The Golden Fleece

by Robert Graves

  Jasius, on hearing that Atalanta had won the pelt, grew proud at heart, and acknowledged her as his daughter at last. He made her his heiress and piously provided the shrine of Artemis with bronze doors and an iron roasting-jack. But Atalanta would not settle down to the domestic life of a chieftain’s daughter or be ruled by him in any way; she went off hunting whenever it pleased her, especially when the moon was bright.

  Here now is a roll of the Argonauts who sailed from the Pagasaean Gulf. By no means all completed the voyage, and others won the title of Argonauts by coming aboard the Argo when she had already passed through the Clashing Rocks and entered the Black Sea.

  Acastus, son of King Pelias of Iolcos, a Minyan.

  Admetus, King of Pherae, a Minyan.

  Great Ancaeus of Tegea, son of the God Poseidon.

  Little Ancaeus, the Lelegian, of Flowery Samos.

  Argus of Athens, by birth a Thespian, builder of the Argo.

  Ascalaphus of Orchomenos, son of the God Ares, a Minyan.

  Atalanta of Calydon.

  Augeas, son of Phorbas, King of Elis and priest of the Sun.

  Butes of Athens, a priest of the Goddess Athena, the most famous bee-master in Greece.

  Calaïs, son of the North Wind, from Thracian Thynia.

  Castor of Sparta, son of Father Zeus, the wrestler and horseman. Coronus the Lapith, of Gyrton in Thessaly, a Minyan.

  Echion of Mount Cyllene, son of the God Hermes, the herald. Erginus of Miletos, son of the God Poseidon, a Minyan.

  Euphemus of Taenaron, the Phocian swimmer.

  Eurydamas the Dolopian, from Lake Xynias in Thessaly, a Minyan. Hercules of Tiryns.

  Hylas the Dryopian, squire to Hercules.

  Idas, son of Aphareus of Arene, a Minyan.

  Idmon of Argos, son of the God Apollo.

  Iphitus of Phocis, a painter and image-maker.

  Jason, captain of the Argo, son of King Aeson of Iolcos, a Minyan.

  Lynceus, the look-out man, brother to Idas, a Minyan.

  Meleager, son of King Oeneus of Calydon.

  Melampus of Pylos, son of the God Poseidon, a Minyan.

  Mopsus the Lapith, a Minyan and an augur.

  Nauplius of Argos, son of the God Poseidon, a noted navigator. Orpheus, the Thracian musician.

  Peleus of Phthia, Prince of the Myrmidons.

  Periclymenus of Sandy Pylos, the Minyan wizard, son of the God Poseidon.

  Phalerus the archer, of the royal house of Athens.

  Pollux of Sparta, the noted boxer, brother to Castor.

  Tiphys of Boeotian Thisbe, a Minyan, helmsman of the Argo.

  Zetes the Thracian, brother to Calaïs.

  To these were later added Polyphemus the Lapith, a Minyan from Thessalian Larisa; and three Minyan brothers, Phlegyans from Thessalian Tricca, named Deileion, Phlogius, and Autolycus; and the four sons of Phrixus, the Minyan who had brought the Fleece to Colchis, named Phrontis, Melanion, Cytissorus, and Argeus. Thus twenty-one true Minyans in all could style themselves Argonauts, besides those who became Minyans by the ceremony of adoption. As for Dascylus the Mariandynian, who piloted the Argo for a stage or two of the outward voyage; and Telamon of Aegina; and Canthus the brother of Polyphemus; and others who, like the two last-mentioned, were passengers for a stage or two of the homeward voyage – these were not concerned in the quest of the Golden Fleece, and are not therefore reckoned as Argonauts by trustworthy poets and heralds. But it is the recent addition of their names to the roll that has brought the number up to fifty and thus given rise to the false report that the Argo was a ship of fifty oars.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Camp-Fires at Castanthaea

  The Argo was making good headway: southward by oars through the narrow mouth of the Gulf of Pagasae, and, as the day drew on, north-eastward by oars and sail through the deep strait which separates the brow of the island of Euboea from the curved foot of Magnesia. When the sail was first hoisted, and bellied out in the breeze, the Argonauts shouted for delight. Old Nauplius cried: ‘Of all the craft that ever swam on salt water, Argus, yours is the prettiest.’

  ‘She sits upon the water with the ease and elegance of a cygnet,’ Castor said.

