The Golden Fleece

by Robert Graves

  Hypsipyle drew a long breath and began to weep. Jason kissed her hand to comfort her and she drew him closer to her. He kissed her neck instead of her hand, whispering that he pitied her.

  She gently repelled him, sobbing: ‘Do not kiss me from pity, my lord! I would rather by far be kissed in love than in pity. And, O Jason, let me confess to you: I am in the deepest anxiety about our barley harvest. The seed was sown without the usual fertility rites, and though the barley and millet has shown up very thick and green, because we did what we could – sacrificing male kids and lambs to the Mother and making our usual prayers – what if it should prove to be all straw? We should starve.’

  Jason asked: ‘Is it already too late to save your millet and barley crops by a rite of the amatory sort that I suppose you to practise here? I believe not, and certainly my comrades as well as I –’

  ‘You are a most generous, pious man,’ cried Hypsipyle. ‘Come, dare to kiss me on the mouth. Do you know, I looked out of the window as you came marching down the street at the head of your glorious men, and I asked myself, “What does he most resemble?”’

  ‘What did I most resemble, my dear?’ asked Jason, squeezing her soft arm.

  Hypsipyle answered: ‘A bright star which a girl at an upper window watches as it rises out of the midnight sea – a girl who, the next day, is to be initiated into the secret of womanhood and can hardly sleep for longing.’

  ‘Is that indeed how I seem to you?’ said Jason. ‘Let me tell you in return that your clear black eyes are like two midnight pools by the seashore, in which the same star glitters.’

  ‘And I do not stink?’ asked Hypsipyle, her lip quivering. ‘They said that our bodies stank.’

  ‘You are all violet and rose, and your breath is as sweet as that of Hera’s sacred cow,’ cried Jason gallantly. ‘On the instant that I first set eyes upon you my heart began a golden dance. Do you know how a sunbeam quivers on the whitewashed ceiling of an upper room – as it might be this – thrown up there by a great cauldron of lustral water in the courtyard, whose surface the wind stirs? That is exactly how my heart danced and is dancing now.’

  An alcove close to where they were sitting formed a little chapel of Our Lady of Myrine, as the Mother Goddess was there styled. The calm, blue-aproned figure of the Mother, in glazed earthenware, smiled benignly down on the chubby infant Zagreus at her feet – he who was doomed to die miserably for the good of the people – and beside her rose a plain, squat cross, cut from white marble, with twin hollows at its base to receive petty offerings of fruit and nuts. Hypsipyle had spread the table on which the Goddess stood with sea-sand and cockle-shells and in the costly silver vases on either side of the cross shone the scented lily flowers that the Goddess loved. Only the little spotted snake that she held in her left hand, and the silver moon that dangled on her bosom, reminded visitants of her darker aspects. Her coronal was of stars.

  Hypsipyle asked Jason: ‘Is it not a pretty shrine? Do you think it possible that Our Lady will ever be extruded from Lemnos? Evil men may neglect or slight her, but will she not always remain with us?’

  Jason shook his head. ‘The Father has become very powerful,’ he said, ‘and what his secret intentions may be towards her who was once his mother and is now his wife, who can say? But let us allow no questions of theology to disturb our hearts, which are already sufficiently vexed by the arrows of the cruel Love Spite. Come back with me, radiant Queen, to the council-chamber! Yet before he went, he prudently felt in his wallet and found three hazel nuts and a little lump of hard goats’ cheese; with these he propitiated the blue-aproned Goddess, putting them in the hollows at the base of the altar cross.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Farewell to Lemnos

  When Jason and Hypsipyle returned to the council-chamber, he with his right arm around her shoulders, she with her left arm around his waist, a roar of applause went up. Hypsipyle was so tall, dark and beautiful, Jason so tall, fair and handsome. Both blushed.

  Soon each Argonaut found himself seated at table with a woman on either side of him. The woman on his left hand kept his beech-wood trencher heaped with abundance of food – fish, roast mutton with capers pickled in sour wine, roast beef with sauce of asafoetida, wild game, honey-cakes, stewed dormouse (which, however, the worshippers of Apollo excused themselves from eating), asparagus, dried white figs, barley-bread soaked in olive oil, delicate sheep’s-cheese, samphire pickled in brine, and the hard-boiled eggs of sea-fowl. The woman on his right hand filled his goblet with wine and water (and the mixture contained almost as much wine as water), or milk, or beer, whichever he asked for; sometimes she mixed all together and stirred in honey.

