Jason and the Argonauts (27 page)

he never did abstain from leering at you—

against your will, of course—no, not until

venerable Themis told him what would happen,

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how it was fated you would bear a son

mightier than his father. So at last

he gave you up, for all of his desire,

so that no one would be his match and rule

the gods in lieu of him, but he would keep

his empery forever.

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So I gave you

the finest of the mortals for a husband

so that you might enjoy
a heartfelt wedding

and bear a child. I summoned all the gods

down for the wedding feast, and I myself

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held up the bridal torch in my own hands

to pay you for the kind esteem you gave me.

Now let me tell the truth about the future:

your son—the one the Naiads now are nursing

in Centaur Cheiron's cave, the one who wants

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his mother's milk—that very son of yours

will come one day to the Elysian Fields,

and it is fated
that he wed Medea,

Aeëtes' daughter, there. Mother-in-law,

therefore, protect your son's betrothed-to-be,

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along with Peleus. Why do you hold

so fixed a grudge against him? He was foolish,

but folly sometimes blinds immortals, too.

I am quite confident that on my orders

Hephaestus will desist awhile from stoking

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his forges to a rage, and Aeolus

the son of Hippotas will check the gusts

of rushing winds, that is, except for Zephyr,

until they reach the Phaeacian harbor.

You must guarantee the men safe passage.

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My worst fears are the rocks and toppling waves,

but you can foil them with your sisters' help.

Prevent my friends from plunging, through ineptness,

into Charybdis—she would suck them down

and keep them there. Also be sure they skirt

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the loathsome lair of Ausonian Scylla,

fell Scylla, whom the prowling goddess known

sometimes as Hecate, sometimes Crataeis,

conceived from Phorcys. Mind their course or else

this fiend will swoop down with her horrid maws

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and gobble up the finest of my heroes.

Yes, guide the
Argo
so that they escape,

if only by a hairsbreadth, their demise.”

Such were the queen's commands, and Thetis answered:

“If all the gales and furious lightning flashes

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do, in fact, relent, then I assure you

I will be bold and push the ship through safely,

even if waves arise to check its progress,

so long as Zephyr keeps on stiffly blowing.

It's time for me to go and make my long,

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long, indescribable journey through the sea

to ask my sisters' help. Then I shall swim

to where the ship's stern cables have been fastened

so that the heroes at the break of dawn

will turn their thoughts again toward sailing home.”

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With that, the goddess plummeted from heaven

and splashed into the churning dark-blue waves

to summon all her sister Nereids.

They heard and, when they were assembled, Thetis

delivered Hera's orders and at once

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deployed them all to the Ausonian Sea.

Then she herself, more rapid than a glint

of light or sunbeam clearing the horizon,

shot through the depths until she reached Aeaea

on the Tyrrhenian coast. She found the heroes

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beside the
Argo,
playing skip-the-stone

and shooting arrows. Thetis on the sly

came close and squeezed the hand of Peleus

son of Aeacus, since he was her husband.

None of the others could perceive her, no,

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she showed herself to him alone. She told him:

“No longer rest on the Tyrrhenian coast

but loose the cables of your speedy ship

at dawn—thus you will be obeying Hera,

your helper, since it is at her command

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the maiden Nereids have all assembled

to guard your ship and guide it safely through

the rocks they call the Ever-Floating Islands,

because that is your fated route. But you—

when you perceive me coming with my sisters,

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do not divulge my presence to your comrades,

no, keep it quiet or you will enrage me

still more than when your reckless shout enraged me.”

So she explained and plunged into the depths,

and withering sorrow seized on him because

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his wife had never paid a visit to him

since she had first bereaved his bed and bedroom—

their son, the great Achilles, then an infant,

had been the reason for her anger.

Thetis,

you see, was burning off his mortal nature

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each night within the hearth fire and by day

rubbing his tender body with ambrosia

to make him an immortal and prevent

grotesque old age from ravaging his body.

Peleus, though, leapt out of bed one night,

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spotted his dear son writhing in the flames

and raised a frightening cry—the fool.

When Thetis

heard him, she snatched the baby up and hurled him,

screaming, onto the ground, and she herself,

her body like a breeze or dream, went swiftly

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out of the palace, jumped into the sea,

and never came back home to him. That's why

mute helplessness had bound and gagged his thoughts.

Nevertheless, he brought himself to tell

all Thetis' instructions to his comrades.

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They stopped at once and set aside their games.

Then, after building fires and strewing leaf beds

along the beach, they dined and slept the night

as usual.

When day-reviving Dawn

had lightened heaven's rim, a swift west wind

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arose with her, and they embarked and mounted

the rowing benches. Quickly, then, they weighed

the anchor stone and set the gear in order.

Once under sail, they used the sheets to pull

the canvas taut, and stiff winds drove the
Argo

onward.

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Soon they spotted Anthemousa,

the gorgeous island where
the clear-voiced Sirens,

daughters of Acheloös, sang sweet songs

to lure in and ruin every sailor

who passed their shores. Shapely Terpsichore,

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a Muse, once bedded down with Acheloös

and bore them to him. Ages back, the Sirens

had waited on Demeter's noble daughter

and sang their odes to her
while she was still

unmarried. Now, though, they appeared part bird,

part maiden to the eyes.

