Read Jason and the Argonauts Online
Authors: Apollonius of Rhodes
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 goneâfarewell.
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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 terrorâthat'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
55
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
65
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 youâa 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 gaveâthat 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 wreathâ
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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.”
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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