The Golden Fleece

by Robert Graves

  ‘Before I consider this proposal,’ said Apsyrtus, ‘let me know how you propose to satisfy the vengeance that I require for the death of my father.’

  Atalanta stood up again and spoke for herself. ‘My comrades Majesty, are in no way concerned in the death of your father, of which they have now heard for the first time: for I said not a word to them of the blow that my javelin dealt him. To butcher them all, in requital for a crime of which they are wholly innocent would be to stock your palace with a swarm of gibbering ghosts: who would haunt you without respite, night and day, until you died horribly at last with twisted mouth and twitching limbs. But if you seek vengeance against me, my advice to you is to consult the Oracle of Artemis on the island mentioned by Echion. I am ready to stand by the verdict of the Oracle; and if I have sinned I will come freely to you for punishment. But if the Goddess approves my action, I warn you to respect her decision.’

  Apsyrtus said, gesturing nervously with his hand: ‘I have now heard proposals which I should applaud as fair and reasonable had they come from the herald of a fleet as powerful as my own; but since your ship is alone and has no chance of escape either by flight or fight, I cannot regard them as anything but absurd and impertinent. What if I reject them out of hand and give the signal for battle?’

  Echion answered in a voice that bespoke perfect assurance: ‘For that, King Apsyrtus, I have a ready answer. If you reject them you will lose three things of great value. First, the Golden Fleece, which will be immediately destroyed, as we have already declared. Next, you will lose your sister Medea, for since the signal for battle would spell certain death for all my companions, they would be careful to take her ghost down with them to the Underworld to guide them securely to the mansion of the Great Goddess whom she serves. Lastly, you will lose your own life. For I have resided long enough in Colchis to learn that the King must lead his fleet or army in person, not lagging behind with the rear-guard; and you need no reminder from me that our archers have a deadly aim. At the display in the gardens of your palace you saw with your own eyes how a flying pigeon fell transfixed by three Greek arrows – a feat never before seen or spoken of in your land. Sound your golden trumpet for battle, Majesty, if you dare, but you will be blowing an insistent summons to my father, the God Hermes, Conductor of Souls, to bring you where you would hate to go.’

  Echion could see that the King’s resolution was weakening. He said, pleadingly this time: ‘Come, noble son of Aeëtes, retain your own life and honour and leave us with ours. There is no question in the world that cannot be amicably settled by law or by arbitration, and may I further remind you that to kill us would spell the destruction not only of yourself and your sister but of your entire kingdom? When the line of Aeëtes is extinct, who will rule Colchis? Perses, your Taurian uncle? Were I a vulture of the Caucasus the news of your death would be good news to me: I would summon my long-winged mates from near and far to converge upon Aea, assured that civil war heaps corpses as the first blast of autumn heaps acorns in the woods. Majesty, prudence is a gracious virtue in a young king, and becomes him more even than the valour which you possess in full measure.’

  Apsyrtus yielded at last, though with a bad grace, further insisting only that the Fleece must also be set ashore on the island of Artemis, and the question of its ownership submitted to the same arbitration.

  Echion pleasantly assented to this article of the armistice, and the parley was over.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Colchians are Outwitted

  That evening the Argo, sailing down the Fennel Stream in consort with the Colchian ships, six of them ahead and six astern, reached the sea again. The whole flotilla anchored in line near the Brygian village, with the Argo in the middle. Gloomy Melampus of Pylos said: ‘Comrades, no man of sense could envy the position of our ship, guarded like a criminal between warders; nevertheless, I do not despair. Which of you sees what I see? To the first man who confirms my presentiment of deliverance I will give my necklace of interlaced-silver rings which every one of you covets.

  For a long while nobody understood what Melampus meant, but at last his comrade Coronus of Gyrton, who had hitherto passed for a man of slow wit, cried out: ‘I see what you see, Melampus. Give me the necklace!’

  The other Argonauts asked: ‘What do you see, Coronus? What do you see?’

  Coronus answered: ‘I see that Apsyrtus is either ignorant, rash, or extremely careless, since he has added a strange ship to his flotilla of twelve, which is a direct challenge to the Thirteenth Deity, of whose name every wise man avoids mention.’