  ‘Rather, she resembles the fleet dolphin, darting from wave to wave,’ said Little Ancaeus.

  And Idmon said: ‘To see her climb the rolling swell and clear the rising foam, sprinkling her children with sea-water from her prow, as with lustral water shaken from a green laurel bough, that, dear comrades, is a spectacle to stir the soul.’

  So each Argonaut in turn praised the Argo in the imagery most natural to his birth and condition. Then all took to their oars again to hurry her on; but it was with great relief that they finally shipped them in the Sciathan Strait between the heel of Magnesia and the well-wooded rocky island of Sciathos, the most westerly of the Sporades. They lolled on the benches, nursing their blistered hands.

  The wind now blew dead astern. Tiphys knew this coast well and kept the Argo a couple of bowshots off the shore for fear of sunken rocks. Late in the afternoon he pointed to a dark cliff that rose up before them. ‘There is Cape Sepias,’ he said, ‘a happy landmark on the homeward voyage from Thrace; it is easily recognized by the red cliff beyond it. But we must leave it behind, and Cape Ipni as well, before we disembark tonight. While this wind holds, let us for the second time today see Pelion over our left shoulders.’

  So they ran on and, though darkness gathered, the young moon rose and the stars shone brightly. Orpheus sang a hymn to the Goddess Artemis, who owned several shrines in the neighbourhood, warning the Argonauts, with a wealth of recent instances, of the danger incurred by those who forget the respect due to her. Between every verse of the hymn, which carried them a good five miles on their course, Idas would lift up his raucous voice, catching at the melody, and cry:

  Meleager, son of Oeneus,

  O, you Meleager, son of Oeneus,

  This warning is for you, Meleager:

  Refrain from the lips of Atalanta!

  And the other Argonauts echoed with ribald laughter:

  This warning is for you, Meleager,

  Refrain from the lips of Atalanta!

  Meleager did not care, for Atalanta was sitting on the same bench with him and pressed his foot gently with hers to show that she pitied him. In the end she took the lyre from Orpheus and showed herself a skilful enough musician, singing to the same melody a ballad of the dangers incurred by the maiden huntress who forgot her vows of chastity. She told how Callisto the Arcadian huntress, who fathered her child on Zeus himself, could not escape from the jealous anger of Artemis: for Artemis ordered her to be shot full of arrows, though not through the vital parts, and Callisto was left crippled to die in the forest. The constellation of the She-Bear was named after her, as a reminder to women that Artemis has no mercy.

  Pelion viewed from the sea in moonlight looked strangely different from the Pelion that Jason had known all his life: at one point it seemed a table-land, so that his mind grew confused. He asked Hercules: ‘Ought we not to be disembarking soon, most noble Hercules? I think that we have passed Pelion by.’

  ‘Why ask me? Ask Tiphys or Argus or whom you please,’ Hercules replied, ‘but do not pester me with foolish questions, as if you were a child.’

  Jason was abashed at the laugh that went up, but Tiphys said: ‘I, for one, shall be satisfied if we make Castanthaea tonight, where there is safe anchorage and good water.’

  ‘I know the shepherds of Castanthaea well,’ said Jason. ‘A small present of wine will buy enough mutton from them to last us for two days.’

  So they ran on, under the dark shadow of Pelion, and, avoiding the rocks, cleared the promontory of Ipni beyond; then the breeze slackened and they took to their oars again. They did not make Castanthaea until the grey dawn, dog-tired and full of loud complaints against Jason for carrying them, as they said, nearly half-way to Colchis in the first stage. They found safe anchorage and went ashore, with their legs
as stiff as oars.

  The Magnesian shepherds mistook them for pirates and, catching up their children, rushed off through the pass between the hills. Jason hallooed after them in reassurance, but they did not heed him.

  The Argonauts collected dry sticks and built a fire while Hercules went out in search of mutton. He soon came back with a couple of wethers slung over his shoulders and bleating miserably. ‘I intend to sacrifice my bleaters to Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth,’ he said. ‘This place pleases me immeasurably. One day, when I shall have completed my Labours, I will settle down here with Hylas and build myself a house. I shall sit listening to the gentle sound of the waves and watch the broad moon through feathery branches of the lightning-tree; and if Eurystheus sends Talthybius with a message to me, I shall knock pieces out of him with my frying-pan. Holy Serpents, I am hungry! Quick, build me up an altar, fools and lend me a sacrificial flint.’

