He was not wearing his dark blue cloak decorated with the history of the Fleece, for that would have been imprudent; but a white cloak embroidered by Queen Hypsipyle of Lemnos with all manner of flowers and fruits, her principal love-gift to him. On his head was a broad-brimmed golden helmet, given him by King Lycus of the Mariandynians, which was adorned with a crest of black horse-hair, and in his hand was the same be-ribboned spear that had transfixed King Cyzicus. Never in all her life had Medea seen a fair-haired man, for her father was already bald and white-bearded when he married her mother and, since she was herself fair-haired, her heart suddenly warmed to him as a creature of her own kind, the natural he to her she. It was as though behind the pear-tree, already in young fruit, lurked the Love Spite celebrated in Atalanta’s ballad: he, Eros, pressed the notch of a barbed arrow against the bowstring and drawing it back to his ear let fly at her heart with a twanging sound. For she gasped, and amazement clouded her mind. Then slowly she turned and went on her way again, without looking back.
Aeëtes, though gratified at the rescue of his grandsons, was far from pleased by their sudden return. He had permitted them to sail for Greece chiefly because he wished them to be out of the country when King Styrus of Albania came to sue for Medea’s hand. Their only sister, Neaera, was Medea’s inseparable companion; and Aeëtes had reckoned that if Medea were displeased by the marriage that had been arranged for her, she would make Neaera a confidante of her misery and Neaera would tell them of it. The four brothers, who were highly esteemed by the nobility of Colchis, would naturally oppose an alliance with the Albanians. The Albanians had once prevented them from pursuing a tiger, which they were hunting, into Albanian territory and abused them with unforgettable insults. They would do all that they could, if only for the sake of pleasing Neaera, to postpone or cancel the marriage. Now all four of them had returned unexpectedly, and Aeëtes was aware that Medea’s silence covered a deep disgust of Styrus. To forestall any mischief he must send them off again in the Argo as soon as possible; meanwhile, he would command Medea to abstain from making the least complaint about the marriage either to Neaera or to any other person whatsoever. Fortunately, he remembered, Neaera was away from the palace and would not return until midday; she was a priestess of the Caucasian Maiden Goddess, and the festival of the New Moon had been celebrated that night under her direction.
He disguised his anxiety from his grandchildren, folding each in turn in a loving embrace, and offering his hand in friendship to Euphemus who had been the instrument of their salvation. To Jason he behaved with affability and told him: ‘The news from Ephyra, my lord, can wait until we have eaten and drunken well. I make no doubt but that you have had a voyage as perilous and exhausting as it was long.’
Jason nodded courteously, but did not know what news Aeëtes meant. As the Argonauts followed Aeëtes up into the city, leaving Melampus and Little Ancaeus to guard the ship, Echion explained to Jason in an undertone the fiction about Ephyra which some god – and who else could it be but Hermes? – had unexpectedly put into his mouth, and which nobody must be allowed to contradict; and he advised Jason that all mention of the Golden Fleece by the Argonauts must be absolutely forbidden.
‘Very well,’ said Jason, ‘if this fiction is indeed inspired by your divine father, it would be impious not to take advantage of it. Return at once to the Argo and warn Melampus and Ancaeus to be discreet. Meanwhile, I will pass your words around the company. It is fortunate that Hercules is no longer with us: he would have blurted out the truth before we were halfway up the hill.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jason Speaks with Medea
The Argonauts had been well bathed in warm water and well dried in warm towels by the palace women, who were for the most part Circassian slaves of surprising loveliness. With their heads anointed and chapleted and with clean linen shirts next to their skins they were soon reclining on couches in the royal dining-hall making an excellent repast. Many unfamiliar dishes were set before them, which they sampled with gusto, in true politeness not enquiring what the ingredients were, even though some of them might be ritually forbidden to them, and liable to cause cramp in the belly or death. They took no harm as it proved. But Butes was horrified when the servants heaped his plate with what he knew at once for the roasted bodies of immature bees; he groaned aloud at the sight and tears gushed from his eyes. Idas derided the distress of Butes, and to please his Colchian hosts crammed his mouth with the novel food, well sprinkled with salt, and called for more.