  Melampus handed over the valuable necklace without a word, and encouraged by this omen, the Argonauts grew merry and sang choruses to Atalanta’s lyre-music; for Orpheus, though somewhat recovered from his fever, was still excessively weak.

  Jason and Medea then concocted their plan of action and presently confided it to Melanion, son of Phrixus (for whose integrity Medea could vouch), and to Atalanta; but all that the other Argonauts knew was that two emissaries – Peleus the Myrmidon for the Argonauts, and Dictys the Vice-Admiral for the Colchians – had gone together to bargain with the Brygians for a large canoe and a crew of three paddle-men who should convey them upstream to the Court of the Scythian King at the head of the delta.

  The night passed uneventfully, though the sentinels on both sides were vigilant beyond the ordinary and shouted frequent challenges; the Greeks fearing a night attack, the Colchians fearing an attempted evasion. In the morning all the ships rowed northward in consort again, until they reached the island of Artemis, a low-lying, desolate place evidently formed in the course of ages by the mud and sand carried down by the Thousand Mouths.

  However, Jason refused to put Medea and the Fleece ashore until Apsyrtus should have agreed to two conditions: namely, that he would not commit any act of hostility against the Argonauts, nor make any attempt to remove Medea or the Fleece from the island, until an arbitrative judgement should have been delivered by the King of the Scythians; and that he would abide by the judgement without question, whatever it might be. Apsyrtus, confident that the judgement would be in his own favour, since the Scythian depended on Colchis for a great part of his sea-borne trade and had no direct dealings with Greece, agreed to the proposed conditions, and added that he was ready to confirm his agreement with an oath, if Jason would do the same. He found Jason willing enough. Jason proposed that they should take an oath together, in the name of Artemis, on an uninhabited island that lay a short distance off. So the Argo and the Colchian ships were rowed to the island, where Jason and Apsyrtus disembarked together, sacrificed a kid to Artemis and swore the oath on its blood, drinking a little of it out of the hollow of a shield and pouring the remainder out upon the sand. They exchanged gifts, Apsyrtus presenting Jason with the skin of a Caucasian tiger, Jason presenting Apsyrtus with the purple-red cloak that had been Queen Hypsipyle’s first gift to him at Myrine.

  Medea scornfully refused to accept the two male attendants offered her by Apsyrtus for her stay on the island of the Oracle, and insisted on being provided with a single female one. Since Atalanta was the only other woman in the flotilla, Atalanta it had to be; but Apsyrtus would not allow her to go armed.

  Medea and Atalanta were then set ashore on the island of the Oracle, and there came under the protection of the Priestess of Artemis. She was a tall, toothless, half-crazed Thracian, whose diet consisted wholly of nuts, berries, and raw fish. This skinny old woman patted Medea’s cheeks, stroked her hands, and felt the texture of her robes in a childish ecstasy of admiration; but to Atalanta, when the men had rowed away, she gave a sisterly embrace and they exchanged magical passwords and signs.

  The Greeks and Colchians, ashore together on the other island, the uninhabited one, now mixed freely, conversing in the language of signs and playing games together, and Peucon rejoined his comrades. But Melanion, the son of Phrixus, sought out Apsyrtus and led him aside into a thicket out of earshot. He said: ‘Royal uncle, I have a sec
ret message to you from your sister Medea, to which I hope to join a proposal and a plea of my own. Are you willing to listen to me, or do you hate me and thirst for my blood?’

  Apsyrtus replied: ‘Give me my sister’s message first. Whether I listen to the plea and the proposal will depend on the nature of the message.’

  Melanion, speaking in low, hurried tones, said: ‘These are Medea’s words: “My nephews Phrontis and Cytissorus have done both you and me a great injury. As you are aware, they and their two brothers decided to escape from Colchis some months ago because of your enmity towards them. An oracle had warned them of our father’s approaching death, and they feared that as soon as you succeeded him you would take vengeance on them for obstructing your marriage to their sister Neaera. When their first attempt to escape ended in shipwreck and our father refused to lend them another ship, their one hope lay in winning the favour of Jason. He offered not only to give them a free passage to Greece, but to secure them their Boeotian patrimony, if in return they enabled him to win the Golden Fleece. They struck hands on the bargain, and presently set to work. Phrontis and Cytissorus, the more malignant of the four, forced me to abstract the Fleece from the shrine of Prometheus and accompany them to the Greek ship: they had threatened if I refused, not only to murder me but to poison our father and yourself as well, and then to swear that I had been the poisoner and had committed suicide to avoid punishment. Tell me, brother, what else could I have done but submit to their will?

