Argus went on a journey to Ephyra to repair the Argo, whose timbers, he had heard, were warping and falling apart in the sun because the priests of Poseidon had neglected to raise a shed over her. Robbers waylaid and killed Argus at the approaches to the isthmus, and it is improbably related by the poets that the Argo groaned aloud at the news and with her sighs burst all the stout ropes that girded her about.
Nauplius the navigator founded the town of Nauplia, close to Tiryns in Argolis. He died there not long after, and is revered above all heroes by the Argive sea-captains.
Little Ancaeus of Flowery Samos was exiled from his island because he would not tolerate the religious innovations of his compatriots. When the yearly feast for Men of the Same Mothers was displaced by a feast for Men of the Same Fathers, Ancaeus grew angry and unsuccessfully tried to interrupt the sacrifice at the cross-ways. He went in exile to the far west, almost to Spain, and was put to death by the Goat men of Hesperidean Deia at the orders of the Orange Nymph, as has already been related. She honoured him with a hero’s tomb, none the less.
As for Hercules, he continued to perform Labours for King Eurystheus of Mycenae until he had concluded them all, within the specified period of a Great Year. His last Labour was to enter the Underworld by the chasm at Lycos in the land of the Mariandynians and there complain to Hades in person about the God’s alleged ill-treatment of the ghost of Theseus the Athenian. In proof that he had accomplished his mission, Hercules brought back a blind and snow-white monster of some sort from an Underworld lake, which Eurystheus supposed to be the dog Cerberus, but which only had one head and did not bark. While he was down below, Hercules met the ghost of Meleager, who, on condition that Hercules raised him a hero-shrine in his native Calydon, revealed to him the name of the one woman capable of bearing him a daughter – Meleager’s own sister Deianeira. Hercules undertook to raise the shrine as soon as the daughter was born; and he kept his promise, too.
While Hercules was warming himself with wine at the Court of King Lycus, the extreme cold of the Underworld having parched him, and eating great quantities of food, having wisely refused the food of the dead offered him by Hades, a handsome slave-woman set bread and a cold roast goose before him. She asked: ‘Does this cold roast goose taste as good as the one which I once set before you in the council-chamber of Lemnian Myrine, forgiving you the mud-pellet that you threw in my face?’
She was the exiled Hypsipyle, and when she showed Hercules her twin sons by Jason, named Euneus and Nebrophonus, he remembered his promise to assist her. He therefore purchased her from King Lycus with a golden belt and took her back with him to his ship, but did not company with her. Landing on Lemnos, he restored her to the throne from which she had been banished by her women subjects. He also called his sixty-nine little three-year-old sons to him, and ranged them in a company, and made them all together swear to serve and obey Euneus, the elder of the twins, as their rightful King, and to avenge any injury thereafter done to his mother Hypsipyle. It was Euneus who, many years later, provided the Greeks with wine when they besieged Troy under King Agamemnon. But the island of Lemnos was haunted by the ghosts of the men whom Hypsipyle and her companions had murdered. At last Euneus instituted an annual feast of purification, lasting for nine days. All fires on the island are extinguished and blood-sacrifices are offered to the dead; after which a ship from Delos brings sacred fire from the shrine of Apollo.
Hercules, when he had accomplished his Labours and was a free man again, remembered that Augeas of Elis had promised to pay him a tenth part of all his cattle in reward for the cleansing of his stables, but had never done so. Gathering an army of Acadians, he marched against Elis, where he killed Augeas and all his sons but one, Phyleus by name, who had urged Augeas to fulfil his promise to Hercules. Hercules put Phyleus on the throne, and with the spoils taken from Augeas endowed the Olympic Games as a quadrennial event. He then dug a sacrificial pit at Olympia for the ghost of Pelops, by way of affronting Eurystheus: for Pelops had founded the dynasty which Sthenelus, the father of Eurystheus, had overthrown. Then he marched against Neleus, the baleful brother of Pelias, who lived at Sandy Pylos and had sent troops to the help of Augeas; he killed Neleus and all his sons, except the boy Nestor (who lived to take part in the siege of Troy), and did not even hesitate to attack the Priest of Hades, who entered the battle disguised as a skeleton in the hope of striking a superstitious dread in his heart. Hades had been the enemy of Hercules ever since Hercules had robbed him of Alcestis, the wife of Admetus; but Hercules, undismayed, threw the jaw-bone of a sow at him and wounded him in the side. In this battle fell the Argonaut Periclymenus: not all his wizardry and baffling changes of shape could save him from the unerring arrows of Hercules.