Jason and King Augeas of Elis were invited to eat at the King’s own table, which was set on a dais at the eastern end of the hall. There they were introduced to four dark-featured, kinky-haired noblemen, the King’s Councillors of State. Phrontis, son of Phrixus, acted as interpreter; for none of these noblemen could understand the Greek language, and Aeëtes, to lull any suspicions that might spring from the Argonauts’ unannounced visit, spoke only in Colchian. The conversation was conducted in a formal and halting manner, Jason and Augeas relating slight incidents of the voyage, but disclosing nothing of importance. Aeëtes, who was wearing a gold diadem set with emeralds, and a robe of state, feigned a perfect indifference to Greek affairs. He asked only one question concerning the regions beyond the Black Sea: how had they forced the passage of the Hellespont against the Trojan guard-ships?
Jason replied carelessly that the Trojans had doubtless been forewarned by the Triple Goddess, who was venerated by them under the name of Cybele, that a Minyan ship was due to pass through the strait on divine business. At all events, he said, they had let the Argo sail through without challenge.
Aeëtes grunted discontentedly in reply.
However, when Augeas happened to mention the Thessalian traders who had joined the ship at Sinope, Aeëtes, whose treaty with the Trojans prevented him from direct trade with Sinope, listened with undisguised interest. He called down the hall for Autolycus to come and sit beside him, and, when Autolycus came, fed him with dainties from his own trencher, making much of him. Autolycus answered the King’s questions frankly and pleasantly (for his trading days were now over), and quoted the prices, reckoned in gold dust, that had ruled in the last annual fair at Sinope. He felt a malicious pleasure in watching the King’s face, since it was clear that the Trojan King Laömedon had given his ally a most misleading account of business at the fair.
At this point, Medea’s only brother, Apsyrtus, a young man with a catlike tread and a strong Taurian cast of features, came in from hunting. He saluted his father respectfully and, as Jason judged, affectionately, and sat down to meat without another word. His manner towards Jason and the other two Greeks was distant and unfriendly.
With dessert came the time for Jason to make a formal declaration of his visit. He rose to his feet, stretched out his right hand, first to the King and then to his four Councillors, and said:
‘Glorious and magnanimous Aeëtes, it has perhaps already come to your ears – because the Trojans who trade both with you and with us are famous gossips – that our country of Greece has for the last two years been ravaged by a threefold plague: by great storms of wind that have torn down our fruit-trees and set the roofs flying from our houses; by an alarming barrenness among our flocks and herds; and by a great plague of poisonous snakes in our fields and woods. Judging that these plagues could only have been caused by the Ineffable One, and that appeal to any Olympian Oracle was therefore vain, a haggard all-Greek Council that met at Mycenae decided to consult your sister Circe, who is deeply in the Goddess’s confidence, and ask her what should be done to propitiate the Goddess. Delegates waited upon your fair-haired sister at her palace in the island of Aeaea; who, after purifying herself and going into her customary trance, induced by a black potion, consulted the Goddess, addressing her as Brimo. Brimo responded that she had sent the plagues as a tardy punishment for the cruelties inflicted by the Achaeans many years before upon Sisyphus of Asopia. She now ordained that Sisyphus should be awarded a hero’s tomb and
be honoured with rich sacrifices every month, and that his Asopian lands should be taken away from Creon their usurper and restored to the rightful owners, the hereditary Priests of the Sun.
‘Since, Majesty, you are the undoubted head of the elder branch of this illustrious clan, I have been desired by the inhabitants of the double kingdom of Corinth to convey you their loyal and humble petition: they beg you to return and rule over them – for your own fair lands, which include the city of Ephyra itself, can (after the thrusting-out of Corinthus, their regent) be reunited under one sceptre with Asopia. But if, they say, Colchis has become so dear to you and you have become so dear to Colchis that you cannot remove, they beg that you will immediately send one of your children – a daughter or a son would content them equally – to rule over them in your stead. Listen pityingly to their plea, for only thus can the kingdom of Ephyra, and all Greece besides, be saved from the disaster which threatens to engulf it.
