Jason and the Argonauts (23 page)

a crushing heartbreak and dejection pressing

1780
the vintner who had set the slips himself.

In such wise, heavy grief of mind came over

Aeëtes, and he turned homeward to Colchis

together with his Colchians contriving

how he might best contest the strangers' claim.

1785
The sun went down, and Jason's work was done.

BOOK 4

Now Zeus' daughter,
deathless Muse, describe

for me the Colchian maiden's wiles and worries.

The mind within me spins in speechlessness,

wondering whether I should call the impulse

5
that drove her to forsake the Colchian people

a wild obsession's lovesick injury

or headlong panic running from disgrace.

Up in the palace all night long Aeëtes

worked with his council on a foolproof plan

10
to catch the heroes. He was vengeance-hearted,

wildly incensed about the painful contest,

but never for a moment thought his daughters

had worked to bring about the stranger's triumph.

Hera, meanwhile, had pierced Medea's heart

15 (12)
with poignant dread. The girl was shaking like

a nimble fawn that baying hounds have trapped,

trembling, in a densely wooded thicket.

All in a flash she sensed the aid she gave

the foreigners had not escaped her father;

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her cup of woe would soon be overflowing;

surely her handmaids would divulge the crime.

Her eyes were full of fire, her ears abuzz

with trepidation. Time and time again

she gripped her throat, time and again pulled out

25
her hair, and moaned in sorry misery.

She would have drained a vial of poison, died

right then and there before her proper time,

and ruined all of Hera's plans, had not

the goddess driven her to run away,

30 (22)
in utter terror, with the sons of Phrixus.

Once her fluttering heart had calmed, she poured

the potions from her lap into the casket.

She kissed her bed good-bye and kissed the frame

around the double doors and stroked the walls.

35
She clipped a lock and left it for her mother

as a memento of her maidenhood,

then, sobbing, brought out
heartfelt lamentation:

“I'm going, Mother, but have left this tress

to take my place when I am gone—farewell.

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Farewell, Chalciope. Farewell, old home.

Stranger,
I wish the sea had torn you up

before you ever reached the land of Colchis.”

So she spoke, and from her eyelids tears

came pouring down. Picture a girl that fate

45 (35)
has torn out of a wealthy home and homeland,

how, since she is unused to heavy labor

and ignorant of what slaves do and suffer,

she goes abroad to serve a mistress'

relentless whims in terror—that's the way

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lovely Medea crept out of the palace.

The latches on the doors undid themselves

all on their own before her muttered spells.

Barefoot, she scampered down the narrow alleys,

her left hand pressed against her brow and draping

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a veil that cloaked her eyes and radiant cheeks,

her right hand holding up her dress's hem.

So, frantic and in fear, she made her way

by covert routes outside the battlements

of broadly paved Aea. No watchmen

60 (49)
observed her, no, she hastened past unseen.

Safely outside, she contemplated deep

within herself how best to reach the temple.

She was quite familiar with the roads

since she had traveled on them many times

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in search of corpses and the earth's worst herbs,

the kinds that witches use. Convulsive terror

fluttered her spirit.

The Titanian Moon

had just then risen over the horizon.

She saw the maiden straying far from home

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in misery and cackled to herself:

“Well, well, I'm not the only one, it seems,

to slip away into a Latmian grotto,

no, not the only one to burn with love

for an adorable Endymion.

75 (59)
You bitch! How often you have woven magic

to drive me from the sky in search of love

so that, in total darkness, you could work

your sorcery at ease, your precious spells.

Now you are subject to the same obsession

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I suffered. Yes, the god of lust has given

Jason to you—a grievous blow. Go on,

suffer, for all your ingenuity,

a heavy sentence fraught with misery.”

So Moon was thinking, as the maiden's feet

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carried her, swiftly, on. The riverbank

was steep but welcome to her, since she saw,

on the opposing bank, the vivid bonfires

the heroes had been stoking all night long

to celebrate the victory. A sound

90 (72)
out of the night, she called across the stream

to Phrontis, youngest son of Phrixus. He,

his brothers, even Jason recognized

her voice, and all the heroes stared in silence.

They knew, of course, just what was happening.

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She shouted “Phrontis” thrice, and Phrontis thrice

responded, at the crew's encouragement.

The ship, meanwhile, was swiftly heading toward her

under oar. Before they threw the cables

onto the facing bank, the son of Aeson

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had vaulted from the deck. Phrontis and Argus,

two sons of Phrixus, jumped ashore behind him.

Clasping their legs with either hand, she pleaded:

“I'm helpless. Save me, friends, from King Aeëtes,

and save yourselves. My deeds have come to light.

105 (85)
Danger is everywhere around me now.

Let us escape by ship before he mounts

his eager chargers. I myself will win you

the fleece by putting its protector serpent

to sleep. First, though, in front of your companions,

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you, stranger man, must call the gods to witness

the oath you gave—that you shall never leave me

contemptible, despised, without protection,

once I have traveled far away from home.”

Though she had uttered anguish, Jason's heart

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greatly rejoiced. He hurried over to her

and eased her up from where she had collapsed

around her brothers' knees. His words were soothing:

“Sad maiden, may Olympian Zeus himself

and Hera, Wife of Zeus and Queen of Marriage,

120 (97)
attest that I shall take you to my palace

to be my wedded wife, once we have made

our journey home to Greece.”