Hercules himself was destroyed by his love of Deianeira, whom he had duly married and who had borne him a daughter, Macaria, on whom he doted. This is the true story. He was about to feast in the palace of King Oeneus, his father-in-law, when he accidentally killed a Calydonian boy whom he was tossing into the air for fun. The boy had poured water on the hands of guests before dinner, and he poured so profuse a stream on the hands of Hercules, because they were wonderfully stained and dirty, that Hercules laughed until the hall re-echoed. He tossed the boy up to the rafters in such excess of joviality that the child cracked his skull against the roof-top. Filled with remorse, Hercules went into voluntary exile with Deianeira. When they came to the flooded river Euenos, Hercules crossed first with his daughter and all the household belongings, leaving Deianeira to be carried over by the same Centaur Nessus whom he had conquered in the all-in wrestling contest at the funeral Games of Pelias; for Nessus now made this porterage his trade. Nessus tried to outrage Deianeira in revenge for his broken leg, and Hercules, hurrying back, killed Nessus with his arrows. But the dying Nessus whispered to Deianeira that she should pour some of his blood into a bottle and keep it as a sure charm for preserving a husband’s love. This she did, and later used the charm on Hercules when she suspected that he was in love with a girl named Iole; she mixed some of it with the water in which she washed a white shirt for him to wear as he sacrificed to Zeus in Euboean Caenion. The blood was poisonous and ate into his flesh, causing him the most exquisite pain; he tore off the shirt with great lumps of flesh sticking to it and, being ferried over to Trachis, went raging up into Mount Oeta; where he built himself an enormous pyre and lighted it himself. He lay upon the pyre, roaring for indignation until his body was utterly consumed.
The soul of Hercules rose high into the air, carried by the flame and smoke, and the South-West Wind bore it to Mount Olympus. The poets say that he thumped at the door of Olympus with his shadowy brass-bound club and frightened the Divine Family almost out of their wits. When he refused to go to the Underworld and put himself at the disposal of his enemy Hades, they made the best of things by inviting him to join them as an Olympian. But he refused to become a thirteenth deity declaring himself content to become a porter at the gate, there to eat and drink to his heart’s content, as all porters do. Hera, the poets say, pardoned him at last and gave him her daughter Hebe in marriage. What things take place in Olympus cannot, however, be known to mortals, even to the most trustworthy poets; all that is certain is that Deianeira hanged herself for grief when she heard that Hercules was dead, as Marpessa had hanged herself for grief when she heard of the death of her bold husband Idas.
The sons of Hercules, coming together from all over Greece to Oeta for the funeral Games of their father, saw how many and how strong they were and planned a grand assault on Mycenae; but King Eurystheus forestalled them by laying a cunning ambush, and those whom he did not kill fled as suppliants to Attica. Here they were well received. When Eurystheus marched against Attica, the sons of Hercules and the Athenians with-stood him, and at the battle of the Scironian Rock Hyllus, son of Hercules, cut off his head, as he had previously cut off the head of Sthenelus; but to gain the victory he had been obliged to sacrifice his sister Macaria to Persephone. So this was
the end of Eurystheus, but his head, when Alcmena, the mother of Hercules, had prudently gouged out the eyes with weaving-pins, was buried in one mountain pass and his body in another, to discourage enemies from ever again attempting the invasion of Attic soil. Eurystheus was succeeded by his son-in-law Atreus, who restored the Pelopid dynasty and became father of the famous Kings Agamemnon and Menelaüs.
