Jason and the Argonauts (20 page)

I saw that man, yes, long before the sons of

Chalciope had ever left for Greece.

Some god, some Fury shipped pains overflowing

with grief from there to here, right here, to me.

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Let Jason perish in the competition,

if he is doomed to perish. If I gave him

the drug, how could my parents fail to learn

what I had done? What reason could I give them?

What lie or ploy would be of any use?

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If I see him alone, without his friends,

will I acknowledge him? My lot is cruel.

I cannot hope that, even when he dies,

I will be free from anguish. He will be

a curse on me when he has lost his life.

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So good-bye, modesty. Good-bye, fair name.

Once I have saved him, let him go unharmed

wherever he desires while I, the day

that he completes the contest, leave this life

by dangling my body from a rafter

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or taking drugs, the kind that kill the heart . . .

but, when I'm dead, they all will stand there eyeing

my ruin. The entire town will pass

around the story of my fall, and all

the Colchian girls will bear me
on their lips

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everywhere, harshly savaging my name:

She loved that foreigner so much it killed her.

By giving way to lust, she has disgraced

her house and home.

What shame will not be mine?

Ah, mad obsession! No, it would be better

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to take my life here in my room tonight

and by an inexplicable demise

escape such dreadful infamy before

I do this shameful and outrageous deed.”

So she resolved and went to fetch the casket

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in which her many drugs, some good, some baneful,

were kept. She set it on her knees and wept.

Her nightgown's folds were wet so thoroughly

with tears that streams of grief were flowing from her.

Shrilly lamenting, keening her own death,

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she wanted to reach out, select, and swallow

poison to end her life. She was already

unfastening the hasps in her desire

to take it out, poor girl. Soon, though, a deathly

antipathy to baneful Hades vanquished

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the urge. She was a long time held there, speechless.

The heart-delighting joys of daylight sparkled

before her eyes, and she recalled the countless

pleasures the living relish and recalled

her darling playmates, as a maiden would.

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So long as she kept going over all

these pleasures one by one inside her mind,

the light of life was sweeter to behold

than it had been before. And so she took

the casket off her knees and set it down.

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Hera had redirected her intentions.

No longer did Medea waver, no,

she yearned for sunrise, burned to meet the stranger

face-to-face, and offer him the drug.

Over and over she undid the door bolt

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and peeped out waiting for the glow of daybreak,

and welcome were the rays that Dawn shot forth.

People throughout the city started stirring,

and Argus bade his brothers stay behind

to monitor the girl's resolve while he

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slipped out and went before them to the ship.

Soon as the maiden saw that Dawn had come,

she tied off with her hands the golden tresses

that had been hanging loose in disarray.

Once she had pinched her cheeks and doused her body

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in fragrant oil, she put a brilliant robe on

and pinned it with exquisite, spiral brooches.

Last of all, she donned a veil—it shone

like silver over her ambrosial features.

And so she pirouetted round her chamber,

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oblivious to all the griefs before her

and all those that would multiply with time.

Twelve handmaids, each her age, and each unmarried,

slept in the forecourt of her fragrant chamber.

She summoned them and bade them harness mules

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beneath a cart to bring her to the goddess

Hecate's handsome temple. When her handmaids

had gone to rig the cart, Medea opened

the hollow casket and removed a tincture,

a drug called
Prometheon.

If a man

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should first appease the Lone-Begotten Virgin

with nighttime sacrifice and then anoint

his body with this extract, he would be

invulnerable against all strokes of bronze,

unscorchable by blasts of blazing fire,

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and greater for a day than any mortal

in might and bravery.

The herb first sprouted

after the flesh-devouring eagle dripped

tortured Prometheus' bloody ichor

onto the rugged slopes of the Caucasus.

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Twin stalks emerged and then, atop them, flowers

closest in hue to the Corycian crocus.

Their taproots looked like freshly slaughtered flesh;

their resin, like a mountain oak's black sap.

Before the girl had used a Caspian seashell

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to catch the resin and prepare the potion,

she had bathed in ever-flowing waters

seven times and seven times invoked

Brimo the Youth Nurse, Brimo Dark Traverser

and Netherworldly Queen. The night was starless,

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and the girl had donned a pitch-black mantle.

When the Titanian root was severed, Earth

shook from her depths and raised a groan because

the son of Iapetus himself was groaning,

his soul twisted with pain. Such was the drug

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she took and placed inside the fragrant band

supporting her ambrosial breasts.

She left

her room and climbed aboard the swift-wheeled cart.

When two handmaids had climbed aboard beside her,

she took the reins and braided whip in hand

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and drove through town. The other handmaids gripped

a basket at the wagon's rear and jogged

along the broad cart road, their gauzy skirts

hiked as high up as their shining thighs.

Just as when
Leto's daughter Artemis,

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after a bath in the Amnisus River

or the Parthenius' tepid shallows,

ascends her golden car and rides through hills

behind a team of swift-hooved bucks to visit

steaming and fat-rich cattle sacrifices,

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a retinue of nymphs beside her, some

assembled from the source of the Amnisus,

others from groves and many-fountained summits

and, everywhere around her as she passes,

the wild creatures fawn and whimper—so

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the young girls sped through town, and all the people

gave way and shunned the royal maiden's gaze.