  Meleager was in a quandary. Though the youngest of the Argonauts, he was one of the tallest and strongest of them all, with curly black hair and regular features, the rather melancholy cast of which made him peculiarly attractive to women. Several made a rush for him, clasping his hands and knees. He disengaged himself with an apologetic but decisive movement. ‘Go elsewhere, pretty bees,’ he said. ‘There is no honey left in this flower.’ They smiled and kissed him and went off again, believing him to be less virile than he seemed. Atalanta encouraged this belief: ‘Meleager of Calydon is a king’s son,’ she said, ‘but has never yet been able to content a woman as it is proper for women to be contented. His father, King Oeneus, once angered a certain jealous goddess. If you need a lover worthy of you, beautiful girls, go down to the shore and find happiness there!’

  Meleager and she sat down together apart from the rest, and helped themselves to whatever they could find boiling in the many smoke-blackened pots by the long hearth, or roasting on the many iron spits. The company paid little attention to them and, after they had eaten and drunken their fill, they took courteous leave of Queen Hypsipyle. She nodded absently to them, entranced by Jason’s account of his voyage to Dodona, and assured them that they were free of the whole island. In some parts of the hall the love-making had already begun in earnest and Atalanta considered it shameful to remain longer.

  Iphinoë, who had been mixing wine and water for the pitchers brought to her by the women, slipped out after Meleager and Atalanta. ‘O Prince Meleager,’ she cried, ‘where are you going?’

  He answered: ‘Atalanta and I are going out to hunt.’

  ‘Dear people,’ she said, ‘if your hunting takes you down to the beach, I beg you to give that dark-eyed boy a message. Tell him that I will be waiting for him at midnight in the cave above the beach, near the thicket of brambles and caper-bushes.’

  ‘Nothing would please me better,’ said Meleager. ‘Have you yet sent the food and drink down to Hercules?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘The amorous women whom you rejected have that matter in hand. They are taking down a whole roast sheep, a leg of beef, a goose stewed in barley – no, two geese – and six gallons of wine. The wine is flavoured by me with crushed poppy-seed. If all that does not send him off to sleep, he is a greater wonder even than his frightful appearance declares him.’

  Atalanta and Meleager went out through the city gate, confident that the dark forest which spread over the hills behind harboured plenty of game. But first they went down to the Argo to deliver Iphinoë’s message, if possible. From a distance they saw a great crowd of women buzzing around Hercules like wasps around a fallen piece of honeycomb – not only those whom Meleager had rejected but all who had not been fortunate enough to secure a lover, or the share of a lover, in the hall.

  ‘Alas, poor Hercules,’ said Atalanta, smiling. ‘He will surely find it difficult enough to please one or two without angering fifty.’

  ‘Hercules has successfully performed more difficult labours even than that,’ Meleager answered with a sour smile. ‘But I wonder where Hylas can be? Do you see him?’

  Atalanta made a wide circuit to escape the notice of Hercules and by swimming and wading came up close to the Argo, in which she guessed Hylas to be imprisoned. She peeped over the bulwark, and there was Hy
las weeping silently and unable to stir: Hercules, to secure him from the designs of Iphinoë, had seated him in the ship’s great copper cauldron and bent the sides over his body, as one might wrap a little fish in a fig leaf. Nobody but Hercules with his hands, or a smith with heavy, clanging blows of a great hammer, could ever release him. Nevertheless, Atalanta whispered her message and returned the way she came. She was still in the water, though a long way from the ship, when something hit her leather helmet with a resounding thud, and knocked it off. She heard the roaring cry of Hercules: ‘Ho, ho! I hit her every time.’ It was a sheep’s shin-bone that he had playfully thrown at her.