Such was his pledge,

and he was quick to clasp her hand in his.

She ordered them to row the swift ship nearer

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the sacred grove, so that they could acquire

the fleece against the wishes of Aeëtes

and sail off under cover of the night.

Their haste was such that word and deed were one.

They took the girl aboard and shoved off quickly,

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and loud, then, were the grunts of heroes straining

to work the oars. Medea ran astern

and reached her hands out sadly toward her homeland,

but Jason soothed her fears with heartening words

and held her in his arms.

It was the hour

135 (109)
when huntsmen shake the slumber from their eyes

(because they want the most out of their dogs,

they never sleep the full night, no, they start

before the potent light of dawn effaces

the quarry's signs and scents). Such was the hour

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when Jason and Medea disembarked

onto a grassy meadow that is called

“The Manger of the Ram” because the ram

first bent its knees in utter weariness

upon it, after bearing on his back

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Minyan Phrixus, offspring of Athamas.

There was a soot-stained course of stones nearby,

the bottom of the shrine that Aeolid Phrixus

set up for Zeus the God of Fugitives.

That was the spot where Phrixus
sacrificed

150 (120)
the gilded miracle at Hermes' bidding

(the god had kindly met him on the way).

At Argus' behest, the heroes landed

Jason and Medea near this altar.

They took a footpath, reached the sacred grove,

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and found the huge oak tree from which the fleece

was hanging, brilliant as a cloud that glows

red in the rays of fiery dawn.

The serpent

lying before it reared his endless neck.

The sleepless slits had been alert and caught them

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approaching, and his hiss was loud and monstrous.

The whole grove, then the riverbanks resounded.

Many Colchians heard it, though they lived

as far off as Titanian Aea,

way out beside the sources of the Lycus

165 (132)
which, as it leaves the loud, sacred Araxes,

joins with the river Phasis, and they swirl

together down to the Caucasian Sea.

Young mothers started up in trepidation

and squeezed the newborns cradled in their arms.

Their little limbs were quivering.

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Imagine

spirals, innumerable coils of smoke,

swirling above
a pile of smoldering wood,

one billow coming swiftly on another,

each of them rising in a hazy wreath—

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that's how the serpent rode on countless coils

covered with hard dry scales.

Soon, though, the maiden

fixed the writhing creature with her gaze

and summoned with a sweet voice Sleep the Helper,

the highest of the gods, to charm the serpent.

180 (147)
She also asked the Netherworldly Queen,

the Late-Night Wanderer, to support the venture.

Jason, terrified, came on behind her.

The song, though, had already charmed the snake.

Loosing the tension of his coils, he settled

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upon his countless spirals like a dark wave

settling soft and soundless on a sluggish sea.

Still, though, his crested head was lifted, still

he burned to grip them in his deadly jaws,

and so the maiden dipped a fresh-cut sprig

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of juniper into a magic potion

and drizzled it into his open eyes,

warbling all the while a lullaby,

as the aroma of its potency

spread sleep. The monster laid his head down then,

195 (160)
and his innumerable convolutions

lay flat among the undergrowth behind him.

Then, at the maiden's bidding, Jason took

the golden fleece down from the topmost boughs.

She stayed right where she had been, raining slumber

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upon the serpent's head, till Jason told her

the time had come to head back to the
Argo
.

So they left the leaf-dark grove of Ares.

Just as a maiden catches in a gauzy gown

the shimmer of the full moon as it rises

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above her lofty chamber, and her heart

rejoices as she looks upon the light,

so, then, did Jason hold the great fleece up.

A sheepfold's worth of wool gave forth a gleam

like flame that flushed his comely cheeks and brow.

210 (174)
Wide as a yearling ox's hide or that of

the stag that huntsmen call the “moose,” the fleece

was golden on the surface, heavy, dense,

and thick with wool. The path that Jason followed

glimmered before him every step he took.

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He started with the fleece around his neck

dangling from his shoulder to his ankles,

then rolled it up and stroked it, fearing greatly

some man or god would come and take it from him.

Dawn was already spreading through the world

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when they arrived at camp. The heroes marveled

at the colossal fleece, jumped up and down,

giddy to touch it, take it in their hands,

but Jason held them back and threw across it

a freshly woven robe. He scooped the girl up,

225 (189)
set her down astern, and spoke as follows:

“No longer, friends, restrain yourselves from turning

homeward. By this maiden's means the prize

for which we undertook our grievous voyage

and toiled in misery has been attained.

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And I shall take her home to be my wife

since she desires that it be so. Because

she has so nobly saved both you yourselves

and all Achaea, you must keep her safe.

Quite soon, I think, Aeëtes will descend

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with all his men around him to prevent us

from sailing from the river to the sea.

Therefore, let every other man among you

sit and attend to rowing while the rest

hold up their ox-hide shields to make a strong

240 (201)
bulwark against the arrows of our foe,

and so safeguard our voyage home. We hold

parents and children, our entire homeland,

here in our hands. On our persistence hangs

the glory or the
infamy of Greece.”

245
Such were his words. He donned his battle armor,

and they replied with raucous cheers, and so

he drew his broadsword from the sheath and severed

the hawsers. Fully armed beside the maiden,

he stood up near the new steersman, Ancaeus,

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and soon the ship went speeding under oar,

with all his comrades heaving, passionately,

to clear the river's mouth.

But by that time