‘So much for the first message, to the accuracy of which Augeas of Elis, head of the younger branch of your illustrious family, will gladly testify. To it is joined another message from the Mare-headed Mother of Pelion, whom I learned to worship during my childhood; for the Centaurs reared me. It runs thus: “Aeëtes of Ephyra, on pain of my displeasure you are to give rest to the soul of my servant Phrixus the Minyan, which still languishes disconsolately between the bones of his unburied skull.”’
Then Jason added, using an ancient formula: ‘It is not my word, but my Mother’s word.’
After a long time Aeëtes answered: ‘As to the first message, I will deliberate with my wise Councillors of State and return you an answer within three days; but do not expect it to be a favourable one. For my daughter Medea is already expecting an offer of marriage from a neighbouring monarch and my son Apsyrtus must remain in Colchis as heir to my throne and prop to my declining years. I understand that the Corinthians have not invited me to send one of my four grandsons to rule over them; I could have spared them a grandson. But the Ephyrans do not love the Minyans, and the sons of Phrixus rank as Minyans. This is a pity. Nevertheless, for all the disasters that have come upon Greece since my departure the impious Achaeans and their dupes are responsible, not I; these plagues do not concern me.
‘As to the second message, am I to believe that the Ineffable One speaks contradictorily with two different mouths? As the Bird-headed Mother of Colchis she has laid a sacred injunction upon her worshippers that no man’s bones may be laid in the holy earth of Colchis; and the King of Colchis must obey this Bird-headed Mother rather than the Mare-headed Mother of Pelion. Let me beg you not to renew your plea; because the question whether the bones of Phrixus should be interred or not was asked by myself at the time of his death and conclusively answered by my priestly Councillors: since he died in Colchis, he was necessarily honoured with a Colchian funeral.’
The kinky-haired Councillors signalized their approval of this speech by drumming on the table with the handles of their knives. Jason kept silent, relieved that Aeëtes had not accepted on behalf of Apsyrtus the imaginary offer of his former subjects, and hopeful that an accommodation could yet be reached in the matter of burying the bones.
That afternoon Phrontis, son of Phrixus, brought Jason a private message from Aeëtes, which was that the Bird-headed Mother had not expressly forbidden the removal of the bones of Phrixus for burial elsewhere than in Colchis; and that therefore, if Jason cared to remove them secretly and at his own risk from the high poplar where they were suspended, he would find the cemetery unguarded on the following night, and could count on conveying them safely out of the country for eventual burial in Greece. For he himself, said Aeëtes, had loved Phrixus as a son and hated to cause his ghost the least pain or inconvenience.
This answer did not altogether please Jason, for the orders of the Goddess were that the bones of Phrixus were to be buried before any attempt might be made on the Fleece. He told Phrontis of this difficulty. Phrontis replied: ‘Let me take you privately to the apartment of my sister Neaera, who returned to the palace while we were at dinner. You must not confide to her your design to carry off the Fleece, but merely tell her that you have been ordered by the Goddess to bury her father’s bones before, and not after, you quit Colchis. She is quick-witted and may be able to suggest an evasion that will cause nobody any offence.’
Jason was pleased to accept a policy that would bring him into intimate conversation with young Neaera. Phrontis led him by a roundabout way to her apartment, and he learned from her with what repugnance Medea regarded her promised marriage to the old Albanian. For though Aeëtes, after his return to the palace that morning, had strictly forbidden Medea to speak of her marriage, she had already wept out her grief on the neck of an old nurse, from whom Neaera presently learned the whole story. Dark-eyed Neaera was almost incoherent with grief and sorrow. She told Jason: ‘O Jason, my far-travelled kinsman, this news is almost too cruel for me to endure: I fear that I shall go mad if nothing is done to thwart the King’s decision. A marriage between my glorious Medea and the rank old lice-eater, Styrus, would be like one between a white rose and a slug. Can you and your comrades do nothing to save her? Can you not carry her off to Greece, my lord Jason, and marry her yourself and set her on the throne of Corinth and thus justify the holy Oracle of Brimo?’
