The Golden Fleece

by Robert Graves

Idas persisted, careless whether the ghost of Iphitus overheard him or not: for he was secretly ashamed that he had not ventured with Atalanta on her glorious task of rescue. But at least he had the good sense not to rouse the ghost of Iphitus by uttering his name. He said: ‘But for Butes and his taste for honey, the Painter would be alive today. If anyone denies this to be true, let him guard his head, for my spear lies handy on its rest below the gunwale.’

  Butes wept. He daubed his face with tar and dishevelled his hair. But hardly had he completed his disguise when he saw an augury to chill his heart: a gaudy coloured bee-eater alighted on the bulwark above his head, twittered and flew off.

  ‘What did my enemy say, Mopsus?’ asked Butes in a trembling voice.

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all of importance,’ answered Mopsus hastily.

  The incident caused general dismay and it was decided to bury Iphitus with full rites as soon as ever firm land should be reached. They were now sailing through the swamp country and the heat had greatly increased since their first entry into Colchis; the corpse would soon stink offensively and breed Spites or snakes. Phrontis said to Jason: ‘The eastward set of the currents along the southern coast of the Black Sea, which favoured you on your outward voyage, continues northwards along the foot of the Caucasian mountains; and the nearest stretch of firm ground, outside Colchian territory, where you will be able without interference to bury your unlucky comrade lies a day’s sail northward from the port of Phasis. I mean Anthenios, a settlement of the Apsilaeans, who are hospitable to strangers of all sorts. I propose that when we have passed safely out of this river our course shall be northward, not southward, unless the wind is against us. I have credit with the merchants of Anthenios, and we can there replenish our water-jars with fresh water.’

  Jason repeated this proposal and asked whether anyone disagreed with it. Nobody replied. He therefore said: ‘Anthenios it shall be, unless the winds prove contrary!’

  Augeas of Elis asked: ‘Why should we not continue northward and circumnavigate the Black Sea, thus avoiding the contrary current of the southern shore, and being helped along by the powerful currents which, according to King Phineus, pour from the great northern rivers at this season? In this way we should cheat pursuit.’

  ‘Ah, why should we not do that?’ many of the Argonauts asked.

  The sons of Phrixus declared such a course to be impracticable. They said that the inhabitants of the Caucasian seaboard for five hundred miles or so northward from Anthenios were hostile, treacherous, and poor. If the Argo were delayed by contrary winds and provisions ran low on that inhospitable coast it would be impossible to replenish them. Moreover, where the Caucasian range ended the kingdom of the Taurians began: even with Medea aboard it would be as dangerous to venture into their land in search of food or water as to eat beans from a red-hot spoon.

  The three brothers from Sinope agreed with this view. Jason accepted it, saying: ‘Let us rather face again the dangers that we have already once surmounted than tempt the Gods by attempting new ones.’

  They sailed on down the river, always lagging behind the other vessels of the squadron to which they had attached themselves, and on the evening of the second day – for the river ran with a strong current – reached the river-mouth and the port of Phasis, where they were not challenged. Thence they rowed southward, following the Colchian squadron, but only for a short distance. As soon as darkness gathered, they hoisted the dark sail and sailed off to the northward, profiting from a south-easterly breeze. As they went they raised a concerted shout of despair, as though their ship had struck a sunken rock, to mislead those from whom they were parting company.

  Next morning, the sun rose beaming above the eastern peaks and shone upon a sea empty of all ships but the Argo. Jason, who had been sharing the watch with Meleager, roused his comrades from sleep and jubilantly drew the Fleece out from the locker below the helmsman’s seat. He lifted it up shining for all to see and said: ‘Look, Argonauts, how magnificent a treasure we have secured and at how small a cost in blood! For this our names will be famous for ever in the royal halls of Greece, and in populous barbarian camps, and even among the all-wise Egyptians whose smooth white-sided pyramids pierce the skies above the floods of the river Nile. As we were greatly favoured by the immortal Gods during our outward voyage, namely Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Athena, and Artemis, and in all our doings at Aea, so we may confidently expect the way to be smoothed by them for our return. The Argo is now more precious to them than ever as the repository of this holiest of all Greek relics, the Fleece of Laphystian Zeus.’

