Heroes

by Stephen Fry

  THE CLASHING ROCKS

  By the time they had reprovisioned the Argo, Phineus had put on weight and grown even more bumptious and impossible.

  ‘I see what will happen to you,’ he told each of the Argonauts in turn. ‘Ooh. Goodness me, that’s nasty. Dear, dear, I only hope I’m wrong.’

  ‘Don’t know why Zeus took his eyes,’ Castor said to Jason. ‘Should have taken his tongue.’

  ‘Either tell us our futures or be silent,’ said Jason.

  ‘Oh, I can’t tell you. Don’t want to risk the return of those nasty Harpies. But it’s grim,’ he added with a cackle, ‘oh yes, it’s grim.’

  The hour for embarkation and departure could not come quickly enough.

  The Argo sailed east and soon came to the narrow strait that connected the Propontis to the Euxine Sea. It was over this waterway that Io flew after Zeus had turned her into a cow and Hera sent a gadfly to torment her.fn48 For that reason the narrow passage had been given the name ‘Cow-Crossing’, or Bosporus. It was one thing to fly over it, quite another to sail through.

  Two great rocks loomed up ahead. They faced each other like cliffs, massive and immobile. Jason saw that they were a marvellous blue in colour.fn49 It seemed impossible that they could move an inch.

  He stood on the foredeck and addressed the crew.

  ‘Orpheus, you have the dove?’

  ‘I have her.’ Orpheus, his hands tenderly cupped, stepped past Jason until he stood at the very tip of the prow.

  ‘The rest of you, take up your oars. Tiphys, bring us as near as you can without waking the rocks.’

  Every Argonaut went to their appointed rowing stations and waited.

  When they were as close as Tiphys dared take the Argo, Jason brought down his arm. Orpheus released the dove which shot from his hands, rose into the air and made for the channel.

  A great grinding sound filled the air and Jason saw the rocks tremble and shift on their bases. Gulls rose with startled cries from their ledges and nests on the rock face. The dove was already a quarter of its way through to the other side when the rocks began to move together with surprising speed. Halfway, and the passage was narrowing fast. The dove flew gamely on. Jason had to shade his eyes to see it battling towards the light and the open sea beyond.

  Phineus had told them that the speed of a dove over the distance of the strait matched the speed of a strongly rowed galley. If the bird was crushed therefore, the Argo would never be able to make it.

  The gap between the rocks left a mere slit of light and Jason could no longer see the dove. With a thunderous clash that set the Argo pitching and rolling the rocks slammed together. It was all Jason could do to stay upright on the foredeck.

  When it was quiet and stable enough, Orpheus took up his lyre and strummed. He sang as loudly as the crew had ever heard him, calling and calling to the dove he had been training ever since Phineus had told them the key to their safe passage through.

  The Argonauts rested on their oars and scanned the sky. Of the dove they saw no sign.

  The rocks had started to separate now, causing the water to suck back through the channel.

  ‘Hold!’ cried Tiphys. ‘Back oars.’

  They pushed hard with their oars against the current to keep the ship from being pulled towards the rocks, which had now returned to their original positions and stood tall, stately and still. It was hard to believe they had ever moved.

  Still the strains of Orpheus’s song filled the air.

  ‘There!’ shouted Pirithous stabbing a finger in the air.

  The dove flew towards Orpheus and the whole crew cheered as she landed on Orpheus’s outstretched palm and with rippling coos of triumph accepted her grains, strokes and congratulations.

  ‘Look!’ said Orpheus, holding the bird up, ‘her tail is gone.’

  It was true. Where there should have been a neat fan, Jason could see only a torn and ragged row of broken feathers. He turned to address the crew.

  ‘This tells us that it will be close,’ he said. ‘Very close indeed. Every man must row as if his life depends on it. For his life does. Picture this in your minds. What you most desire lies on the other side. Love, fame, riches, peace, glory. Whatever you have dreamt of is there. If you’re too slow, it will disappear for ever, but if you strain yourself you can reach it.’ He leapt down to take up the one remaining rowing station.

  ‘Oars!’ he cried, gripping and twisting the handle of his own to present its blade to the water.

  His fellow Argonauts followed suit.

  ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘Aye!’

  ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘Aye!’

  ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘Aye! Aye! Aye!’

  ‘Then row, my friends, row!’

  With a great cheer they engaged oars and the Argo lurched forward. Never had a galley flown through the water with such speed. Every man pulled hard, sliding backwards and forwards on their leather cushions. Every man save Orpheus. As an artist, his strengths lay elsewhere. He was the only man bar the steersman facing the direction of the Argo’s travel and could urge the men on. He had two wooden chests either side of him and he began thumping them like drums to drive the beat of the oars.

  ‘Heave!’ he cried. ‘And heave, and heave, and heave!’

  They all heard the shuddering, grating roar of the rocks.

  This is it, thought Jason. They’re moving now. No turning back. Only hard rowing will get us through.

  A quarter of the way through and Orpheus felt that they were going to make it. He could see the open waters of the great sea ahead and the rocks, though closing, looked as though they would lose the race.

  ‘Heave, and heave, and heave!’

  But the rocks seemed to be moving faster. Jason and the oarsmen could see the cliffs rising and growing higher and higher and closer and closer. The clear view he had had of the Propontis was beginning to be cut off.

  Looking in their direction of travel, Orpheus was no longer so sure that they could make it. As they passed the halfway mark he increased the stroke of his pounding on the wooden chests until his fists felt they would catch fire.

  “Heave-and-heave-and-heave-and-heave!’

  The walls towered above them now. Were they going to be crushed like flies in the slapped hands of a child? All this effort. All this planning and praying. For nothing? Jason felt his lungs bursting, his back and thighs burning.

  ‘Yes!’ yelled Orpheus. ‘Yes, yes, yes! We’re going to make it! Faster, faster, faster. Put everything into it. Pull, pull, pull! Pull, you bastards, pull!’

  The rocks were on them now. Jason could even make out the green weeds growing in crevices. A chill darkness was closing in until … daylight flashed across him and the whole ship. They were through! The rocks crashed and still the Argonauts rowed as the aftershock of waves tossed them up and forward, further out of reach.

  Jason stood up and let out a barbaric hoot of triumph. All around him the others were doing the same. Euphemus pointed back at the rocks.

  ‘Look!’

  The left-hand rock was cracking. The crag opposite was sliding back to its original position as usual, but its neighbour – partner? lover? – crumbled and disintegrated, sending an avalanche of boulders into the water.

  The Symplegades never clashed again. Separating Asia from Europe, the Bosporus is still narrow today; but ever since that moment it has lain open to all shipping.

  The exhilaration of their triumph banished the crew’s exhaustion.

  ‘We did it!’

  ‘And without Heracles!’

  Meleager pointed to the rear of the ship. ‘Look! We lost our tail feather too!’

  It was true. The final clash of the rocks had sheared off Argo’s sternpost as they pulled through. That is how close it had been.

  While they paused to repair the stern timbers, the figurehead called back to them from the prow.

  ‘Make sure you mend that sternpost well, Jason, or o
ne day you will regret it. One day far, far ahead, you will regret it.’

  Meleager and Pirithous approached Orpheus.

  ‘Pull, you bastards, pull?’

  Orpheus eyed the two warily. ‘I had to motivate you … Those rocks were closing in fast.’

  ‘Bastards? Let’s show him, Pirithous.’

  Meleager took his arms and Pirithous his legs.

  ‘Let go, let go!’

  ‘Heave and heave and heave!’ Pirithous chanted, in a fair imitation of Orpheus’s lyric tenor, as they swung him back and forth.

  On the final ‘heave’ the protesting musician was hurled into the sea. The crew leaned over and cheered as he splashed below them.

  ‘You are bastards!’ he gasped.

  ‘Sing out for a dolphin, like Arion!’fn50

  So began the tradition, which has lasted to the present day, of a victorious rowing crew throwing its cox into the water.

  DEATHS, RAZOR-SHARP FEATHERS AND THE PHRIXIDES

  Eastwards the Argo sailed. After the initial high, the exertions of the crew were beginning to catch up with them. The breakage of the sternpost had forced Argus to work hard to make a new steering blade.

  Not for the first time Jason was grateful that Chiron had instructed him so well in the healing arts.fn51 He prepared medicinal salves for the blistered hands and chafed buttocks of the crew, and even allowed them a little wine, albeit mixed with honey and water. Orpheus, a blanket over his shoulder, made a great show of sneezing.