The end of Jason and Medea was this. They lived together happily enough at Ephyra until the citizens were offended by Medea’s attempt to win immortality for the two younger of the five children that she bore Jason, by rearing them in the temple of Hera and never allowing them to visit the outside world. Jason tried to persuade her to abandon this strange ambition, and when she flouted him, he refused to cohabit with her. Creon, King of Asopia, hearing of their differences, sent a messenger to Jason inviting him to marry his daughter, Auge, by which means the double kingdom of Corinth would be reunited under one sceptre according to the prophecy made by Echion; for Creon was old and wished to resign his throne to Auge.
Jason accepted Creon’s proposal, forgetting that he had no title to the throne of Ephyra except as the husband of Medea. He divorced Medea by public decree and then celebrated the marriage with Auge. Medea pretended acquiescence and gave Auge a wonderfully worked night-gown as a wedding-gift. But when Auge put it on, it burst into flames which consumed not only her but also Creon, who tried to put them out with his hands, and the entire royal palace with nearly everyone in it, including Medea’s two elder sons. The third son, Thessalus, was rescued by Jason, who jumped with him from a window and escaped uninjured. (It was this Thessalus who ruled over the kingdom of Phthiotis after the death of Peleus.) The Ephyrans in rage revenged themselves on the two younger children whom she had bred up in the temple of Hera; and have been obliged to make yearly atonement for the murder ever since.
Medea remembered the promise of Hercules, conveyed to her by the herald Echion, that he would help her at any time during the following twelve years if she were deserted by Jason. She fled to him at Thebes where he was residing, and asked him to restore her to the throne of Ephyra. He undertook to do so; but as they passed together through Attica, Aegeus the King of Athens fell in love with Medea and persuaded her to relinquish her Ephyran throne and become his Queen; and there at Athens, on the Areopagos, she cleared herself of all the crimes with which the Corinthian envoys charged her. In gratitude to Hercules who testified on her behalf, she cured him of his madness, which the Aesculapian priests of Apollo at Delphi had been unable to do, for all their boasting.
Medea soon wearied of Aegeus, or he of her, and one day she sent a message to Aras, the Colchian Admiral, who had continued in the service of her aunt, Queen Circe of Aeaea, that Colchis had need of him. Aras at once sailed to Athens with his Colchian ships, or as many of them as were still seaworthy, and Medea embarked with him for Colchis, which she heartily regretted ever having quitted. For even when her infatuation for Jason was at its height she had hated to leave Aea, which was a glorious place, better situated than any inland city in all Greece and as well built as either Mycenae or Thebes. She had wept to leave her bedchamber with the costly furniture and hangings and ornaments that she could not take with her in the ship. She had kissed her bed and the folding-doors and stroked the walls and her medicine-cabinet and her table inlaid with shells, and promised them: ‘One day I will come to you again, dear things!’ With Aras also came Peucon, who had been elected Admiral of the flotilla that Apsyrtus brought to the Danube. He and all his comrades had long been settled on the mainland of Epiros, opposite Corfu; for he had not dared to return to Colchis without the complete skeleton of Apsyrtus, some toe-joints and finger-joints of which were irrecoverably lost. But as much as he could find he had wrapped in a white horse-hide and hung up, with Circe’s consent, in the island of Aeaea: which has been named the island of Apsyrtus ever since.
When Medea arrived back in Colchis after a prosperous voyage she seized the kingdom from her Taurian uncle Perses, and marrying Ideëssas, the King of Moschia, ruled the two kingdoms until her death; and Aeëtes, her son by Ideëssas, succeeded to the double throne. Neaera, daughter of Phrixus, was the Queen-Mother of Albania throughout this period, and the affairs of Colchis prospered greatly because of the friendship between the two royal houses, and because Medea had placated the Serpent Prometheus by driving the Taurians from the fore-part of his enclosure. The dynasty of Aeëtes is still firmly settled upon the Colchian throne.
Medea on her return voyage is said to have anchored at the place where Pollux had killed Amycus the Bebrycian, and there to have found a laurel-tree growing out of the barrow of Amycus, the leaves of which had the power of throwing all who handled them into a violent quarrel. A shoot of this Insane Laurel, with a clod of earth around its roots, she towed behind her ship in a little cock-boat, all the way to Colchis. There she planted it and used the leaves to great effect in fomenting disorders among her private and public enemies.