  Eurydamas the Dolopian asked him, instead, to sacrifice at the tomb of his ancestor Dolops, which stood close by; and Hercules magnanimously consented. He knew in his heart that he would never settle down anywhere, however long he might live.

  Soon the sheep were sacrificed, flayed, and cut up, and their blood was poured for the thirsty ghost of Dolops. The Argonauts sat about the two large camp-fires, wrapped in their blankets or cloaks, each man toasting over the flame his portion of mutton, cut in slices and skewered on a sharp stick. Hercules had lugged a jar of wine ashore and Hylas went off with his bronze pitcher to draw water. The Argo was well secured by hawsers to two rocks, her sail lowered and put away, her prow thrust into the eye of the wind. Melampus of Pylos, Jason’s cousin and the most melancholy and taciturn of the Argonauts, remained aboard as watchman; his comrade Periclymenus the wizard brought him a generous portion of meat and drink.

  At the smaller camp-fire, Coronus the Lapith remarked to Admetus of Pherae: ‘This is not bad mutton by any means. Though the pasture hereabouts is not so rich as in our Thessaly, the sheep come down, I suppose, to lick the salt stones as an appetizer, which helps them to put on flesh.’

  ‘I give my sheep salt to lick regularly,’ said Admetus, ‘and, though of a small breed, they are something to boast about, now that you have freed them of ticks for me. That was a neighbourly act, Coronus.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ replied Coronus. ‘Since Athena first adopted the Crow fraternity, we have had wonderful power over our sacred and long-lived bird. It flies for us to whatever flock may need its services. Yes, indeed, your sheep should be in fine condition this year.’

  Butes of Athens said with a smile: ‘My woolly flocks are not so white as yours, Admetus; but, though you may scarcely credit this, I own five hundred head for every one of yours. They are so intelligent that I need neither dog nor shepherd to watch over them; and they provide my table with infinitely sweeter food than yours.’

  Admetus answered courteously: ‘Indeed? The mutton of Pherae is generally reckoned the sweetest in Thessaly and I had thought it unrivalled even in Attica. Our grass is tasty as barley-bread, is it not, Coronus? And the fleeces of my sheep (if I may boast) are as soft as any that I have ever seen: only feel the texture of this blanket!’

  ‘My sheep are brown and yellow, and far smaller than yours,’ said Butes, smiling broadly now. ‘They go streaming out in a cloud from their pens every morning to pasture on Hymettos, and by dusk they are all safely home. They scorn grass and salt but love flowers. They have small horns on their heads, and hairy bellies.’

  He was speaking jestingly of his bees, but it was some time before Admetus solved the riddle. At last Butes pulled a jar of Hymettan honey from under his cloak and asked his companions to dip their fingers in it and afterwards lick them.

  When they cried out in admiration of the taste he gave them a lecture on bee-keeping and promised that, as soon as the voyage was over, each should have a swarm and no longer be dependent on the chance discovery of wild honey in hollow trees or the clefts of rocks. ‘But do not misunderstand me,’ he said. ‘I have no scorn for wild honey and spend many an enjoyable morning about Hymettos in search of it. I wait at one side of a flowery field until a bee laden with honey makes off for its nest; then I step behind it and stake out his course with sticks, for bees fly exactly straight on their homeward journey. Presently another bee will set off for home from the other side of the clearing. I stake out his course too; and near the point of intersection I meet bees flying from all directions. There is the nest, soon found.’ Butes was an amiable man, and whatever conversation he took part in always swung round in the end to bees or honey. It was odd that he was a priest of Athena rather than of Apollo, patron of the bee societies. He kept his head well shaved and dressed only in white garments, because this had a most soothing effect on his bees; or so he imagined.

  At the other camp-fires some unseen Spite provoked the company to several angry arguments: about the nature of fire, and about the proper season for sowing sesame, and about bears – whether the Arcadian bears were fiercer than those of Mount Parnes in Attica, and whether the white bears of Thrace were fiercer than either. Hearing the angry cries with which Phalerus and Argus upheld the fierceness of the Attic bear against the Arcadians, Echion and Great Ancaeus, and the gruff expostulations of the Thracians, Calaïs and Zetes, one might have supposed them bears themselves. But Orpheus silenced them all by saying that no bear was naturally fierce, yet all bears could be made to show fierceness: she-bears by a danger to the cubs, he-bears by sexual jealousy, both equally by being disturbed from their winter sleep with the clash of weapons and the baying of hounds. ‘Bears are of all beasts the likest to human kind. They fight for what is their own; and love to be young again in play with their cubs; and think no pleasure so sweet as sleep, unless it is to crunch honey-comb. Come, comrades, overweariness makes for contention. Sleep sweetly where you sit, and take no thought for danger, I will keep watch, not having laboured so hard as any of you others.