  Immediately Erginus, a man who had learned by defeat to avoid boastful and ill-omened talk, rose and said in deprecation: ‘It is indeed a great feat, Jason, for a shepherd to scale the cliff that overhangs his valley home, and rescue a stolen lamb from the eagle’s nest; but while the she-eagle soars shrieking above his head, making ready to pounce upon him – as with the lamb slung behind him in a wallet he lowers himself laboriously down the crumbling precipice – O, let him not become forgetful of danger and fancy himself already at home beside the bubbling black pots of his hearth. Put away the shining Fleece, insensate Jason, lest it excite the jealousy of some deity, and let us not look on it again until we have heard our keel hiss sweetly on the sandy beach of Phthiotic Pagasae. For I fear the jealousy of one deity at least, the Great Goddess by whom it was long ago removed from the oaken image, and whose tremendous name you have not yet spoken. Therefore let Orpheus lead us in humble prayer to the Goddess; or, better still, let us beg neat-ankled Medea to do so. Medea is a beloved priestess of the Goddess, and but for Medea we should no more easily have been granted a sight of the Fleece than we could have gathered ripe olives from the flowering trees. Remember, pious comrades, that this is an unlucky time of year, the gloomy time of purification when at home in Greece we go dirty and throw our scape-men into the river or sea, stopping our ears against their screams, and sweep out our shrines with brooms of thorn, and prepare for the glad feast of First Fruits. It is not yet time for rejoicing, you foolish son of Aeson.’

  Jason shamefacedly returned the Fleece to the locker, while Medea arose from her seat in the prow and, gazing upwards, spread out her open palms and prayed:

  ‘Mother and Nymph and Virgin, Triple Queen, Lady of the Amber Moon; who by your sovereignty over Sky, Earth, and Sea are tripled again; to whose Infernal Trinity the priestess of Brimo, my dear sister Chalciope, dying bound me priestess: hear me and forgive.

  ‘Not willingly did I step aboard this vermilion-cheeked ship, not willingly did I rob the Serpent of the Golden Fleece that he guarded for you, not willingly did I disobey my father. You yourself, Almighty, forced me to this madness; I know not why.

  ‘You I obey; you only, you the Dancer upon Skulls; I scorn the upstart Olympian breed. Say the word only, and by the power with which you have invested me I will sink the proud Argo – crew, cargo, speaking branch and all – into the dark and lifeless waters of the sea-bottom. Say the word only, and I will plunge this dagger deep into my own breast or into the breast of fair-haired Jason, whom you have impelled me to love beyond all reason. Say the word only, Bird-faced Queen!

  ‘You have warned me by the tumult in my heart that the choice which I have taken may bring me little peace; that the great love for Jason into which I have fallen, though it roars like a fire in a thorn thicket, may presently die in white ashes; that Prometheus may seek vengeance upon me. I demand nothing as my right, I serve you faithfully, I adore you without hope. But bring, I pray you, bring this ship, and the accursed Fleece with it, safely back to Greece; and grant me to be Queen in Ephyra with Jason as my King for as many years at least as I was faithful to you in lovely Aea.’

  She ceased and all sat waiting for a sign. Presently three great claps of thunder were heard in the distance echoing and rolling among the snow-capped mountains. Medea sat down again with a long sigh of relief.

  Castor was the first to break the long silence that ensued. He asked
Pollux: ‘Is it not strange, Brother, that our father Zeus should have thundered at this very moment?’

  Medea replied disdainfully in halting Greek: ‘The Goddess rolled thunder among the mountains of Crete and Caucasus while Zeus was still an infant in the Dictean Cave – how greedily he drank from the dug of the old sow, his foster-mother which the Dactyls fetched for him! And she will doubtless roll thunder among the same mountains when his very name is forgotten among men.’

  Nobody dared contradict her.

  They sailed past the northern forest swamps of Colchis and at noon came to a broad bay backed with lofty mountains. In the middle was a narrow, deep gorge, with precipices on either side, and far behind they saw a snowy mountain, shaped like a saddle, which was reputedly the seat of the Man-eating Goddess of the Apsilaeans. The whitewashed city of Anthenios (since named Dioscurias) was visible from the south from a distance of several miles. This was the most sacred place of the whole Caucasus. The Man-eating Goddess ruled that no man, on pain of death, might go armed across the broad flowery meadows between the mountain and the sea, nor so much as pick up a stone to fling at a weasel; for which reason no less than seventy tribes made it their common meeting-ground for barter, for the settling of disputes, and for the conclusion of treaties.