Jason answered: ‘Be careful what you say, Princess. How can you think either that I should be willing to risk death by stealing away the King’s only surviving daughter, or that she herself would be so unfilial as to slip away to Greece at my invitation? I acknowledge that the brief glimpse that I had of her this morning, as she leaned over the balustrade by the pear-tree, pierced my heart through with instant love, yet I should be mad to imagine her to be burning with equal passion for me. Therefore I shall try to forget your strange words, though I thank you for them from the bottom of my heart. Yet, dear kinswoman, to show your kindness to me, give me advice in the matter of your noble father’s bones. For the White Goddess of Pelion has ordered me to bury them before, not after, I quit the land of Colchis.’
Neaera answered: ‘Only Medea can arrange this matter. But first tell me: have I permission to report to Medea what you have just disclosed of your feelings for her?’
Jason pretended to hesitate in lover’s modesty. Then he answered: ‘If you swear by your own girdle to report my words exactly, secretly, and to no living being but Medea herself, you have my permission.’
Neaera swore, as she was desired, and then took her leave. Jason asked her as she turned to go: ‘What of Apsyrtus? Does he favour the marriage?’
Neaera answered: ‘He hates his sister, and is pleased by any event that discomfits her. Consider him your enemy, as I consider him mine.’
Presently Phrontis came to Jason with the news that Medea would visit his apartments that same evening at dusk, if he could absent himself from supper without exciting suspicion. Jason’s heart bounded for joy. In a few hours he had already accomplished what he had expected would cost him days, or even months. But he said nothing to any of his companions and joined them that afternoon in friendly athletic contests with the Colchian nobility. The stadium was enclosed with buildings on three sides, namely by the wing of the palace reserved for the Royal Family, by the Guards’ barracks, and by the Stables of the Sun, where the twelve white horses of the Sun God (whose backs no man might ever bestride) and the fatal black mare were tended with unimaginable honour.
The Argonauts had agreed to treat Jason, publicly at least, with the utmost love and deference, in order to enhance his glory in the eyes of Medea, who would be watching the games from a palace balcony. They chose him to represent them in quoit-throwing, archery, and leaping, and his performances, though they would not have been remarkable in any Greek city, excited the admiration of his hosts. For the Colchians, though courageous, are an indolent, unathletic people and, like their Egyptian cousins, execrable marksmen with the bow. Aeëtes himself would not watch: he declared that he hated any sight that remind
ed him of his early manhood in Greece, but also perhaps he foresaw that his Colchian subjects would not gain many prizes in the games.
In effect, the Argonauts were the victors in every contest except that of knucklebones, which they despised as childish but at which the Colchians were marvellously adept. Apsyrtus, who was the Colchian champion of upright wrestling, showed himself ignorant of the simplest principles of the art. When opposed to Castor, he sprang forward at once to catch at his knee. But Castor was too quick for Apsyrtus: he seized his left wrist with the right hand, his left elbow with the left hand, turned rapidly about, drew the whole arm over his own left shoulder and threw Apsyrtus clean over his head. In the second bout Castor, disregarding an attempt to catch and break one of his fingers, secured a body-hold almost at once, shook Apsyrtus off his balance, and tossed him ignominiously on his back.
Jason absented himself from supper at the hall that night, pleading that as a result of his athletic exertions he had been suddenly overcome by a recurrent fever; he must huddle himself in blankets and sweat it out. Since such fevers are common enough in Colchis, he was not suspected of deceit.
At dusk Medea visited him. She came in the disguise of a bent, hobbling old hag fetching him blankets for his fever. He paid no attention to her at all until she addressed him in a quavering old woman’s voice, saying: ‘My lord, I am Medea.’ With that she laughed, wiped the painted wrinkles from her face, unhooded her luxurious tresses of yellow hair, kicked away her shapeless felt shoes, tore off her rusty-black linen smock, and stood up straight and beautiful before him, dressed in a white robe curiously embroidered with golden ivy leaves and fir-cones.
The Golden Fleece Page 34