The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles (13 page)

He rose up and he hurried away from that place, leaving Pandora playing by herself. There came into his scattered mind Regret and Fear. As he went on he stumbled. He fell from the edge of a cliff, and the sea washed away the body of the mindless brother of Prometheus.

Not everything had been spilled out of the jar that had been brought with Pandora into the world of men. A beautiful, living thing was in that jar also. This was Hope. And this beautiful, living thing had got caught under the rim of the jar and had not come forth with the others. One day a weeping woman found Hope under the rim of Pandora’s jar and brought
this living thing into the house of men. And now because of Hope they could see an end to their troubles. And the men and women roused themselves in the midst of their afflictions and they looked toward gladness. Hope, that had been caught under the rim of the jar, stayed behind the thresholds of their houses.

As for Pandora, the Golden Maid, she played on, knowing only the brightness of the sunshine and the lovely shapes of things. Beautiful would she have seemed to any being who saw her, but now she had strayed away from the houses of men and Epimetheus was not there to look upon her. Then Hephæstus, the lame artisan of the gods, left down his tools and went to seek her. He found Pandora, and he took her back to Olympus. And in his brazen house she stays, though sometimes at the will of Zeus she goes down into the world of men.

    When Polydeuces had ended the story that Castor had begun, Heracles cried out: “For the Argonauts, too, there has been a Golden Maid—nay, not one, but a Golden Maid for each. Out of the jar that has been with her ye have taken forgetfulness of your honor. As for me, I go back to the
Argo
lest one of these Golden Maids should hold me back from the labors that make great a man.”

So Heracles said, and he went from Hypsipyle’s hall. The heroes looked at each other, and they stood up, and shame that
they had stayed so long away from the quest came over each of them. The maidens took their hands; the heroes unloosed those soft hands and turned away from them.

Hypsipyle left the throne of King Thoas and stood before Jason. There was a storm in all her body; her mouth was shaken, and a whole life’s trouble was in her great eyes. Before she spoke Jason cried out: “What Heracles said is true, O Argonauts! On the Quest of the Golden Fleece our lives and our honors depend. To Colchis—to Colchis must we go!”

He stood upright in the hall, and his comrades gathered around him. The Lemnian maidens would have held out their arms and would have made their partings long delayed, but that a strange cry came to them through the night. Well did the Argonauts know that cry—it was the cry of the ship, of
Argo
herself. They knew that they must go to her now or stay from the voyage for ever. And the maidens knew that there was something in the cry of the ship that might not be gainsaid, and they put their hands before their faces, and they said no other word.

Then said Hypsipyle, the queen, “I, too, am a ruler, Jason, and I know that there are great commands that we have to obey. Go, then, to the
Argo
. Ah, neither I nor the women of Lemnos will stay your going now. But tomorrow speak to us
from the deck of the ship and bid us farewell. Do not go from us in the night, Jason.”

Jason and the Argonauts went from Hypsipyle’s hall. The maidens who were left behind wept together. All but Hypsipyle. She sat on the throne of King Thoas and she had Polyxo, her nurse, tell her of the ways of Jason’s voyage as he had told of them, and of all that he would have to pass through. When the other Lemnian women slept she put her head upon her nurse’s knees and wept; bitterly Hypsipyle wept, but softly, for she would not have the others hear her weeping.

    By the coming of the morning’s light the Argonauts had made all ready for their sailing. They were standing on the deck when the light came, and they saw the Lemnian women come to the shore. Each looked at her friend aboard the
Argo
, and spoke, and went away. And last, Hypsipyle, the queen, came. “Farewell, Hypsipyle,” Jason said to her, and she, in her strange way of speaking, said:

“What you told us I have remembered—how you will come to the dangerous passage that leads into the Sea of Pontus, and how by the flight of a pigeon you will know whether or not you may go that way. O Jason, let the dove you fly when you come to that dangerous place be Hypsipyle’s.”

She showed a pigeon held in her hands. She loosed it, and the pigeon alighted on the ship, and stayed there on pink feet, a white-feathered pigeon. Jason took up the pigeon and held it in his hands, and the
Argo
drew swiftly away from the Lemnian land.