  Jason beached the Argo on a low spit of sandy shore, but did not disembark or permit any of his comrades to do so, except the four sons of Phrixus, whom he ordered on no account to let the Apsilaeans guess that the Argo was a Greek ship. They clambered down the ladder in silence and went off, carrying the corpse of Iphitus between them. When they returned in the evening, they reported that they had first waited upon the Governess of the town and asked her permission to perform Colchian funeral rites over a comrade who, they said, had been killed by the fall of a rotten tree as their ship lay at anchor in a backwater of the Phasis. This the Governess refused, as they had known that she would; for the Apsilaeans practise urn-burial and abhor the tree-cemeteries of Colchis. After a show of pleading, Melanion had said: ‘Well, Blameless One, it makes no matter. Our comrade was born of a Greek father. Permit us to bury him with Greek rites.’ She had replied: ‘By all means. If you are ignorant of the ritual there is a Greek trader named Crius living near the jetty, who will doubtless assist you.’

  Crius was a Phocian whom the Trojans had once, many years before, rescued from shipwreck off the island of Imbros; but they sold him into slavery at Anthenios. There he had soon bought his freedom, for he was a painter and potter of more than ordinary skill. When the sons of Phrixus revealed to him that Iphitus had been a Phocian too, Crius undertook to raise a stone shrine above his barrow and decorate the walls with paintings in coloured earths. So without more delay they laid the body on a pyre and danced in armour about it, heaped a barrow above the calcined bones, poured drink-offerings, tore out their hair in handfuls, sacrificed a pig, and came away.

  Euphemus the swimmer had been born in Phocis and had learned the art of swimming from the Seal men there. He remembered Crius well and urged Jason to let the sons of Phrixus return and fetch Crius off on the Argo, for Crius had told them how miserably he longed for one more sight of his homeland. Jason refused, saying that he had come to Anthenios for one purpose alone, the burial of Iphitus, and could permit no delay; besides, if he took Crius with him, the tomb of Iphitus would never be built.

  ‘True,’ said Peleus the Myrmidon, ‘and since Crius does not know that we are homeward-bound for Greece, he will feel no regret that we have sailed without him.’

  So Crius was left behind. Nevertheless, on the advice of Argus, Jason sent Phrontis and his brothers back to him to purchase provisions of dried meat, dried fish, dolphin oil, and fig-bread, offering in payment certain ornaments and jewels that Medea had brought with her. These provisions were presently brought to the ship drawn on ox-carts, enough for a month’s voyage when they were added to those already aboard. Argus, who was ordered by Jason to stow them away in a place of safety, found that he could not do so, the lockers being already stuffed with gifts and trophies. He therefore divided everything equally among the whole crew, saying: ‘Here are sufficient provisions for a month, comrades; dispose of them how you will, but see that nothing is spoiled by the sun or by sea-water. If we fall in with the Colchians again, as I fear that we must, and find that the strength of their fleet has increased, we may well be forced to take to the open sea, without hope of provisioning our lovely ship again for a long while. For my part, I care not much whether I bring home safely to Athens the rich gifts that King Lycus of the Mariandynians gave me, or the gifts of blind King Phineus, or the spoils that I took when we sacked the palace of King Amycus the Bebrycian, so long only as I come home with a whole skin, a full belly, and the Fleece.’

  They stood out to sea again, first putting in at the outfall of the river Anthenios to fill their water-jars. Peucon, the Colchian master, pleaded to be set ashore, but Jason would not let him go, judging that he might prove useful to them yet. Since the wind was still fresh from the southeast, old Nauplius the navigator set the Argo’s course due west, and she sailed boldly across the Eastern Gulf, far out of sight of land.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Pursuit

  Ten days later a squadron of fifteen ships under the command of Aras, the Colchian High Admiral, reached the Long Beach on the impulse of a north-easterly wind. It was here that the Thessalians had danced their sword-dances and Atalanta had gone out with Meleager to hunt gazelles. Aras found, drawn up on the beach, not only the squadron of three ships which was commanded by Apsyrtus but, also under his command, the three surviving ships of the second squadron despatched by Aeëtes.

