‘This must be accepted as an order from myself,’ said Jason severely, stirring from his trance.
All the next day they rowed up the river, through the same living-dead forest, and saw not a single human being, but only waterfowl, birds of prey, and a flock of ibis – the filthy Egyptian wading-bird that feeds on snakes and uses its own beak as a clyster-pipe. That evening when they anchored, worn out with the sultry heat, Orpheus delighted them with a song that he had made, incorporating some of the sayings of the previous night, but always with a new turn of his own. This song, beginning
Grant me at last a safe return
To Sparta’s cool and grassy glens –
is still sung in the chimney-corners of Greece, and by oarsmen at their benches in foreign waters. In the next verses it is ‘Athens, crowned with violets’, and ‘Thisbe, of the cooing doves’, and ‘Sandy Pylos, nurse to ships’ that are remembered, with numerous other beloved places situated in every region where the Greek language is spoken. These memories are contrasted with the odious sights and sounds of the river Phasis, and each verse ends with the refrain:
Mother of Destiny, forgive me still
If I transgress your holy use and will.
Early on the third day of their voyage up the river, the forest thinned and a strong tributary, the Suros, came whirling down between the mountains from the north. At the junction of the streams stood a fair-sized settlement of wattled huts thatched with branches and daubed with mud. Here the Argonauts saw for the first time Colchian peasants with their skinny legs and woolly hair. They were dressed in short, white linen smocks and wore red flowers behind their ears. Argeus, son of Phrixus, said: ‘These are a merry and indolent folk, yet think continually of death. Phasis is their Nile and, like their cousins the Egyptians, they venerate the ibis and circumcise their foreskins.’
Herds of buffaloes wallowed in the wet meadows, and on the head of each a small bird was perched, pecking at the swarmed vermin. ‘Those buffalo-birds are venerated too,’ said Argeus. Towards noon the riverbanks grew firmer and the current stronger; but a strong south-westerly wind blew them along without need of oars. More settlements appeared, each with a quay and a row of dug-out canoes moored alongside. They saw horses and cows again and blossoming fields of blue flax, and fields of millet, nearly ripe for the sickle; and women washing by the water-side and naked little children playing at knucklebones, so intent on their game that they did not look up as the ship sailed past. The women painted the edge of their eyelids, in the Egyptian fashion. Here and there were stinking tree-cemeteries: willow-trees hung with shapeless bundles, at some of which the vultures and gryphons were tearing. The Argonauts stuffed their nostrils with leaves of pungent scent as they passed.
The sons of Phrixus called out greetings at each settlement, and since the Argo was disguised again with her Colchian figure-head it was supposed that they were returning from the voyage that they had undertaken a few days before, the omens not having been favourable. The Argonauts wondered at the greenness of the plain, which Orpheus pronounced to be far better watered than the valley of the Nile, and of a better climate. Here three crops a year are often taken from the same field, and the vine yields fruit in its second year and requires no digging about its roots or any pruning except once every four years. But the sons of Phrixus warned the Argonauts to beware snakes – for the richer the country, the more poisonous its denizens – and tarantulas, a sort of spider whose bite causes one man to die weeping over the supposed loss of his kinsmen, and another laughing at a joke of his own that nobody else can understand.
‘Idas needs no tarantula’s bite to make him die laughing at that sort of joke,’ Castor bitterly interposed; and this saying had in it something prophetic.
That night the ship was moored to an islet in mid-stream, where they disembarked and lit a camp-fire, knowing that only a few miles lay between them and their goal, the high-walled city of Aea, which stands ringed with mountains, at the confluence of the two great rivers, the Glaucos and the Phasis. They feasted on a buffalo-ox which they caught as it came down to the river to drink; the sons of Phrixus judged that it was a stray beast and therefore legitimate prey. They had not eaten roast meat for some days, and though tough as leather it gave them good heart. Meleager and Atalanta sat together hand in hand, like bride and bridegroom at a marriage-feast, for the fear of death was fuel to their passion and made them reckless.
