the paddock, and he leads by playing
780 (577)shepherd music on a bright-pitched pipe,
the shoal of fish accompanied the ship.
And still a stiff wind bore the heroes onward.
Pelasgia and its abounding wheat fields
vanished in mist and, as they coasted farther,
785they passed the rugged cliffs of Pelion,
and soon the spit of Sepae sank from view.
Sciathus rose out of the sea and then
more distant Peiresiae and, beyond it,
mainland again, the coastline of Magnesia,
790and Dolops’ barrow under sunny skies.
That afternoon a stiff wind rose against them,
and they were forced to run the ship ashore.
Then, as they roasted joints of sheep at twilight
to honor Dolops, surges riled the sea.
795 (588)Two days and nights they idled on the beach
and on the third again launched Argo, spreading
her ample sail. That shore is known today
as Argous Aphetai (or “Argo’s Launch”).
From there they sped along past Meliboea,
800marveling at the cliffs and storm-swept shore.
They spotted Homola at dawn, a city
slanted toward the sea, and sailed on past it.
A little farther, and they would have skirted
the mouth of the Amyrus. Next they spotted
805Eurymenae and the eroded gorges
of Ossa and Olympus. As they sped
that night before the panting of the wind,
they passed the Pallenean cliffs beyond
the headland of Canastra, and at dawn
they still were dashing onward.
810 (601)There was Athos,
the Thracian mountain, rising up before them.
The shadow from its utmost summit reaches
eastward to Myrina Promontory
on Lemnos—leagues a well-trimmed ship would need
815from dawn to noon to travel. All day long
a mighty wind was blowing, and the sail
rippling, but the gale expired at sunset.
So the heroes rowed to rugged Lemnos,
land of the venerable Sintians.
820Here, in the previous year, the womenfolk
had mercilessly slaughtered all the menfolk—
inhuman massacre! The men, you see,
had come to loathe and shun their lawful wives
and suffer a persistent lust instead
825 (611)for captive maidens they themselves had carried
home across the sea from raids in Thrace.
(This was the wrath of Cyprian Aphrodite
exacting vengeance on the men because,
for years, they had begrudged her any honors.)
830Stricken with an insatiable resentment
that would destroy their way of life, the women
cut down not only their own wedded husbands
and all the battle brides who slept with them
but every other male as well, the whole
835race of them, so that no one would survive
to make them pay for their atrocious slaughter.
Hypsipyle alone of all the women
thought to save her father—aged Thoas
who, as it chanced, was ruler at the time.
840 (622)She hid him in an empty chest and cast him
into the ocean, hoping he would live.
Fisherman caught him off an island called
Oenoa then but later on Sicinus
after the child Sicinus whom Oenoa
845(a water nymph) conceived from her affair
with Thoas.
Soon enough the women found
animal husbandry, the drills of war,
and labor in the wheat-producing fields
easier than the handcrafts of Athena
850to which they were accustomed. Often, though,
they scanned the level sea in grievous fear
that Thracian soldiers would descend upon them.
So, when they saw the Argo under oar
and heading toward their shore, they dressed in armor
855 (637)and like a mob of Maenad cannibals
dashed through Myrina Gate onto the beach.
They all assumed the Thracians were at hand.
Hypsipyle, the child of Thoas, joined them,
and she had donned the armor of her father.
860There they mustered, mute in their dismay,
so great a menace had been swept against them.
Meanwhile the heroes had dispatched ashore
Aethalides, the posthaste messenger,
whose work included overtures and parleys.
865He held the scepter of his father Hermes,
and Hermes had bestowed on him undying
memory of whatever he was told.
Although Aethalides has long since sunk
under the silent tide of Acheron,
870 (645)forgetfulness has never seized his spirit—
no, he is doomed to change homes endlessly,
now numbered with the ghosts beneath the earth,
now with the men who live and see the sun . . .
wait, why have I digressed so widely, talking
about Aethalides?
875On this occasion
his overtures convinced Hypsipyle
to grant his comrades harbor for the night,
since it was getting on toward dusk. At dawn, though,
the heroes still had not unbound the hawsers
because a stiff north wind was blowing.
880Meanwhile,
the Lemnian women all throughout the city
had left their homes and gathered for assembly.
Hypsipyle herself had summoned them.
When they had found their places, she proposed:
885 (657)“Dear women, come now, let us give these men
sufficient gifts, the sorts of things that sailors
stow in the hold—provisions, honeyed wine—
so that they will remain outside our ramparts.
Otherwise, when they come to beg supplies,
890they will discover what we’ve done, and thus
a bad report of us will travel far and wide.
Yes, we have done a horrid, horrid thing,
and knowing it would hardly warm their hearts.
This is the plan before us. If some woman
895among you can propose a better one,
come, let her stand up and reveal it now—
that is the reason I convened this council.”
So Hypsipyle proclaimed, then settled
again upon her father’s marble throne,
900 (669)and her beloved nurse Polyxo stood up,
using a cane to prop her palsied legs
and shriveled feet, since she was keen to speak.
Around her sat four women who, although
they still were maidens and had never married,
905were garlanded with heads of pure-white hair.
Steady at last and facing the assembly,
Polyxo strained to lift her neck just slightly
above her stooping shoulders and proposed:
“Let us by all means send the strangers presents,
910just as Hypsipyle has recommended.
It’s best that way. But as for all of you,
what plan do you have to defend yourselves
if, say, a Thracian army or some other
enemy force invades? Out in the world
915 (680)such raids are common. Witness, for example,
this group that has arrived out of the blue.
Furthermore, even if some blessed god
should drive them off, a thousand other troubles
worse than war await you in the future.
920When all us older women pass away
and you, the younger ones, attain a childless
and cruel dotage, how will you get by?
Poor women. Will the oxen yoke themselves
as favors to you in the loamy fields?
925Will they pull the furrow-cleaving harrow
over the acres of their own volition?
And who will reap the grain when summer ends?
My case is different. Though the gods of death
thus far have shuddered at the sight of me,
930 (691)I’m certain that before the next year’s out,
long, long before such troubles come about,
I will have drawn a gown of earth around me
and earned my share of reliquary honors.
Still, I entreat you girls to think ahead.
935Right now a perfect means of upkeep lies
before your feet. All you must do is hand
your houses, property, and dazzling city
over to the strangers to maintain.”
So she proposed. A murmur filled the assembly:
940her speech made sense. As soon as she was finished,
Hypsipyle stood up again and answered:
“If all of you approve of this proposal,
I shall be so immodest as to send
an envoy to their ship at once.”
So spoke she
945 (702)and told Iphinoa, who was at hand:
“Please go and ask the man that leads their party
(whichever he might be) to come and visit
my royal palace so that I may make him
a proposition that will warm his heart.
950Also, be sure to ask his comrades please
to come inside our land and city walls
without concern, provided they are friendly.”
Once she had sent the message, she dissolved
the council and departed toward the palace.
955Iphinoa sought out the Minyans,
and, when they asked why she had come, she greeted
her questioners at once with this announcement:
“Queen Hypsipyle the heir of Thoas
has sent me here to summon your commander
960 (713)(whichever he might be), so she can make him
a proposition that will warm his heart.
Also, she wishes to invite you others
to come inside our land and city walls
without concern, provided you are friendly.”
965So she announced, and all the men approved
of the auspicious overture. You see,
they all assumed Hypsipyle was queen
because she was the only child of Thoas
and he had passed on. So they sent her Jason
970and started getting ready for their visit.
Jason and the Argonauts (Penguin Classics) Page 5