  No sooner had Aras stepped ashore than he prostrated himself before Apsyrtus and hailed him King of Colchis; reporting with tears that old Aeëtes had died, in intolerable anguish, of the wound dealt him by Atalanta. He reported, too, that Perses, the Queen’s brother, had proclaimed himself Regent of Colchis in the absence of Apsyrtus; that Styrus and he were at peace; and that when Styrus had asked with some impatience: ‘When do I marry the Princess Medea?’ Perses, with the approval of the Council of State, had undertaken that if Medea could not be fetched back before the summer was out, he should be permitted to court Neaera instead.

  Apsyrtus grieved greatly for his father, but still more for himself. He had set his heart upon marriage with Neaera; for marriage between uncle and niece is permitted among the Colchians, so long as there is no blood-kinship in the female line. He knew now that unless he could fetch Medea home before the summer was out he would become involved in a war with Styrus. He had no intention of yielding Neaera to him, whatever promises Perses might have made, because to Neaera, on the death of Aeëtes, fell the possession of the frontier region that had belonged to her Colchian grandmother and which he loathed that the Albanians should occupy.

  He asked Aras impatiently: ‘What news of the Greek ship?’

  Aras replied: ‘None, Majesty.’ They both judged it unlikely that the Argo had sailed ahead of them along that coast, for each of the squadrons had kept a sharp look-out all day, and the moon had shone unclouded every night, and the natives whom they had questioned had sighted no craft at all since the Argo had passed by them on the outward voyage. Apsyrtus concluded that, since Jason had evidently taken the risk of sailing around the Black Sea in the opposite direction, the Colchian fleet should make for the Bosphorus as speedily as possible and there block his escape; for the southern route from Colchis to the Bosphorus is far shorter than the northern, despite the unfavourable currents and winds.

  As they were taking this decision, the Argo herself came running down the wind towards them, making for the mouth of the Halys river. Lynceus told Jason, while they were still already a great distance away: ‘Our Colchian enemies, sixteen ship-loads of them, are taking their ease on the Long Beach. I can see their white pennants fluttering above the curve of the sea, though their hulls are still hidden from me.’

  Jason was in a quandary. The Argo wa
s well enough provisioned, but the water in the jars had an evil smell and already several of the Argonauts, among them Orpheus and Echion, were sick of the dysentery; and all the others were in a quarrelsome and unhappy mood. For the sun was very hot even for the time of the year. They had hoped to replenish the jars with the sweet water of the Halys, and also to taste roast meat again, if they had luck with hunting, and lie at full length on grass under the shade of trees. Jason could not decide whether he should change course and return to the wild, lonely stretches of mid-sea, or whether he should wait for darkness and then enter the mouth of the Halys, to sail on as soon as his jars were full of good water. He wished to put the question to the vote, but the Argonauts would not vote until they had debated it at length; and while they argued together, discontentedly and insultingly, the Argo drew ever nearer to the coast.

  Presently the Colchian look-out on the hill sighted her, and Dictys the Vice-Admiral, having climbed up to the look-out post to signal her with smoke, came down again and reported to Aras on the beach: ‘She is one of our own vessels. I can just make out the White Horse and the white pennant. But why does she not reply to our signals?’

  Aras climbed the hill himself and studied the Argo with care. He said to Apsyrtus, who followed after him: ‘The pennant and the figurehead are Colchian; but, Majesty, look at the curved stem ornament. No Colchian ever carried one of that shape. She is the Greek pirate in disguise, for I noted her curved stern ornament myself and admired it. She is shaping her course for the Halys. Probably the Greeks are in need of fresh water. They are not so hardy as we are, and would rather die of thirst than drink water that has rotted or is brackish.’

  Apsyrtus gave the order: ‘Every ship to sea! To the master who first overhauls the pirate I will give his own weight in gold, a pair of green jade earrings for his wife or daughter, and a resonant silver gong.’ But by the time that the Colchians were afloat again and rowing out in the teeth of a stiff breeze, the Argo had rounded the headland to westward and disappeared.