  The Euxine Sea was living up to its optimistic name. No pirates, sea monsters or unfavourable gales hindered their passage to Colchis. They made a few stops along the way however, which did have unhappy outcomes. The first occurred in the kingdom of Mariandynia, where Idmon the Seer met the end that he had always known was coming. As he walked through the woods, a wild boar burst from the undergrowth and gored him with its tusks. Peleus speared the beast, but the damage was done and Idmon died of his wounds. He was not the only casualty of that stopover. Tiphys succumbed to a fever and died too. He was replaced as helmsman of the Argo by Ancaeus of Samos. Funeral rites were observed for both and it was a far sadder crew that left Mariandynia behind.

  They were at least fortunate that it was summer, their new helmsman Ancaeus told them, for the winters this far east could be cruel.fn52 As they sailed on, passing the lands ruled over by the Amazons, they suddenly found themselves under attack from above. A flock of wild birds was dropping their feathers onto them. But these were no ordinary feathers, the crew soon discovered. Their quills were bronze and their vanes razor-sharp, so that they fell like arrows. The Argonauts had to take refuge under their shields for protection. For once Orpheus’s singing was of no help; if anything, it seemed only to enrage the birds into further assaults.

  ‘Let’s just yell at them,’ Philoctetes suggested. They hooted, screamed, and bashed their swords against their shields until at last the birds flew away.

  ‘What the hell were they?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Jason.fn53 ‘But let’s put in at this island and make sure their feathers haven’t ripped the sail or cut the rigging.’

  The island at which they now dropped anchor was called Areonesos, or ‘the isle of Ares’, because of a small temple where the Amazons sometimes came to worship their father, the war god. The avian arrows seemed to have done no serious harm to the Argo, and Jason and Nestor were debating whether to spend the night there or press on when four young men approached and introduced themselves. Their names were ARGOS,fn54 CYTOROS, PHRONTIS and MELAS, and they were the PHRIXIDES, or sons of Phrixus. Phrixus, you will recall, was the child of Nephele and Athamas who had been rescued along with his sister Helle by the golden ram, whose fleece Jason and the Argonauts had come all this way to bring back to Greece.

  ‘But why are all four of you here?’ Jason asked.

  ‘We were shipwrecked,’ said Melas. ‘Our grandfather accused us of plotting against him.’

  ‘Which was untrue!’

  ‘So untrue …’

  ‘We just simply weren’t …’

  ‘Whoa!’ said Jason. ‘Your grandfather?’

  The brothers explained. When Phrixus had landed at Colchis, sacrificed the golden ram and given its fleece to King Aeëtes, he had then married Aeëtes’ daughter Chalciope. She was the boys’ mother, so Aeëtes was their grandfather.

  ‘Your own grandfather expelled you?’

  ‘Expelled us? He was going to kill us!’

  ‘We escaped on a ship before he got the chance.’

  ‘We wanted to get to Greece and maybe try our luck with our other grandfather, Athamas.’

  ‘But we were shipwrecked …’

  ‘And here we are …’

  ‘Thought we’d die here …’

  ‘But you arrived …’

  ‘Who are you, by the way?’

  When Jason explained that he and his men were on a quest for the very fleece their father had brought to Colchis, their eyes widened.

  ‘It’s the Fates,’ said Phrontis.

  ‘No question.’

  ‘I detect their hand here too,’ said Jason. ‘Come with us back to Colchis. We’ll protect you from Aeëtes. You can introduce us to your father Phrixus. The Fleece is his by right. Surely he would let us bring it back to Greece?’

  ‘That would be a problem,’ said Cytoros.

  ‘Dad died last year.’

  With these four new crewmen enlisted, the Argo sailed from the isle of Ares and finally reached the port of Phasis at the mouth of the river of the same name.fn55 Somewhere upriver and inland, Jason knew, lay Aiafn56, the capital of Colchis. And somewhere in Colchis the Golden Fleece hung on its tree awaiting them.

  ‘Do we have to leave the Argo here,’ he asked the four grandsons of Aeëtes, ‘or can we safely navigate up?’