  Two days later Hercules awoke with a terrible headache and snatched up his club, which he found close to hand. He looked wildly around and saw only the remnants of a feast, some broken combs and torn women’s clothes, and a rude altar heaped with charred fruit and grain. Where was his dearest Hylas? He began to rave and bellow, the poppy-seed and wine having clouded his memory and the children’s voices in his head sounding particularly shrill and disagreeable. He was rushing off to catch and brain Iphinoë when he heard Hylas calling piteously to him from the Argo: ‘Hercules, Hercules, let me out, let me out!’

  Hercules laughed for delight, vaulted into the ship with a crash, ran to Hylas and wrenched the cauldron back into shape. Then he hugged him, covering his face with slobbered kisses, as a great mastiff will lick the face of his master’s little child until he yells for fear. He paused to ask: ‘Darling Hylas, how long have I slept?’

  ‘Two whole nights and one whole day,’ answered Hylas faintly, ‘during which I have sat cramped here in agony, unable to rouse you. Some kind women brought me food and drink and covered my shoulders with this blanket; but that was little comfort. Why, if you truly love me, are you so unkind to me? Why do you imprison and torture your poor Hylas? All the rest of the Argonauts, yourself included, have enjoyed the most wonderful hospitality that a ship’s company was ever given since ships were invented.’

  ‘Two nights and one day! And nobody came to release you?’ cried Hercules indignantly. ‘Oh, the wretches! Why has none of them returned to take over the watch from us? Have those cursed women played the same trick on them as they did on their own kinsfolk? Have they spared only you and me?’ But soon he saw Idas and Lynceus sauntering along the beach, each with two women on either side of him, their heads garlanded and their cheeks flushed with wine.

  ‘When are you two idlers coming to relieve me?’ he shouted. ‘I have been on watch here for two nights and a day.’

  ‘We have no orders,’ Idas answered. ‘Besides, you rejected Atalanta’s offer to go on guard with Meleager. Why do you now complain? We are busy, as you see. We have ladies to love and serve.’

  ‘If you do not come here at once,’ snarled Hercules, ‘and take over the watch from Hylas and me, I will knock the whole row of you as flat as a threshing-floor.’

  They judged it prudent to obey, but brought the women with them. Then Hercules, gripping Hylas by the shoulder with his left hand and the brass-bound club with his right, went raging up into Myrine. At each house-door he rapped with his club and cried: ‘Argonauts, turn out!’ No door was stout enough to stand against that imperious summons. Either panels and transoms went spinning into the hall or the whole door was burst from its hinges and came whacking down. Shrill shrieks of alarm and rage rose from the women of the house, and angry expostulations from the Argonauts comfortably closeted with them. Hercules went onwards down the main streets from side to side, methodically knocking at every door with a fore-handed or backhanded swing and bellowing: ‘Argonauts, turn out!’

  At last he came to Hypsipyle’s mansion on the bluff and roared out: ‘Ahoy there, Jason! Is it not high time to be sailing on in search of that Fleece of yours? Why do you delay?’

  Jason’s tousled head appeared at an upper window and Hypsipyle’s beside it. ‘Ah, I understand,’ said Hercules. ‘You are busily employed in founding a royal house of Lemnos. Good luck attend your efforts, but have you not nearly done?’

  Hypsipyle cried: ‘Oh, Hercules, I rejoice to see you. My women bring me wonderful accounts of your strength and affection. But it was unkind of you to stay behind on the beach as though the Argo were in danger and to keep that handsome foster-son of yours away from my Iphinoë. The poor girl has been crying her eyes out in self-pity, and in pity for him. Do, I beg you, let him run upstairs now and play with her for the rest of the afternoon.’

  Hercules in his anger could think of no suitable answer.

  Hypsipyle went on: ‘I have almost persuaded Jason to stay with us for ever and become King of Lemnos. We may as well face the truth now as later: the worn-out old Mother Goddess cannot compete on equal terms with these sturdy new Olympians. Kingship is in fashion everywhere, and Jason is the kingliest man that ever I set eyes upon. Besides, Lemnos is a glorious island, as you see, with the deepest, moistest soil of any in the Aegean. Our barley is superb, our wine second only to that of Lesbos, our hill pastures are not at all to be despised. The forests swarm with game, too. Jason has promised me to stay for a month at least and meanwhile to consider –’

  ‘I made no such promise, lovely Hypsipyle,’ cried Jason, flushing. ‘I said no more than that I would stay for another day or two and then decide whether perhaps to stay for another month.’