Jason spoke at last: ‘Our trust is in the Gods, but they will not help us unless we help ourselves. Sharpen your weapons, comrades, on my excellent Seriphan whetstone, and strengthen your hearts with faith in the Immortals. Hard trials lie ahead of us.’
Idas made some foolish rejoinder, and a silence followed that at last became unbearable. Nobody had anything to say worth the saying, and so long a silence could only be decently broken by words of the profoundest wisdom. Each man looked at his neighbours, but only blank faces stared back. At last came the creaking voice of Ascalaphus: ‘Comrades, listen to me! Though we may make the points of our weapons as sharp as needles and the edges as sharp as razors, there is only one man who can haul us out of this mire, the very man who, like the lanterned Marsh Spite, has led us into it – Jason, son of Aeson. Hercules himself chose him as our captain, and obeyed him faithfully so long as he remained with us. Now why was this? Jason is a skilled archer, but not the equal of Phalerus or Atalanta; he throws the javelin well, but not so well as Atalanta or Meleager or even myself; he can use a spear, but not with the art or courage of Idas; he is ignorant of music, except that of drum and pipe; he cannot swim; he cannot box; he had learned to pull well at an oar, but is no seaman; he is no painter; he is no wizard; his sight is not keen above the ordinary; in eloquence he is below any man here, except Idas, and perhaps myself; he is hasty-tempered, faithless, sulky, and young. Yet Hercules chose him as our captain and obeyed him. I ask again: why was this? Comrades, it was because he possessed a certain power that we others lack; and the noble Centaur told us plainly, by the mouth of Hercules, how that power is manifested.’
Then they all recalled what had been said of Jason’s gift of making women fall in love with him; indeed, they had seen it exercised in Lemnos upon Queen Hypsipyle, who was ready to give up her whole kingdom to him after an acquaintance of only two days. At this point Atalanta was inspired by some deity: she called for silence while she recited a ballad, which she composed as she went, accompanying herself prettily on the lyre of Orpheus. The words themselves are forgotten but their substance is as follows:
‘I, Atalanta, dreamed that I stood in a doorway of the Divine House on Mount Olympus and, as I stood there, I saw the Goddess Athena crossing the court with a white owl perched upon her shoulder. She was visiting the apartments occupied by the Goddess Hera, she who was once the Sovereign of All Things but has since humbled herself to be the wife of Father Zeus. I followed the bright Goddess into Hera’s apartment, where Hera, with large brown eyes like a cow’s, reclined brooding on a couch.
‘“What news, Athena?” asked Hera.
‘Athena replied: “The East Wind brings me a report from Colchis. The Argo is moored to an island in the broad Phasis, not far from the city of
Aea, and the crew are holding a council of war.”
‘“I hope,” said Hera, “that they do not contemplate an assault on Aea? That would be disastrous for my plans. What are thirty-six men and one woman against five thousand?”
‘Athena replied: “They have sharpened their weapons, passing a Seriphan whetstone from hand to hand; but the East Wind tells me that they are also considering stratagems. They propose to deceive Aeëtes with fair words before they make an attempt upon the Fleece.”
‘“I care nothing for the Fleece,” said Hera. “My sole desire is that the bones of Phrixus shall be decently interred.”
‘Athena answered: “Let me bargain with you, Majesty. If you help Jason to win the Fleece, I undertake to attend to the matter of Phrixus.”
‘They clasped hand
s on that bargain. Then Hera struck on a silver bell for Iris her messenger, and when Iris appeared, riding on a rainbow, she said: “Child, summon Aphrodite the Goddess of Love to me instantly.”
‘Presently Iris returned with Aphrodite, whom she had found seated at her inlaid dressing-table, combing her yellow ringlets; and still she combed them as she entered Hera’s apartment.
‘“What can I do for you, Majesty?” asked lovely Aphrodite.
‘Hera answered: “There is a ship called the Argo moored in the Phasis river under the shadow of the Caucasus. I cannot now tell you the whole tangled story of how she comes to be there. To be brief: unless her captain, Jason the Minyan (nephew to one Pelias of Iolcos who has grossly insulted me), can win the affections of the Princess Medea of Colchis, I will be disappointed of the service that he has undertaken to perform for me, and Athena will be disappointed of her dutiful ambition to recover a lost fleece, the property of her father Zeus. You must help us.”
