The Golden Fleece

by Robert Graves

  Then, lifting up their hearts, they forged ahead, and soon the Black Sea stretched before them. They rounded the eastern headland and passed the white chalk cliff which had been mentioned by King Phineus in his instructions; then they beached the Argo a mile or two to the east of it, where yellow cliffs are intersected by small valleys fringed with narrow strips of sand.

  No sooner were they ashore than the North-East Wind began to blow and presently rolled monstrous waves down the strait. They laughed, shouted, and pelted one another with handfuls of sand to express their relief and joy. The Athenians, Argus, Butes, and Phalerus, bought sheep from the Bithynian fishermen who lived in the valley near by, presently sacrificing them to Athena in gratitude for her warning sign; but the three sons of Poseidon, not to be surpassed in piety, marked out a plot of sacred ground in honour of their father the Rock-Cleaver, and bought two red bulls for sacrifice to him.

  At this beach they were rejoined by the Mariandynians. Here, also Idas rudely revived many jests of Orpheus, especially jeering at Periclymenus the wizard, who had so far not given the Argonauts the least proof of the strange powers generally attributed to him. Periclymenus then exhibited his skill, after first wandering off to collect implements and accessories and calling upon his father Poseidon to grant him inspiration.

  Periclymenus displayed a white pebble and a black pebble, and covered each of them with a cockle-shell, in the sight of all; when the shells were removed, the white pebble and the black had changed places.

  Next, he took a nut and made magical passes and drove it into the knee of Idas, so that it disappeared without a scar. Then he ordered the nut to grow, which it did, and caused Idas intolerable pain as it put out roots and sprouted, until Idas begged him with tears to remove the growing nut, and asked pardon for his insolence. Periclymenus relented, drawing out the nut-tree by the roots from below and displaying it to the company, with a little blood still clinging to the green shoot.

  Next, he turned a stone into a small fish, merely by rubbing it with his hands under a cloth and made a goblet of sea-water boil over without any fire. He even spoke of cutting off Jason’s head and bringing him to life again; but Jason would not submit himself to the ordeal, though all his comrades begged him to show his courage and faith.

  Last of all, Periclymenus amused and mystified them by throwing his voice about, so that at one moment it seemed as though the fish which had formerly been a stone declaimed a verse of the satiric song – the very one which related to Periclymenus; and at the next it seemed as though Hylas cried merrily from the other side of the rock where they were sitting: ‘Here I am again, Argonauts! I have grown a beard since I saw you last and fathered two fine boys.’ But nobody was there.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A Visit to the Mariandynians

  The Black Sea is in outline like the shape of a bent Scythian bow with the string drawn up towards the north, and differs from the Mediterranean in a number of ways. It receives the water of a number of huge rivers, such as the Danube, Dniester, Boug, Dnieper, and Don, each of them greater than any river, except the Nile, that flows into the Mediterranean; and contains no single island of any considerable size. The northern parts are so cold that, incredible though it may seem, even the sea-water freezes, and the great Sea of Azov, which is connected with the Black Sea by a narrow strait, is often frozen two foot deep in winter. The largest rivers of all flow in from the north and north-west, greatly swollen in the spring and summer by melting snow; then their turbid waters move in a mass towards the Bosphorus, where, not being able to enter all at once, they pour in a current along the southern coast of the sea as far as the Caucasian mountains. The whole sea is subject to sudden fogs which blot out all sight of land, and its currents and winds often cause vessels to roll and pitch in a horrible manner even in fine weather; but it abounds in great fish, such as tunny, flounder, and sturgeon, and nowhere are its shores fringed with inhospitable desert sands.

