The Golden Fleece

by Robert Graves

  So the Argonauts sailed on, and when they came to the isle of Ares they found it black with little birds, such as larks, wagtails, corncrakes, redstarts, rollers, and even kingfishers in flocks; and these rose in a great cloud as the Argo sailed by, but were driven away with the same din as before.

  Mopsus stretched out his palms in prayer to Apollo, crying: ‘Innumerable perils and innumerable blessings, clouds of whirring doubt. My eye blurs. Darling of Delos, smile upon us, shaking your unshorn locks, and let the good prevail!’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Fat Mosynoechians and Others

  As they sailed past Cape Zephyros that evening, Autolycus cried to his comrades: ‘Yonder stretches the territory of the Mosynoechians, and I fear that you will not believe me when I tell you what sort of people they are, for I read incredulity in your eyes as I was describing to you the customs of the Tibarenians. I shall therefore say nothing at all and leave you to base your judgements upon your experiences of this singular folk.’

  Soon after Autolycus had said this, they found a beach protected from westerly winds, anchored, disembarked, lighted a fire of driftwood and dined, after having first posted a strong watch. But Autolycus assured them: ‘You have nothing to fear from the Mosynoechians, who, when they see our fire, will retire to their wooden castles and remain there all night. In the morning curiosity will tempt them down to us with gifts. It is dangerous to travel through their country, for they dig frequent pitfalls for wild beasts along the forest paths, and if a traveller unluckily falls into one, they consider him fair game and kill him without pity. But they are not dangerous when armed men encounter them in the open.’

  The night passed without alarms and, as soon as the sun began to warm the beaches, down came two Mosynoechians to visit them, just as Autolycus had foretold. Their appearance was so droll that the Argonauts burst into a roar of uncontrolled laughter. The Mosynoechians, a man and a boy, were heartened by this evident sign of welcome and began to laugh themselves. The man capered about, the boy clapped his hands. The man carried a shield in the form of an ivy leaf made from the hide of a white ox, a spear of prodigious length with a small spike at the top and a rounded butt, and a basket filled with nuts, fruits, and other dainties. He wore a short white tunic and his face was painted with alternate stripes of yellow and blue dye. On his head was an uncrested leather helmet tied about with the tail of a white ox. He was grossly fat.

  The boy was naked and fatter still, prodigiously fat, and could only walk with great difficulty, the sweat pouring from his brow as he did so. His pasty face and dead-white skin suggested that he had been kept in a dark room for weeks on end and fed like a stalled ox, as indeed proved upon enquiry to have been the case. His bulging thighs were gracefully tattooed with flowers and leaves. The man, who was a chieftain, led the boy towards the camp-fire and presented both him and the basket of dainties to Jason with a generous gesture, holding out his hand for some gift in return. Then the Argonauts laughed louder still, for they observed that the boy’s plump buttocks were dyed, the one yellow, the other blue, with a staring eye painted upon each in white and black.

  Jason was confused. He did not know what to say or do. However, Autolycus, who could speak a few words of the Mosynoechian language, came forward and on Jason’s behalf thanked the chieftain for his gift, declaring that the boy was admirably fat.

  ‘And so he should be,’ cried the chieftain, ‘considering how many measures of boiled chestnuts we cram him with, day after day and night after night.’

  Jason asked the chieftain, speaking through Autolycus, what gift would content him in return.

  The chieftain answered that he would be content with the woman that the Argonauts had brought with them; though she was not in the first flower of youth and seemed half-starved by her long voyage from Egypt – he said Egypt – he warranted that he would plump her up in a few weeks’ time until she resembled a ripe gourd. Meanwhile, to show that he did not despise her for her lean condition, he would company with her before their eyes as a signal compliment.

  Autolycus shook his head at this shameless suggestion, but the chieftain with a flourish of his spear, insisted that he must interpret it to Jason. Autolycus did so. His words excited such immoderate laughter that the chieftain innocently concluded that the Argonauts were delighted to be rid of a scraggy woman and acquire a plump boy in exchange. He minced forward towards Atalanta in the first tripping steps of a lecherous dance and tossed off his helmet and tunic.