  ‘He is in love with me, you see,’ laughed Hypsipyle, ‘and I think, Hercules, that you will find it something of a Labour to gather a crew together, for a month or two at least. The men will be loth to leave and the women will oppose you stoutly – weapon in hand, if need be. After so long a period of abstinence, they are wallowing in the pleasures of love as Egyptian crocodiles wallow in the fertile ooze of the Nile.’

  A heap of mud scrapings lay piled at the side of the street. Hercules bent down, scooped up a handful, kneaded it into a mud-pie and with a sudden heave threw it, flap, into Hypsipyle’s face. ‘Wallow in that, woman!’ he said gruffly. ‘And as for you, my lord Jason, you must descend at once, or with my club I will knock holes in this mansion through which you could drive four oxen yoked abreast.’

  Jason descended, grumbling to himself. ‘Now, my lord,’ said severe Hercules, ‘I counsel you to rally the crew and march them down to the ship. You cannot afford to lose the advantage of this westerly breeze and the calm sea.’

  ‘Allow us an hour or so to say our goodbyes,’ Jason pleaded.

  Hercules complained: ‘What a time you take over things! When as a young man, about your age, I was invited to company with the Thespian nymphs in reward for killing the Beast of Cythaeron, I lay with all fifty in the course of a single night and got every one of them with child. But you! You seem to have spent two days and nights in ineffective dalliance with the same woman. How, at this rate, do you expect ever to win the Golden Fleece? You may be bound that it will not be won by sporting among the barley-fields of Lemnos. By the brass of my club, no man has ever made a fool of me yet, and you will not be the first!’

  With angry and obscene taunts he forced Jason away from Hypsipyle’s door. Hypsipyle, who had sponged her face clean, ran down into the street, half-naked though she was, and cried after Jason: ‘The Blessed Mother bring you back to me, my love, unharmed, victorious, and with all your dear friends alive! You know my promise: you shall be King and as many of your comrades as care to settle in Lemnos shall have as much land and as many cattle as you choose in your wisdom to grant them. Remember your poor Hypsipyle when you are far away. But before you go, tell me, what shall I do if I find myself the mother of your child?’

  Jason answered: ‘Hypsipyle, you and I have spent two exquisite days and nights together – if only they could have been prolonged to years! But Hercules has spoken to the point. Heavy work lies ahead of us, and we cannot linger here. Nor can I promise to return for good to your lovely Lemnos, because Phthiotis is my kingdom, and it is dangerous for a man to ride upon two horses. The sovereignty of Lemnos must remain in your hands; though if you bear a so
n, and if he lives to manhood, you may make a king of him by all means; yet remember that he stands next to me in succession to the throne of Phthiotis too, and in the event of my death he must choose, as I do now, between the two thrones. Send word to my old father and mother when you are delivered of the child – for a child I am sure there will be – and if ever you are forced to leave this island they will, for my sake, provide a good home for both of you.’ He began to weep.

  However, this sad farewell was not to be their last, for Jason could not persuade the other Argonauts, either by threats or promises, to stir from their new homes. Nor was Hercules any longer in a condition to help him; having locked Hylas in a windowless closet near the great kitchen of the council-chamber and leaned his back against the door, he was contentedly gurgling down wine from a large jar of Lesbian that he had found. When Hypsipyle came into the chamber towards evening and found him there blinking like an owl, she forgivingly brought him bread and a cold roast goose to make the wine go down the sweeter. He caught at her robe in drunken fashion and offered her his sincere condolence upon her union with Jason. ‘He is a worthless wretch, Queen Hypsipyle,’ he said, ‘and if ever you find yourself in trouble will not stretch out a finger to help you. But Hercules of Tiryns is a man of another quality altogether. If ever any disaster overtakes you, whether it be this year, or the next, or twelve years from now, remember that Hercules is your friend. Send for him, either to comfort or avenge you!’ She thanked him courteously, keeping a straight countenance, but laughed aloud when she was back with Jason in her bedchamber.