  From the middle of the northern coast juts out the Crimean peninsula where the savage Taurians live, who delight in human sacrifice and fix the heads of strangers upon stakes about their houses. Behind the Taurians live the Cimmerians, a small, dark, excitable people, famous for their singing and valiant in war, but addicted to sodomy; and both to the east and west of these Cimmerians live the long-lived, equitable Scythians, who have no homes but their wheeled carts, drink mares’ milk and are wonderful archers. Behind these, again, live the black-cloaked cannibal Finns; and the Neurians, many of whom become were-wolves by night; and the hunting Budinians, who paint themselves with red and blue dye, build stockaded wooden cities, and wear beaver-skin caps and tunics; and the Issedonians, who esteem it an act of piety to eat the dead flesh of their parents and make goblets from their skulls; and a bald-headed priestly tribe, the Argippians, who ride on white horses, carry no arms, and feed on milk curdled with cherry juice into a thick paste. On the western coast live the Thynians and Bithynians, who speak the Thracian language; and the lusty beer-swilling Goths; and the agricultural Scythians; and the Brygian fishermen, who wear sealskin breeches; and the tattooed, gold-getting Agathyrsians, who still worship the Triple Goddess with primitive simplicity. On the eastern coast live the Colchians and the mercantile Apsilaeans and the Royal Scythians. On the southern coast live tribes which will be described in order as the Argo makes her way past their territory or puts in at their harbours; this southern coast is everywhere backed with high hills and has a climate equal to that of Greece.

  On the third day after their entrance into the Black Sea, the Argonauts set sail again, continuing through choppy water but without adventure until towards evening they sighted the headland of Calpe and, close inshore, a rocky islet no more than eighty paces in length, and the height of a man above the level of the sea. On this island – nearly the biggest that they were to see during the whole of their remaining voyage to Colchis – they went ashore and sacrificed a kid to Apollo. The blood of the kid was caught in the hollow of Jason’s shield and all dipped their fingers in it, renewing their oaths of loyal comradeship as they did so, and swearing never to desert the ship. Then they poured the blood upon the sand, crying together: ‘So may our own blood be spilt if we break this oath.’ This ceremony seemed necessary, now that they had come into a sea heaving with perpetual menace and untravelled before by any of them. They also danced the round dance called The Crane to music played by Orpheus, singing:

  Hail Phoebus, Lord of Healing,

  Phoebus, ever fair…

  and Atalanta allowed herself to be reconciled to Meleager again. The Crane was sacred to Artemis, but Apollo and she, being brother and sister, had many emblems and attributes in common.

  The Argonauts remained all night on this islet and at dawn a fine westerly wind sprang up, which brought them on the following evening to the boundaries of the Mariandynians, who are a sort of Thracians. They sailed past what seemed to them a sea of trees washing the low hills, and past the mouths of three rivers: the muddy, rushing Sangarios, the Hypios with uneven banks, and the broad Lycos. Soon after leaving the Lycos astern they rounded the Acherusian headland and, recalling the advice of King Phineus, anchored beyond it in a bay protected from the wind by an enormous and inaccessible cliff crowned with plane-trees.

  At the head of this bay stands the chief city of the Mariandynians, remarkable for the beauty of its orchards, fields, and gardens. Barley, millet, sesame, and all kinds of vegetables grow in abundance here, with vines, fig-trees, hazels, pears, and all else but olives; for the soil is too rich for the olive. The cliff slopes inland gradually to the valley of the Lycos, and on a hollow glen near the summit is a chasm, one of the main entrances to the Underworld. Here the dangerous stream of Acheron bursts out and flows through a ravine down the cliff face; it is icy-cold water, and a glistening rime frosts the stones at the mouth of the chasm. Nobody has ever descended into this horrible place but only Hercules: he went down a mile or more, years later, at the orders of King Eurystheus, to con
vey a complaint to the God Hades in person about the ill-treatment that certain distinguished ghosts were said to be receiving at his hands.

  King Lycus gave the Argonauts a royal welcome as soon as he learned that his sister and comrades had been rescued by them from a weary captivity among the Bebrycians. Jason, Pollux, and the rest were obliged to refuse more than half the rich gifts that he heaped on them, since the Argo was a warship and had no space for cargo.