‘Aphrodite threw up her hands in a gesture of dismay. “Dear Goddesses, I would do anything in the world to serve either of you,” she said, “but you surely know that making people fall in love with one another is not my province at all, but that of my naughty son, Eros the Love Spite, over whom I have no control at all. The last time that I tried to make him behave himself properly, and threatened to burn his bow and arrows if he did not, he aimed an arrow at me, his own mother – would you believe it? – and involved me in that shameful scandal with Ares. My poor husband Hephaestus has never forgiven me for it.”
‘Hera and Athena had difficulty in restraining their laughter when they remembered how foolishly embarrassed Aphrodite and Ares had looked when Hephaestus had caught them in bed together and netted them over with a bronze net.
‘“It was not even as though I had ever liked Ares,” said Aphrodite, nearly weeping. “He is not at all the sort of god in whose company I could have wished to be found. Now, if only it had been Apollo…! But Ares has disgusting Thracian manners, and no talents, and thinks of nothing but war and bloodshed. He is not even handsome. But I could not help myself. It must have been his long mane of hair and his tattooed face.”
‘Hera said: “Come, my dear, we none of us thought any the worse of you for your adventure. But do your best with your son, I implore you. Bribe him, if you can do nothing else. Promise him what you like – I know – promise him some of the toys with which Zeus used to play long ago in the Dictean Cave of Crete when he was my chubby, spoilt baby. I have preserved them out of foolish sentiment, for he was an affectionate little child, indeed he was, though nobody would believe it now.”
‘Hera gave Aphrodite the key of her cedar-wood chest and Aphrodite opened it. There she found a wonderful collection of toys – clay men on horseback, little bronze bulls and bronze chariots, big-bottomed female dolls carved in soap-stone, painted wooden ships complete with sails and oars, and some rather improper objects which, as a woman, I hesitate to describe in the hearing of men. Best of all, there was a beautiful ball, perfectly round, of bull’s leather stitched over with thin sheet-gold the stitches hidden in a spiral of dark blue enamel made with crushed lapis lazuli; Zeus had been very careful of this toy and the gold was nowhere dinted.
‘So Aphrodite took up the ball and went out into the glens of Olympus, tossing it, as she went, from one hand to the other. I followed her, keeping at a safe distance, for Atalanta fears the Love Spite as much as any woman. There under a blossoming almond-tree Eros was playing at dice with the Father’s cup-bearer, the boy Ganymede, rolling them down a grassy slope. Eros stood grinning to himself and pressing to his left breast a dozen or more of the golden dice, which he could not otherwise hold in his hand without spilling. The wretched Ganymede was squatting down with a miserable look on his face, shooting off his last pair of dice. The Dog turned up, which is the lowest score in Olympus as it is among us mortals, and Eros greedily scooped up those dice too. The shadow of his mother fell across the grass and he slewed suddenly around with a guilty look, protesting: “No, no, Mother, it is quite fair play; they are not loaded this time, I promise. Whatever you say, I shall never give them back to Ganymede. I won them in fair play, I swear by the Styx.”
‘Aphrodite looked severely at Eros, caught him by the right hand and led him off. I followed and heard her say: “Dear little Eros, my darling son, I have a most wonderful plaything for you. If you throw it through the air it shines like the sun and leaves a track like a shooting-star. Hephaestus himself could never have made anything so beautiful. It comes from the land of China, where all the men and women have yellow faces.” Then she showed him the ball.
‘“Oh! Oh! Oh! Give it to me at once, Mother,” he cried. “Ganymede will be jealous, I want to make him jealous.”
‘“No, child, you must earn it first,” said she. Then she told Eros how to find the city of Aea in Colchis, and how to recognize Medea, and what to do when he saw her. He smiled, winked, and placed the golden dice in her lap, counting them carefully first, for he feared that she might return one or two of them to Ganymede; then he spread his wings which resemble those of the hawk-moth, and flew off with the West Wind, his bow in his right hand and his quiver at his left thigh. For, truly, it was the handsomest ball that ever a child saw. Now Eros is hiding behind a pillar in the portico of the royal mansion of Aeëtes; he is pointing his sharpest arrow at Medea, and impatiently awaits the arrival of Jason.’