Once she had left the well-built city roads

and traveled through a plain, she reined the mules in

before the shrine, jumped from the smooth-wheeled
wagon,

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full of desire, and said to her attendants:

“Goodness, my friends, what a mistake I made!

I never stopped to think it wasn't safe

with all those strangers roaming through our kingdom.

The whole city is wild with turmoil, so

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none of the women who attend the temple

have come today. Since we are here, however,

and no one else is coming, let's delight

our hearts with choral song. Once we have picked

these gorgeous flowers from the tender grass,

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we shall return at our accustomed hour.

And you will go home rich in gifts today

if you agree to do me one small favor:

Argus, you see, will not stop begging me to—

Chalciope as well—oh, but be sure

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to keep the words I tell you to yourselves

so that they never reach my father's ears—

well, it's about the stranger who agreed

to undertake the trial of the oxen—

you see, they asked me to accept his gifts

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and keep him safe in that atrocious contest.

Well, once the terms were set, I bade the stranger

come here alone, apart from his companions,

to meet me face-to-face, so that we girls

might share among ourselves whatever gifts

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he brings us. We shall give him, in exchange,

a very potent herbal tincture. Please, though,

stand at a distance when the man arrives.”

So she requested, and her subtle words

persuaded all the maids.

As soon as Argus

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learned from his brothers that the girl had left

at daybreak for the shrine of Hecate,

he led the son of Aeson out alone,

apart from his companions, through the plain.

And with them went the offspring of Ampycus,

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Mopsus, an expert at interpreting

bird signs and guiding heroes on their quests.

Never among the men of long ago—

not among all those sired by Zeus himself,

nor among those the other gods begot—

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had any man appeared as irresistible

to speak with and adore as on that day

Jason appeared. Hera the wife of Zeus

had made him so. Even his comrades marveled

as they admired his radiant appeal,

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and Mopsus swaggered as they walked because

he knew already of the trip's success.

Beside the footpath through the plain there stands,

next to the shrine of Hecate, a poplar

that wears long hair, innumerable leaves.

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Crows regularly sit and chatter in it,

and one of them was way up toward the crown

flapping its wings as they were walking by.

At Hera's prompting it insulted Mopsus:

“You are a sorry sort of seer, too stupid

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to recognize what even children know:

a maiden never tells a gentleman

sweet words of love when others are around.

Get yourself gone, false prophet, bad adviser.

Neither Cypris nor the gentle love gods

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breathe their seductive kindnesses your way.”

So spoke the crow in insult. Mopsus, though,

when he had heard the sacred bird's command,

smiled in reply and said:

“You go on, Jason,

go on and meet the maiden at the temple.

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Her welcome will be very warm indeed

thanks to the goddess Cypris, who will help you

complete the labor, just as Phineus

the son of Agenor predicted to you.

Argus and I will wait right here until

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you finish. You alone must state your case

and win her over with convincing phrases.”

So he insisted, under good advisement,

and his companions gave assent at once.

Medea's heart, however much she sang,

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could not escape from thoughts of Jason, Jason.

None of the tunes she tried distracted her

for long. She broke them off in helplessness

and failed to hold her gaze steady and constant

upon her maids. Her head kept swiveling;

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she kept on staring out along the roadways.

Time and time again the heart convulsed

within her breast as she debated whether

a passing sound was footsteps or the wind.

Soon he appeared. Her longing eyes perceived him

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rising from the horizon,
as the Dog Star,

Sirius, rises from the River Ocean—

mesmerizing, beautiful—to wreak

unspeakable destruction on the flocks.

In just such splendor did the son of Aeson

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rise into view, and his arrival leveled

still greater anguish at the lovesick girl.

Her heart dropped from her breast, her eyes were fog,

and hectic redness chafed her cheeks. She lost

the strength to lift her knees and move forward

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or back. Her soles were rooted to the earth.

Meanwhile the handmaids had withdrawn from them.

The two stood face-to-face, unspeaking, silent

like oaks or lofty pines that stand unrustled

beside each other on a windless day

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atop a peak, until a gust of wind

rouses them, and they rustle ceaselessly.

So both of them would soon have much to say

under the impact of the gusts of Eros.

Jason could tell the gods had sunk the girl

in madness, so he plied her gently:

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“Maiden,

why are you scared to be alone with me?

I'm not like other men, a no-good boaster,

not now or back when I was in my homeland.

Therefore, though you are young, don't act so wildly

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bashful before me that you shrink from saying

what you desire, or anything at all.

Since we have come with goodwill toward each other

and meet on hallowed ground where harmful deeds

are sacrilege, speak freely, ask your questions.

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But please don't lead me on by saying simply

what I would like to hear, since from the outset

you have assured your sister you will give me

the strength-inspiring potion.