  Pelias soon learned that the Argo had touched at Methone, but the news did not disturb him. He supposed that Argus was taking aboard some of the gear left there when he was cutting timber near by. Then came a messenger from Mount Pelion reporting the death of Cheiron, and he grew suddenly anxious for his son Acastus, fearing that the Centaurs had taken vengeance for the slaughter made by Hercules. He sent out search-parties, one of which brought back news from a swineherd of Methone that Peleus and Acastus had gone aboard the Argo and sailed away, laughing. When Pelias understood that he had been tricked he flew into a vile passion, beat the messengers nearly to death, and paced up and down the dining-hall, growling like a wild beast. Finally he caught up an axe and ran from the palace. He went down the street by moonlight to Aeson’s house, rehearsing to himself aloud as he went: ‘Your cruel and impious son has stolen Prince Acastus from me, whom I love beyond everything in the world, deceiving him with promises of fame and treasure. If any harm comes to Acastus, brother Aeson, you must not expect to live long yourself.’

  It was midnight, and the house was barred and shuttered, but Pelias forced his way in with the axe. He surprised Aeson and Alcimede in the inner court of their house while they were completing an altarless sacrifice, by torchlight, to the Maiden Goddess Persephone.

  Pelias stood and watched in astonishment, for Aeson was moving about as briskly as a young man. He had just pole-axed and cut the throat of a frightened black bull, its horns bound with night-blue fillets and its poll shaded with yew branches. The blood was gushing out into a stone trough over which Alcimede was bent, waving her hands and muttering. Neither she nor Aeson had heard the noisy entry of Pelias; they had been preoccupied with the difficult task of killing the bull, which despite a ringed nose resisted their attempts to bring it to the trough.

  Aeson now called in solemn tone upon Persephone to grant the ghost of his father, Cretheus the Minyan, permission to ascend from the Underworld and drink the rich warm blood, and then to prophesy truthfully what would be the fate of Jason and his companions in their voyage
to Colchis. As Pelias watched, a vague cloud began to gather at the shallow end of the trough, like the mist which sometimes clouds the vision of a sick man; it gradually grew substantial and, assuming a pink colour, hardened into the bent head of Cretheus, lapping with his tongue and quivering with delight.

  Pelias drew off a sandal and cast it at the ghost to prevent it from prophesying. It immediately scurried off, paling as it went, and the spell was broken. Pelias took off his helmet and handed it to Aeson, saying: ‘Dip this in the deeper end of the trough, traitor, scoop up the warm blood and drink!’

  Aeson asked: ‘And if I refuse, brother?’

  ‘If you refuse,’ Pelias answered, ‘I will hack you and your wife into pieces with this axe and scatter your bones over Pelion so that your ghosts will never find rest, for your sepulchre will be in the bellies of leopards and wolves and rats.’

  ‘Why do you give me this impious order?’ asked Aeson, trembling so hard that he could scarcely stand on his feet.

  ‘Because you have deceived me these twenty years,’ Pelias replied: ‘first, by pretending to be bedridden, so that I would not fear you; next, by concealing from me the survival of your brat Diomedes, or Jason; lastly, by conspiring with him to destroy my poor foolish son Acastus. Drink, drink, I say, or I will split you into billets like a dry pine log.’

  Aeson said: ‘I will drink. But first give me time to repeat backwards the charm that has raised my noble father Cretheus from the dead, so that he may return safely again to his home underground.’

  Pelias consented. Aeson repeated the charm correctly, though with a faltering voice; and then, stooping, dipped the helmet in the thick bull’s blood. He drank, choked and died. Thereupon Alcimede cut her own throat with the sacrificial knife; so that three shades, father, son, and son’s wife, went down to the Underworld hand in hand. But first Alcimede spattered the robe of Pelias with her blood as it spurted out, and with her eyes spoke the curse that her gurgling throat could not.