As Atalanta laid down her lyre, a burst of applause drowned the indignant voice of Ascalaphus, whom she had offended by her reflections on the manners of his divine father, Ares. The applause rang on and on, and Jason blushed red to the neck.
‘For my part,’ Atalanta whispered in the ear of Meleager, ‘I cannot bear the sight of Aeson’s son but I know by the very strength of my dislike that he must exercise a strong fascination upon others of my sex.’
As soon as he could make himself heard, Phrontis, son of Phrixus, spoke. ‘Medea is famous for her beauty; but she has never yet fallen in love with anyone, so far as I know.’
‘No,’ his brother Melanion said, ‘she never has fallen in love; I am sure of that. Once I spoke with her at length about Greece. She told me that she had never felt herself at home among the dark-skinned Colchians, and also that she hated her mother’s savage race. But she hoped that perhaps one day she might visit Greece, which she believed to be a very beautiful and progressive country.’
Cytissorus, the third brother, chimed in: ‘She is a strange woman, in whose presence it is difficult to keep one’s equanimity: sometimes she behaves like a sweet-tempered child, sometimes like the terrible Mother herself when she dances in ecstasy on her heap of skulls. Our sister Neaera adores Medea, who told her not long ago that no woman of good sense or dignity ever allows herself to be overcome by love of a man, and that men are the inferior sex. This has greatly unsettled Neaera’s mind, for she is in love with one of the Taurian priests and does not wish Medea to think ill of her. Yet I cannot complain that Medea has ever treated me badly. She was most gracious to me just before we sailed for Greece and gave me a bag of rare medicines, which unfortunately went down with our ship. She begged me to act prudently at Corinthian Ephyra when I enquired about her father’s inheritance there: I was to say nothing at all that would offend the religious feelings of the inhabitants. She told me, by the way, that if anything were to happen to her father, she would willingly resign her share in the Colchian inheritance to her brother Apsyrtus, but only on condition that he gave up his share in the Corinthian inheritance; and that Apsyrtus and she had indeed concluded a private treaty in this sense.’
Here the fourth brother, Argeus, took on the tale. ‘It seems that our grandfather Aeëtes left Greece under a cloud at about the same time as his sister Circe also sailed away, and put his Corinthian lands under the stewardship of one Bunus, an Ionian, and his people under the regency of his nephew Sisyphus of Asopia. Then came the Achaean invasion; Bunus was killed in battle at the gate of Ephyra, and Sisyphus d
ied in slavery, and now (so we hear) the Achaeans claim the whole kingdom of Corinth as their own. Creon rules in Asopia, and a governor of Ephyra appointed by King Sthenelus of Mycenae styles himself Corinthus to establish a sort of hereditary title to it. Yet, notwithstanding, Medea has hopes of recovering her father’s inheritance; I understand that it has been promised her by the Mother in a dream. Now that Apsyrtus has resigned his claim, she stands the nearest in succession – nearer than us as being the child of Aeëtes, whereas we are only his grandchildren – except for her aunt Circe, who can never return to Ephyra because the Oracle of Asopus sentenced her long ago to perpetual banishment for some nameless crime.’
Jason asked: ‘Why is Medea not already married? Has she never had suitors? Does her dislike of men perhaps conceal some incapacity or deformity?’
Argeus answered: ‘Many powerful chieftains of Colchis have wished to marry her, not for her beauty and wealth only, but for the peculiar favours that the Bird-headed Mother has shown her. But she has persuaded her father that any such alliance would breed jealousy among the rejected suitors, and that, if she marries, she must marry a foreigner. I do not believe that she is either deformed or incapable of passion; but she has often told Neaera that virginity endows a woman with extraordinary powers in witchcraft and medicine. Wild beasts or serpents have no power to hurt a virgin and she can safely pluck leaves and dig roots that it is death for men or their wives to touch.’
The Golden Fleece Page 32