  When they were all seated at a lavish banquet prepared for them which continued, course after course, for twelve whole hours, Lycus asked Jason: ‘Tell me, princely saviour of my country, are you acquainted with a Greek champion named Hercules of Tiryns? He is seven foot tall, wears a lion-skin, and is the most wonderful man in the whole world. Some years ago, in the reign of my father, Dascylus, he passed this way on foot from the land of the Amazons, carrying with him as a prize of war the girdle of Queen Hippolyte. My father was at war with the Bebrycians at the time and Hercules offered to subdue them for him, which he did without much trouble, killing their King Mygdon, the brother of Amycus, and seizing all their northern territory, for nothing could stop Hercules when he began swinging his brass-bound club around his head. My wife’s younger brother was killed in the course of the fighting, and we held funeral games for him; at these Hercules boxed with our champion, Titias, and not knowing his own strength, crushed in his skull. He was naturally remorseful and offered as a penance to subdue any other hostile tribe that my father chose to name, and he did so – the Henetians to the eastward of us. He would take no reward, either. The Henetians are the obstinate remnants of the great people whom long ago Pelops led into Greece.’

  Jason, speaking in an undertone, said: ‘King Lycus, this same Hercules was our shipmate for the first part of our voyage, but we lost him by ill luck a few days ago. When we went ashore by the outfall of the river Cios, his adopted son Hylas took the opportunity to run off from him, the ungrateful little wretch, with a jingling wallet at his side; he hoped as we suppose, to reach Troy by the inland track from the Ascanian Lake and thence take ship to Lemnos, where he has a sweetheart named Iphinoë. Hercules did not notice the loss of Hylas for some hours, but then rushed off in a passion of grief to search for him. We followed along the road to Troy for some miles, but he would not heed our shouts and soon outdistanced us; so reluctantly we returned. Calaïs and Zetes yonder, and Tiphys our helmsman, suggested that we should continue our voyage, but how could we desert a comrade? King Admetus of Pherae stressed this point with a warmth that I much admired, and so did Acastus, son of Pelias, and Peleus the Myrmidon. However, the majority were against us, and in the end we had to yield to them. We heaved up our anchor-stones and sailed on, sick at heart. Yet I do not wish to blame either Tiphys or Calaïs or Zetes for this decision. I believe that some god must have made them his mouthpiece.’

  Lycus sympathized with Jason: the commander of an expedition, he said, must often make decisions distasteful to him.

  Jason confided to Lycus the true reason for the Argo’s appearance in the Black Sea, and Lycus applauded his daring and piety. He offered to lend Jason the services of his son Dascylus, who would sail in the ship as far as the river Thermodon, half-way to Colchis, and introduce him, if need be, to all the chieftains and kings of the coast.

  Jason accepted this offer with pleasure, and the Argo would have sailed the next morning with a fair wind from the west, but for a cruel accident. Idmon, Peleus, and Idas strolled out together by the raised banks of the river Lycus, hoping to walk off the surfeits of their banquet, and Idmon began telling them of an ominous dream that had come to him in the night, of two snakes coupling, which is the unluckiest dream of all. Idas, who set no store by dreams, was mocking at Idmon, when there came a sudden stir among the reeds, and a huge wild boar, which had been wallowing in the mud, charged out upon them. Idas and Peleus sprang aside, but Idmon stood still, unable to move. The boar with its curved white tusks drove at his right thigh, above the scarlet buskin that he wore, and ripped it open. Blood spurted from the wound, and Idmon fell forward with a cry. Peleus hurled a javelin at the boar as it ran back towards the reeds, but with no truer aim than when he had been confronted with the great boar of Calydon. He shouted with vexation, and the boar turned again. This time it charged at Idas, who received it on the point of his spear, aiming between neck and shoulder, and killed it instantly. Idas had often vexed Peleus by his boasts; but the truth was, his spearmanship was unequalled in Greece and has never been excelled to this day. They left the boar lying and hastened to Idmon’s side, but could not stop the flow of blood. Mopsus came running up with his vulneraries, which were the juice of mistletoe; a decoction of golden-rod, wound-wort, and yarrow; and clean turpentine. But he came too late. Idmon grew deathly pale and died speechless in the arms of Idas. It was clear that the boar, which had never been seen before in this valley, was no ordinary one; and the Argonauts concluded that it was animated by the ghost of the dead Dolionian, Megabrontes, whom Idmon by mistake had omitted to appease. For the badge of Megabrontes had been the Boar.