  ‘“I do not pretend that I love the thought of marriage with old Styrus, or that, to avoid it, I would not gladly sail to Greece, if that were possible, and there accept the throne of Ephyra which you have resigned to me. But I would fear the vengeful ghost of our father if I thus followed my natural inclinations; and I am aware that Styrus will prove a formidable enemy to my beloved Colchis if I do not return to marry him, but a staunch ally if I do. I wish therefore to return and deserve well of my fellow-countrymen, however painful the consequences to myself. Rescue me, dear brother, I implore you. If you abide by the oath which Jason has tricked you into swearing, you and I are both lost. For cunning Peleus the Greek, who has gone to the Court of the Scythian King, will (as I have overheard) present himself there as a son of blind King Phineus of Thynia, whom the Scythian holds in the greatest respect, and has been primed with arguments irresistible to the Scythian mind. The judgement will certainly be pronounced in the Greeks’ favour, of that I have not the least doubt.

  ‘“Why delay? The oath which you swore need not trouble you, because the power of Thracian Artemis does not extend to Colchis, any more than does the power of Father Zeus. She is not the ancient Taurian Artemis to whom our mother’s tribe sacrifice strangers, fixing their heads on poles above their houses; she is an upstart deity – sister to the Mouse demon Apollo, and born within memory of man on the Aegean island of Delos – whose worship has recently spread to Thrace in the wake of trading ships. Be bold, therefore. Come secretly in a canoe at midnight to fetch me off the island, together with the Fleece, and take vengeance at the same time on the murderess of our father. I will set a lamp in the window of my hut to guide you. Come alone. But do not attempt to take me back with you to the Colchian ships. I fear for our lives should the alarm be suddenly raised and the Argonauts put their hands to their bows. Instead, let us row off southward in your canoe; then let the ships follow after and take us aboard at some distance from the island.”’

  Apsyrtus listened attentively and asked: ‘What proof do you offer that you are Medea’s emissary and that what you report is not a fabrication of your own?’

  Melanion handed Apsyrtus a lock of Medea’s yellow hair, which Apsyrtus accepted as security for her honesty and put into his wallet; just as the priests at Dodona had accepted a lock of Jason’s hair as security for his promised gifts to Zeus.

  Apsyrtus asked: ‘But what is the proposal and what is the plea of which you spoke, nephew?’

  Melanion answered: ‘I am confident that you will forgive me, Majesty, for my former folly and my enmity towards you. I was led astray by my two eldest brothers. Argeus and I are not malignant, and do not now wish to go to Greece even if Jason could make good his promise to secure us our Boeotian patrimony; for we are the two youngest sons, whom the two eldest have always conspired to keep in poverty. Phrontis and Cytissorus, being given first choice of cities and lands, will, as it were, take the hide, flesh, and fat, and leave us the hoofs, umbles and bones. My proposal is this: Argeus and I will volunteer to stand watch tonight, so that your journey in the canoe may pass unnoticed by the Greeks, as may also the subsequent silent departure of your ships. At the last moment, Argeus and I will lower ourselves over the side of the Argo and be hauled aboard your own vessel. My plea is this: that in return for our loyal services you will graciously appoint Argeus your High Admiral and myself the Captain of your Palace Guard.’

  ‘I accept the proposal,’ said Apsyrtus, ‘and shall consider the plea most favourably so soon as ever I have gained the three things that you have promised me: the Fleece, my sister, and vengeance on my father’s murderess. Seeing that Atalanta now makes the Thracian Artemis, not herself, responsible for the murder, I consider myself justified in disregarding the oath that I swore in the Goddess’s name. What duty can I owe to a deity who has inflicted this great and unprovoked injury upon our house?’