11
T
he
P
assage of the
S
ymplegades

T
HEY
came near Salmydessus, where Phineus, the wise king, ruled, and they sailed past it; they sighted the pile of stones, with the oar upright upon it that they had raised on the seashore over the body of Tiphys, the skillful steersman whom they had lost; they sailed on until they heard a sound that grew more and more thunderous, and then the heroes said to each other, “Now we come to the Symplegades and the dread passage into the Sea of Pontus.”

It was then that Jason cried out: “Ah, when Pelias spoke of this quest to me, why did I not turn my head away and refuse to be drawn into it? Since we came near the dread passage that is before us I have passed every night in groans. As for you who have come with me, you may take your ease, for you need care only for your own lives. But I have to care for you all, and to
strive to win for you all a safe return to Greece. Ah, greatly am I afflicted now, knowing to what a great peril I have brought you!”

So Jason said, thinking to make trial of the heroes. They, on their part, were not dismayed, but shouted back cheerful words to him. Then he said: “O friends of mine, by your spirit my spirit is quickened. Now if I knew that I was being borne down into the black gulfs of Hades, I should fear nothing, knowing that you are constant and faithful of heart.”

As he said this they came into water that seethed all around the ship. Then into the hands of Euphemus, a youth of Iolcus, who was the keenest-eyed amongst the Argonauts, Jason put the pigeon that Hypsipyle had given him. He bade him stand by the prow of the
Argo
, ready to loose the pigeon as the ship came nigh that dreadful gate of rock.

They saw the spray being dashed around in showers; they saw the sea spread itself out in foam; they saw the high, black rocks rush together, sounding thunderously as they met. The caves in the high rocks rumbled as the sea surged into them, and the foam of the dashing waves spurted high up the rocks.

Jason shouted to each man to grip hard on the oars. The
Argo
dashed on as the rocks rushed toward each other again. Then there was such noise that no man’s voice could be heard above it.

As the rocks met, Euphemus loosed the pigeon. With his
keen eyes he watched her fly through the spray. Would she, not finding an opening to fly through, turn back? He watched, and meanwhile the Argonauts gripped hard on the oars to save the ship from being dashed on the rocks. The pigeon fluttered as though she would sink down and let the spray drown her. And then Euphemus saw her raise herself and fly forward. Toward the place where she had flown he pointed. The rowers gave a loud cry, and Jason called upon them to pull with might and main.

The rocks were parting asunder, and to the right and left broad Pontus was seen by the heroes. Then suddenly a huge wave rose before them, and at the sight of it they all uttered a cry and bent their heads. It seemed to them that it would dash down on the whole ship’s length and overwhelm them all. But Nauplius was quick to ease the ship, and the wave rolled away beneath the keel, and at the stern it raised the
Argo
and dashed her away from the rocks.

They felt the sun as it streamed upon them through the sundered rocks. They strained at the oars until the oars bent like bows in their hands. The ship sprang forward. Surely they were now in the wide Sea of Pontus!

The Argonauts shouted. They saw the rocks behind them with the sea fowl screaming upon them. Surely they were in the Sea of Pontus—the sea that had never been entered before through the Rocks Wandering. The rocks no longer dashed
together; each remained fixed in its place, for it was the will of the gods that these rocks should no more clash together after a mortal’s ship had passed between them.

They were now in the Sea of Pontus, the sea into which flowed the river that Colchis was upon—the River Phasis. And now above Jason’s head the bird of peaceful days, the Halcyon, fluttered, and the Argonauts knew that this was a sign from the gods that the voyage would not any more be troublous.

12
T
he
M
ountain
C
aucasus

T
HEY
rested in the harbor of Thynias, the desert island, and sailing from there they came to the land of the Mariandyni, a people who were constantly at war with the Bebrycians; there the hero Polydeuces was welcomed as a god. Twelve days afterward they passed the mouth of the River Callichorus; then they came to the mouth of that river that flows through the land of the Amazons, the River Thermodon. Fourteen days from that place brought them to the island that is filled with the birds of Ares, the god of war. These birds dropped upon the heroes heavy, pointed feathers that would have pierced them as arrows if they had not covered themselves with their shields;
then by shouting, and by striking their shields with their spears, they raised such a clamor as drove the birds away.