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Always on lookout

from their attractive-harbored roost, they often

seduced seamen from honeyed homecomings

by withering them with languidness. And so,

without delay, and this time to the heroes,

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the Sirens hurled lilylike contraltos

out of their mouths. The heroes would already

have run aground
if Orpheus of Thrace,

son of Oeagrus, hadn't taken up

his lyre, set his fingers to the strings,

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and strummed the rhythm of a lively march

so that their ears were buzzing with a rival

and upbeat song. And so the lyre's vibrations

overpowered all those virgin voices.

Zephyr and the resounding ocean waves

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rose up astern and swept the vessel onward,

and soon the Sirens' song was less distinct.

Nevertheless, alone of his companions,

Boutes the noble son of Teleon

leapt from his sanded bench into the sea

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because the Sirens' clear-toned notes had melted

his spirit, and he swam through somber surges,

unlucky soul, toward shore. They would have snatched

his homecoming away right then and there

if Cypris the Erycian Queen had not,

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in pity, picked him up out of the eddies

and swept him safely to her seaside haven

at Lilybaeum.

So, with great regret,

the heroes left the Sirens. Other dangers

awaited them, however—ship-destroying

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menaces at the crossroads of the seas:

Scylla appeared atop her sea-washed headland

on one side; on the other hoarse Charybdis

was gurgling and coughing water up.

Not far from them, the Ever-Floating Islands

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were booming as the mighty sea swell struck them.

Not long before, their summits had been venting

blazes of fire above the liquid rock,

and smoke so choked the atmosphere that one

could not have spotted daylight. Then, although

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Hephaestus
had retired from the forge,

the sea was still emitting bursts of steam.

The Nereids assembled at this spot

from all directions to assist the heroes,

and then the goddess Thetis gripped the
Argo

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and steered it through the Ever-Floating Islands.

As dolphins during tranquil weather rise

out of the depths and swim about a ship,

starboard, astern, larboard, and at the prow,

a joy for sailors, so the Nereids

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emerged and synchronized their circulations

while Thetis steered the course. Then, when the men

were just about to hit the Floating Islands,

Nereus' daughters hiked their skirts

above their gleaming knees, clambered atop

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the rocks protruding from the froth of surf,

and stood in two lines, one on either side.

The current rocked the ship starboard and larboard,

and all around the heroes ruthless breakers

were vaulting and exploding on the rocks,

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which were like cliff walls towering above them.

Now would the ship have broken up and sunk

to the abysmal bottom of the sea,

and rough waves soon would have been churning fathoms

above the wreck.

Imagine maidens standing

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upon a sandy shoreline, how they roll

their gowns up to their waists,
pick up a ball,

toss it around or high into the air

so that it never hits the ground—that's how

the Nereids passed the ship to one another,

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keeping it in the air, above the breakers,

always above the rocks, and all the while

sea spray kept shooting up around the heroes.

Mighty Hephaestus stood atop a cape

of sea-scoured stone, his brawny shoulder leaning

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against a hammer's haft, to watch them. Hera

stood there in radiant heaven watching them

and even threw her arms around Athena,

so wrenching was the frightful sight she saw.

So long as springtime stretches out the day,

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the sea nymphs worked at portaging the
Argo

over the roaring rocks until its sail

picked up the wind and pulled the heroes onward.

Once they had reached the meadows of Thrinacria

where Helius' cattle graze and grow,

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the Nereids like sea mews plunged asunder

because they had fulfilled the will of Hera.

Then, through the mist, the bleats of sheep arose,

and lows, the lows of cattle, struck their ears.

There she was—Helius' youngest daughter

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Phaethousa strolling round a dewy meadow,

a shepherdess attending to her sheep

with silver staff in hand, while Lampeteia,

her cowherd sister, kept a drove in line

by brandishing a copper prod. The heroes

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could see the cattle feeding on the lowlands

and flats beside the river—none of them

were darkly colored, no, they all were white

as milk and glorying in golden horns.

They passed the island in the daylight hours

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and cleaved the billows in a cheerful mood

all night, till Dawn the Early Riser cast

her beams athwart their course. There is an island,

a curved one, facing the Ionian strait

in the Ceraunian Sea, its topsoil thick

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and bountiful. Beneath the island lies

the sickle that, as ancient legends tell us—

Muses, forgive me since I tell this story

out of necessity—the Titan Cronus

ruthlessly hacked his father's privates off.

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Others have claimed it is the scythe that served

Demeter, goddess of the Underworld,

who lived upon the island once and taught

the Titans how to harvest ears of grain.

The island, therefore, has been called Drepana

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or “Scythe,” the
nursemaid of the Phaeacians,

and all of its inhabitants are sprung

from Ouranus' blood.

The heroes rode

a gale wind in from the Thrinacrian Sea

and landed there, constrained by great exhaustion.

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Alcinoös and all his people greeted

their coming warmly and with sacrifices.

The whole town reveled, and you would have thought