  Atalanta made a Gorgon face at him, but it did not discourage him in the least. When he began unknotting his loin-cloth, she turned and ran. He pursued her, whooping, but Meleager came behind and tripped him up, so that he fell flat on a heap of sharp stones. He raised a yell, and the fat boy screamed like a woman in travail. At this the watching Mosynoechians came running down from their nearest wooden castle, armed with javelins and the same cumbrous spears and white ivy-leaf shields as their chieftain carried. Phalerus, Jason, Admetus, and Acastus, with bows and arrows, stood fast to cover the retreat of their comrades, who quickly launched the ship. But when the savages found that no hurt had been done to their chieftain, and that the fat boy had not been carried off, they did not attack the rear-guard, who climbed safely aboard without wasting their arrows.

  Jason still had with him the gift-basket of dainties, which consisted of a flat, soft cake made of spelt; grapes, apples, pears, and chestnuts; some stinking mackerel roes and flounder tails; and a piece of honeycomb. He distributed the cake and fruit among his comrades and threw the fish overboard. But the honeycomb he reserved for Butes. ‘I should be glad to hear your opinion of this honey, most noble Butes,’ said he. But before Butes could come down the gangway to him, Autolycus and his brother Phlogius had snatched the comb from Jason’s hand and flung it into the sea after the stinking fish.

  Butes was enraged. ‘What, do you rob me of my gift, you pair of Thessalian pirates?’ he cried. ‘Jason offered me the comb because I know more about honeys than any man in Greece and he wished to have my opinion upon it.’

  Autolycus answered: ‘That may be, you buzz-brained Athenian. But we are no longer in Greece, as King Amycus reminded us while we were still navigating the Sea of Marmora. My brother Phlogius and I threw away the honeycomb because it was poisonous, and because as loyal Argonauts we valued your life.’

  Butes abated his anger. He exclaimed in surprise: ‘Hornets and wasps! Did that painted savage indeed wish to poison me? Do I owe my life to your vigilance? Did he perhaps sprinkle the comb with the juice of the deadly aconite which I saw growing in the fields of the Mariandynians?’

  ‘No,’ said Autolycus, ‘he had no need to do so. The honey here is naturally poisonous, being sucked from a plant named goats’-bane. A little of it will craze any man who is not habituated to its use and make him fall senseless to the ground.’

  ‘That is a mere fable and I believe no word of it,’ said Butes, growing angry again. ‘Bees are sage, sober creatures, far sager and soberer than men, and would never think of storing up poisonous honey in their combs, or manufacturing poisonous bee-bread. Who ever saw an intoxicated bee? Answer me that!’

  ‘Name me liar, if you please,’ said Autolycus, ‘but at least refrain from sampling any honey of this coast. That of the Moschians, who are tributaries of King Aeëtes of Colchis, is equally poisonous. The bees cull it not from goats’-bane but from a beautiful red flower, the Pontic azalea, which grows on northern slopes of the high mountains of Armenia.’

  ‘I will not name you liar, for you are my trusty comrade, but I declare you to be utterly mistaken,’ said Butes. ‘Bees never visit red flowers and though honey is often employed by criminals, especially female criminals, as a ready means of disguising the poison that they use against their enemies, no pure honey ever harmed a fly even, from whatever flower it was culled. I declare that whoever believes the contrary is a credulous ignoramus.’

  Here Orpheus struck up a pleasing melody, Autolycus shrugged
his shoulders, and the quarrel ended.

  Soon the Argo passed by the ravine from which emerges the river Charistotes, and the Argonauts saw a number of three-seated canoes hollowed from tree trunks, being paddled hastily upstream. The occupants were wearing head-dresses of vulture quills. ‘The Trojan slave-traders often make sudden descents on this coast,’ explained Autolycus. ‘They use the men whom they capture as labourers in the stone quarries.’

  That day they sailed as far as the Sacred Cape, where the territory of the Mosynoechians ends and that of the Amazons begins. This cape, which is sacred to the Goddess of the Underworld, could be seen by them all, not by Lynceus only, at a distance of sixty miles. A conical hill rises at the extremity, with reddish cliffs about it. But they did not attempt to land, and sailed on all night; because everyone whom they had met had warned them to steer clear of the Amazons.