  Melanion returned to the Argo and assured Jason that all was well. At dusk Autolycus was sent out to recover the lock of Medea’s hair from the wallet of Apsyrtus and to replace it with a long strand of yellow yarn; he accomplished the feat without difficulty, being light-fingered to an incredible degree. It is said that he could rob a man of his front teeth or ears with such swiftness and skill that the victim might not be aware of his loss for an hour or more later. Yet Autolycus was not made an accomplice of the plot against the life of Apsyrtus: only Jason, Medea, Melanion, and Atalanta knew what was afoot.

  That evening the Argonauts made a pretence of immoderate wine-drinking. They sang tipsy songs, beat with sticks and bones on the ship’s cauldron, and drubbed loudly on the floor-planks with their heels. And Idas was continually crying: ‘Jason, Jason, you are drunk!’ To which Periclymenus the wizard, in tones indistinguishable from Jason’s own, would reply: ‘Silence, man, I am as sober as a water nymph!’ Soon afterwards, all except Argeus and Melanion, the sentinels, made a pretence of falling asleep.

  This performance was a ruse to conceal the absence of two of them: Jason and Euphemus of Taenaron. They had hidden in a thicket just as darkness drew on, and Euphemus, as soon as he dared, had noiselessly plunged into the sea and swam across to the mainland, where several Brygian seal-skin canoes were hitched to a mooring-stake. One of these he took, paddling back with it to where Jason waited. The dark night with rain threatening, suited Jason well: he climbed into the canoe, took up the double-bladed paddle, and guided by the lamp was soon ashore on the beach of the island of Artemis, wordlessly clasping Medea in his arms.

  She led him to the hut where visitants to the Oracle were accustomed to wait for the Priestess’s pleasure, and said: ‘There is the bed in which you are to lie. The blankets will cover you up. Do not let your sword show! He may bring the lamp with him.’

  Jason answered with a smile: ‘Melanion tells me that he swallowed down your story as greedily as Butes the poisonous honey.’

  Medea sighed and bit her thumb-nail. ‘We should have abandoned the Bee man to his fate,’ she said. ‘His greed has led us on from crime to crime.’

  ‘We are innocent of any blood,’ said Jason hastily. ‘Show no weakness, lovely one, for only relentless hearts can bring the Fleece safely to Greece. Do you not desire to come with us? Your way home to Colchis still lies open. If you choose to return, whether in piety or fear, I will not stand in your way, bitterly though I might grieve at losing you. But understand this much: I must retain the Fleece at all hazards.’

  ‘The Fleece, always the Fleece!’ cried Medea. ‘I could hate you as I hate the
Furies, did I not love you unendurably. No, no, I will follow you to the ends of the world and neither my father’s blood nor my brother’s shall flow between us and prevent our marriage. Kiss me again, Jason, kiss me! Only from your mouth can I suck courage for the ineluctable deed that lies before me.’

  He kissed her again and again, drinking in with his nostrils the aromatic odour of her hair and body. She shut her eyes and whimpered for delight like a little dog.

  Presently he went apart from her and, lying down on the bed, pulled the blankets over him. There, alone, with his sword ready to his hand, he awaited the entry of Apsyrtus.

  Atalanta was not to be seen. Presently he heard her voice coming clearly from the shrine: she was amusing the Priestess with an account of the voyage. The Priestess liked best the story of the Lemnian women, and Jason heard her cry out with cackling laughter: ‘Ah the fools, the fools! Did they not know how well off they were without men!’ Then he heard Medea going to the shrine to silence Atalanta, for Apsyrtus must believe her to be in the hut.

  An hour passed and, straining his ears, he heard the low sound of voices conversing twitteringly in the Colchian language: it was Apsyrtus and Medea. They were stealing towards him along the path. The voice of Medea was soft and servile, that of Apsyrtus was bitter and vengeful. Jason fancied that she said: ‘Have no fear, brother. Atalanta is a woman unarmed.’ And that Apsyrtus answered: ‘Were it Hercules himself with his bow and brass-bound club, I would not shrink. I warrant that she will not escape me.’