Read Jason and the Argonauts Online
Authors: Apollonius of Rhodes
news of Medea's love and treachery
had spread through town and reached the Colchians
255 (214)
and King Aeëtes. Armed from head to foot,
they started swarming toward the Council House
as thickly as the dead leaves tumble earthward
out of a tree with many boughs in autumn
âwho could count them? So they all came swarming,
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mad with clamor, down the riverbank.
Aeëtes was preeminent among them
because he rode upon a war car drawn
by wind-swift stallions, gifts of Helius.
His left hand waved a big round shield, his right
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a giant pine-wood torch, while at his side
a six-foot throwing spear was pointing forward.
His son Absyrtus held the stallions' reins.
The
Argo
was already off, however,
riding the river's seaward current under
270 (228)
its oarsmen's power. Throwing up his hands
in wild frustration, King Aeëtes summoned
Zeus and Helius as witnesses
to all that he had suffered. Furthermore,
he leveled horrid threats against his people:
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Unless they should by their own hands arrest
the maiden there on land or on the waves
of open ocean and return her to him
so that he could satisfy his rage
by punishing the girl for her misdeeds,
280
they all would learn, through summary beheadings,
what it was like to know his wrath and vengeance.
So he proclaimed, and when the Colchian sailors
dragged out their warships, loaded tackle in them,
and took to water, you would not have thought
285 (239)
so vast a gathering was an armada,
no, rather, an innumerable flock
of seabirds clamoring across the swell.
The winds were blowing strong to aid the heroes,
as Hera had devised, so that Medea
290
might leave Aea, reach Pelasgia,
and prove a bane to Pelias' house
as soon as possible. Three mornings later
they reached the coast of Paphlagonia
and tied the
Argo
's hawsers to the shore
295
right at the Halys River's mouth. Medea,
you see, insisted that they disembark
and honor Hecate with sacrifices.
Holy dread prevents me from divulging
all that she did to carry out the ritesâ
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no man should know them; let my mind cease straining
to name them. But the shrine the heroes built
to honor Hecate remains today
for later generations to admire.
Jason and all the others then remembered
305
Phineus had informed them that their route
out of Aea would be different,
but what that route would be remained unknown
to all of them, so they were quick to listen
when Argus spoke his mind about their course:
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“We four were sailing to Orchomenus
the way the faithful seer you met en route
had forecast to you. We already knew
there is another route to Greece. The priests
who serve the powers born of Triton's daughter
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Theba recorded its discovery:
Not yet had all the stars that circle heaven
come into being, nor is any record
available, however much one searches,
about the sacred race of the Danaans.
320
Back then Arcadians alone existed,
the Apidanian Arcadians,
that is, Arcadians who, legends tell us,
lived in the mountains eating acorn mash
before the moon was born. Way back before
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Pelasgia was under the illustrious
sons of Deucalion, the land of Egypt,
mother of all the men of old, was called
the fecund âMisty Land,' and River Ocean
went by the name of ever-flowing âTriton.'
330 (270)
This river was required to irrigate
the Misty Land because the showers of Zeus
had never graced its soil. (The annual flooding
is what brings up the ample harvests there.)
From there, they say, a certain king, relying
335
upon his soldiers' courage, might, and vigor,
pushed through all of Europe, all of Asia,
founding settlements along the way.
Some of the cities have survived, some not.
Though many ages have expired since then,
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Aea has remained right where it was,
along with the descendants of the men
this king had settled there. The priests, you see,
preserved this ancient knowledge by inscribing
pillars with markers. You can trace around them
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all the courses of the land and sea
from the perspective of a navigator.
The River Ocean's north-most arc is broad
and deep enough for vessels to traverse.
They label it the Ister on the pillar
350
and mark its whole course off. For quite a ways
it runs through an interminable plain
in one great rush because its sources rumble
and burst forth up in the Rhipaean mountains,
yes, up among the blasts of Boreas.
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However, when this mighty river enters
the country of the Scythians and Thracians,
it splits in two. Half of the water drains
right there into the Eastern Sea; the rest
reaches a deep and navigable gulf,
360 (291)
a bay of the Trinacrian Sea, which borders
your homelandâthat is, if the Acheloös
does
,
in fact, run seaward out of Hellas.”
So he submitted, and the goddess sent
a clear and timely portent. When they saw it,
365
the heroes voiced approval of the route
he had describedâa comet had appeared
before them, and its tail delineated
the heading they should follow.
Giddy, then,
they dropped off Dascylus the son of Lycus
370
and in a hopeful mood put out to sea
with bellied sails. The Paphlagonian mountains
were what they steered by, but they never rounded
Carambis, since a gale and gleams of fire
from heaven haunted them until they reached
the Ister's mighty spate.
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As for the Colchians,
one squadron sailed beyond the Clashing Rocks
out of the Pontus on a useless search.
Absyrtus turned the rest of the armada
upriver at the Ister through the inlet
380
known as “the Handsome Mouth.” Thus they went past
the neck of land and reached the farthest gulf
of the Ionian Sea before the heroes.