  King Lycus himself took part in the funeral rites, which lasted for three days. The Argonauts comforted one another with the reminder that Idmon was an initiate of the Great Ones, and would become a ruler among the dead. Flocks of sheep were slaughtered at his tomb and the Mariandynians raised a lofty barrow over him; and on the barrow they planted a wild-olive tree, the leaves of which same ancient tree, laid beneath a pillow, still ensure true dreams.

  The Argonauts were again about to sail when they lost another of their comrades, Tiphys the helmsman, who died of a wasting disease, just as his grandfather and father had died before him. A curse had lain on the family ever since the grandfather of Tiphys had accidentally cut down a sacred oak; an Oracle decreed that no male of the family should live longer than the oak had lived, which was forty-nine years. Mopsus administered to dying Tiphys a spoonful of broth made from the heart of a shrew-mouse and the liver of a field-mouse; but even this could not save him, though he rallied wonderfully for a few hours.

  Again they mourned and lamented for three days. They raised a second barrow of equal height with the first and began to say to one another: ‘The entrance to the Underworld is not far away. Who dies next? Who is the third?’ For it was known that such deaths always go by threes. But Great Ancaeus found a rat aboard the Argo, nibbling at the stores, and killed it with a stone, and cried out: ‘Comrades, let us mourn for the third Argonaut who has died!’ This restored them to cheerfulness. But a contention arose, some saying that Nauplius should be helmsman in the place of Tiphys, and some urging the claims of Iphitus, who had for some years been master of a trading vessel; but Jason awarded the post to Great Ancaeus, and this satisfied nearly everyone.

  On the eighth day they continued their voyage with a westerly breeze. A recent north-easterly gale had made the sea choppy. They coasted past the mouths of two more rivers, the dark Billaeos, where the beaches are black with coals, washed from the Coaly Headland; and the Parthenios, or river of garlands, so called because of the many flowery meadows through which it flows. Then coming to Henete, famous for boxwood, for wild mules that reproduce their kind, and for the Henetian tree-alphabet, older than the Cadmean, they anchored to leeward of a double peninsula jutting into the sea, and close to an islet with bold yellow shores. But the Henetians fled when they saw the Argo approach, and had not reappeared when she sailed on at dawn the next morning.

  Next, they passed by a broken and forbidding coast and came to Cape Carambis, a lofty promontory bordered with red cliffs, where Dascylus told them to expect a change of wind; however, it continued westerly. They sailed on all night until by next morning they found themselves halfway to Sinope, sliding past a bluff coast with barren rocks, the land of the Paphlagonians; and since the wind showed no sign of slackening they sailed on all day. At nightfall they anchored in the lee of a reef of rocks, some of which showed above water, a few miles short of Lepte, the great promontory which div
ides the southern coast of the Black Sea into two shallow gulfs. In three days and two nights they had travelled some two hundred and fifty miles, not relying on the wind and the current alone, but also hurrying the Argo along with their oars, to make up for the lost time, in two long spells each day.

  On the day that they anchored by this reef, Hercules, journeying towards Colchis on foot, came to the territory of the Mariandynians. King Lycus greeted him with joy, but said: ‘Alas, dear Benefactor, if only you had come a day or two earlier, you would have caught up with your comrades the Argonauts, who have been bitterly lamenting your loss – or at least Jason, their captain, has been. I understand from him that when you became separated from them, in the neighbourhood of Ascania, two Thracians, Calaïs and Zetes, and Tiphys the helmsman, dissuaded them from waiting for you.’

  ‘Indeed!’ said Hercules. ‘I will remember that against them.’

  ‘Tiphys is since dead of a wasting fever,’ added Lycus.

  ‘No matter,’ said Hercules, ‘the two Thracians remain for my vengeance.’

  ‘I will provide you with a war-galley to go in pursuit of them, dear Benefactor,’ cried Lycus, ‘but first let us be merry and relive old times together in memory.’

  ‘I am so hungry that I could eat an ox,’ Hercules roared.