  ‘No problem,’ they replied. ‘Plenty of shipping gets to Aia.’

  The shallow draft of the Argo and the shallow rise of the Phasis towards its distant source in the Caucasus Mountains did indeed allow them to travel far upstream.

  As they made their way along the river, the four grandsons of Aeëtes told Jason a little of how things went in Colchis.

  ‘Our grandfather is a tough man. Some say he killed our father Phrixus. We don’t know about that.’

  ‘He’s the son of the sun, and he never lets anyone forget that.’

  Jason had indeed heard the rumour that Helios the sun Titan was the father of Aeëtes by the Oceanid Perseis, herself a daughter of one of the original twelve Titans.fn57

  ‘His sisters,’ said Melas, ‘are our great-aunts Pasiphae, Queen of Crete, and the enchantress CIRCE. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.’fn58

  Jason had indeed. ‘There is magic in your family.’

  ‘None that we’ve inherited, but yes.’

  ‘And Aeëtes is still married?’

  ‘Oh yes, to our grandmother, IDYIA.fn59 They had two daughters, Aunt Medea and our mum Chalciope …’

  ‘… and a very late son, Uncle ABSYRTUS.’

  ‘… who’s actually younger than us.’

  ‘I believe that does happen,’ said Jason. ‘Uncles can be younger than their nephews and nieces. So your mother Chalciope married Phrixus?’fn60

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Whom you say Aeëtes may have killed?’

  ‘It’s a pretty fair bet.’

  ‘And yet your mother stays at the palace in Aia?’

  ‘She loves her father. Now, two more bends in the river and we will see that palace.’

  ‘We’ll stop here then,’ commanded Jason.

  The talk of Aeëtes’ power and apparently murderous propensities put Jason on his guard. He ordered everyone to disembark from the Argo and lift her out of the river. They carried her across to a wooded area that he picked out as a sheltered hiding place. They covered her with some of the netting they used for catching fish on the voyage. Jason instructed them to twist saplings and leaves through the netting so that from a distance th
e ship was invisible in its woodland setting.

  ‘Animals merge into their backgrounds to avoid danger,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’

  Carrying gifts for the royal court they set out on foot over the short distance to Aia.

  But before the Argonauts reached the city, the four sons of Phrixus took their leave, promising to meet up later. Aeëtes would not take kindly to seeing them amongst Jason’s party.

  THE EAGLE KING

  If King Aeëtesfn61 was surprised or alarmed by the band of renowned heroes that trooped into his court, he concealed it well. He accepted with dignified courtesy the gifts Jason offered, before introducing his family.

  ‘My wife, Queen Idyia …’

  Jason bowed towards an old lady, who inclined her head with markedly stiff and frosty disdain.

  ‘My daughter, Medea …’

  A pair of green eyes flashed towards him and turned away.

  ‘My daughter Chalciope …’

  Something approaching a smile here.

  ‘And my son, Absyrtus …’

  A boy of eleven or twelve gave a small wave, blushed and looked down at the ground.

  ‘It is an honour, majesty,’ said Jason with another bow.

  ‘You have sailed all the way here without having to change ship, you say?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Remarkable. You must tell me how you managed such a feat. I should have thought it was impossible. Meanwhile, you are all welcome here. Where are you bound after this? Even further east?’

  ‘This is our final destination before we return home, my lord king.’

  ‘Colchis? We are honoured. I wonder what you expect to find here.’

  ‘We have come to claim the fleece of the golden ram that Phrixus, son of Athamas, left here.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘My grandfather Cretheus was a brother of Athamas. Through him I am the rightful King of Iolcos and have come to take the Fleece back to its home.’

  King Aeëtes stroked his beard. This young man was resourceful, he could see that. He had with him some of the most celebrated warriors and wonder-workers alive. If he really was the grand-nephew of Athamas, his claim to the Fleece was just. Aeëtes could hardly send him and his men back to Greece with a blank refusal. They had – how, he could not guess – sailed directly here. They must have a most remarkable vessel. They might return with a whole fleet of them. Even if he somehow managed to kill them all before they could get back home … a mass poisoning at a feast, for example … the scandal would reverberate around the civilised world. Orpheus alone was as famous as any man since Perseus. Others would come for revenge. No, he must be cleverer than that.