  The Amazons worship the Triple Goddess, and the men of the tribe to which they formerly belonged (but the very name of which has now perished) were of much the same habits as the Centaurs, Aethics, Satyrs or other Pelasgians. But when these men began to speak excitedly of fatherhood – having first heard the word from some Armenian or Assyrian traveller – and exalted Father Zeus at the expense of the Goddess, the women consulted together (much as the women of Lemnos had done) and decided to retain their power, by force if necessary. In a single night they disarmed and killed all their men-folk, or as many as were adult, and offered their severed genitals as a peace-offering to the Mother. Then they conscientiously trained themselves in the arts of war. Their chosen weapons were the short battle-axe and the bow, and they fought from horseback, having a fine tall breed of horses in their plains. They seared away their right breasts to allow themselves to draw the bowstring to the full extent without hindrance; which gave them their name of Amazons, the Breastless Ones. They did not kill the male children, as the Lemnian women had done, but broke their legs and arms instead, to incapacitate them for war, and afterwards taught them how to weave and spin and be useful about the house.

  However, they had the same natural longing for the act of love as the women of Lemnos, and scorned to bed with their broken-limbed slaves. So they made war upon the neighbouring tribes and took lovers from the bravest of their captives, afterwards putting them to death without remorse. This policy compelled them gradually to enlarge their kingdom in all directions, further than otherwise suited them: they were not a numerous people and their fertile plain about the river Thermodon was sufficient for their needs. However, they came before long to an understanding with the Macronians, a fierce and handsome tribe who lived in the high hills of the interior. Each spring the young men of the Macronians met with the young women of the Amazons in a frontier valley, and there they companied together; and of the children born of this intercourse, the Amazons kept the girls and handed over the boys to the Macronians.

  Such, at least, was the account given by Autolycus, and it confirmed that of Hercules. Hercules had won Queen Hippolyte’s girdle without fighting, for she fell in love with him when he came with the Macronians, his friends, to the annual love-making; and he had it from her as a free gift. It was by mere accident that he fell into conflict with her bodyguard, of whom he killed five or six with his arrows: the Macronians were jealous of his success with the Amazons, and had spread the lying report that his secret intention was to kidnap Hippolyte and carry her off as a slave.

  The Argonauts sailed on all night, and at noon of the next day, alarmed by the strange aspect of the sky, drew their ship high up on a beach, under the lee of Cape Rhizos, about ninety miles eastward of the Sacred Cape. Cape Rhizos lies in the territory of a tribe named the Bechirians. The hills inland are extremely lofty.

  Jason jestingly asked Autolycus: ‘What sort of people are these Bechirians? Are they dog-faced? Have they heads growing under their arm-pits? Do they eat sand and drink sea-water? Or what is their peculiarity?’

  ‘The Bechirians,’ answered Autolycus, ‘have these peculiarities: They speak the truth, are monogamous and faithful to their wives, do not make war on their neighbours and, being wholly ignorant of the existence of any gods or goddesses, spend their lives without fear of retribution for their sins. They believe that when a man dies, he dies utterly, and therefore are unafraid of ghosts. Their land is also free of the fevers which plague their neighbours, and as fertile as one might wish. I have often considered settling among them; only that, when I came to die, my bones would remain unburied, which would be a terrible thing for a Greek as religious-minded as myself.’

  From where they had now landed it was only a two-days’ sail with a fair wind to the Colchian seaport of Phasis, at the mouth of the Phasis river. In the distance, both to the north and east across the waters, spread an irregular streak of white – the distant snow-capped mountains of the Caucasus.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Argo Reaches Colchis

  That afternoon a violent north wind sprang up and waves of extraordinary size came hissing up the beach. As the Argonauts gazed out to sea they saw a large vessel, headed east, about a mile off-shore. This was the first ship that they had sighted since quitting the land of the Mariandynians. She was built on Corinthian lines.

  Lynceus screwed up his eyes and reported: ‘The oarsmen seem from their kinky hair and linen dresses to be Colchians, but some of the passengers, who are bailing out water with helmets and dishes, have a strangely Greek aspect. The ship has sprung a leak, to for’ard I think, and the after-bulwark has been washed away. The oarsmen are exhausted but the master is taking a lash to their backs and forcing them to row on.’