Jason was overcome with grief at the death of his four children, and of Auge; and that he was now undisputed King of the double kingdom of Corinth gave him little comfort. He went down one early morning to the shrine of Poseidon on the isthmus, and there lay brooding under the prow of the Argo, wrapped in his figured cloak, and without either sacrificing to Poseidon or speaking a civil word to any of the priests who came out to greet him. They could see that he was plagued with a deep-seated grief; but what was passing through his mind, how could they tell? At last he uttered a number of heavy groans and muttered, as they thought, the name of Iphias the old Priestess of Artemis whom he had once flouted on the road to Pagasae and whose curse had at last brought him there. For though still in the prime of life, according to years, Jason had aged greatly since his quarrel with Medea. His gums had festered and he had lost several of his sharp white teeth; he was lame with rheumatism; and his once beautiful hair had lost its lustre and was streaked with grey.
The Chief Priest addressed Jason, saying: ‘Majesty, be ruled by me! Do not sit despondently on the damp ground under the rotting memorial of your former glory. Such a posture can bring you no luck. Rise up, now, sceptre-wielder, reveal your griefs without fear to the Lord of Horses, the Sea-Shaker, Him of the Trident. He will assuage them, I warrant, especially if you bring him costly sacrifices of red cattle, feeding his priests with the tasty roast flesh while reserving the delectable thigh-bones for himself.’
Jason turned his head, but still would not answer. There was a dazed look in his eyes and his mouth stood open, like a child’s that is about to cry; though no cry came.
The Chief Priest dismissed the other priests and sat watching from the temple steps, warned by his own heart that some strange event was about to take place that he could neither hasten nor hinder; and there he sat until past the dinner hour, though the rain was falling in showers and the eight snake-tailed winds seemed to be-chasing one another in sport around the whole enclosure, blowing from every quarter at once.
Jason’s head sank lower. He fell asleep. And presently the Chief Priest saw from the corner of his eye what he could not have seen directly – the pale forms of a man and a hound coming at a shambling run along the road from Megara. He did not turn his head for fear of disturbing the clarity of his vision, and the two phantoms ran onward together. The man was dressed in the rough sheep-skin dress worn by the Aethics and Phlegyans, and a shadowy bronze spear-head protruded from the back of his faithful red wolf-hound.
The hound made straight for Jason and stood over him, baring its fangs in a snarl, the fur at its neck rising, but the shepherd clambered up into the bows of the Argo, as a lizard runs up a wall.
Then, as the Chief Priest watched, holding his breath, the shepherd shoved hard with his shoulder at the curved prow; and as he strained, with his feet braced against a stanchion, the eight winds ceased their sport and all rushed together with a roaring noise along the gunwale on both sides of the ship.
There was a tearing sound, and a loud crash. Down
fell the tall prow and the muzzle of the Ram figure-head struck Jason upon the skull and crushed it miserably to a pulp. Yet the prudent Chief Priest did not move from his seat until both shepherd and dog had satiated themselves with the blood and brains of their enemy; for had he baulked these phantoms of their vengeance they would have haunted the enclosure insufferably. Now, however, they trotted away in perfect contentment.
The double throne of Corinth passed to the son of Glaucus, named Sisyphus in honour of his grandfather; but the Ephyrans, disconcerted by the death of Jason, ordained that the stern of the Argo should thenceforward be kept in perfect repair, and that if any timbers or tackle rotted they should be replaced with new – only the prow, being publicly convicted of homicide, was laid up as a deodand in a shrine of the Goddess Persephone. Thus the Argo became immortal, and remains the Argo of the Argonauts, though today not one of her timbers is original, from keel to mast-head. As the proverb says: ‘This is my grandfather’s axe: my father fitted it with a new stock, and I have fitted it with a new head.’
Orpheus also died a violent death. The Ciconian women one night tore him to pieces during their autumnal orgies in honour of the Triple Goddess. Nor is this to be wondered at: the Goddess has always rewarded with dismemberment those who love her best, scattering their bloody pieces over the earth to fructify it, but gently taking their astonished souls into her own keeping.
The Golden Fleece Page 54