There is an island in the Ister's mouth,
a large three-sided island known as Peuca.
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While its base looks outward toward the coastline,
its apex points upriver and divides
the outflow into two. The upper entrance
is called the Narex and the lower one
the Handsome Mouth. Whereas Absyrtus sailed
390 (314)
his Colchian sailors swiftly through the latter,
the heroes had already sailed around
the former.
All along the river flats
shepherds abandoned their abundant flocks
because they saw the ships as sea beasts rising
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out of the monster-generating depths.
None of these peoples
ever had observed
seagoing vesselsânot the Scythians
(who breed with Thracian tribes), not the Sigynni,
not even the Graucenni or the Sindi
400
(who at the time inhabited the vast
Laurian flatlands).
Once the Colchians
had skirted Mount Angurum and, beyond it,
Mount Cauliacus where the Ister splits
and drains into the sea from two directions,
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they passed, at last, the Laurian flatlands, sailed
into the Gulf of Cronus, and blockaded
the exits everywhere so that their foes
by no means ever could escape them. Meanwhile
the heroes moved downstream and reached the two
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Brygian Isles of Artemis nearby.
One of them hosts a temple sacred to her,
but the heroes landed on the other
and thus escaped the soldiers of Absyrtus.
The Colchians, you see, had left those islands,
415
alone of all the islands there, untouched
because they venerated Zeus' daughter.
But they had occupied the other ones
and blocked all access to the sea. What's more,
Absyrtus had dispatched a host of soldiers
420 (336)
to posts along the neighboring coasts as far
as the Salangon River and Nesteia.
Outnumbered as they were, the Minyans
would have been worsted in an ugly battle
right then and there and so they cut a treaty
425
to put off all-out war. The treaty stated
the heroes could retain the golden fleece,
whether they had acquired it by guile
or simply stole it in the king's despite,
since he himself had promised it to them
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once they had proved their mettle in the contest.
Medea, though, because her case was pending,
would be released to Leto's daughter's temple
and kept apart, until one of the local
scepter-bearing kings decided whether
435 (348)
she should return to King Aeëtes' palace
or travel with the Minyans to Greece.
Now, when the maiden learned about the treaty,
a wave of anguish rumbled through her body.
She rushed to Aeson's son, pulled him away
440
from his companions to a private spot,
and voiced her grievance to him, face-to-face:
“
Jason, what is this plot you have conceived
concerning me? Have your successes launched you
into forgetfulness, so that you take back
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all you said when you were gripped by need?
Where are the honeyed vows you made to me
with Zeus Savior of Suppliants as witness?
I ran off in contempt of all convention,
yes, with appalling urgency I left
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the country of my birth, a glorious palace,
even my parentsâall that I held dearâ
and now alone, alone at sea, I travel
among the miserable kingfishers,
and all because of you and your concerns.
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It was because of me that you survived
the trial of the bulls and earthborn men,
and then, when our misdeeds were widely known,
I foolishly procured the fleece for you
and called down horrid shame upon my sex.
460
Now, since I am your daughter, wife, and sister,
I say that I shall sail with you to Greece.
Kindly protect me, then, in every way.
Stand at my side, no matter what transpires,
and, when you meet the magistrates, do not
465 (372)
desert me, but be faithful to my cause.
Either let Justice and the Vow we sealed
between us stick steadfast within your breast
or draw your sword and slit my throat to pay me
fit retribution for my lust.
You
wretch!
470
If the authority to whom you handed
this stony-hearted arbitration rules
I am my brother's chattel, how can I
endure my father's glare? Ah, reputation.
What rancor, what harsh blows will I endure
475
to pay for all the awful things I've done?
And all the while will you be off somewhere
winning your heart-delighting passage home?
Never may Zeus' wife, the mighty queen
of whom you boast, allow you to complete it.
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Remember me someday when agony
is squeezing you, and may the fleece then flutter,
dreamlike, into the depths of Erebus
and yield no good to you. Yes, may the Furies
drive you upon arrival from your homeland
485
because of all I suffered through your cruelty.
Themis will not allow my execrations
to tumble unfulfilled onto the earthâ
because you swore an oath to me and broke it,
you traitor-hearted man. Not long, however,
490
will you and your companions sit at ease
and laugh at me, no, not for all your treaties.”
So she threatened, and her bitter rage
boiled overâhow she longed to torch the ship,
ignite the whole wide world, and hurl her body
495 (394)
into the blaze! Dreading what she might do,
Jason appeased her fears with honeyed words:
“Calm down, strange maiden. I don't like this, either,
but we are seeking means to stave off war.
A thunderhead of foes is flashing round us
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because of you. The men who hold this land
are keen to help Absyrtus bring you home
because they think that you were kidnapped. Now,
if we engaged them hand to hand, we all
would suffer most abominable deaths,
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and still more bitter, then, would be your grief
if we, by dying, left you as their prize.
This parley, though, is just an artful pretext
to draw Absyrtus out to his destruction.
Once their lord, your guardian and brother,