  Some of the Argonauts ran up the beach to a little hill, hoping for a clearer view. The Colchian ship was attempting to round the promontory of Rhizos and take refuge in the bay on the other side, which has a long and hospitable beach.

  Pollux said with a sigh: ‘Alas, poor souls, they will never make it!’

  ‘They will make it comfortably,’ cried Idas. ‘They are pulling like wild horses.’

  ‘You must not forget the sunken reef past which I steered you,’ said Great Ancaeus. ‘The trough of every wave will expose it; and there is a rock, awash, about a bowshot off-shore, just beyond the point that they have now reached.’

  Ancaeus had hardly finished speaking when a huge wave lifted the ship up and tossed her over its back upon the very rock of which he had made mention. She broke into pieces at once, and down the wind came the shriek of drowning men.

  ‘I was wrong for once,’ cried Idas, grinning. ‘There they go!’

  Lynceus reported: ‘The four Greeks are clinging to the mast. One is wounded. With their feet they are fending off two Colchian sailors who have caught hold of the sheets and are trying to pull themselves to safety. There! Look there! That Greek had a knife between his teeth and has cut away the sheets. Now they have a chance of struggling ashore with the mast.’

  Euphemus the swimmer was already running towards the point where the ship had struck. He ran swiftly. When he came to the water’s edge he plunged in and swam under the waves like an otter or seal until he reappeared close to the four men who clung to the mast. One of them was bleeding from a deep gash on the head and his comrades were supporting him with difficulty. ‘Leave him to me,’ cried Euphemus, swimming close and performing tricks in the water to show his mastery of it.

  ‘Take him, in the Mother’s name!’ answered one of them.

  Euphemus, swimming on his back, soon brought the wounded man ashore, at a point half a mile away from the wreck. The others, kicking their feet in unison, steered their mast towards the same place of safety. But they would not have been able to scramble ashore but for the help that Euphemus gave them: he plunged in again and hauled them to safety one by one. When they were all ashore at last they embraced him in the most tender manner imaginable, declaring in barbarous Greek that he had earned their undying gratitude.

  ‘You seem to be a sort of Greeks,’ said Euphemus.

  ‘We are Greeks,�
�� one of them answered, ‘though we have never visited our native land. We are of Minyan blood, which we understand to be of the noblest that Greece can boast.’

  ‘Come before our captain, whose name is Jason, son of Aeson, and tell him your story,’ said Euphemus. ‘He is a Minyan himself, and so are several of our company.’

  Jason welcomed the shipwrecked men, inviting them to dry themselves at the camp-fire. He gave them clothes to wear and warm wine to drink. Mopsus bound up the head of the wounded man with linen bandages, after first dressing it with a vulnerary salve. It was only when his guests were somewhat restored and rested that Jason asked them politely: ‘Strangers, who are you? And where, may I ask, were you bound in your ship before this tremendous storm broke her in pieces?’

  Their leader replied: ‘I do not know whether you have ever heard tell of an Aeolian Greek named Phrixus, who fled from Thessaly, some thirty years ago, because his father, King Athamas, intended to sacrifice him? Well, he came safe to Colchis, and took refuge at the Court of King Aeëtes, an Ephyran, who had been settled there for some years; he married the King’s daughter, the Princess Chalciope. We are the four sons of that marriage, but our father, Phrixus, died two years ago and we are not on the best of terms with our grandfather, who is a severe old man. Recently we decided to visit Greece, because our father had told us that a valuable inheritance was waiting to be claimed by us at Orchomenos, namely the Boeotian lands of his father, Athamas. When we petitioned King Aeëtes for permission to sail, he consented grudgingly, and on condition that we should first visit Ephyra to discover what had become of his lands there and register a formal claim to them on his behalf. We agreed to the condition, but had only been at sea for two days when, as you yourself saw, we lost our ship and all our belongings. But for your noble comrade here we should have lost our lives too, likely enough, for he dragged us through the surf when we were exhausted. Our names are Argeus (the one yonder with the gashed head), Melanion (the dark one tending him, who takes after his Colchian grandmother), Cytissorus here (our all-in wrestler), and Phrontis – I am Phrontis, the eldest of the four. We are wholly at your service.’